The guidelines established by the US authorities in Guantanamo Bay may make it impossible for the Britons facing military tribunals to get civilian lawyers without direct British government intervention, it emerged yesterday.
The tribunal rules for civilian legal counsel, a copy of which has been seen by the Guardian, put up significant obstacles to any lawyer offering representation.
He or she would have to pay all expenses, including the cost of security clearance, and flights to the US-run enclave on the eastern tip of Cuba. Once there, lawyers would not be allowed to leave without the permission of a senior officer.
The guidelines require the lawyer to agree that: ”Once proceedings have begun, I will not travel from the site of the proceedings without the approval of the appointing authority of the presiding officer.”
The lawyers, who have to be US citizens, could not ”discuss, transmit, communicate or otherwise share documents or information specific to the case with anyone except as is necessary to represent [their] client before a military commission.”
Breaking such rules, for example by complaining to the press, could lead to detention on the island.
”What lawyer, who has a real practice, would run the risk of going there?” said Clive Stafford Smith, a British-born lawyer practising in the US. He has left his practice to offer his services to two British inmates, Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi, among the six inmates selected to face the first tribunal.
He said any civilian bar association could impose sanctions on a lawyer who took part in a process in which conversations between a lawyer and an inmate are taped by the authorities, and in which the prosecution could present coerced statements and unsworn testimony as evidence.
The Pentagon did not return calls seeking comment yesterday.
Stafford Smith has applied to the Pentagon to act as one of the Britons’ lawyers but fears that the threat of the death penalty may intimidate them into agreeing a deal in which they plead guilty and cooperate in return for avoiding the death penalty and receiving prison terms of up to 20 years.
”I’m afraid that these guys are only going to get access to civilian lawyers at the point at which they have already been coerced into a plea,” he said.
If they refuse a deal, the authorities could decide not to try them and they would be sent back to wait with the 678 other prisoners in Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay, who have spent 18 months on the island without access to a lawyer or direct contact with their families.
”Mr Blair should insist that these guys are charged and provided immediate legal representation,” Stafford Smith said. ”So far the British are not even meeting with the military to find out how to arrange family visits.”
A Guantanamo inmate tried to hang himself yesterday in the 29th suicide attempt since the camp opened a year ago. – Guardian Unlimited Â