Moazzam Begg (Urdu: مُعَظّم بیگ; born 5 July 1968 in Sparkhill, Birmingham) is a British Pakistani who was held in extrajudicial detention by the US government in the Bagram Theater Internment Facility and the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, in Cuba, for nearly three years.

[5] Begg acknowledged having spent time at two non-al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in the early 1990s, as well as providing some financial support to fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya, but denies that he was ever involved in terrorism.

[28] His friend and fellow "Lynx Gang" member Syed Murad Meah Butt was also charged, pleaded guilty, and served 18 months in jail.

[28] A search of his home by anti-terrorist police, at the time of the 1994 arrest, reportedly found night vision goggles, a flak jacket, and "extremist Islamic literature".

Begg insisted that the goggles and flak jacket were from his charity work in Bosnia and Chechnya and denied owning any "extremist Islamic literature"[31] and noted the items seized were identical to those that many aid workers operating in conflict zones carry.

[11] An American counterterrorism official claimed that the CIA and MI5 suspected Begg had worked with Khalil Deek, who also lived in Peshawar at that time, to create a CD-ROM terrorist manual.

[32] In February 2000, police and MI5 officers investigating Islamic terrorism raided the bookshop, took away books, files and computers, questioned staff and arrested Begg under British anti-terrorism laws.

In his book Enemy Combatant, Begg recalls telling two US agents who visited him in Guantanamo Bay that: I wanted to live in an Islamic state–one that was free from the corruption and despotism of the rest of the Muslim world....

[11] The Allied attack on Afghanistan began in October 2001, and, following the fall of the Taliban, a US Justice Department dossier on Begg alleges that he joined their retreat to the Tora Bora mountains.

He says that while there he was hog-tied, kicked, punched, left in a room with a bag put over his head (even though he suffered from asthma), sworn at, denied access to a lawyer, and threatened with electric shocks, having his fingers broken, sexual abuse, and, with extraordinary rendition to Egypt or Syria if he did not sign confessions.

[51][43] On 9 October 2003, a memo summarising a meeting between General Geoffrey Miller and his staff and Vincent Cassard of the International Committee of the Red Cross said that camp authorities did not permit them to have access to Begg, due to "military necessity".

[53][54][55] Begg's American lawyer, Gitanjali Gutierrez of the Center for Constitutional Rights, received a handwritten letter from him, dated 12 July 2004, addressed to the US Forces Administration at Guantanamo Bay.

The New York Times and CNN reported that Bush had released Begg as a favour to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was being harshly criticised in the UK for his support of the Iraq war.

[10] On 25 January 2005, Begg and the three other British detainees, Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga and Richard Belmar, were flown to RAF Northolt in west London.

[11] Whitman quoted from a single-spaced eight-page confession that Begg had signed while incarcerated in Bagram: "I was armed and prepared to fight alongside the Taliban and al-Qaeda against the U.S. and others, and eventually retreated to Tora Bora to flee from U.S. forces when our front lines collapsed".

[94] Begg claimed that the real reason for the confiscation was his campaign to prove UK and US complicity in the use of torture and rendition of suspects, and that he had been stopped for questioning almost every time he had travelled, even when returning from an official speaking invitation at the European Parliament.

[93] In January 2022, Begg announced he was taking legal action for a judicial review of the British Home Secretary's rejection of his application for a passport, which had been confiscated in 2013.

"[98] He has worked as outreach director for the charitable organisation and advocacy group CAGE, (formerly 'Cageprisoners') to represent those detainees still held at Guantanamo, as well as to help those who have been released to get services and integrate into society.

[10][99] In December 2005, Begg made a video appeal to the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, the Iraqi kidnappers of four Western peace workers, asking for their release.

[98] Speaking of Guantánamo, Begg said that recently released detainees had told him that conditions had improved slightly after Obama came to power, but none believed it would close: "It is like a town now and every thing around it has continued to expand.

[98] Following the 2014 Peshawar school massacre, in which over 130 pupils and teachers were killed by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, Begg wrote a comment on Facebook which was reported in his home town's main newspaper, the Birmingham Post.

[110][111][112][113] He has toured as a speaker about his time in detention facilities, calling the British response to terrorism racist, and disproportionate to anti-terror measures and legislation during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Raban criticised some "notably talentless" dialogue writing, "Perhaps Begg really did strike up a warm relationship with soldier Jennifer … but only in bad fiction do people speak this way".

[128] In April 2008, Begg and seven other former Guantanamo detainees filed lawsuits in Britain's High Court accusing the British Attorney General, Home and Foreign Secretaries, MI5 and MI6, of unlawful acts, negligence and complicity in their abduction, treatment and interrogation.

[129] At a 2009 court hearing, Government lawyers denied the charges, but stated that MI5 had interviewed some detainees and in some instances supplied questions that they wished prisoners to be asked.

[134] In 2009, Begg was an advisor, and was due to appear as himself, for the Scottish software company T-Enterprise in the development of a video game entitled Rendition: Guantanamo, for Microsoft's Xbox 360.

[137] Conservative pundits such as The Weekly Standard's Tom Joscelyn and radio host Rush Limbaugh reacted negatively to the game and Begg's involvement.

[138] Ultimately, T-Enterprise did not complete the game due to US press coverage, which it described as "inaccurate and ill informed speculation ... many conclusions were reached that have absolutely no foundation whatsoever".

[139] In an open letter to Amnesty's leadership, she said: "To be appearing on platforms with Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender, is a gross error of judgment".

[145][144] On 29 January 2021 the New York Review of Books published an open letter from Begg, and six other Guantanamo detainees, to newly inaugurated American President Biden, appealing to him to close the detention camp.