Guantanamo Brit trials suspended
The USA is postponing the trial of two British terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, the UK government has said.
According to the Prime Minister’s official spokesman, the White House will announce details of the postponement in a statement later today.
British citizens, Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi, are currently facing a US military tribunal at the secure military base in Cuba. Concerns that they would not receive a fair trial have led to recent calls for Tony Blair to use his influence to bring them home.
Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are being held as illegal combatants as a result of the conflict in Afghanistan following Al Quaeda attacks on the USA. Human rights groups have raised concerns about the conditions in which they are being held, and have called for the USA to recognise them as prisoners of war.
The delay indicates that the Prime Minister has used his influence during his recent visit the USA as the USA showed no signs of halting the trials before, though as yet it is not clear what the discussions may involve.
The USA may be unwilling to return the two men to the UK because the constitution means that the Government cannot promise that they would face prosecution. Other options may involve trying the two men in American courts, or even in a neutral jurisdiction such as that used for the Lockerbie bombing trial.
The cases of Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi were brought back to prominence after more than a year of incarceration without trial after the USA military started proceedings by which they might have been sentenced to death.
The leader of the Liberal Democrats gave a cautious welcome to news of the suspensions.
‘Clearly it is welcome that the immediate proceedings are going to be suspended’, Charles Kennedy remarked.
‘Suspended, however, does not in fact mean that the proceedings are going to be abandoned or changed away from the basis of the American-style military tribunal which has been discussed’.
He added: ‘I think we will have to continue pressing the Prime Minister, and he will have to continue pressing the American administration to make sure that they are tried in civilian federal courts there or extradited back to Britain to be tried under terrorism provisions’.
And a solicitor for one of the British men detained at Guantanamo Bay expressed deep disappointment at the decision to suspend the trial of her client.
Speaking on BBC News 24 this afternoon, Louise Christian claimed that after more than 18 months detained in Cuba the British government ‘still hasn’t secured anything at all for its citizens’.
‘Yesterday the Pakistani government managed to get 18 of its citizens released from Guantanamo with no proceedings at all in their own country simply by virtue of making diplomatic protests which the British government has noticeably failed to do’.
‘We want these people brought home – they have been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, kept in wire mesh cages, not allowed exercise and not being told what is going to happen to them for 18 months’.
The prisoners had been kept in conditions ‘what I consider to amount to torture’, Ms Christian maintained, adding: ‘There is considerable fear that Ferroz Abassi has already become mentally ill’.
