Lawyer to visit Guantanamo pair

Five Britons were released from Guantanamo Bay in March

A lawyer is to visit two British men held at Guantanamo Bay on Tuesday 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, which will continue on Wednesday, have been put in place by the US Government.

US lawyer Gita Gutierrez will meet Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi for the first time since their imprisonment.

Visits arranged for Martin Mubanga and Richard Belmar have been postponed.

Arrested

Mr Begg, 36, from Birmingham and Mr Belmar, 23, from London, were arrested by authorities in Pakistan over two years ago before being moved to Cuba.

Mr Abbasi, 23, of London, was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 while Mr Mubanga , 29 and also from London, was originally detained in Zambia before being taken overseas.

Mr Begg's father Azmat has just returned from America, where he was campaigning for his son's release.

He said: "I won't be able to ask anything about the visit by the lawyer or pass on any kind of message to my son.

"For almost three years he has not been able to speak to anyone and I'm worried about the effect it is having on him."

Breakthrough

While the arrival of lawyers at the military base is a breakthrough for campaigners, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Michael Ratner, has disputed whether it was an act of generosity from the US Government.

"We finally, after almost 1,000 days... are getting our first 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, 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.

Feroz Abbasi and Moazzam Begg had been due to face a military trial but this was suspended while discussions continued about their detention.

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