[Mb-civic] Courted as Spies, Held as Combatants - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Courted as Spies, Held as Combatants
British Residents Enlisted by MI5 After Sept. 11 Languish at Guantanamo

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 2, 2006; A01

LONDON -- As they tried to board a flight at Gatwick Airport in November 
2002, three Arab residents of Britain were pulled aside by security 
agents. Police had questions about their luggage and ties to a radical 
Islamic cleric. After four days in custody, the men were cleared of 
suspicion and resumed their trip.

But British intelligence officials weren't ready to drop their interest 
in the men. Before the three flew out of the country, the MI5 security 
service sent cables to a "foreign intelligence agency," according to 
court testimony and newly declassified MI5 documents, calling the men 
Islamic extremists and disclosing their destination: Gambia, a tiny West 
African country.

When they arrived on Nov. 8, they were detained by Gambian and U.S. 
intelligence operatives, who interrogated them again, this time for a 
month, British and U.S. documents show. Then two of the men, Bisher 
al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna, disappeared into the netherworld of the U.S. 
government's battle against terrorism, taken first to a prison in 
Afghanistan, then to the Naval detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The primary purpose of this elaborate operation, documents and 
interviews suggest, was not to neutralize a pair of potential terrorists 
-- authorities have offered no evidence that they were planning attacks 
-- but to turn them into informers.

U.S. and British efforts to infiltrate Britain's Islamic underground 
went into high gear after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the documents 
show. The two men, acquaintances of the radical cleric Abu Qatada, were 
singled out by MI5 for threats, cajoling and offers of cash and 
protection if they would channel information. Although one of them 
offered some assistance, MI5 wanted more.

Rawi, 38, and Banna, 43, remain at Guantanamo. They have told their 
attorneys that U.S. and British intelligence operatives have visited 
them repeatedly there and in Afghanistan, renewing demands that they 
inform, offering them freedom and money in exchange. Both men say they 
have refused.

A review of hundreds of pages of documents recently released by the U.S. 
Department of Defense, a British court and the men's attorneys 
illustrates how the U.S., British and Gambian governments worked 
together in an operation that circumvented their judicial systems and, 
through a process known as extraordinary rendition, had two men 
incarcerated who had not been charged with breaking any law.

George Brent Mickum IV, a Washington lawyer who represents both men, 
acknowledged that they were friends of Abu Qatada. But he said neither 
shared the cleric's radical beliefs nor represented a security risk to 
the United States.

He said he was still trying to understand why British intelligence would 
engineer their seizure. "Either it was an attempt to put these guys at 
risk and to use them to find evidence that would implicate Abu Qatada," 
he said, "or it was an attempt to bring them within the closer control 
of MI5."

Spokesmen for the Pentagon, the CIA and the U.S. Embassy in Banjul, the 
Gambian capital, declined to comment for this article. MI5 has a policy 
of not commenting to the media.

The British Foreign Office released a statement last week denying 
complicity by the British government: "The United Kingdom did not 
request the detention of the claimants in the Gambia and did not play 
any role in their transfer to Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay."

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said she could not answer questions because 
of a pending lawsuit seeking to force the British government to 
intercede on the men's behalf. On March 22, the government said it would 
ask for Rawi's release; its previous position was that it could not 
intercede for a non-British citizen.

The case has caused a political uproar in Britain. Critics say the 
documents show the British government has helped place people in 
Guantanamo, despite its claims that the prison is strictly a U.S. operation.

A parliamentary committee is investigating. "The key issue that 
certainly concerns me is whether our government, the British government, 
was involved in something that I would consider to be unlawful," said 
Andrew Tyrie, the committee chairman. "I don't want to live in a country 
that could be complicit in such abuses."

Rawi came to Britain as a teenager in 1984 with his family from Iraq, 
where his father had been tortured by Saddam Hussein's secret police, 
family members said in interviews. He attended British schools but was a 
self-described poor student who didn't need to find a job because his 
family was wealthy. He retained his Iraqi citizenship in hopes of 
reclaiming confiscated family property if Hussein's government ever fell.

One day after the Sept. 11 attacks, two MI5 agents knocked on the door 
of the house where he lived with his sister and her husband, family 
members said. The agents asked about Qatada, whom he knew from the 
mosque. "He was completely gobsmacked," said Nomi Janjua, his 
brother-in-law. "He said, 'What? Secret services?' I started laughing 
because we couldn't believe it."

Rawi agreed to become an unpaid informer, according to the family and 
his attorneys, a claim that the British government has acknowledged in 
court without elaborating. Although he kept details of his talks with 
MI5 to himself, British agents quickly became a presence at the family's 
house. They telephoned so often that his relatives complained, forcing 
MI5 to give him a mobile phone and meet him elsewhere.

Sometimes the contacts were unfriendly, family members recalled. Once, 
when he took his mother to an airport, agents pulled him aside for a 
long interrogation.

MI5 documents show that some agents came to have reservations about 
whether he was carrying out their orders. He tried to end the 
relationship in the summer of 2002, upsetting his handlers.

Banna, a Palestinian with Jordanian citizenship, came with his wife to 
London in 1994 from Pakistan. He had worked in an orphanage in Peshawar, 
where he met Qatada, a fellow Jordanian.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Banna also received a visit from two 
intelligence agents, one British and one American, according to his 
wife, Sabah. The agents inquired about Qatada. He resisted their 
pressure to become an informer, she said, but they kept it up.

In late 2002, Banna and Rawi made plans to go to Gambia. The purpose of 
the trip, they have said, was to help Rawi's brother, Wahab, set up a 
peanut-oil processing plant. In an interview, Wahab al-Rawi said he had 
invested $225,000 in the venture and had recruited his brother, Banna, 
and two other friends as partners.

On Oct. 31, 2002, as Banna was packing for the trip, an M15 agent called 
at his London home and pressed him again to infiltrate extremist circles 
on behalf of British intelligence, either domestically or in a Muslim 
country.

"He did not give any hint of willingness to cooperate with us," the 
unnamed MI5 agent wrote in a report. "I returned to the choice which he 
could make; he could either continue as at present, with the risks that 
entailed, or he could start a new life with a new identity. . . . It was 
quite possible that he could find himself swept up in a further round of 
detentions."

In an interview, Sabah el-Banna said she didn't recall details of the 
conversation except that the agents assured Banna that he could fly to 
Africa. "They said, 'No, no -- go ahead. Good luck in your business." 
MI5 records confirm that Banna was given clearance to go.

The detention at Gatwick delayed the three travelers' arrival in Gambia 
by seven days. It has led to speculation by the men's attorneys and 
families that the delay gave the CIA time to position operatives in Gambia.

On Nov. 8, Wahab al-Rawi, who was already in Gambia, and a business 
partner drove to the Banjul airport to meet the travelers. There, all 
five men were taken into custody.

Gambian officials initially said there was a visa problem. But the men 
were soon locked up and moved to hidden locations and safe houses around 
the capital. American spies acted as if they were in charge, Wahab 
al-Rawi said. A brawny man who identified himself as Lee and said he was 
from the U.S. Embassy spent days questioning the men. He wanted to know 
about their ties to Qatada, whether the peanut business was a front for 
terrorist activities and whether they hated Americans.

Wahab al-Rawi said he refused to cooperate at first, demanding that he 
be allowed to contact a lawyer and the British Embassy. "Lee said, 'Who 
do you think asked us to arrest you? Where do you think this information 
came from, the questions we are asking you?' " Wahab al-Rawi said.

After four weeks, Wahab al-Rawi and one of the business partners -- both 
British citizens -- were released and put on a flight back to London. A 
third partner, a Gambian citizen, also was let go. But Bisher al-Rawi 
and Jamil el-Banna were flown to Afghanistan.

They have given their attorneys this account of their arrival there: 
They were taken to a prison near Kabul, the capital, and kept in the 
darkness for two weeks, with loudspeakers blaring music around the 
clock. Later they were transferred to a prison at Bagram air base.

Rawi and Banna said they were asked by CIA operatives in Afghanistan 
whether they would serve as informants, said Mickum, their attorney. 
Banna was offered increasing sums of money and a U.S. passport to work 
for the CIA, but refused, Mickum said.

A few weeks later, they were flown to Guantanamo Bay. On March 12, 2003, 
Rawi wrote a sardonic letter to his family in London.

"Dear Mum and family," it read. "I'm writing to you from the seaside 
resort of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. After winning first prize in a 
competition, I was whisked to this nice resort with all expenses paid (I 
did not need to spend a penny). . . . Everyone is very nice, the 
neighbors are very well-mannered, the food is best class, plenty of fun."

Rawi told his lawyer he was visited in Guantanamo at least six times by 
MI5 officials, including some of the same agents who had served as his 
handlers in London. They apologized for the turn of events, but asked 
whether he would still be willing to work for the agency if they could 
secure his release.

"He asked me a few questions about a few people here" in Guantanamo, 
Rawi said of one MI5 agent, according to a transcript of a U.S. military 
tribunal hearing. "He asked me, if I were released, where would I like 
to go? I mentioned a few places; I told him he could buy me a ticket to 
the moon."

In September 2004, the two were brought before tribunals that would 
determine whether they could be formally classified as "enemy 
combatants." The primary evidence against them: they knew Abu Qatada, 
and had wired money on his behalf to Jordan.

They were also accused of carrying a suspicious electronic device in 
their luggage to Gambia; British police who stopped them at Gatwick 
determined it was a battery charger, police reports show.

In testimony during the hearings, the detainees admitted knowing Qatada 
and helping him transfer the funds, which they said went to a charity. 
They said MI5 had been aware of all their activities and had encouraged 
them to interact with Qatada. They also pointed out that British police 
had them in custody just prior to their trip to Gambia and could have 
pressed charges if they were suspected of illegal acts.

"We were kidnapped in Gambia, not arrested," Banna said, according to a 
transcript of his hearing. "I don't even know what I have done. . . . If 
I were a danger to anyone, Britain would have put me in jail."

The tribunals ruled that both men should be classified as enemy combatants.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/01/AR2006040101465.html
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