Muslim British Resident in Spanish Jail for Two Years Without Charge

The news that four British residents held in Guantánamo Bay could shortly be released has focused attention on the legal status of another British resident being held without charge. Today, the wife of a Muslim British resident in jail in Spain will fly to see her husband as lawyers in Spain and Britain argue for his release and say that he appears to be stranded in a legal limbo.

Mohammed Fahsi, a Moroccan-born British resident, was arrested by Spanish police in January 2006 in an operation against what was alleged to be a recruiting network that was sending suicide bombers to Iraq.

Fahsi, 39, has been held without charge for nearly two years and his case has been taken up by Amnesty International and leading civil rights lawyers Clive Stafford-Smith and Jaume Asens.

Fahsi was granted residency in Britain after marrying a Nottingham primary school teacher, Khadija Podd, who has converted to Islam and with whom he has three children. The family was in the process of moving to England from their home near Barcelona when Fahsi and 19 others were arrested.

Immediately following his arrest, Fahsi claims, he and others were tortured. Last month, Amnesty International asked the Spanish government to investigate the allegations.

"My husband has still not been indicted," said Podd, 40, who is traveling to Spain with her children. "We don't know if there will ever be a trial. The Foreign Office are sympathetic but they cannot get involved because he is not a British citizen, although his three children are."

Podd said that the case against the men was vague and circumstantial. "The main part of the prosecution concerns an Algerian man who my husband and many others knew for the few years that he lived in the community," she said. "My husband and others are accused of indoctrinating him and sending him to Iraq. No one denies knowing this man, everyone denies sending him to Iraq because they did not."

"I think it is horrific," said Stafford-Smith, of the rights group, Reprieve, who has represented many of the Guantánamo Bay detainees. "Spain is remarkable in the sense that things take so long and there is such a bad history of abuse by the authorities."

While Podd said that her husband is being treated well in Mansilla de La Mullas prison near León, she is anxious that his allegations of torture when he was first held should be pursued.

He and others claim that they suffered "cold, sleep deprivation, extreme light, beating, threats, forcing them to denounce their religion, trying to coerce them to lie and incriminate fellow detainees".

Amnesty International has called for the Spanish government to investigate the claims.

"The Spanish authorities must end the state of denial regarding torture and other ill-treatment by police officers," said Rachel Taylor, of Amnesty International when launching its report on Spain last month.

"The lack of political will to address the problem has led to further human rights violations. Until the government takes effective action to investigate allegations and bring to justice all those responsible for torture and other ill-treatment, police officers will remain above the law and the climate of impunity will spread."

The Civil Guard in Spain denied the allegations when initially approached by the Guardian. "Lots of people make complaints like this," it said. "It has become very normal. This is the first line of defence of the criminal."