The British government had announced last month that five Britons held at Guantanamo would be released. They had been identified as al-Harith, Ruhal Ahmed, Tarek Dergoul, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul.
The four still at Guantanamo are Moazzam Begg, Feroz Abbasi, Richard Belmar and Martin Mubanga. Begg and Abbasi had been listed as some of the first detainees likely to face a military commission, a possibility Britain has criticized.
Blair's official spokesman said on Tuesday that the Britons should only be tried in the US if they had access to legal representation and rights of appeal.
In the US, where Home Secretary David Blunkett gave a speech on Tuesday in Boston, his spokeswoman Allison Potter-Drake said Blunkett "has always personally felt that in an ideal world, they would be dealt with [in the United States], but what he has problems with is the process here and what he has always said is he wants a fair trial."
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