Powell Says No Quick Deal on Guantanamo Britons

[Wonk]

LONDON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a newspaper interview on Friday that no deal was imminent over nine Britons detained as "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"There are some very complex legal issues that our lawyers are still working out," Powell told Britain's Guardian newspaper, referring to two Britons due to appear before a military tribunal.

He said the seven others faced more interrogation to determine "whether or not they have done something wrong" and "what danger they present."

(snip)

No charges have been filed against any of the 660 prisoners held there.

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[tinnypriv]

1. Complex?

Hand 'em over to our courts you kidnapping fucks!

[asjr]

2. powell

I guess being friends with GB only extends to their sending troops to Iraq. Anything else is tough t---y. How did Tony Blair ever ever get taken in by GW? I used to like Powell but I have come to believe he is just as cold-hearted and cold-blooded as the rest of the cabal.

[papau]

3. Powell had consulted "CIA experts", and now consults lawyers! :-)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1094996,00.html

Powell: no quick deal on Guantanamo

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

Julian Borger in Washington

<snip>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. <snip>

"The specific cases of two detainees that are before our military tribunal, the British detainees, is a difficult one," Mr Powell said. "There are some very complex legal issues that our lawyers are still working out. But the president is anxious to do what he can to resolve that one. And we're trying to be very sensitive to the needs of Tony Blair's government." <snip>

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." <snip>

Asked if there were any claims in his speech that he now regretted, he mused for a few seconds before replying: "None." However, he put the responsibility for the speech squarely on the CIA.

"What I presented on the 5th of February was not something that I made up here in the state department," he said. "And it was not something that was given to me by people who are not competent to provide such information. It represented the best work of our intelligence community, and I spent several days - I think from Thursday through Monday - with the director of central intelligence, with the deputy director of central intelligence, well into the night - almost midnight every night - and all of the analysts who have responsibility, the senior analysts, and we went over every single item."