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The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and Geneva Conventions. Three years ago, the Supreme Court rejected Bush's claim to have the authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny them access to courts or lawyers. In this followup case, the justices focused solely on the issue of trials for some of the men. Published reports in 2006 described al Qahtani's interrogation. The reports -- based on leaks from the Pentagon -- said he had been subjected to stress positions, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures, humiliation and other highly coercive practices. Some lawyers believe military officers did not want to face a discussion of these interrogation techniques in court, nor to have their case collapse publicly because the evidence obtained using such techniques might be ruled inadmissible. It was recently revealed that Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former CIA chief George Tenet, and former Attorney General John Ashcroft, had met in the White House and personally oversaw and approved the torture by authorizing specific torture techniques including waterboarding. President Bush has admitted he knew and approved of their actions. Human and legal rights advocates have been outspoken on the military commissions issue. Columbia University law professor Scott Horton told IPS he believes the process used to establish the commissions -- criminal courts run by the U.S. armed forces -- is likely to result in what says will be “a series of show trials” timed to strengthen the Republican Party’s chances in the 2008 presidential election.This viewed is shared by Michael Ratner, CCR’s president, who told IPS that the Military Commission system “has none of the guarantees of regular trials. Coerced and hearsay evidence can be used. There is no jury -- only a group of military officers and the judge is appointed by the Bush administration. Much of the trial can be held in secret and the defendant does not get to see all of the evidence. After this sham process the defendant if convicted can receive the death penalty. There is a barbarity to the actions of the Bush administration that is without precedent.” And Gabor Rona, International Legal Director for advocacy group Human Rights First, told us, “Much of the world considers the death penalty an international human rights violation even when imposed after the fairest of procedures. To impose it through an untested, ad hoc process that has not yet successfully completed a trial even for a misdemeanor will likely be viewed with deep skepticism.”In related developments, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), has joined with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), to assemble defense teams to assist in the representation of detainees facing prosecution in the military commissions proceedings at Guantánamo “in order to protect American values of fairness and justice and the constitutional guarantee of due process.” And another legal advocacy group, the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) called on Congress to appoint a Special Prosecutor, independent of the Department of Justice, to investigate and prosecute senior Bush Administration officials and lawyers for their role in the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody. Since the U.S. detention facility on this southeastern corner of Cuba opened in January 2002, only one military commission has reached a verdict, when Australian David Hicks pleaded guilty to terrorism charges in March 2007. It was part of a politically orchestrated deal that returned Hicks to his home country to serve out his sentence. He was released last December. The Al Jazeera cameraman, who had been on a protracted hunger strike during his detention, was flown back to his native Sudan. The Pentagon has not explained his release.
http://billfisher.blogspot.com William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East and elsewhere for the US State Department and the US Agency for International Development. He served in the international affairs area in the Kennedy Administration and now writes on subjects ranging from human rights to foreign affairs for a number of newspapers ond online journals.
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