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AFP. 18 January 2002. Row over reported British interrogation of Cuba prisoners. LONDON -- Britain Saturday faced a human rights row over reports that it had sent intelligence agents to a US military base in Cuba to interrogate British prisoners among suspected al-Qaeda fighters held there. Newspapers reported that agents from MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence service, had flown out with diplomatic staff to Guantanamo Bay. MI5's role is to interrogate three Britons held there among 110 suspected al-Qaeda prisoners in order to gain information about possible future terrorist attacks in Britain and elsewhere, papers said. The Foreign Office said a team of British officials were visiting the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, but would not confirm that intelligence officers were among them. A spokesman told AFP: "We have a standard policy not to comment on any operations on intelligence matters." Earlier the Foreign Office said: "They (the officials) are going about their task that has been set for them, identifying those who claim to be British citizens and reporting on the welfare of those who claim to be British citizens and assisting the US authorities with legal inquiries into the terrorist atrocities." The United States earlier this week allowed British diplomats access to Britons held among the detainees, whose cramped and spartan conditions have caused much criticism among human rights groups. The US says the prisoners are illegal combatants, not prisoners of war, and thus do not have rights under the Geneva Convention of 1949, which set out the laws of war. The prisoners are being held at a temporary outdoor detention facility called "Camp X-Ray" where each has a separate cell with a concrete floor, wooden roof and chain-link walls. The MI5 agents were questioning the British Muslims on how they were recruited and their links with other alleged terrorists in an attempt to gain details of terror networks in Britain, according to the Independent daily. But members of parliament and human rights campaigners have complained the interrogation could have breached the suspects' human rights and that the divide between providing diplomatic assistance and interrogation had become worryingly blurred. A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair has refused to say how many British officials had travelled to the Cuban camp. The British team will report to the government, but their findings will be kept secret, according to the Daily Mail. Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman for Britain's opposition Liberal Democrats, told the Independent: "There needs to be much more clarification about the role and function of these 'officials.'" "No matter how heinous the accusation, the British government has a duty to its citizens to ensure their legitimate human rights are neither diluted nor ignored." Tam Dalyell, a senior member of the ruling Labour Party, said he would challenge ministers on the subject. He told the Independent: "There is a tremendous difference between investigation on the one hand and the consular role on the other." "We are showing Western justice to the world. The government should play it by the book." "The impression it presents is that we are not altogether much superior to the Taliban." The left-leaning Guardian daily said that the MI5 team would stay on at the Cuba base in anticipation of the arrival there of about 20 captured fighters being held in Afghanistan and Pakistan who are also thought to be British. The Financial Times said that the questioning in Cuba was part of a collaboration between the US and British intelligence agencies since September 11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
