UK gives up fight for Guantanamo captives

[jjones]

Andy, I'm going to have to beg off for further discussion at the moment. Unfortunately, I have work and a meeting coming up shortly. In any case, I'm out of my depth in discussing the legalities of what's going on in regards to these two men in Gitmo. I simply have no background with these type of issues and haven't the time to really pursue it.

For the time being, I see them as mercenaries and the US is justified in holding them and bringing them to trial in a military tribunal. Perhaps I'm wrong but I haven't seen sufficient reasoning to view it otherwise.

 

[Czar]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,999740,00.html

Camp Delta rules 'bar' civilian lawyers

Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday July 17, 2003
The Guardian

The guidelines established by the US authorities in Guantanamo Bay may make it impossible for the Britons facing military tribunals to get civilian lawyers without direct British government intervention, it emerged yesterday.
The tribunal rules for civilian legal counsel, a copy of which has been seen by the Guardian, put up significant obstacles to any lawyer offering representation.

He or she would have to pay all expenses, including the cost of security clearance, and flights to the US-run enclave on the eastern tip of Cuba. Once there, lawyers would not be allowed to leave without the permission of a senior officer.

The guidelines require the lawyer to agree that: "Once proceedings have begun, I will not travel from the site of the proceedings without the approval of the appointing authority of the presiding officer."

The lawyers, who have to be US citizens, could not "discuss, transmit, communicate or otherwise share documents or information specific to the case with anyone except as is necessary to represent [their] client before a military commission."

Breaking such rules, for example by complaining to the press, could lead to detention on the island.

"What lawyer, who has a real practice, would run the risk of going there?" said Clive Stafford Smith, a British-born lawyer practising in the US. He has left his practice to offer his services to two British inmates, Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi, among the six inmates selected to face the first tribunal.

He said any civilian bar association could impose sanctions on a lawyer who took part in a process in which conversations between a lawyer and an inmate are taped by the authorities, and in which the prosecution could present coerced statements and unsworn testimony as evidence.

The Pentagon did not return calls seeking comment yesterday