3-way trade of detainees made

LONDON -- U.S. officials agreed to return five terrorism suspects to Saudi Arabia from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last year as part of a secret three-way deal intended to satisfy important allies in the invasion, according to senior U.S. and British officials.

Under the arrangement, Saudi officials later released five Britons and two others who had been convicted of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia, the officials said. British diplomats said they believed that the men had been tortured by Saudi security police officers into confessing falsely.

Officials involved in the deliberations said the transfer of the Saudis from Guantanamo initially met with objections from officials at the Pentagon, the CIA and the Justice Department. Those officials questioned whether some detainees were too dangerous to send back and whether the United States could trust Saudi promises to keep the men imprisoned.

"To get people to take a chance on detainees who posed a threat was a new endeavor, so everyone moved cautiously," said one senior U.S. official who supported the releases.

The Saudi prisoners were transferred to Riyadh, the capital, in May 2003. The five Britons and two others were freed three months later, in August.

The releases were public-relations coups for the Saudi and British governments, which had been facing domestic criticism for their roles in the Iraq war.

At the time there was no indication the releases were related. But a U.S. official with knowledge of the negotiations said, "There is a link.

On Friday, a spokesman for the National Security Council denied that the Saudi detainees were transferred in exchange for the British prisoners. "There is no recollection here of any linkage between these two actions," the spokesman, Sean McCormick, said.

Current and former U.S., British and Saudi officials would speak about the trade only on the condition of anonymity.

Saudi officials gave contradictory accounts of the current whereabouts of the five men, saying at first that one or two of them had been released, then denying that any had been freed.

"It didn't seem right," said one military official who was involved in the process. "The green light had not appeared on these guys in the way that it had on others" who were released. "It was clear that there was a quid pro quo to the deal that we were not aware of."

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