A WEST Dorset resident is calling for people to welcome innocent Guantanamo Bay prisoners into their homes.

Katharine Watson’s plea follows international human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith’s talk in a Bridport church.

At the meeting Mr Stafford Smith, who is the founder the Reprieve organisation which uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, talked about the plight of Guantanamo prisoners who have been declared innocent but have nowhere to go.

Katharine, of South Street, Bridport, is keen to welcome a former prisoner into her home – first as a free holiday and then as something more permanent.

She said: “Absolutely, if I can.

“My idea is to invite prisoners of torture to come for a holiday and enjoy the sun, sea and my garden in peace.

“Then we could organise some way for people to be found places to live.”

She added: “It’s an absolutely extraordinary situation because there’s literally nowhere for these people to go.

“Barack Obama has said he wants to shut down Guantanamo but he can’t because it’s got all these people in it.

“I just think we should take one or two, not a great hoard.”

Katharine said at the talk in Bridport’s St Mary’s Church, Mr Stafford Smith told some ‘amazing stories’ and ‘one of the most striking’ was about a 14-year-old Mohammed el Gharani.

She said: “Mohammed was picked up by police and interrogated but his interpreter spoke a different dialect of Arabic and when they asked him about money – ‘zalata’ – he thought they were saying salad.

“He told them he hadn’t brought any into the country and when they started slapping him around he said he could get it anywhere.

“They thought he was an al-Qaeda financier and locked him up.”

Mr Stafford Smith, who lives in Symondsbury, has spent 25 years working on behalf of defendants facing the death penalty in the United States of America.

He commended Katharine’s attitude and said: “My message to the people of West Dorset is the same as to the rest of the world.

“You’re only as good as the principles you stand up for.”

He said Mohammed el Gharani was wrongfully held for seven years in a cell ‘the size of a toilet room’.

Mr Stafford Smith said Reprieve represented 63 Guantanamo prisoners who had been declared innocent but could not return to their home countries.

He said many – such as Mohammed – ended up in Guantanamo after being seized by Pakistani bounty hunters and sold to the Americans.

Mr Stafford Smith said he would happily welcome Mohammed into his home as he had other Guantanamo prisoners in the past.

He added: “The over-arching message is standing up for human rights is actually the most powerful anti- terrorism tool we have in our armoury.

“It’s much more powerful than going to war.”

To find out more about Reprieve call 0207 353 4640 or email Mr Stafford Smith at Css@mac.com