last updated: Tuesday 24 February 2009, 09:20am

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Guantanamo inmate enoying freedom

Binyam Mohamed

Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Binyam Mohamed is enjoying his first full day of freedom after being held at the US jail for four years.

The British resident had an emotional reunion with his sister as he was released from RAF Northolt shortly before 6pm on Tuesday.

He had arrived there five hours earlier and was detained under border control rules which are part of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Mr Mohamed's lawyer Clive Stafford Smith said he had just seen his sister for the first time in seven years.

Mr Stafford Smith said Mr Mohamed was 'extremely grateful' to be allowed into Britain, adding: 'He's not angry, he's sad. He's lost seven years of his life.'

Mr Mohamed, 30, had been held at the controversial US military detention centre in Cuba since September 2004.

US officials said Mohamed was part of a conspiracy to detonate a dirty bomb on American soil, but all charges against him were eventually dismissed.

He alleges he was tortured into falsely confessing to terrorist activities and claims MI5 officers were complicit in his abuse.

In a statement, Ethiopian-born Mr Mohamed said: 'For myself, the very worst moment came when I realised in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence.'

He said: 'I have been through an experience that I never thought to encounter in my darkest nightmares.

'It is still difficult for me to believe that I was abducted, hauled from one country to the next, and tortured in medieval ways - all orchestrated by the United States government.

'My own despair was greatest when I thought that everyone had abandoned me. I have a duty to make sure that nobody else is forgotten.'

Speaking about his alleged torture in Morocco, Mr Mohamed said: 'I had met with British intelligence in Pakistan. I had been open with them. Yet the very people who I had hoped would come to my rescue, I later realised, had allied themselves with my abusers.

'I am not asking for vengeance, only that the truth should be made known so that nobody in the future should have to endure what I have endured.'

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that the 'security of the country will be protected' but declined to say whether Mr Mohamed would face any restrictions on his liberty.

© Independent Television News Limited 2009. All rights reserved.