Some but not all of the Uighurs seeking a new life in Bermuda were taught to break down a Kalashnikov in Afghanistan but none have any links with al Qaeda, their lawyer insisted yesterday.

Susan Baker Manning said the fact that some of her clients received rifle training after arriving in Afghanistan from their homes in Western China in 2001 was "utterly unremarkable".

She told The Royal Gazette: "It's not that nobody ever showed them how to break down a Kalashnikov. That happened, [though] not every single one of them.

"But let's get some perspective here. There are more Kalashnikovs in Afghanistan than adult men. It would be impossible to find a village [in Afghanistan] that doesn't have a Kalashnikov in it. It's a lawless state."

The four men who arrived here on Wednesday were among 17 Uighurs who made their way from western China to Afghanistan in 2001 and settled in a camp with other Muslims from their homeland opposed to the Chinese government.

They left Afghanistan after US bombings began there and were apprehended in Pakistan before being handed over to the States, according to the US Department of Justice,

Ms Manning said the US Government's entire case against the Uighurs — who were held at Guantánamo Bay for seven years and finally cleared twice of being "enemy combatants" — was based on the rifle training they received.

"There is nothing to it," she said. "It doesn't suggest in the least that they are dangerous. I think we have to get some perspective. What they wanted to do was resist the Chinese Government."

Unclassified official papers containing transcripts of interviews the men gave while in US custody, including admissions about rifle training, have been published on the New York Times' website.

Ms Manning said the contents should be noted with caution, since the documents contained mistranslations.

"These men are not terrorists. They were never terrorists. They never contemplated taking up arms against anybody, not the US, not the Chinese, not anybody. They have been exonerated again and again.

"There is some hysteria which in [the US] comes from our right wing. It's just hysteria. It's just the stigma of Guantánamo. It's not anything they have actually done.

"If they'd been in a different prison for seven long years... none of this would be happening. It's simply the stigma of Guantánamo."

Ms Manning said though the men may have gone to the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan they were never in an al Qaeda training camp. "That's critical," she said. "The US Government never even accused them of that. The place where they were, there were no Taliban, no Arabs."

The four men have been referred to by a series of different names in official statements and press reports.

Ms Manning said it was very common for Muslims to go by nicknames and that all four had done so during their time in the detention camp. She said they had been advised to have new IDs and papers issued in the names they were given at birth.