[News] Guantanamo attempt to subvert the rule of law
News at freedomarchives.org
News at freedomarchives.org
Fri Jul 23 11:33:23 EDT 2004
Guantanamo review offers hope to British prisoners
http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=543718&host=3&dir=70
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Anne Penketh
23 July 2004
The four British prisoners at Guantanamo Bay could be released after a
legal review being carried out behind closed doors by US military officers,
a senior British official said yesterday.
The official said that the British prisoners could be released and,
presumably, allowed home without charge.
Just a few months ago the Bush administration insisted that the four
Britons were "too dangerous" to be released.
"[The four] could find themselves released as a result of this process,"
said the British official.
That process, due to begin next Monday or Tuesday, involves the
interviewing by US military officers of more than 600 prisoners held at
Guantanamo Bay to determine the legality of their detention. The initial
hearings, or Combatant Status Review Tribunals, will be held in private
until arrangements for the press can be made.
The Pentagon announced the hearings after a Supreme Court ruling that the
so-called "enemy combatants" - most seized after the US-led war against
al-Qa'ida and the Taliban in Afghanistan - had the legal right to challenge
their detention. Until then the Bush administration had argued that the US
had the right to order their detention without access to lawyers or the courts.
Reports suggest that there is likely to be three review tribunals, with
three officers sitting on each panel. The panels will conduct one-time-only
reviews.
If a panel determines that the prisoner is not an enemy combatant, then the
case will be sent to the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to decide
whether the detainee should be returned to his country. Detainees still
judged to be a danger to the US would continue to be held.
Critics of the process say the hearings are little more than a distraction
from the Supreme Court's ruling, which gave the prisoners access to the
federal court. The prisoners will be assigned military assistants, but not
lawyers, to help to prepare them for their hearings.
"It is a complete scam," said Clive Stafford Smith, a lawyer who has filed
suits on behalf of the British prisoners, along with three British
residents also being held. "It is a total mockery and designed to give them
some cover when they eventually release these people."
Jeffrey Fogel, legal director of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, told
CNN: "The Supreme Court ruling requires access to legal representation.
This process is an elaborate window-dressing and an attempt to subvert that
ruling and the rule of law."
Five Britons were released from Guantanamo Bay in February, but another
four remain - Feroz Abbasi, Moazzam Begg, Martin Mubanga and Richard
Belmar. Three British residents, Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil al-Banna and Jamal
Abdullah, are also being held there.
Last month the Supreme Court ruled that the prisoners from President George
Bush's "war on terror" could not be held indefinitely without access to the
courts. The court's ruling overturned a lower court decision that the
prison, on a US naval base in Cuba, was outside the courts' jurisdiction
because the base was not on sovereign US territory.
The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20040723/76544e0a/attachment.htm>
More information about the News
mailing list