Scotland Against Criminalising Communities says "Welcome Home" to Binyam Mohamed, who arrived at Northolt military base, UK this afternoon after more than four years internment at Guantanamo Bay.

In a farcical manoeuvre, Binyam Mohamed has been detained by British police, who say they are "conducting investigations into his case." Binyam is in poor health after weeks of hunger strike. He has suffered torture and brutal interrogation in Afghanistan, Morocco and at Guantanamo Bay. We are at a loss to understand what police think they can learn from him. They should release him immediately and instead question the British officials who may have colluded in his torture. Home Secretary Jaqui Smith referred the matter to the Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecutions on 23 October, but Binyam Mohamed's lawyer Clive Stafford Smith says "there is no evidence that the attorney general is taking this process as seriously as she should."

SACC congratulates all the campaigners around the world, and all the lawyers and legal staff in Britain and the US, who fought tirelessly for his release. Sadly, no thanks at all are owed to the British Government, which could have secured Binyam's release years ago had it seriously wished to do so. Worse still, it has to be said that this failure of duty and nerve was only partly a symptom of Britain's subservience to the US. It was also a consequence of British complicity in Binyam's detention, rendition and torture.

The current British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, compounded the crimes of his predecessors at the Foreign Office when he crucially misled a British court last year by failing to explain that a letter from the US State Department saying the  release of documents relating to Binyam Mohamed's torture "could harm existing intelligence-sharing arrangements" had in fact been solicited by the British Foreign Office. The judge, unaware of the circumstances of the letter, concluded that it constituted a "threat" from the US and ruled, apparently reluctantly, against release of the documents. David Milband's position is now untenable. If he is willing to mislead a British Court, how can any government in the world take him at his word? And how can we trust him to work in good faith for the release of the remaining British residents held at Guantanamo.

SACC is concerned over press reports that Binyam Mohamed was asked to agree to a gagging order as a condition for his release from Guantanamo. We congratulate Binyam and his lawyers for refusing to accept this blatant bullying. Sadly, it appears that the British and US governments have neverthless imposed "voluntary" security measures on him including regular reports to a police station. But for someone sitting in a Guantanamo cell, there's no such thing as a voluntary security measure. 

Binyam Mohamed is an innocent man. He is entitled to the same freedom as everyone else. The so-called security measures are face-saving devices calculated to excuse the years of illegal detention that Binyam Mohamed has suffered. Neither Barack Obama nor the British Government should be in the business of saving the faces of the Bush gang and their apparatchiks - people who tried to make lawlessness, terror and torture the official policy of the US.