Gitmo treatment denounced
Updated on 18 September 2006
Doctors have denounced the Government's failure to give aid to Britons at Guantanamo Bay.
The medics condemned Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett for giving "the brush-off" to a request from the British Medical Association for an independent team to be sent to the US detention centre in Cuba to check on inmates' condition.
Although all British citizens have now been freed from Guantanamo, at least eight foreign nationals who were previously resident in the UK are still being held there without trial after around four years.
The letter, signed by 120 members of medical professions and published in The Times, condemned the failure of the Foreign Office's pro bono medical and legal panels to discuss the plight of the detainees, on the ground that they are not British passport holders.
"Our Government's excuse is that it does not wish to set a precedent to act for British residents, rather than British citizens," the letter said. "We find this morally repugnant."
It continued: "It is clear that an independent scrutiny is urgently required by physicians outside of the US military.
"The silence of the Foreign Office is shameful and reflects the collusion of this country in a war crime."
