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UK faces Camp X-Ray legal threat

About 300 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban members are held at Camp X-Ray

LONDON, England -- The British government faces legal action from the lawyers of a British man held by the U.S. military at Camp X-ray Cuba.

Lawyers for 22-year-old Feroz Abbasi plan to seek a judicial review after a self-imposed deadline of midnight Tuesday expired and the government had not pushed for access to the prisoner.

Abbasi is one of five Britons held with hundreds of suspected al Qaeda and Taliban by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Abbasi was captured by U.S. troops in December after allegedly helping defend the Taliban stronghold of Konduz, northern Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, President George W. Bush said the Geneva Convention regarding prisoner rights applied to Taliban prisoners -- but not to captured al Qaeda terrorists.

But his administration has refused to consider classifying any of the 300 detainees from 26 countries as prisoners of war, saying they were fighting for an outlawed terrorist group and an unrecognised government.

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Lawyers and Abbasi's mother, Zumrati Juma, expressed concern on Monday about the lack of access to her son.

Lawyer Louise Christian told Britain's Press Association that United Nations guidelines implicate Britain in the use of controversial conditions at the camp.

The regulations say a state can be held responsible for the unlawful act of another state if it "knowingly aids in the commission" of an unlawful act.

An application for judicial review could be taken in the High Court under Article 16 of the International Law Commission of the United Nations' Draft Articles of State Responsibility.

"We do not think they (the British government) are doing enough. All the government would say is that they were not prepared to respond to our legal argument," Christian said.

Juma, of London, called on Prime Minister Tony Blair to persuade the U.S. government to hand her son to British authorities.

"I'm frightened he is being treated badly, and being kept in a cage without any exercise. I don't believe Feroz is being given freedom to talk about the conditions he is being kept in, or his health."

Abbasi's letter was marked "Prisoner of War Mail"

She has received a letter from him, marked "prisoner of war mail."

A Foreign Office spokesman told PA: "We have asked the U.S. to clarify the legal procedures under which the detainees might be prosecuted and we have passed on requests from the families for access by lawyers."

Meanwhile, three U.S. human rights organisations filed a petition on Monday challenging the detention of the suspects without charge or "prisoner of war" protections.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, the Human Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School and the Center for Justice and International Law called the detentions illegal in a petition filed with the Organization of American States' Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

The commission can intervene when human rights are threatened in one of the 35 member states of the Organization of American States. However, its power is largely one of influence.