U.S. Will Not Seek Death Penalty Against Two British Nationals

Pentagon gen­er­al coun­sel William J. Haynes II has assured British Prime Minister Tony Blair that the U.S. will not seek the death penal­ty against two British cit­i­zens fac­ing tri­al on ter­ror­ism charges before mil­i­tary tri­bunals. The two men, Feroz Abbasi and Moazzam Begg, are among the 680 pris­on­ers from 42 coun­tries being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in con­nec­tion with the cam­paign against ter­ror­ism. Prior to Blair’s recent vis­it to Washington, dur­ing which he raised the issue with President Bush, the Prime Minister had pushed for the U.S. to extra­dite the two men to Britain. If that option were not avail­able, he request­ed assur­ance of fair tri­als free of the prospect of a death sen­tence, which Britain bans. The agree­ment has raised ques­tions of fair­ness among those inter­na­tion­al lead­ers rep­re­sent­ing oth­er cit­i­zens who are expect­ed to face mil­i­tary tri­bunals in the future. ​“We believe that what­ev­er is being done has to be done on a non-dis­crim­i­na­to­ry basis. That’s the rule of law. There should be a uni­form set of pro­ce­dures fol­lowed,” said Asad Hayauddin, a press attache at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington. 

(Washington Post, July 23, 2003) See International Death Penalty.