LONDON, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- British detainees once held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will get hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation from the British government, officials said.
The decision, expected to be announced Tuesday, follows weeks of secret negotiations with representatives of the men who claimed the British government knew they were illegally transferred to the U.S. military prison but did nothing to prevent it, The Mirror reported.
One man, Londoner Richard Belmar, who was arrested in Pakistan, said he was tortured throughout his detention in Guantanamo Bay.
Several of the men were seeking asylum, officials said.
Attorneys for the former detainees also argued that British intelligence agents provided interrogators questions asked during some of the sessions. Charges were never filed against any of the men after they were accused of being al-Qaida "enemy combatants," The Mirror said.
During the summer, a British Court of Appeal ruled the government couldn't rely on secret evidence in the case, and also ordered the release of sensitive material about U.S. and British intelligence sharing, the Financial Times reported. The Foreign Office lobbied against many of the disclosures, arguing their release would threaten the relationship between the countries' intelligence agents.
