The last four Britons and an Australian being held at the highly contentious US military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba are to be released, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. Campaigners for the Britons welcomed the news but urged the government in London to investigate claims by the men that they were tortured at the base, where the United States still holds about 550 non-US citizens.
"These (the British and Australian) detainees are enemy combatants who had been detained by the United States in accordance with the laws of war and US law," the Pentagon said in a statement.
"The governments of the United Kingdom and Australia have accepted responsibility for these individuals and will work to prevent them from engaging in or otherwise supporting terrorist activities in the future."
The statement confirmed earlier announcements by the British and Australian governments that the five men would be released.
The four Britons - Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga, Richard Belmar and Moazzam Begg -- have been held for three years at Guantanamo, which was set up four months after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US to hold combatants captured in Afghanistan and others suspected of association with al Qaeda.
Both Mubanga and Begg have said they were shackled and tortured in the camp although US authorities have dismissed their allegations.
Five other Britons held at the base were repatriated last year and subsequently released without charge by UK police.
Human rights groups who attack the conditions in which the men are being held have long called for the prisoners either to be given a fair trial or released.
"The British authorities should make sure all allegations of torture and mistreatment at Guantanamo are investigated," said James Dyson, a spokesman for Amnesty International.
"We would expect that whatever deal was agreed between the UK and US government should be a straightforward deal with no conditionality about it."
Australia's Attorney General Philip Ruddock said Australian Mamdouh Habib, a father of four, was being sent home at Canberra's request, even though the United States still regarded him as an enemy combatant.
Habib was arrested while crossing from Pakistan into Afghanistan three weeks after the September 11 attacks.
Ruddock said it was not known when Habib, one of two Australians being held at Guantanamo Bay, would return but added that it would likely only be a matter of days.
Britain's Financial Times reported this week that the release was part of a plan to radically reduce the number of prisoners held at the base in Cuba.
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