Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP demands justice for Guantanamo prisoners

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 22nd Sep 2004

A packed fringe meeting on Guantanamo Bay at the Liberal Democrat party conference backed calls for fair trial or release of prisoners, and for the US in collusion with the Blair government to stop its onslaught on human rights through locking up thousands of people worldwide without charge.

Baroness Sarah Ludford, MEP for London and Liberal Democrat European justice spokeswoman, shared a platform with actress Vanessa Redgrave of the Guantanamo Human Rights Commission, released prisoner Jamal Al-Harith, Azmat Begg the father of prisoner Moazzam Begg, journalist and writer Victoria Brittain and LSE professor of international law Conor Gearty.

Sarah Ludford said:

"It is a scandal that 8 Britons and British residents are still held in Guantanamo Bay, 5 of whom are my London constituents - Martin Mubanga from Wembley, Ferroz Abbasi from Croydon, Richard Belmar from St John's Wood, Bisher al-Rawi from Kingston and Jamil el-Banna from Brent. I am very worried about their mental and physical health, with solitary confinement and credible allegations of abuse and even torture."

She added: "I repeat the call I keep making, most recently in Strasbourg last week: Europe must stop being pathetic and start exerting collective pressure on the US for observance of fundamental rights and the rule of law - on behalf not only of the 20 Europeans but also all 650 prisoners. The EU is meant to have a human rights policy, but how can we get people to believe in it when Europe just sits on its hands?"

"George Bush told Charles Kennedy 2 years ago that Tony Blair only had to ask and the Britons could come home. What is Blair waiting for? The suspicion must be that he prefers for our fellow-citizens to rot in a 'legal black hole' rather than expose the collusion of British officials and the hypocrisy whereby a dozen people are locked up here without charge in Belmarsh prison, our own mini-Guantanamo, in breach of European human rights norms."

Note to Editors:

Thus of the thirteen believed to be or have been in Guantanamo Bay, at least 6 are Londoners, namely 3 of the 5 remaining British citizens, Feroz Abbasi, Richard Belmar, Martin Mubanga, Moazzam Begg and Tariq Mahmud plus at least 2 of the 3 British-residents foreign citizens Jamil Al Banna, Bisher Al Rawi and Jamal Abdullah. British citizen Tarek Dergoul from East London was one of the four released in March after 2 years imprisonment.