FREED

Jamil el-Banna

He was picked up in The Gambia in November 2002 after British intelligence officials tipped off the CIA that he was en route there from London. Mr el-Banna and some associates said that they were on their way to set up a peanut oil processing plant in the African country.

But an MI5 telegram that was later disclosed under US freedom of information legislation, told the CIA that he was a “veteran of the Afghan-Soviet war” and the financier to Abu Qatada, a London-based cleric linked to al-Qaeda.

Further MI5 correspondence with the CIA showed that the Americans had been alerted to his arrival in The Gambia just days after Mr el Banna rejected an offer to become an informant against Abu Qatada.

Mr el-Banna, 45, a Jordanian refugee, has a wife and five children living in London. All his children are British citizens and his eldest son wrote to Tony Blair repeatedly asking the Prime Minister at the time to intervene to release his father.

From The Gambia Mr el Banna was taken to the Dark Prison at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, where his lawyers allege that he was tortured. In early 2003 he was flown in shackles to Guantanamo Bay, where his health is reported to have deteriorated markedly. A Spanish judge requested his extradition in 2004 because of his links with Abu Qatada, who is alleged to have had links with the terror cells involved in planning the 9/11 atrocities. Mr el-Banna has said through his lawyers that he does not recognise the Spanish accusations.

Omar Deghayes

He came to Britain as a young man when his family fled persecution by Colonel Gadaffi’s regime in his native Libya. He grew up in Brighton, was educated privately, and studied law at Wolverhampton and Huddersfield before dropping out to travel to Afghanistan, where he married and had a son.

Mr Deghayes, 38, was arrested in Pakistan in late 2001 and handed over to the US authorities after, his lawyers say, he was wrongly identified as someone who featured on a terrorist propaganda video of Mujahidin fighters in Chechnya. Although his legal team say that this accusation has been disproved, it is expected that Spain may continue to pursue a case against Mr Deghayes.

Like many detainees he was initially held in brutal conditions in Bagram, Afghanistan, before being taken to the internment camp in Cuba. He is reported to have lost the sight in one eye after guards put down a prisoners’ protest at Guantanamo.

Abdennour Sameur

He fled to Britain in 1999 after deserting from the Algerian Army during the country’s civil conflict. He was granted leave to remain and lived on benefits in North London.

According to declassified US documents he told interrogators that, in 2001, a man he met at Finsbury Park mosque gave him money to travel to Afghanistan and told him that he would be a better Muslim.

He claimed that he fled Jalalabad for Tora Bora during the post-9/11 conflict, but maintains that he was attempting to escape the fighting, not take part in it. After crossing the border to Pakistan with several other Arabs, he was arrested, then shot in the leg while attempting to escape.

The US authorities allege that Mr Sameur fought with the Mujahidin in Bosnia and went to Afghanistan for further military training. He has also admitted having prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, but now says that he confessed to this only because his American captors were refusing to treat his leg wound.

According to a transcript of his status hearing at Guantanamo, he said: “I just told them anything, whatever they wanted to hear, because I wanted them to treat my leg. I saw other people there whose legs had to be cut off. I did not want my leg to be cut off.”

LEFT BEHIND

Binyam Mohammed

He was arrested at Karachi airport in 2001 trying to board a flight to London with a forged passport. He is alleged to have received terrorist training alongside Richard Reid, the British shoebomber now in an American jail.

Mr Mohammed arrived in Britain aged 15 from Ethiopia and in his twenties fell into a life of drug use. He emerged from that to discover fundamentalist Islam and went to Afghanistan. Mr Mohammed, 29, was taken to a ghost prison, believed to be in Morocco, where he was held for 18 months and says he was subjected to torture. From there he was taken to Guantanamo Bay and is one of the handful of detainees to have been formally accused of terrorism offences. He has not been cleared for release.

Ahmed Belbacha

He arrived in Britain from Algeria in 1999 claiming that he fled his homeland after being threatened by the GIA Islamist terror group. He lived in England illegally and in 1999, while working in a Bournemouth hotel, he cleaned John Prescott’s room during the Labour Party conference and received a £30 tip from the then Deputy Prime Minister. In June 2001 Mr Belbacha, 38, went to Pakistan to study and crossed into Afghanistan. Returning to Pakistan after the US-led invasion he was arrested and handed over to the US authorities who rendered him to Guantanamo. He has been cleared for release to Algeria but does not want to be returned there.

Shaker Aamer

He had indefinite leave to remain in Britain and had married a British woman when he decided to leave London to live in Afghanistan in 1999. In Kabul his family shared a house with Moazzam Begg, the Birmingham man freed from Guantanamo in 2005. Mr Aamer, 40, was arrested by US forces in Afghanistan and taken to Cuba. During his incarceration he emerged as a leader among the prisoners. His health suffered when he took part in a long hunger strike during which many inmates were force-fed. Mr Aamer is understood to have been cleared for release but it is expected he will be returned to his native Saudi Arabia.

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