Pat Dollard

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The Times

James Bone in Hamilton

A former Guantánamo Bay inmate set free in Bermuda said that he was looking forward to becoming a citizen of Britain’s oldest colony, as new details emerged of the secret talks that led to his release.

Salahidin Abdulahat, 32, one of four Chinese Uighurs flown to Bermuda on Thursday in a controversial deal between the Obama Administration and the Bermuda Government, said that his treatment in the US detention camp was brutal. “I have been in jail for over seven years. Innocently,” he told the Bermuda Sun. “First I would like to rest for a couple of weeks. Then I would like the Government and the people to give me an opportunity to work. I am healthy and want to be able to make a living. Any job that is out there I will do. I hope to become resident here. I would love to have a Bermudian passport and live as a normal member of society.”

The four freed Uighurs, who spent seven years in Guantánamo Bay after allegedly being turned over to US forces by bounty hunters in Afghanistan, enjoyed their freedom by going shopping for new trousers as a political firestorm erupted in Bermuda over their release. The four have been identified as Huzaifa Parhat, Abdul Nasser, Jalal Jalaladin and Mr Abdulahat, who also uses the name Abdul Semet. They were released at the Guantánamo airstrip on Thursday and flown straight to Bermuda.

The British Government, which controls the colony’s foreign and security policy, was shocked that it had been outflanked by Ewart Brown, the independence-seeking elected premier, whose government controls immigration policy.

“We are deeply disappointed that they negotiated the movement of the four people here with the United States without consulting us because, to us, it pretty clearly cuts across foreign affairs and security issues,” Sir Richard Gozney, Bermuda’s British governor, said.

The row could jeopardise plans for a Royal visit by the Queen in the coming weeks to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Bermuda.

Facing a backlash from the public Mr Brown insisted that there was no “quid pro quo”. Colonel David Burch, Bermuda’s Home Affairs Minister, who flew to Guantánamo Bay to pick up the Uighurs, said that the idea for them to be resettled in Bermuda originated with the Government’s US lobbyists before the premier’s trip to the White House in mid-May and that Mr Brown had put the proposed to US officials. Bermuda is eager to avoid a crackdown by the Obama Administration on offshore financial centres. “One can reasonably expect that if Bermuda gets to a point where it needs some help, Bermuda is in a much stronger position if it made friends before you need them,” Colonel Burch said.

Britain would have to approve any grant of citizenship, which could entitle the men to live in Britain. The Uighurs are now sharing a holiday flat paid for by the Bermudian Government, which is reimbursed by the United States.

Mr Brown said President Obama called to thank him after the Uighurs’ arrival on Thursday, in a move that could further antagonise Britain. “I told him it has created a firestorm here but that in the long term it would work out,” he said.

“They did not know what Bermuda was. When you have a guy from Central Asia stuck on the island of Cuba and you talk about another island, it sounds like a prison colony,” Sabin Willett, their US lawyer, said. “We were in a shop with the guys to buy some trousers. Blaring over the radio was talk about these al-Qaeda terrorists. The shopkeeper said, ‘Don’t mind that. Welcome to the island’. And he gave them each a free baseball hat.”