I.S. SUICIDE BOMBER YOU PAID £1MILLION
How UK Muslim who got compensation after being freed from Guantanamo sneaked off to join jihadis
GRINNING at the camera, he could be on a night out with his friends.
Instead he is a UK jihadi speeding toward an Iraqi army base in a truck laden with explosives. By his side is the red button he will use to blow himself up. And last night it emerged that the suicide attacker in the chilling Islamic State video is a Briton given £1million compensation for being held at Guantanamo Bay.
Ronald Fiddler, 50, was released from the notorious US jail after intense lobbying from Tony Blair’s government, which said he posed no threat.
On his return to Britain he pocketed the taxpayer-funded payout after accusing MI6 agents of being complicit in his mistreatment by the Americans. He later fled to join IS in Syria.
The Muslim convert – a web designer from Manchester – carried out his vile attack just two days ago near Mosul. The video was released by terror propagandists last night.
The attack raises urgent questions over what steps the authorities took to monitor Fiddler as he supposedly rejoined British society following his release from Guantanamo. He is
AS many as 16 British citizens and residents received millions of pounds in compensation after being held in Guantanamo Bay.
A deal believed to be worth almost £20million was agreed by the Government after the terror suspects threatened legal action.
The detainees, many of whom claimed they were victims of kidnap and torture, warned they would sue Britain for its involvement in their abuse. Many alleged that UK spies were complicit in barbaric mistreatment at the US military base in Cuba following 9/11.
Ministers settled the case on the grounds that they could not defend themselves against the damaging allegations without harming British security by revealing sensitive intelligence information.
Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, who revealed details of the settlement in the Commons in November 2010, said the deal was confidential but necessary.
A legal battle would have laid bare the depth to which Tony Blair’s Labour Government was complicit in rendition and torture – but the Tory-led coalition made clear that it wanted to avoid a court case which would have cost up to £50million.
The payouts sparked anger among MPs, who called them money for old rope and said the settlements would give comfort to our enemies.
Up to £1million was handed to each of the former Guantanamo Bay captives, including Binyam Mohamed, who alleged that British agents fed questions to his interrogators.
Mohamed was arrested in Afghanistan in 2002 and sent to a CIA prison in Kabul, then transferred to Morocco, where he claimed he was cut and repeatedly beaten. In 2004 he was sent to Guantanamo, where he was held until his return to the UK in 2009.
Another terror suspect to receive compensation was Martin Mubenga, a joint citizen of both the United Kingdom and Zambia. He was held in Africa, and claimed to have been interrogated by a British man who said he was an MI6 official. They allegedly told him that his UK passport, which he had reported stolen, was found in an Al Qaeda cave in Afghanistan. He was sent to Guantanamo Bay and held for 33 months.
Another recipient was Moazzam Begg, who ran a Muslim bookshop in Birmingham before moving to Afghanistan.
He was captured in Pakistan in 2002 by the CIA, who said he was an Al Qaeda recruiter.
He is now a leading member of the discredited Cage human rights group, described knifewielding executioner Mohammed Emwazi – dubbed ‘Jihadi John’ – as a ‘beautiful young man’ after he was killed in an airstrike. Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantanamo, also received £1million. The father of four was freed in October 2015, but his release was delayed for at least eight years amid claims the US was concerned about Britain’s ability to monitor terror suspects.
Mr Aamer, who was held without trial or charge for almost 14 years, was seized in Afghanistan in 2001. He denied accusations that he was a key aide of Osama Bin Laden.
He was released after a campaign by the Mail, which argued
Discredited human rights group
that although he had questions to answer about his presence in Afghanistan, it was an affront to justice to detain him without charge or trial.
In 2010, then Prime Minister David Cameron ordered Sir Peter Gibson to head the Detainee Inquiry to look into the claims that our intelligence services were complicit in torture. However, it was suspended after two years while police investigated claims that MI6 was involved in the extraordinary rendition of two Libyan dissidents, Abdul Hakim Belhaj
and Sami al-Saadi. In 2013 Sir Peter’s inquiry closed its investigation on the basis that it could not continue while Scotland Yard pursued its own inquiries. The probe was scrapped after prosecutors controversially ruled that no one would stand trial over claims that spies helped to put Mr Belhaj and Mr al-Saadi in the clutches of Colonel Gaddafi in 2004. However, an interim report by Sir Peter, a High Court judge, found that MI6 agents had not properly raised concerns about sleep deprivation and waterboarding for fear of offending US allies.
Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee was handed the case as part of its wider inquiry into rendition.
For the first time, it was officially confirmed that politicians knew the UK was involved in the CIA’s unlawful programme of torture flights.
Mr Cameron was accused of a whitewash after rejecting calls to re- open the Detainee Inquiry.
He reiterated that the work would be done by Parliament’s secretive ISC – even though it is subject to a Government veto on the evidence it sees and what it can publish.
In 2010, Mr Cameron had told Parliament an ISC inquiry could not command ‘ public confidence’. But last June he maintained that giving it the brief was the ‘right approach.’
Secretive committee