- (AFP) -- Britain's Home Secretary David Blunkett is blocking
moves to repatriate British detainees held by the United States in Guantanamo
Bay, fearing he would have to release them soon after their arrival back
home.
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- The United States had offered to send at least some of
the nine Britons held at the US military base in Cuba back to Britain for
trial, but a decision on their future was being delayed because government
ministers here were split over the proposal, The Sunday Times said.
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- The prospects of an early resolution had been clouded
after Blunkett warned that any proceedings in British civilian courts would
probably end with acquittals through lack of admissible evidence, the paper
reported.
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- It added British intelligence chiefs were concerned that
any agreement to return the men could result in potentially dangerous al-Qaeda
supporters being allowed to go free at a time when the authorities are
nervous amid fears of a terrorist attack in Britain.
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- More than 660 people from about 40 countries picked up
during the US "war on terror" are being held at Guantanamo. The
United States does not consider them prisoners of war and has held them
indefinitely without setting trial dates.
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- The Sunday Times said the US had agreed to allow British
detainees not sent home to be represented by British civilian lawyers.
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- Washington had also privately indicated that it does
not intend to seek the death penalty for any of the British detainees,
the paper reported.
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- But official sources told The Sunday Times that several
British concerns had not been resolved about the fairness of US military
tribunals which some prisoners could face.
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- Such detainees would still be denied the right to see
all the evidence against them and their ability to question witnesses would
be restricted, according to The Sunday Times.
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- However, some British ministers argued that "if
the alternative is putting back on the streets people who have been trained
by al-Qaeda, we should go for the form of US trial that is on offer,"
one unnamed official told The Sunday Times.
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- A Home Office source added: "The home secretary
wants the men to be treated fairly but he doesn't want them in Britain
without there being a tight legal hold on them."
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