UK Edition
Tony Blair accuses Tories of agreeing £20million payments to Guantanamo Bay detainees
Tony Blair has attacked the Tories, saying they agreed the £20million compensation payments made to former British Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Theresa May, the Prime Minister, is already under pressure to explain why a British Islamic State fighter who carried out a suicide bombing in Iraq travelled to Syria in 2014 to fight with the so-called Islamic State when she was home secretary.
The news came as Lord Blunkett, the former Labour home secretary, suggested Mrs May stopped monitoring the Guantanamo detainees when she was home secretary.
Jamal al-Harith, a Muslim convert born Ronald Fiddler who detonated a car bomb at an Iraqi army base near Mosul, was released from the US detention camp in 2004 and successfully claimed £1million compensation after saying British agents knew or were complicit in his mistreatment.
In all, an estimated £20million was paid to 16 British citizens and residents who were held at the camp.
In a statement from Mr Blair’s office, he said: “It is correct that Jamal al-Harith was released from Guantanamo Bay at the request of the British Government in 2004.”
He added: “He was not paid compensation by my Government. The compensation was agreed in 2010 by the Conservative Government.”
Number 10 declined to comment on the compensation payments, whether they were necessary, whether they would be reviewed or why Mrs May had agreed with them, or tried to stop them.
A spokesman also refused to say why Mrs May as Home Secretary had allowed al-Harith to travel back to Syria in 2014.
Mrs May’s deputy official spokesman said to each question: “It is an intelligence matter."
Mr Blair's statement continued: “When his release was announced in very measured terms in 2004, pointing out the risks which remained with Guantanamo detainees, the Conservative MPs reacted by strongly criticising not the released but why it had taken so long.
“The fact is that this was always a very difficult situation where any Government would have to balance proper concern for civil liberties with desire to protect our security, and we were likely to be attacked whatever course we took.
“The reason it did take a long time for their release was precisely the anxiety over their true affiliations.”
Lord Blunkett suggested in a statement that monitoring of the detainees had stopped when Mrs May was home secretary.
He said: "I am not aware as to the length of time such monitoring continued after I left the Home Office at the end of 2004.
"It is clear however that in 2010 under the new coalition Government, when the compensation awards were actually given, continuing contact and awareness of these individuals must have been present.
"What happened between then and 2014 is of course a matter of speculation that can only be answered by the present Government."
Whitehall documents disclosed by the Telegraph in 2011 show that £13.7million was paid in the year to March 2011, an estimated £12million of which went to former detainees.
A note to the accounts says the sum was swelled by “an SIA [Security and Intelligence Agencies] contribution to a payment in respect of legal claims in excess of £250k”.
It is thought that of the £13.7million, around £12million was paid to the Guantánamo Bay suspects that year.