Five Britons being held in a Yemeni jail will learn by tomorrow whether they are to be charged with sabotage, the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, said yesterday.
He told parliament he had been given this assurance in a telephone call by Yemeni Prime Minister, Dr Abdul-Karim al-Iryani.
The five, men of Pakistani and Yemeni origin living in Birmingham, were arrested on December 24th on suspicion of being linked to kidnappings of foreign nationals last month and bombings last year in the southern Yemen port city of Aden.
If found guilty, they could face the death penalty.
British consular officials were allowed to see four of the men for the first time at the weekend, and reported they were in good health and being properly treated. They were denied access to the fifth man because he has dual British-Yemeni nationality.
Mr Cook said he had stressed to Dr Iryani the importance of any charges the men may face being brought quickly.
"This afternoon the Prime Minister of the Yemen responded by informing me that any charges will be laid tomorrow or the day after," Mr Cook told MPs.
"I sought and obtained assurances that all five men will have access to legal advice, that the charges will be subject to due process of law in open court, and that consular staff will have the right to attend."
Mr Cook said Dr Iryani had also promised him that force would not be used to attempt to free another Briton from his Yemeni kidnappers without London being consulted.
Mr John Brooke, an employee of US oilfield services firm Halliburton Co, was kidnapped in an area east of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, on Saturday.
The kidnapping came only two weeks after four hostages in another incident - three Britons and one Australian - were killed during a shoot-out between militant Islamists and Yemeni government forces.
British policemen have been sent to Yemen to investigate why the deaths occurred. Mr Cook told MPs: "There is still much confusion about how the firefight started and whether hostages had been killed before the security forces intervened."
He added that in his conversation with Dr Iryani yesterday, he "expressed . . . our strong view that the release of Mr Brooke should be achieved through mediation. Dr Iryani gave me an assurance that no force would be used without consultation with us."
Officials in Sanaa have said Mr Brooke's kidnappers are demanding the release of a tribesman arrested on charges of sabotage.
Mr Cook said Britain's ambassador to Yemen, Mr Vic Henderson, met representatives of the British community there yesterday to stress the need for heightened vigilance.
He also announced he was consulting the British travel industry on how to improve the distribution of advice to people planning holidays in high-risk countries.