4:27pm Sunday 14th January 2007
By Newsquest Reporter
On the day protesters gathered to condemn the fifth anniversary of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre, a Bournemouth asylum-seeker at the Cuban facility has spoken of his gratitude for the support he is getting.
This time last year Ahmed Ben Bacha, a 36-year-old Algerian asylum-seeker who lived in Bournemouth, was without legal representation and without hope.
Because of convoluted US regulations he was unable to ask for legal representation in his own right and needed someone who knew him well to request it for him.
His lawyer Zachary Katznelson, of the campaigning charity Reprieve, told the Daily Echo: "We had to find someone who knew him well in this country and because the Daily Echo publicised his case, some people did come forward.
"Thanks to the stories you published we were able to learn more about Ahmed and I have been able to visit him at Guantanamo. When I explained to him how his local newspaper had published these stories about him he was incredibly grateful to you for all that you'd done. It's thanks to the Daily Echo and its readers that Ahmed can at last be represented."
Zachary learned that Ahmed had worked in several local hotels and understands he was a pupil, learning English, at a local college. "We know he was a good football player and I think he may even have played for the college's team," he says. It's also been reported that he may have been vetted to work at a Labour Party conference in the town.
However, Reprieve and its legal director, the Dorset-based human rights lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith, now have a fight on their hands to extricate Ahmed and their other clients from Guantanamo.
According to Zachary: "The US have said they will start charging 60 to 80 people they have in there but Ahmed won't be one of them. Almost definitely not. They've told the UK government that he and the others could go free if they are willing to take them back and monitor them for extremist activity."
The problem for Ahmed is, however, that: "The UK government don't believe Ahmed is a risk - he was given leave to remain here and they don't want to commit resources to monitoring a low-risk or no-risk person so they won't have him back and he's basically in limbo."
He said that although Ahmed is Algerian, he sees Britain as his home now and the next task is to try and change the Home Office position.
Zachary was speaking to the Daily Echo from the Guantanamo Protest outside the US embassy in London's Grosvenor Square.
The London demonstration was part of a worldwide day of action yesterday, including on Cuba itself, to protest at the continued detention of nearly 400 men and teenagers at the US facility.
During its time there have been allegations of torture of inmates, several have committed suicide and Guantanamo was condemned on Thursday by Amnesty International as "an icon of lawlessness".
According to Zachary Katznelson: "Five years down the line we can see that Guantanamo has not made the US or anywhere else safer. It should be closed down."
By Faith Eckersall
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