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UK abandons Guantanamo bid
15/07/2003 13:35 - (SA)
London - Britain has abandoned attempts to have British suspects detained by US authorities at Guantanamo Bay repatriated to Britain stand trial, the Guardian newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Senior ministers believed the legal barriers to trial in Britain were insurmountable, the left-liberal newspaper said without naming the sources for its information.
It said the outcome was an embarrassment to Prime Minister Tony Blair who leaves for the United States on Thursday to hold talks with President George Bush and to address a joint session of Congress.
There have been reports in the British media that US officials had considered repatriating two British al-Qaeda suspects earmarked for trial by a US military tribunal, but that discussions had come to nothing because of the lack of an appropriate law under which they could be prosecuted.
An English court could also query why the men had been held for so long without appearing before a court or having access to lawyers of their own choice.
According to the Guardian, a former minister with close military and political contacts in the United States was adamant that he was told in Washington: "We would be happy to send these guys back, but you have no law to prosecute them. We are not going to just let them go."
Last week Blair's office said it was holding discussions with the US over Feroz Abbasi and Moazzam Begg, two British Moslems seized in Afghanistan and Pakistan respectively and held at the high security base in Cuba.
Abbasi and Begg are among six Britons held at the base. They are among the first group who will face a military tribunal, which has the power to impose the death penalty.
Begg, 35, was detained in Pakistan in February 2002 and held in Afghanistan for a year before being taken to the base in Cuba. Abbasi, 22, was arrested in Afghanistan in January 2002.
Blair has come under pressure regarding the men from members of his own Labour Party. More than 200 members of parliament from all parties have signed a motion calling for the men to be given a fair trial.
On Monday, British foreign secretary Jack Straw renewed his call for the suspected British terrorists to be given a fair trial.
"It is not acceptable for them to be tried if they are not given basic principles of human rights and fair trial," he said.
Straw said discussions with the US authorities "about a range of options" were continuing, ranging from trial in Britain through to trial by military commission if it was consistent with the "rules of justice and human rights". - Sapa-DPA
- SAPA
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