Guantanamo 7 Paid £millions 'hush money' by Government

[Gromit]

// A group of former Guantanamo Bay detainees who claim they were tortured with the complicity of the British security services have been paid millions of pounds to drop legal action against the Government.

Ministers will announce today that a deal has been reached with the men, at least one of whom is expected to receive more than £1 million of taxpayers’ money.

The security services are thought to have pushed for the settlement in order to avoid details of their secret activities being disclosed in court. //

http://www.telegraph....ainst-Government.html

This Government seem very eager to give large sums of taxpayers money to terrorist suspects. I suppose it might save a bit of money, but it could be read as an admission of guilt.

Money well spent?

[NazNomad]

Suspects, important to remember.

If they weren't actually guilty of anything, then I would say this is the Govt. saying, "oops, we f***ed up".

As members of the public, we'll never know the real facts or the whole story.

[birdie1971]

It's a blatant admission that that the UK government don't want their day in court. They'd rather pay the Guantanamo prisoners off to buy their silence.

I don't blame the current government for this situation - the previous government, under chairman Blair, supped with the devil and forgot to use a long spoon.

[chrissa1]

Yes birdie. A case of..."yes George, no George, three bags full George".

[Loosehead]

Even if they where inncocent we didn't bang them up in Gitmo so how come we have to fork out? "Day in court"? what for? It was a US production.

[Gromit]

Loosehead

The allegation, which will now not be proved on way or the other, is that MI5 colluded and were complicit in the torture. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't, but by buying the Guantanamo Dozen off, the rest of the world will see that as an admission of guilt.

[jno]

the Michael Jackson route to justice, then.

[youngmafbog]

Just how do the secret services get a day in court.

Operations cost fortunes to setup and it's not just money it can take years to infiltrate.

So what do you expect them to do then Gromit ? You reckon your beloved labour (who actually on watch at teh time) would do any different ?

[rov1200]

There's something about this payout thats stinks to high heaven. They were all unconvicted terrorists. It was the US that did the torture why were they not sued? Will this open the door to any terrorist captured by the coalition and supervised by British forces? What about Abu graib? What about other conflicts including Iraq? What about the cases of rendition that we allowed through our airports?

This payout is the tip of the iceberg and every British terrorist must now be on the phone to his lawyer!

The British government has nothing to hide. It is in the public domain and because of the payout we will always be the guilty party.

[birdie1971]

^^^ “The British government has nothing to hide.”

I can't say I share that view. No government pays people millions of pounds (particularly in this economic climate) without very, very good reason. The government is paying these individuals to negate the possibility of a court case that would have currently secret documents divulged to the public. The inescapable implication is that the our government knew about the torture, were complicit in it and were actively involved in despicable activities such as the innocently named, “extraordinary rendition”.

I don't know whether any or all of these individuals are guilty of terrorism. They could all be totally innocent or all totally guilty. No one outside of our governmental structure knows.

But one thing is for sure. Imprisoning people for several years without trial and torturing them is completely unacceptable in a supposedly democratic and civilised society. This cannot and should not ever be allowed to happen. If you believe otherwise, just ask yourself one question – what if you, at some point in the future, are wrongly accused of a terrorist act and imprisoned without trial and tortured? Would you think that's fair?

[rov1200]

Never heard of POW camps. The problem is the war is still going on and they have been released into society to continue their wicked deeds.

[birdie1971]

^^^ You missed out the word 'unproven' there Rov.

Your believe your statement should have read, “The problem is the war is still going on and they have been released into society to continue their UNPROVEN wicked deeds.”

What have they done? Do you know because I certainly don't – but I would like to know what on earth they were doing in that region in the first place whilst there's a war taking place.

I want our Government to put these individuals on trial. But this will not happen because once a trial is started, (nearly) all documents pertaining to that trial become public documents. The Government has clearly weighed up the pros and cons of putting these individuals on the stand and decided that they (the Government) have more to lose than the accused.

So we'll never know if these people are utterly repellent or entirely innocent – or a mixture of both.

But to assume they're all guilty of terrorism or of carrying out 'wicked deeds' is illogical.

[birdie1971]

Apologies for the appalling grammar in my above post.