Guantanamo row overshadows Blair’s US trip
The Prime Minister is under pressure to secure the repatriation of the two British men facing military trials in Guantanamo Bay, ahead of his visit to Washington.
Feroz Abbasi and Moazzam Begg are both being held by the US along with over 600 other men who are suspected to have been members of the Taleban regime in Afghanistan or the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
The men have not been charged with any crime, and have been detained indefinitely at the US naval base in Cuba.
It was announced last week that the two Britons are among six men to be tried by a military tribunal, despite not having access to independent legal counsel. If found guilty they could face the death penalty.
The Government has been in talks with the US defence department, but earlier this week it was suggested that the men would not be returned to Britain because there was no guarantee that they would face a trial in this country.
The fact that the men were interrogated without a lawyer being present, and the sensitive nature of some of the intelligence-related evidence, could make it difficult for the Crown Prosecution Service to launch a case.
Amnesty International has called for all the prisoners to be charged and given a fair trial or released immediately.
AI’s campaigns director Stephen Bowen commented: “Tony Blair has stood by and watched as a foreign power arbitrarily imprisoned British citizens in inhumane conditions.”
“The strongest possible pressure must be put on President Bush to bring the shameful situation at Guantanamo Bay to an end.”
The organisation, along with other human rights campaigners, has claimed that the tribunals will not comply with international legal standards and are inherently unfair.
There are also concerns that the men will be coerced into pleading guilty in return for avoiding the death penalty.
Critics have suggested that the “special relationship” between the US and the UK is rather one-sided, since the Government has seemed unable to exert pressure on the Bush administration to release the men, despite continued British support for the US-led war on terrorism.
The best that Mr. Blair can hope to achieve, according to some commentators, is for Mr. Abbasi and Mr. Begg to receive a criminal trial in a US court, as was granted to the so-called ‘American Taleban’ John Walker Lindh.
