Tuesday, July 31, 2007

"A British resident who was seized by the CIA, transported on an "extraordinary rendition" flight and held at a U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, sharply criticized U.S. and British officials in an interview published on Sunday. Bisher al-Rawi, who moved to England as a teenager after fleeing Saddam Hussein's Iraq, reportedly had served as an intelligence source for MI5, the British domestic spy agency, and had helped it keep track of Abu Qatada, a Muslim cleric in London accused of being Osama bin Laden's "ambassador in Europe." But the MI5 did little to protect Rawi, 39, when the CIA detained him in Gambia in November 2002. He was taken to the U.S. base in Bagram, Afghanistan, and held there for about a month before being transferred to Guantanámo. Rawi was released in March, after more than four years in U.S. captivity." (thanks L)