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Overseas Residence: Crime

Volume 505: debated on Tuesday 2 February 2010

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many British citizens are (a) detained abroad awaiting trial and (b) detained abroad in violation of Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. (314533)

The most recent figures show that on 30 September 2009, we were aware of 2,582 British nationals detained overseas. It is not possible to give the number who are still awaiting trial except by looking through the files on all these detainees, which would involve disproportionate expense.

Where we are aware of concerns that a British national is not being treated in line with international standards we will, with the detainee's permission, consider approaching the local authorities. We keep individual records of cases where concerns are raised. However for the reasons already described we cannot give the number of cases where concerns have been raised over denial of the rights set out in article 9 of the international covenant on civil and political rights.