ROGUE STATE USA: GUANTANAMO

Guardian: Powell: no quick deal on Guantanamo

US needs more time to decide if Britons held in Cuba are dangerous, he tells Guardian

The US military authorities at Guantanamo Bay have not finished interrogating seven of the nine British detainees and have yet to decide whether "they have done something wrong", Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, said yesterday, nearly two years after the prison camp was set up in Cuba.
Mr Powell's remarks, in an interview with the Guardian in his state department office, appear to dash hopes of a swift resolution to the fate of the British inmates. The US struck a deal with the Australian government this week, under which two Australian suspects would have lawyers from their own country if they faced military tribunals and might be able to serve their sentences in Australia.

The comments were greeted with outrage from human rights groups and the prisoners' lawyers. Relatives of all nine Britons, who were captured in Afghanistan, have denied they had links with terrorist groups.

Stephen Jakobi, the director of the pressure group Fair Trials Abroad and an adviser to the European parliament on the issue of Guantanamo Bay, said: "It is necessary under international law to bring people before a court promptly. I have yet to see a definition of 'promptly' that means two years. The idea that intelligence can't process people over two years in risible. What Powell has said makes no sense."

"Nach zwei Jahren, wissen die Amerikaner immer noch nicht ob ihre Gefangenen im Konzentrationslager Guantanamo sich überhaupt etwas haben zu Schulden kommen lassen. Sie wurden nach zwei Jahren noch nicht mal fertig verhoert."