WASHINGTON, Jan 26: Secretary of State Colin Powell is said to have advised the Bush administration to accord prisoner of war status according to the Geneva Convention to Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in US custody.

The Washington Times on Saturday quoted an internal memo as encapsulating the secretary’s views.

The actual wording of the secretary’s recommendation, as stated in the alleged memo, is that the arrested men can be determined not be prisoners of war only on a case by case basis following individual hearings before a military board.

This has been depicted by the paper, known for its right-wing views, as an attempt by Mr Powell to reverse President George Bush’s policy on the detainees.

The paper has described criticism of conditions in which scores of prisoners are being at the US naval base in Guantanamo as coming from the “political left” and insinuates that Mr Powell may be making a concession to this trend or “bowing to pressure”. Sections of the US media have from time to time played up alleged differences between Mr Powell and the “hawks” in the administration. Both Mr Powell and the White House have repeatedly denied all such suggestions.

The Guantanamo prison facility and the US decision to treat prisoners as illegal combatants rather than as prisoners of war has evoked widespread international criticism. The Al Qaeda and Taliban men held at the facility belong to several nationalities, which have not been publicly revealed so far. It is known that three Britons are among the prisoners, and Britain is said to be anxious that these should be handed over to it to be tried in Britain.

Agencies add: The fifth Al Qaeda suspect captured on a video found by US forces in Afghanistan is a Canadian citizen born in Tunisia, Attorney General John Ashcroft said on Friday.

“The name of the fifth terrorist is al-Rauf ben al-Habib ben Youssef al-Jiddi. Al-Jiddi, who is a Canadian citizen, was born in Tunisia and is 36 years of age,” Ashcroft said.

“We identified al-Jiddi through discovery of a suicide letter found in the ruins of the Atef residence by the US military personnel in Afghanistan,” Ashcroft said.

US authorities on Jan 17 broadcast excerpts of a video found in the ruins of the house of top Osama aide Mohammad Atef. The video showed five young men apparently delivering “martyrdom messages from suicide terrorists”, Ashcroft said at the time.

Investigators had tentatively identified four of the men shown but the fifth man’s identity was unknown.

Turkish national: A 19-year-old Turk who lives in Germany is among the prisoners from Afghanistan being held by the United States in Cuba, German weekly Der Spiegel reported.

It said a young Turkish national was arrested by US soldiers in Afghanistan earlier this month, and that Washington had informed Berlin about the incident.

The report in the issue due out on Monday was confirmed by a court spokesman, who said that an investigation has been opened in Germany that could see him charged with unlawful and criminal association.

The newsweekly said Washington believes he left Frankfurt for Pakistan in October to fight alongside the Taliban and Al Qaeda against the United States.

He told family that he was leaving to attend a madressah.

A friend and fellow Turkish national was due to accompany him but was arrested by border control at Frankfurt airport after failing to pay a fine, the report said.