WP: GUANTANAMO BAY TRIBUNALS RULED ILLEGAL [View All]

[Liberty Belle]

GUANTANAMO BAY TRIBUNALS RULED ILLEGAL:
Trials Violate Principles of Due Process, Federal Judge Rules

Washington Post (1/31/2005)--A federal judge ruled this morning that special military tribunals the Pentagon has used to determine the likely guilt of most of the 500 men held at a prison in Guantanamo Bay -- and to justify their continued imprisonment -- are illegal.

U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green. . . said the military's combatant status review tribunals are stacked against the detainees, and deny them crucial rights. She said some detainees may indeed be guilty and pose a danger to the United States, but the government must first give them a lawful hearing on the evidence against them. Green said the detainees are entitled to Fifth Amendment rights, including the advice of a lawyer and a fair chance to confront the evidence against them. The judge found the tribunals have largely denied those rights.

Green noted in particular that there are widespread allegations, and some evidence, that detainees were tortured or abused during interrogations. She said such information makes extremely suspect any confessions of terrorist activities, upon which the military relies heavily in its tribunal decisions to determine that someone is an enemy combatant.

The decision is a legal victory for the detainees and for the civil liberties groups that filed claims on their behalf this summer, after a landmark Supreme Court decision determined that the detainees had a right to defend themselves against the U.S. accusations and their indefinite detention. But its unlikely to have an immediate affect on the detainees' cases or the military prison in Cuba, because of likely appeals. …

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51007-2005Jan31.html