Minister says he cannot reveal details about 'British suicide bomber'
A Home Office minister has said the government cannot reveal details about the fate of Jamal al-Harith, the former Guantánamo Bay detainee who appears to have blown himself up in Iraq.
Challenged by Yvette Cooper, the Labour chair of the home affairs select committee, about the case of Harith, Ben Wallace cited “the longstanding policy of successive governments not to comment on intelligence matters”.
Cooper said the public would feel “sickened” by the idea that Harith, formerly called Ronald Fiddler, received a compensation payment from the British government before apparently managing to travel to Iraq and carry out a suicide bombing.
Wallace agreed that the public would be “outraged and disappointed” by reports of generous compensation payouts to Harith and other former inmates of Guantánamo Bay, but said the actions that had triggered the payments had taken place under the Labour government.
He declined to confirm that Harith had received money from the taxpayer when the coalition government settled a series of outstanding civil claims about British involvement in the detention of several former inmates.
“The details of that settlement were subject to legally binding confidentiality agreements. We are therefore unable to confirm whether any particular individual received such a payment,” he said.
Press reports had suggested that Harith was paid £1m in compensation by the UK government after his mistreatment in the US camp but his family denied that on Wednesday.
In a statement released on behalf of his wife, Shukee Begum, they said they believed that figure was for a “group settlement including costs for four innocent people including Jamal”.
Cooper had secured an urgent question in the House of Commons, amid growing questions about how Harith had managed to travel to the warzone apparently unmonitored.
Wallace said: “Let me make it quite clear that the UK takes the security of its people, interests and allies very seriously. We will not hesitate to take action in accordance with our inherent rights of self-defence.”
“The government strongly discourages British nationals travelling to conflict zones and works hard to dissuade and prevent individuals from travelling to areas of conflict.”
In response to a later question from the shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, he said the government would be willing to cooperate with an investigation of parliament’s intelligence and security committee, which can hold its hearings in private, saying: “If they choose to investigate we will of course comply.”
He said the Conservatives had strengthened the powers of the ISC in the Justice and Security Act of 2013, which also allowed cases such as those in which compensation was paid out to be held in closed court proceedings.
Claims by Islamic State that Harith, whom it gave the nom de guerre Abu Zakariya al-Britani, was the man who carried out the suicide bombing on Monday have not been independently verified. A video shot from long range did not show definitively who was in the vehicle when it was driven into a military compound near Mosul before exploding and causing multiple injuries.
Harith was taken to Guantánamo in 2001 after being discovered in a Taliban prison in Pakistan. He was held there without charge until his release 2004, which followed lobbying from the government to release some UK nationals held in the US-run prison camp.
David Winnick, the veteran Labour backbencher who campaigned against Guantánamo Bay detainments, said he was “not going to make any apology whatsoever”. Wallace agreed with him that the internment camp should be closed, saying terrorist suspects should be tried “in a court of law, under the rule of law”.
