US: The US faces another damaging diplomatic row with Europe over its decision to try six suspected al-Qaeda terrorists in secretive military tribunals.
The European Union's executive commission warned yesterday that applying the death penalty to any of the suspects detained at the US base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba would risk undermining international support for the US-led war on terrorism. "The death sentence cannot be applied by military courts, as this would make the international coalition lose the integrity and credibility it has so far enjoyed," said spokesman Mr Diego de Ojeda.
Britain, America's closest ally in the war on terror, said that it would raise its objections with the US government at the "highest level" after it emerged that two of the six are British citizens.
They are Mr Moazzam Begg, (35) and Mr Feroz Abbasi (23), whose names and nationalities US defence officials have refused to reveal. Australia said yesterday that one of its citizens, Mr David Hicks, was also among the six.
Foreign office minister Baroness Symons said that London would pursue a "very vigorous discussion" to satisfy its concerns that US procedures may not guarantee a fair trial. "I think there are issues about the principle of using military commissions," she told BBC Radio. British ministers acknowledge that they are powerless to change America's chosen legal processes, but the decision to try two British detainees puts Mr Tony Blair's support for the US-led Iraq war back on the agenda just as the British prime minister wants to move on.
Human rights lawyers said that the military process was discriminatory since detainees holding US citizenship can be tried by ordinary civilian courts. Those accused in the tribunals, which will take place behind closed doors, will have no right to appeal outside the military.
The Pentagon said on Thursday that the six may have attended al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and had been involved in financing the group, in recruiting and in protecting Osama bin Laden, its leader.
The continuing US presence in Iraq could have allowed al-Qaeda to mobilise supporters, German intelligence said yesterday as Germany warned that the organisation was still capable of attacks in European cities.