BRITISH detainees at Guantanamo Bay will be among the first prisoners to face trial by secretive military tribunals, it emerged today.
Moazzam Begg, 35, and another unnamed Briton are on United States President George Bush’s initial list of six to face the controversial courts, according to the respected British pressure group Fair Trials Abroad. Both men are accused of being al-Qai
da terrorists.
Today, Begg’s father Azmat Begg said he was concerned his son, a father of four, would not receive a fair trial.
He has been held at Camp Delta for four months and was previously detained in Afghanistan for a year.
His family have always maintained that he was the victim of mistaken identity. Mr Begg, 63, said: "The trial will be military, the judge will be military and yet my son is a civilian. This is just not right.
My son was never involved in al-Qaida. He is a proper, family man."
A Foreign Office spokesman said he was unable to confirm anything at this stage.
Officials at Guantanamo Bay have begun planning the construction of court facilities and an execution chamber, as the tribunals may consider imposing the death penalty.
Mr Begg, from Sparkbrook, Birmingham, was seized by the CIA in Pakistan in February 2002 and taken to Afghanistan, where he was held for a year without access to British consular staff, before being shipped to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Stephen Jakobi, director of Fair Trials Abroad, said the tribunals were being "fixed" to secure convictions.
"Our concern relates to the most fundamental concepts of international law," he said.
"The US Department of Defence will appoint the judges and prosecutors, control the defence and make up the rules of the trial. It appears to have only one objective - to secure a conviction."
A US soldier was killed when his convoy was ambushed in Baghdad and another 19 were injured when mortar rounds slammed into their base north of the Iraqi capital.
The full article contains 363 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
