posted January 22, 2004, updated 12:00 p.m. ET
Marine lawyer: Tribunal fundamentally 'unfair'
Lawyer for Guantanamo detainee says tribunal process designed to only "produce guilty verdict."
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
The Miami Herald reports that a US Marine lawyer, Maj. Michael Mori, Wednesday blasted the tribunal system designed to try terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mr. Mori, in a direct slap at President Bush, said the trials will not be "full and fair" as Pentagon leaders promised, but were "created and controlled by those with a vested interest only in convictions."
"Using the commission process just creates an unfair system that threatens to convict the innocent and provides the guilty a justifiable complaint as to their convictions," said Mori, who has defended or prosecuted about 200 cases in military courts.
Reuters reports that Mori believes his client, Australian David Hicks, should be tried in his own country. "In fairness if David Hicks has violated a law, an international law, there is no reason why it would not apply in Australia. That's universal jurisdiction, and so he should be tried in his country." Australia, which does not have a death penalty, has already gained assurances from the US that neither Mr. Hicks or another Australian held at Guantanamo, will be executed, and, if convicted, will be allowed to serve prison time in their home country
01/21/04
Whose democracy?
01/20/04
'Thirsty for democracy'
01/19/04
Bush's rhetoric rebound?
Sign up to be notified daily:
Find out more.
The New York Times reports that Maj. John Smith, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions, said in response that the military commissions were needed because they take into account battlefield conditions and are thus preferable to courts-martial.
"Courts-martial, which are used to maintain order and discipline, do not make as much sense with acts committed on the battlefield," Major Smith said. "While the commission rules may be different in some respects, they are certainly very fair."
The statements and actions by Mori, and the four other military lawyers representing detainees, will probably give more credence to the voices within the US and and around the world criticizing both the detentions and the pending trials. But the lawyers say they are just doing what they are supposed to do.
"When I fight for my client, I'm going to point out every injustice, and this system is not representative of military justice," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, assigned to defend a Yemeni, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, held at Guantanamo Bay.
Last week, in a brief to the Supreme Court in a related case (families of the detainees are suing the US government), the five military lawyers called the tribunal system "monarchical." They also said that Bush had overstepped his constitutional authority as commander in chief in the way he set up the tribunals, which the lawyers say "created a legal black hole."
The BBC reports that Mori says he is worried about the tribunal process, because it would "set up a double standard. "The reality is, we wouldn't tolerate these rules if they were applied to US citizens," said Mori. Columnist Richard Cohen of The Washington Post wonders the same thing.
We insist that our POWs and others be treated by universally accepted rules – the Geneva Convention, for instance. But when we capture some people, we say the old rules don't apply. No one better articulated American arrogance than Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who, when asked in January 2002 why the Geneva Convention did not apply to the detainees, replied that he did not have "the slightest concern" about their treatment after what they had done. The Economist magazine, hardly an anti-American newsweekly, called Rumsfeld's remarks "unworthy of a nation which has cherished the rule of law from its very birth."
Reuben Navarrette of The Dallas Morning News says that it seems the military is trying to teach President Bush a few things about civil liberties.
In a friend-of-the-court brief filed at the Supreme Court last week in connection with lawsuits brought by the families of 16 prisoners at the US naval base, the military lawyers fired a broadside at official US government policy regarding the detainees. The lawyers are challenging the administration's insistence that detainees be tried in military tribunals and that any appeals be limited to military appeals panels. The lawyers urged the high court to preserve the possibility that the defendants could have their appeals heard in civilian courts. The brief reads: "The Constitution cannot countenance an open-ended presidential power, with no civilian review whatsoever, to try anyone the president deems subject to a military tribunal, whose rules and judges have been selected by the prosecuting authority itself."
Columnist Anthony Lewis, writing in the New York Times, says that, while the administration strenuously objected to the Supreme Court agreeing to hear both the case involving the Guantanamo detainees and American citizen Jose Padilla, Bush can hardly object to the Supreme Court having the final word in the issue. After all, Mr. Lewis says, it was the court that made him president.
The Supreme Court has agreed to decide only the jurisdictional issue [in the Guantanamo case], whether habeas corpus actions can be brought in US courts, not such underlying substantive questions as whether the administration must comply with the Geneva conventions [about the definition and treatment of prisoners of war]. But if the decision goes against the government, it would be a setback for the Bush administration's pattern of using the attacks of Sept. 11 and the war on terrorism to assert claims of unreviewable power.
Reuters reports that the Pentagon also turned down a request by the National Council of Churches to send a small interfaith delegation to minister to detainees at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches and a former US congressman, said his group would continue to press its case for a visit with US officials.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch recently called on the US to resolve the case of three young detainees (aged 13-15) still held at the base. The group also says that the Pentagon is also jailing an undisclosed number of children aged 16 and 17 who are held in the adult camp, rather than separately as required by international standards.
csmonitor.com
Rascal @TimeIsTelling.com |
