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Ex-Bournemouth resident begins ninth year in Guantanamo Bay

8:00am Saturday 2nd January 2010 in


IF 2009 seemed bleak, spare a thought for former Bournemouth resident Ahmed Belbacha.

The hotel worker spent a seventh year in a windowless steel box on the isolation wing of the notorious Guantanamo Bay detention camp – despite being cleared of any involvement in terrorism by US authorities.

Mr Belbacha, 39, dubbed the “forgotten Briton,” has been held at the camp in Cuba since 2002, after being arrested at the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But despite being given “clearance to leave” Guantanamo Bay in 2007, he has remained for fear of torture if returned home to Algeria, where he was recently sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment in his absence.

Human rights group, Reprieve, led by Dorset-based lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith, described the hearing as a “show trial”.

“The trial lacked any semblance of recognisable legal process and appears to be retaliation against Ahmed for speaking out about Algeria,” a spokesman said.

They say the former accountant left a comfortable middle-class lifestyle in Algeria in 1997 after death threats from Islamic fundamentalist group, the Groupe Islamique Arme (GIA).

He arrived in Bournemouth in 1999 and worked at the Swallow Highcliff Hotel during the Labour Party Conference.

Reprieve say Mr Belbacha was in charge of cleaning John Prescott’s room and received a healthy tip from the former deputy Prime Minister.

He left the UK in 2001 after his asylum application failed and travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Reprieve say Mr Belbacha was beaten and abused during interrogation by the CIA at Kandahar before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2002. Some five years later, the US military cleared Mr Belbacha for release. The Massachusetts town of Amehurst has offered him a home in defiance of US authorities.

Reprieve’s legal director, Zachary Katznelson, told the Daily Echo in February that friends of Mr Belbacha in Bournemouth had saved thousands of pounds for his release and had offered him a room.

Comments(16)

Tripod says...
8:39am Sat 2 Jan 10

He spent two years here waiting for his application for asylum application to be refused, has been convicted of offences in his OWN country, and has been offered a place in the US... And that makes Mr Belbacha "the forgotten Briton"?

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Lord Spring says...
8:43am Sat 2 Jan 10

Must be good there , no snow and ice to contend with.

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Henry Bear says...
8:44am Sat 2 Jan 10

How about sparing a though for the Bournemouth soldiers that have died since 9/11 due to keeping us safe from terrorists

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fedupwithjobsworths says...
11:03am Sat 2 Jan 10

So he's Algerian not British, a failed asylum seeker, and just happened to be at the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan..... hmmmm

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alumchineboy2 says...
11:17am Sat 2 Jan 10

Lock him up and throw away the key.

Tell me, why would someone be 'abused during interrogation by the CIA'
if they were a perfectly innocent individual going about their daily routine in life in a innocent way ?

""Human rights group, Reprieve, led by Dorset-based lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith"" - now there's a group who really do a lot to help us all in this world. They work for the rights of individuals suspected of terrorist activity. Are you telling me that all of them are innocent ?
A nice little earner as well apparently as their charity has huge admin costs - wages etc.
( search the internet for the investigation story details)

Get real everyone and dont listed to these wasters

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AKKA says...
11:27am Sat 2 Jan 10

I bet the Echo would have made a connection between him and Bournemouth even if he'd only changed trains there.

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golden mouldie says...
11:55am Sat 2 Jan 10

Henry Bear wrote:
How about sparing a though for the Bournemouth soldiers that have died since 9/11 due to keeping us safe from terrorists
I'll second that.

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contric says...
12:50pm Sat 2 Jan 10

i will third that and i dont want an algerian criminal or the human rights shitebags like stafford smith coming into contact with anyone in my family the way this government has behaved on immigration i wonder whether the crim cleaned fatsos room or was it fatso cleaning the crims room

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His Lordship Scunthorpe of Ferndown says...
3:18pm Sat 2 Jan 10

What idiot decided to run this as a story. Are we really expected to feel sorry for this terrorist......apolo
gies, poor hard done by individual full of hate for everything Western who just happens to enjoy travelling around the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan!! Judging by the comments from Echo readers above, most like minded common sense, real world people (as opposed to those in the Echo, Daily Mail, BBC etc who seem to run these hard luck stories on a regular basis) know exactly what to do with him....throw away the key or even better, charge up the electric chair....and as for Clive Stafford Smith, don't even get me started .....!!!! British....my a***!!!

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richathome says...
3:28pm Sat 2 Jan 10

Well said your lordship

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colin 50 says...
3:46pm Sat 2 Jan 10

strap him to a drone and send him home,we have got enough problems with dodgy planners and a laptop perve in bournemouth town hall, oops not allowed to mention the leader and his deputy this post will be removed.

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SFRA says...
4:11pm Sat 2 Jan 10

Why are they defending this Algerian, who happened to further his travels to terrorist areas by working in the town. He ought to be pleased that he is in Quantanimo Bay. Being Algerian, this is where he would have to be deported to, but is under death threat there, so the US are saving his backside at the moment. Keep him there, and why not send Clive Stafford Smith to join him. Finally, why DID the Echo take up this story. Nothing to do with the town at all.

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r50mini says...
4:45pm Sat 2 Jan 10

So a failed Algerian Asylum Seeker is found by the US in Afghanistan, what was he doing there a package holiday. It seems to be a popular destination under the Taliban.
Who cares if he cleaned Politicians rooms in 1999. The world was different place then, until 9/11.
Surely he must be the forgotten algerian he has no ties to the UK. I am sure he should have asked for Asylum in the first European country he arrived in.

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alumchineboy2 says...
11:48pm Sat 2 Jan 10

God the echo has so let itself down here - crap reporting, crap journalists, small town mentality.

Very poor. Have you no pride ?

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tt52 says...
6:41pm Sun 3 Jan 10

Shoot him, end of story.

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dkessler says...
11:19pm Sun 3 Jan 10

I can't believe that anyone would be so asinine as to believe that torturers would only torture the guilty! As far as I'm concerned, people imprisoned without trial and not actually awaiting trial are kidnap victims, As such they have the right to escape and even to kill their captors in order to do so.

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