EU lawmakers seek fair trial for Guantanamo inmates

11.45am

BRUSSELS - Amzat Begg's voice broke as he told European Union lawmakers on Tuesday about the detention of his 35-year-old son at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay.

"I know for sure Moazzam has not done anything wrong," he said. "It's a gross violation of human rights which has been committed by America."

Moazzam Begg has been held at the United States naval base in Cuba for nearly two years. He was detained in Pakistan following the US-led war in Afghanistan.

A cross-party group of European Parliament members launched a campaign on Tuesday to win a jury trial or freedom for 20 EU citizens being held at Camp Delta, including Begg, a Briton.

Last July, US authorities put him on a list of six suspects -- including a second British citizen Feroz Abbasi -- to go on trial before a military tribunal facing a possible death sentence. No start date has been set.

The United States says it has evidence the six attended "terrorist" training camps and may have been involved in financing Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, blamed by Washington for the September 11, 2001 hijacked airliner attacks.

After personal intervention by British Prime Minister Tony Blair with US President George W. Bush, the White House said on July 18 it had suspended proceedings against the two Britons, but their fate remains uncertain.

There are nine British nationals, three British residents who do not hold a UK passport and six French citizens among the 680 prisoners from 42 countries being held at Camp Delta.

"I want Tony Blair not to be just Bush's poodle but to use his influence to get justice for British citizens," British Liberal MP Sarah Ludford told reporters.

She is calling for the EU to make its support of a broader United Nations mandate in Iraq conditional on the United States giving European Camp Delta prisoners a fair trial.

Amzat Begg contrasted the treatment of American al Qaeda suspect John Walker Lindh, who was tried in a US civilian court, with the open-ended detention of his son in a legal no-man's-land.

"John Walker was found shooting countrymen with gun in hand but was brought straight away to America," said Begg. "My son was in Pakistan doing nothing wrong."

- REUTERS