UK: The four remaining British detainees in Guantanamo Bay will be sent home shortly, the Foreign Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, said yesterday, posing for UK authorities the question of what to do with them.
Families of the four men say their three-year ordeal is not over and they are considering claiming compensation.
"The decision [to release them] follows intensive and complex discussions to address US security concerns . . . The four men will be returned in the next few weeks," Mr Straw told parliament.
British police will then consider whether to arrest them under UK anti-terrorism laws, he added.
Mr Feroz Abbasi, Mr Martin Mubanga, Mr Richard Belmar and Mr Moazzam Begg have been held for three years at Guantanamo.
Both Mr Mubanga and Mr Begg have said they were shackled and tortured in the camp, although US authorities have dismissed their allegations.
Mr Azmat Begg, father of Moazzam, welcomed the news but said the release would not end the saga.
"If my son has done something wrong he should be medically, physically, examined and he should be mentally examined and if there is a proper case, he should be tried and, if he has done something wrong, he should be punished," he said.
"But, at the same time, people who have broken the law of humanity by keeping people for that long in solitary confinement and torturing [ them], they should also be taken account of," he said.
Ms Louise Christian, lawyer for two of the four, said the families feared they would have been seriously mentally damaged by the experience.
"We know they have been tortured and ill treated. So I think the UK authorities should give serious consideration as to whether it is a disproportionate response to arrest them after they have spent three years being locked up in cages," she said.
She said the families were considering claiming compensation for the trauma.
The United States holds about 550 non-US citizens at the Cuban naval base. Only four have been charged.
Mr Straw did not say whether the move was part of a US effort to radically reduce the number of prisoners at the base, but earlier Australia said one of its two terrorism suspects in Cuba would also be returned home soon without charge.
Five other Britons held at the base were repatriated last year and subsequently released without charge by British police.
The releases do pose a dilemma for the government about how to balance the need to respect human rights with a need to protect its citizens from international terrorism.
Experts say that the four could not expect to obtain a fair trial in Britain after their much-publicised detention at Guantanamo and any evidence obtained from the prison camp would be inadmissible.
That means the government risks having the men, who some government sources say could be a security threat, walking free.