§ Mr. Bodyasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs 135W whether he will give a list of British subjects who are detained abroad in custody without a criminal charge having been made and state the countries in which they are so detained.
§ Lord BalnielLegal systems differ. In many countries detainees are told why they have been detained but are not formally charged in the British sense until the examining magistrate or the equivalent has completed his investigations and they appear in court.
Information available in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office indicates that there are 14 United Kingdom citizens in Malawi, six in Tanzania and one in the Arab Republic of Egypt who have been detained without charge and not told officially the nature of their alleged offence. It would of course not be right to give their names without their consent.