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UK accused of Guantánamo collusion
Guardian Unlimited
David Batty and agencies
September 18, 2006

More than 100 senior doctors today accused the government of colluding in war crimes by refusing to give medical aid to British residents detained at Guantánamo Bay.

The doctors called for an urgent independent investigation into the medical needs of the detainees at the camp.

In a letter published in The Times newspaper today, the doctors condemn the Foreign Office for its "shameful" refusal to respond to a request from the British Medical Association (BMA) to send a team of doctors to the detention camp in Cuba.

The medics also criticise the failure of the Foreign Office's medical and legal panels to discuss the plight of the detainees for the reason that they are not British passport holders.

Nine British citizens have been released from the camp since 2004, but at least eight men who have British residency rights are believed to still be there.

"Our government's excuse is that it does not wish to set a precedent to act for British residents, rather than British citizens. We find this morally repugnant," said the letter, which was signed by 120 medical professionals.

They add: "It is clear that an independent scrutiny is urgently required by physicians outside the US military. The silence of the Foreign Office is shameful and reflects the collusion of this country in a war crime."

Dr David Nicholl, a consultant neurologist at the City Hospital in Birmingham, who coordinated the letter, said: "Many doctors I speak to every day are outraged by the government's heartless attitude to these eight Guantánamo prisoners.

"They simply can't accept that men trapped at Guantánamo should be denied independent medical assistance because the government is hair-splitting about nationality versus residency status. The case is straightforward: these men are vulnerable and they need to be examined by a team of independent physicians."

None of the eight British residents held at Guantánamo has been independently examined, according to Amnesty International. The human rights group says that one of the detained, Omar Deghayes, is believed to have been blinded in one eye by guards at the camp.

Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK, said: "It's shameful that in four and half years the government has not insisted on independent medical examinations for long-term residents of the UK held in the black hole of Guantánamo.

"These men - some of whom are refugees that the UK has acknowledged to be vulnerable people - have essentially been left to rot in Guantánamo's cells. They're Guantánamo's forgotten prisoners."

There are also concerns for the mental health of some of the detainees - concerns that were heightened after three died - apparently from self-inflicted injuries - last June.

Last year the New England Journal of Medicine reported that psychiatrists and psychologists had been involved in coercive interrogation tactics being used on detainees at the camp since 2002.

The Pentagon said there was no "credible evidence" physicians had taken part in the "inhumane treatment of detainees". But it admitted that "behavioural science consultants" were helping interrogators exploit prisoners' weaknesses. Around 460 people are detained at Guantánamo, according to Amnesty International. They include 14 alleged al-Qaida figures, recently transferred there from CIA custody.

A Foreign Office spokesman said its policy was not to provide consular assistance or diplomatic protection to non-British nationals.

However, it made an exception in the case of Bisher al-Rawi, an Iraqi detained in Guantánamo. Al-Rawi, a resident of Britain since 1985, was arrested in Gambia in 2002. In April the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, wrote to his US counterpart Condoleezza Rice to demand al-Rawi's the release. A US lawyer, George Brent Mickum IV, said in March that the exception was made because al-Rawi had provided assistance to the British intelligence agency MI5 and had agreed to work for them in exchange for his release.

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