Reported To Have Been Cleared For Release
Lieutenant-Colonel David Cooper, of the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants, wrote Rashidi's lawyers on February 22, 2007. He wrote that Rashidi and another man, Ahmed Belbacha, had: "...been approved to leave Guantanamo, after diplomatic arrangements for their departure had been made."
British officials continued to decline to make efforts on behalf of the Guantanamo captives who were British residents, but not British citizens.
A close friend back in the United Kingdom, Abderrazzak Sakim, and Clive Stafford Smith, told the Islington Gazette, his local paper, that they were concerned that if he were repatriated to Morocco, he would be promptly subjected to abusive detention in a Moroccan prison. The paper reports that Rashidi spent three years in solitary confinement, and has been subjected to beatings and pepper spraying.
The paper quotes Emily Thornberry, his local Member of Parliament:
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- "Guantanamo Bay is an affront to international law. While Ahmed Errachidi has been in Guantanamo he has been subject to appalling abuse and has suffered at least one severe mental breakdown. He should never have been in Guantanamo Bay and he certainly shouldn't be there for a moment longer.
- "It's completely unacceptable that Ahmed should be left in limbo like this, while the international community wrings its hands about the detainees the US no longer wants.
- "Surely he has more than sufficient compassionate grounds to be allowed to come back to Britain. Ahmed must be released immediately and I have written to George Bush to tell him so."
Read more about this topic: Ahmed Rashidi
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