LAWYERS expressed outrage yesterday at plans to put al-Qaeda suspects, including two Britons and an Australian, on military trial in Guantanamo Bay.

They would effectively be tried by a “kangaroo court”, stripped of all basic rights of due process that would be afforded in criminal courts in Britain or America, they said.

No charges have yet been levelled against Moazzem Begg from Birmingham or Feroz Abbasi from Croydon, although Pentagon lawyers are finalising the wording of the indictments.

Matthias Kelly, QC, chairman of the Bar of England and Wales, said that the proposed trials were “totally illegitimate and a violation of every rule in international law”.

He said: “The construction of execution chambers makes virtually every lawyer in the Western world extremely angry. The idea that there is an artificial creation or enclave which, according to the Americans, is beyond the purview of all recognised systems of law is repugnant.”

Mr Kelly, also a member of the New York Bar and US Federal Bar, added: “If America wants to put people on trial, why not put them on trial before a recognised international tribunal? There is a well-tried system for doing that.

“It is wholly inappropriate and in fact outrageous for the United States to create this special mechanism.”

Stephen Jakobi, director of Fair Trials Abroad, said: “So, you have a friendly government which is going to put our suspects in a kangaroo court where they could face the death penalty. And what is Tony Blair going to do?”

Neal Sonnett, a former president of the National Association of Criminal Defence Lawyers, said: “The State Department issues a report every year in which it criticises those nations that conduct trials before secret military tribunals. What I’m hearing sounds alarmingly like something similar.”

Louise Christian, Mr Abbasi’s lawyer, said: “We are horrified that the British Government is allowing this to happen.”

The fate of the British and Australian detainees is being contrasted with that of John Walker Lindh. The 21-year-old Taleban fighter from California was brought before a judge in Washington and allowed to strike a plea bargain which reduced a probable life sentence to 20 years.

But the defendants taken before these military tribunals which can try only non-Americans, will be represented by Pentagon approved lawyers.

Baroness Symons, the Foreign Office Minister, said yesterday: “The fact is that I can’t alter the legal processes in the US. America has decided that they want to be the detaining power and that they want to hold the trials there, and it is now up to us to have a very vigorous discussion with the US about securing a fair trial.”

President Bush’s move represents a defeat for Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, who said at the time of the first detentions that he wanted British suspects tried in Britain.

Pentagon officials said that there was evidence that the six, whom they refused to name, had attended “terrorist training camps” and may have been involved in financing al-Qaeda.

Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, has delegated to his deputy, the hawkish Paul Wolfowitz, the final decision on whether the prosecutions will proceed.

“There are a lot of checks and balances in this system,” one Pentagon spokesman told The Times. Asked what those checks and balances were, the official cited the review of the President’s decision by Mr Wolfowitz.

Asked if there were any other checks and balances other than that, the official replied: “No, sir.”

Copyright 2003 Times Newspapers Ltd.

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