The US will only allow British detainees at Guantanamo Bay to return home if they are prevented from engaging in terrorist activity, an American official was reported as saying yesterday.
Pierre-Richard Prosper, the US ambassador-at-large for war crime issues, said the nine Britons being held at the naval base in Cuba posed a serious or medium threat, The Times of London newspaper reported.
Prosper was quoted as saying that the detainees would have to be "detained and investigated, and/or prosecuted" if they came back to Britain.
"There can't be a situation where a dangerous person is released and [flies] an airplane into the next tall building around the world. That concern remains," Prosper was reported as saying.
"We are not asking for absolutes. We are not asking for a guaranteed conviction," he said. "But we are saying: these are dangerous people, they are engaged in dangerous activity."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said talks are under way to determine the fate of the British detainees at Guantanamo. He said Wednesday that he would make an announcement to Parliament on the issue "shortly."
The Foreign Office said it couldn't comment on the Times report, adding only that it expected Blair's announcement to be made in the next few weeks.
Prosper told the Times that negotiations for the prisoners' return were examining each case individually.
"We are asking that they be detained and investigated, and/or prosecuted," he said. "But it is not just a blanket request we have put in.
"What makes it much more complex is that we have to have all these discussions on each individual."
Prosper said the Guantanamo detainees fell into three categories: Those perceived as the most serious threat, those who posed a medium threat and those who posed no threat or a low threat.
He said the Britons fell into the first two categories.
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