MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti) - A London court on Wednesday ruled to release former Guantanamo inmate Moazzam Begg from a high security prison in the capital's southeast after the prosecution said it did not have evidence to support terrorism charges, the UK's Guardian newspaper reported.
"Our criminal justice system – quite rightly – demands a very high standard of proof," the paper cited Marcus Beale, chief constable of the West Midlands Police, as saying in defense of the verdict.
Five days before the trial was due to begin, a representative of the prosecution said it had no evidence to prove the seven charges against the detainee. He added that certain "relevant material" had come to light, which made the prosecution reconsider the case and come to a conclusion that it had no "realistic prospect of conviction," according to The Guardian.
Moazzam Begg, a 45-year-old from Birmingham, had been locked up for months after making a trip to war-torn Syria where he allegedly visited a terrorist training camp between 9 October 2012 and 9 April 2013. Prosecutors also said they had found extremism-related documents on his laptop.
In 2002, Moazzam Begg was arrested in Pakistan by the United States and spent three years first at US Bagram prison near Afghanistan's capital Kabul and then at the much-criticized Guantanamo Bay Prison in Cuba. No formal charges followed.
