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Detainee arrives in Britain, renews torture claims

McClatchy News Service

Binyam Mohamed, a gaunt-looking, bearded man wearing a cream sweater, white tennis shoes and skullcap, stepped off a chartered jet at a British air base Monday after a 10-hour trip from the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, closing a dark chapter in his life that he claims included brutal torture.

His release by the Obama administration followed a hunger strike and international outrage that he spent seven years in U.S. custody for crimes that even the Americans now say they can't prove.

Accompanied by British police, a doctor and Foreign Office officials, Mohamed, 30, arrived at RAF Northolt near London shortly after 1 p.m. After his capture in Pakistan in 2002, U.S. officials accused him of training with al Qaeda and plotting an attack with a radioactive ''dirty'' bomb.

Even before his plane landed, he blasted American and British officials, who he charges were complicit in his alleged abuse.

''I have been through an experience that I never thought to encounter in my darkest nightmares,'' said Mohamed's statement, which his lawyers released. 'Before this ordeal, `torture' was an abstract word to me. I could never have imagined that I would be its victim. It is still difficult for me to believe that I was abducted, hauled from one country to the next and tortured in medieval ways, all orchestrated by the United States government.''

During a medical examination at Guantánamo about 10 days ago, a British doctor who'd been sent to assess Mohamed's fitness to travel reportedly found him suffering from bruises, organ damage, stomach complaints, malnutrition, sores on his hands and feet and severe damage to ligaments, as well as emotional and psychological damage.

Mohamed was on a hunger strike from late December until shortly before he was released and was being force-fed through a tube tethered through his nose into his stomach.

One of his lawyers, Clive Stafford Smith, alleged that Mohamed's abuse had continued at Guantánamo Bay until recently.

In addition to his legal team, Mohamed was met on arrival in Britain by his older sister, Zuhra Mohamed, who'd traveled from the United States for the reunion. An older brother, Benhur Mohamed, also was traveling from the U.S. to Britain.

The Foreign Office has been lobbying for Mohamed's release since 2007, but thus far he's been granted only temporary permission to stay in Britain by the Home Office, which oversees the security services.

After being interviewed by police, Mohamed was expected to spend time with his family in a quiet location.

His lawyers said he'd agreed to a series of voluntary security measures, which they wouldn't disclose. These are expected to include regular visits to the police.

Mohamed, who was born in Ethiopia and moved to Britain at age 15, was held in several countries after his arrest, including Morocco, where he was severely tortured before being sent to Guantánamo in 2005, he says.

''Many have been complicit in my own horrors over the past seven years,'' Mohamed said in his statement. ``For myself, the very worst moment came when I realized in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence. I had met with British intelligence in Pakistan. I had been open with them. Yet the very people who I had hoped would come to my rescue, I later realized, had allied themselves with my abusers.''

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