TWO British men facing terrorist charges in Guantanamo Bay may not be extradited to Britain because of fears over national security, Tony Blair said yesterday.

In what appeared to be a government reversal, Feroz Abbasi and Moazzam Begg again face the prospect of a military tribunal behind closed doors after the Prime Minister hinted that the Government had decided against extradition.

Ministers are said to be concerned over security on two counts: they fear that staging a trial in Britain could make it a target for terrorists, and also that there may not be enough evidence for the Crown Prosecution Service to charge the suspects, releasing them in Britain.

Mr Blair, in his first interview since embarking on a Far Eastern tour, told Sky News: “We can either have them tried according to a US military commission, but then we need to make sure that any rules are fully compliant with our own standards.

“The other option obviously is to bring people back to Britain. We are looking at both these options.”

But he said: “I don’t believe the Americans would want to try these people in a way that was inconsistent with the rules that we have.

“I think the choice is really for us, frankly, and we have got to look at a whole range of considerations, not least our own national security as well.”

There had been hopes that Mr Blair might secure either the extradition of the two men or a civil trial in America. He announced on Thursday that the charges against them were being suspended while Lord Goldsmith, the AttorneyGeneral, held talks with his US counterpart on a compromise.

Lord Goldsmith travelled to the US last week, but that did not stop President Bush referring to the two suspects as “bad people” on Thursday, hours after the Government announced the initiative, raising fears that the pair might not receive a fair trial.

Stephen Jakobi, director of Fair Trials Abroad, said that he was “astounded” at Mr Blair’s suggestion that there were only two options for the men held at Guantanamo Bay.

“I would be totally delighted but extremely surprised if the Attorney-General came back and announced that all the EU prisoners would be sent home. So that leaves a real mission impossible: getting them a fair trial under any form of military tribunal,” Mr Jakobi said.

“The crassly idiotic remarks by George Bush about Feroz Abbasi and Moazzam Begg being ‘bad people’ prevent that. If the Commander-in-Chief says they are all guilty, what chance has the military got of making any tribunal a fair trial? “I strongly suspect that Mr Blair received the same advice that Mr Bush obviously received, which was that they could not get a conviction under ordinary legal rules.”

Mr Jakobi called for a consideration of other options, including bringing those selected for trial to the US mainland where they could receive standard US justice, or a “Lockerbie-style system” where US civilian justice would be taken to the Guantanamo camp.

Mr Blair emphasised that were the Britons to be tried by military commission “we would want to make sure that every aspect of this was consistent with the proper rules”.

Amnesty International said that the military commissions could not be made acceptable. Neil Durkin, a spokesman, said: “It’s frankly well-nigh impossible to see how the grossly unfair procedures of the planned military commissions can be tweaked to make them meet basic human rights standards. We think the commissions have got to be scrapped.”

“Faced with the option of unfair military courts or repatriation to British justice, the UK Government should push hard for the latter.

Asked about Mr Bush’s description of the detainees, Mr Blair said: “I think what he was meaning by that was the situation in terms of people going over and supporting al-Qaeda and the Taleban, they were people supporting a terrorist network that had killed thousands of Americans.”

Mr Abbasi and Mr Begg have been held for 18 months without access to lawyers in the Cuban base, where conditions have been criticised by human rights groups. If found guilty, they could be executed.

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