Lawyers to visit Guantanamo four

Five Britons were released from Guantanamo Bay in March

Lawyers will be allowed to see the four UK men held at Guantanamo Bay next week but will not be allowed to say anything to their families about the visit.

Strict gagging orders surrounding the visit to the camp in Cuba have been put in place by the US government.

Three US lawyers will meet Moazzam Begg, Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga and Richard Belmar.

The US-based Center for Constitutional Rights said the arrangements for the visit were unsatisfactory.

Arrested

The lawyers will also speak to two men from other countries who lived in Britain before they were seized abroad.

Mr Begg and Mr Belmar were arrested by authorities in Pakistan over two years ago before being moved to Cuba.

Mr Abbasi was captured in Aghanistan in 2001 while Mr Mubanga was orginally detained in Zambia before being taken overseas.

Mr Begg's father Azmat said: "I can't understand why even a lawyer who is going to see him can't tell me how he is or what is he doing.

"Let us go and see and talk to my son," he told a news conference at the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York.

Breakthrough

While the arrival of lawyers at the military base is a breakthrough for campaigners, CCR president Michael Ratner denied it was an act of generosity from the US government.

"We finally after almost 1,000 days... are getting our first three attorneys down to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba," he said.

"(But) everything she learns will be automatically, essentially, classified. She will be unable to say anything to anybody. She won't even be able to tell Mr Begg the condition of his son.

Mr Begg is in the US campaigning for his son's release

"It is not close to enough. It does not satisfy me and I do not think it will satisfy Mr Begg."

Mr Begg, from Birmingham, also repeated his call for his 36-year-old son to be returned to Britain for trial.

"There he should be able to see his mother, his children and his friends and then he should be medically examined and mentally examined as well and they should carry on with the (legal) procedure," he said.

Five other Britons who spent up to two years at Guantanamo Bay were handed over to British custody in March and were freed without charge.