Foreign Secretary David Miliband has questioned the fairness of US military tribunals for six Guantanamo Bay detainees charged with involvement in 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.
The men – including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks – were charged by the US Department of Defense on Monday with a raft of terrorism-related crimes including murder, conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism.
The DoD’s legal advisor in the case, Air Force Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, announced that prosecutors were seeking the death penalty for all six suspects.
US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has insisted the suspects will be fairly tried, promising "full due process and defence lawyers and all of the fundamental rights that would bring to justice those [who] were responsible for one of the worst war crimes in world history".
Human rights organisations have condemned the charges, arguing that military tribunals and interrogation techniques such as water-boarding (simulated drowning), used on at least one of the suspects, contravene human rights.
Miliband echoed the condemnation, stressing that British authorities "would never use water-boarding."
“I think it's very, very important that we always assert that our system of values is different from those who attacked the US and killed British citizens on September 11, and that's something we'd always want to stand up for,” Miliband said Tuesday on the BBC’s Jeremy Vine Show.
Miliband said that British authorities had “some concerns” about whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s legal rights would be respected during his trial, noting that similar worries had led the US Supreme Court to block the planned military tribunals of other terrorist suspects.