LONDON — A British suicide bomber who blew himself up in Iraq was identified as a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, prompting questions about how his case was handled after lawmakers and media lobbied for his release.

Jamal al-Harith is said to have detonated a bomb this week at an army base near Mosul.

The Islamic State identified the 50-year-old bomber as Abu Zakariya al-Britani, a Muslim convert from Manchester. He was born Ronald Fiddler and was known more widely in Britain as Jamal al-Harith.

In March 2004, after a massive campaign by politicians and the media, Harith was released from the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay along with four others who had been held for two years without trial.

He received a reported 1 million pounds in compensation after the British government settled a lawsuit alleging that British agents were complicit in his torture. The payout was arranged in 2010, when the Conservative Party’s David Cameron was prime minister.

Born in Manchester, Harith converted to Islam. Shortly after 9/11, he was kidnapped when crossing the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and a few months later was handed over to the Americans and transferred to Guantanamo.