Government must use influence to free Guantanamo prisoners

9.00.00am GMT Tue 16th Jan 2007

David Howarth, MP for Cambridge, has joined protesters in a candle-lit vigil outside Parliament to highlight the 5th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay.

Mr. Howarth commented:

"The Lord Chancellor has rightly described Camp X-Ray as an 'affront to democracy'. It is unacceptable that 8 British residents continue to be held at Guantanamo Bay without any apparent prospect of charge or trial. The Government has done nothing to try to secure their release. I call on Tony Blair to use his much-vaunted influence with the US Government to secure the release of the British detainees."

David Howarth joins fellow Lib Dem MPs Greg Mulholland and Alistair Carmichael at the vigil

The Government has indicted that where detainees from Britain are not British citizens they are unwilling to ask for their return to this country. The detainees in question have all spent a significant period of their lives in the UK and many have families here. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has managed to secure the release of a non-German citizen from Camp X-Ray.