Verily, Allâh enjoins Justice and Correctness, and helping kith and kin and forbids lewd acts and all kinds of evil deed and oppression. He admonishes you so that you may take heed. (An-Nahl: 90)

The abuse goes on
A lawyer for two of the freed Guantanamo detainees attacks the continuing violation of human rights
 

It is cause for joy that our clients, Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal, and three other British citizens are coming home after two years in Guantanamo Bay. The British Attorney General has placed principle above political expediency in his criticism of the military tribunals. When he said that the commissions do 'not provide the type of process which we would afford British nationals', he was guilty only of understatement. After all, Donald Rumsfeld picks the judges, the prosecutors, the military defence lawyers and the charges. But at least Lord Goldsmith had the guts to be critical of President Bush in his hour of excess. Here the congratulations must cease. Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal are being released because they are the two British plaintiffs in our case before the US Supreme Court, which is slated to issue an opinion in late June. The Bush camp fears the Guantanamo procedures may be condemned as illegal, which would be a painful political blow just before his coronation as Republican presidential candidate. It was obvious in December that the Bush Administration would work hard to release the 16 plaintiffs to our suit, or provide them with lawyers so that an argument could be made that they now had 'due process'. The irony of this is that Bush's lawyers have argued that no court should have jurisdiction over Guantanamo Bay. In effect, the 680 foreigners held there should not be considered human, since they have no enforceable human rights. Now that the court has agreed to consider whether it should assert jurisdiction, the Bush Administration wants to deny the court a role by cherry-picking the clients off the Guantanamo tree.

Meanwhile, a high-level delegation is visiting Washington on behalf of 12 Kuwaiti plaintiffs in mid March. Those prisoners' families have been led to believe they will hear good news. Bush's lawyers will then argue that all 16 Supreme Court plaintiffs have received favoured treatment, a random act among the 680 held in Cuba.

This is the politics of cynicism. So, rather than congratulating anyone for securing the release of five innocent citizens two years too late, we should call for an inquiry on why it took so long and look more closely at the prisoners who remain. The Government is playing along with the Bush charade. Surely it should expect condemnation, not praise.

Only last week, Rumsfeld told the world that the men in Guantanamo were 'enemy combatants and terrorists who are being detained for acts of war against our country'. It proved indigestible to Jack Straw, though he still implied on Thursday that the British had been removed from the al-Qaeda 'stronghold in Afghanistan'.

I don't like to criticise Mr Straw, because he has tried to do the right thing for some of my clients. But we must ask why he parrots American propaganda. How can he imply our nationals were captured on the Afghan battlefields? Truth is not an elastic technicality and the words of the powerful must serve a moral purpose. Before a government official tars our citizens as terrorist criminals, he should be sure the charge is true.

In fact, it can be proved that few, if any, of the British were involved in the Afghan conflict. Martin Mubanga is one of four apparently condemned to remain indefinitely in Guantanamo. The US pretends he was captured in Afghanistan. He was seized in Zambia. Another British citizen in Cuba, Richard Belmar, was arrested by the Pakistani authorities for overstaying his visa.

And why is Moazzem Begg to remain in Cuba? We know that he was not in Afghanistan but abducted from Pakistan and bundled into the boot of a car in front of his wife. Somehow, his mobile phone worked and he called his panicked father in England. After a year in a windowless cell in Kandahar, he was shackled and taken to Guantanamo.

Mr. Straw tells us that 'valuable information' results from Rumsfeld's Guantanamo interrogations. Interrogation experts tell us that a confession taken after two years of solitary confinement, accompanied by threats of the death penalty, is no more valid than the Salem witch's description of her meetings with the Devil, exacted while the pyre was scorching her feet. Believe such admissions if you will, but don't sign me up to a seventeenth-century world that relies on coerced confessions.

Begg cracked months ago and fabricated the implausible plot that he was going to drop anthrax on Westminster from a military drone aircraft fired from Suffolk. Now Mr Straw tells us that his case raises a 'range of security issues'. He should be honest and say that the case provokes serious human rights concerns.

And what about Feroz Abbasi? He remains in a tiny cell, held in isolation away from other prisoners. Every day, his mother must pray that he survives, her fears exacerbated by the news that he tried to kill himself.

He is depressed that he might be held alone forever. Can you blame him? Rumsfeld said only last week that 'forever' is the sentence Abbasi might have to serve, without the luxury of a charge or a trial. The promise of protection on his British passport has been a hollow myth.

The other detainees in Guantanamo Bay without British passports are human beings, too, and have human rights, all American claims to the contrary notwithstanding.

The time for celebration is yet to come.

Clive Stafford-Smith
Sunday February 22, 2004
The Observer