Father accuses Blair over trip

The father of a British man allegedly tortured by Egyptian police and held in prison for the past nine months awaiting trial has accused Tony Blair of being "insensitive" by taking his winter holiday in Egypt.

Alistair Nisbet's son Ian will go on trial today before a Cairo court with two other British Muslims for allegedly spreading extremist Islamist views.

"If he is accepting hospitality then it seems rather insensitive to us," said Mr Nisbet. "The three boys have written a long letter to him in which they detailed all the suffering they have gone through. As far as I know there has been no response."

Mr Nisbet is calling for the intervention of the Prime Minister, who last week flew out to the Egyptian resort of Sharm al Sheik with his family for a week's holiday.

Downing Street has said that the Blairs have paid for the full cost of the holiday themselves and have no official business planned.

But the holiday is seen as a bridge-building exercise ahead of a possible war in Iraq.

Ian Nisbet, who converted to Islam, Reza Pankhurst and Maajid Nawaz are all members of the Islamic liberation party Hizb ut-Tahrir which is banned in Egypt but does not appear on lists of terrorist organisations compiled by Britain and America.

Egyptian police claim that Hizb ut-Tahrir seeks to topple Arab governments to establish a unified Islamic state in the Middle East and has links to the al-Qa'ida terrorist network.

However, Mr Nisbet said his son was not a terrorist and was opposed to violence. He has spent more than £10,000 on legal fees and ensuring his son has basic provisions in prison such as bedding and food.

The British Ambassador in Cairo has raised concerns about the treatment of the men who were arrested in April. The Britons, all in their 20s, claim interrogators beat them, denied them sleep and forced them to watch others being tortured.