Minister vows to recover ‘terror’ cash
Review ordered into conditions put on £20m payouts amid fears that money found its way to Isil
MINISTERS have pledged to recover any compensation handed to former British Guantanamo Bay detainees if they discover the public money has been used to fund Isil terrorism.
Ben Wallace, the security minister, told Parliament he has ordered a review of the terms and conditions of an estimated £20million compensation fund handed to 17 former British detainees.
If the detainees have breached those conditions – which are likely to include a requirement not to consort with terrorist groups that threaten the UK – the Government will try to claw back the cash. Ministers are waiting for a briefing on the whereabouts of the 16 surviving detainees after one of them, Jamal al-Harith, who received up to £1 million of UK taxpayers’ money, travelled to Iraq where he blew himself up in a suicide bomb attack.
Mr Wallace has already been urged by a senior Conservative MP Tim Loughton to sue al-Harith’s estate to recover the compensation he was awarded if it is proved he was involved in terrorism.
Speaking in the Commons yesterday, Tory MP Philip Davies said: “I hope those who celebrated the release from Guantanamo Bay of Jamal al-Harith will reflect on what he’s done since being released.”
He added: “Will you say if the Government is exploring any options to recover compensation paid to people from Guantanamo Bay?
“The taxpayers have been ripped off, terrorists have prospered from their appalling activities and the public is rightly disgusted by it, and they want to know what the Government is trying to do to rectify that.”
Mr Wallace replied: “You make a valid point. I will go from here and make sure that where we have legally binding agreements that they are correctly monitored and where there is a breach, we shall recover any monies we can.” Andrew Murrison, a Tory former minister, had earlier asked Mr Wallace to agree to a review of the payments made to detainees.
He said: “It has been reported that around £20 million has been paid to former Guantanamo Bay detainees.
“This morning Lord Blunkett suggested that sum should be formally reviewed since the public will be dismayed and they will be particularly concerned if any of that money has gone to fund terrorism.”
Mr Wallace pointed to the Criminal Finances Bill as a way of giving the Government more powers to track money “destined for terrorism”.
Privately, Tory ministers are seething that they are being blamed for the compensation payments.
The sums were paid by the Conservative-led Coalition in 2010, announced by former justice secretary Ken Clarke in November 2010 and declared in Whitehall accounts for the year to the end of March 2011. However, they maintain that they were required in part because of alleged failings by senior members of the former Labour government.
Mr Wallace was heckled by MPs in the Commons when he refused to say if Jamal al-Harith was paid £1 million.
Tabling an urgent question in the Commons, Labour’s Yvette Cooper said Britons will be “sickened” at the payment.
Mr Wallace told MPs it is the “longstanding policy of successive governments not to comment on intelligence matters”.
His words were met with groans and barracking from the Labour benches.
Ken Clarke has said the compensation claims were settled because national security arrangements made it impossible for MI6 to offer any evidence in court to contest them.
The law has since been changed to allow a judge to hear evidence from the intelligence services in secret.