The United States returned five Saudi terror suspects to Saudi Arabia from Cuba's Guantanamo Bay last year as part of a secret three-way deal intended to satisfy its major allies in the Iraqi war, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

Under the deal among the United States, Britain and Saudi Arabia, these suspects were transferred to the Saudi capital of Riyadh in May last years, the report said.

And the Saudi sides three months later released five Britons and two others who had been convicted of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia, some US and British officials were quoted by the report.

But British diplomats said the men had been tortured by Saudi security police officers into confessing falsely, the report said.

The transfer of the Saudis from Guantanamo was initially objected by the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department out of concerns that the detainees were too dangerous to be sent back and whether the Saudi government would fulfill the promise to keep them imprisoned, the report said.

The United States, along with its staunchest ally Britain, launched the Iraq war in March last year amid worldwide condemnation.