London – An Islamic State suicide bomber from Britain who blew himself up in an attack on Iraqi forces this week had been given compensation for his detention in the Guantanamo Bay military prison, Western security sources said on Wednesday.
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Islamic State militants said Abu-Zakariya al-Britani, a British citizen who was originally known as Ronald Fiddler and then cast himself as Jamal Udeen al-Harith, detonated a car bomb at an Iraqi army base southwest of Mosul this week.
The militants also published a photograph of the smiling bomber surrounded by wires in the seat of what appeared to be the car in which he blew himself up.
The Islamic State statements could not be independently verified by Reuters but three Western security sources said it was highly likely that Britani was the bomber and now dead.
Britain made a civil damages settlement with British former Guantanamo Bay inmates in 2010 but did not disclose the size of the payouts, citing confidentiality agreements, then-Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke told parliament at the time.
The Daily Mail reported that Britani had been awarded $1.25 million by the British government after claiming British agents knew or were complicit in his alleged mistreatment.
Originally from the northern English city of Manchester, he converted to Islam in his 20s. He was detained in Afghanistan by U.S. special forces and taken to Guantanamo in 2002.
He was released in 2004 after the government of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair lobbied for his release. He later traveled to Syria to fight with Islamic State.
Britain’s foreign ministry declined to comment on the death of Britani but said it had advised for some time against all travel to Syria and large parts of Iraq.
Could there be a possibility that he was radicalised after leaving Gitmo? my intention is not to throw in a good word for this evil monster,
Bring torture back to gitmo and never shut that place down. These guys are worse than animals ( where tzar bali chaim exists) and surely don’t deserve the normal treatment afforded to them by the geneva convention.
I doubt he was originally from Manchester, more like Jamaica or Nigeria where his parents were part of the reason why the so called British empire sunset set.
The “official” story was that he was originally found in an Al-Qaeda jail and released by the U.S. forces who found him, but some some U.S. investigators found his story line suspicious and he was sent to gitmo. But I have to wonder if, when he saw the U.S. was coming, he had jailed himself so as to appear to be a victim.