March 9, 2004-Five British men detained by the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for more than two years have left for home, the Pentagon said.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Barbara Burfeind, a Pentagon spokeswoman, told Reuters the five left Cuba under guard on a British aircraft Tuesday.

They are expected to arrive at a military air base near London Tuesday night, and are expected to be questioned by anti-terrorism police at a high security police station in London.

Robert Lizar, a lawyer for one of the five men, said a plane carrying the five left Cuba at about 1200 GMT, The Associated Press reported.

UK Home Secretary David Blunkett announced the men's imminent departure Monday night in response to a question at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Another four British terror suspects remain in U.S. military custody.

The release comes as the families of European detainees at the controversial U.S. prison camp traveled to Washington to press for greater justice for their relatives.

They were joined by former Beirut hostage Terry Waite, who said the detention without trial of those at Guantanamo Bay was similar to his own situation.

Waite was the special envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury when he headed to Lebanon in 1987 to win freedom for several hostages.

He was kidnapped by terrorists and spent four years in solitary confinement until his release in 1991.

"We are here today because we believe that there has been a major breach of human rights," Waite told reporters Monday.

"Perhaps it was done with good intention, but the consequences will be disastrous -- disastrous for the United States and for all our freedoms." (Full story)

About 640 people are being detained at Guantanamo Bay, while about 100 have been released or transferred to the custody of their home nation.

Of those that remain, many have been held without trial for more than two years -- a situation which has drawn international criticism of the United States from human rights organizations and legal groups.

The group Human Rights Watch also has accused the U.S. military of using excessive force during arrests of suspected Islamic militants in Afghanistan, alleging it resulted in avoidable civilian deaths. (Full story)

The United States has rejected the group's criticism.

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide this year whether the detainees at the base come under the jurisdiction of the U.S. civil legal system.

The outcome is unlikely to favor the detainees, if history is anything to go by.

In a 1993 case involving Haitians held at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 8-1 that the base was out of the court's reach.

"The Supreme Court has always drawn a distinction at the water's edge, that our Constitution, our laws really don't travel well. When you get to that water's edge, much our laws stop," law professor Jonathan Turley told CNN.

The fate of the five Britons being released is unclear.

The five are: Ruhal Ahmed, 23, Asif Iqbal, 20, and Shafiq Rasul, all from Tipton, West Midlands; Tarek Dergoul, 24, from east London; and Jamal al Harith, also known as Jamal Udeen, 35, from Manchester, the UK Press Association reported.

British officials say it will be up to prosecutors to decide whether they will face charges at home.

"When they return they will, of course, go through the normal process of being interviewed by the (police) counterterrorism branch in London," Blunkett said, in remarks aired by the BBC.

"And the material that has been provided will be evaluated."

But legal experts believe it unlikely the five will face trial in the UK, because any information gleaned from the men during interrogation would be inadmissible since they had no access to lawyers, The Associated Press reported.

Lawyers also said it was questionable whether British courts have jurisdiction over alleged criminal acts in Afghanistan unless acts of terrorism or treason could be proven.

The four Britons remaining at Guantanamo Bay are Feroz Abbasi, 23, from Croydon, south London; Moazzam Begg, 36, from Sparkhill, Birmingham; Martin Mubanga, 29, from London; and Richard Belmar, 23, from London, PA reported.

They face the prospect of U.S. military tribunals after Blunkett said evidence against them would be "best used in the U.S. not in Britain."

Five British men detained by the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for more than two years have left for home, the Pentagon said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/03/09/gitmo.uk/index.html