Guantanamo suspects 'have no rights'

British Taliban and al-Qa'ida suspects held for more than a year at America's Guantanamo Bay naval base on Cuba have no right to have the terms of their detention reviewed by the US courts.

The ruling by three US federal judges leaves all 650 detainees captured at the time of the Afghanistan war in a state of legal limbo. The court said the prisoners were "aliens" held outside American sovereign territory and therefore had no right to be formally charged or given access to a lawyer.

"If the constitution does not entitle the detainees to due process, and it does not, they cannot invoke the jurisdiction of our courts to test the constitutionality or the legality of restraints on their liberty," the judges ruled.

The case had been brought by the families of 16 foreigners from Australia, Britain and Kuwait being held in Guantanamo. In its ruling, the court relied on a US Supreme Court judgment in 1950 that the jurisdiction of federal courts did not extend to foreign citizens prosecuted in foreign lands, even if the prosecution was by the United States. Last year the Court of Appeal in London also declined jurisdiction of the British suspects.

The decision prompted calls for the British Government to intervene on behalf of the UK prisoners. Stephen Jakobi, of Fair Trials Abroad, said: "It is down to the Government to really fight for the Britons and bring them here to face any charges they may face, or release them," he said.