WP: Pentagon Sets Hearings for 595 Detainees

[kskiska]

Thursday, July 8, 2004; Page A01

The Pentagon announced last night it will quickly hold hearings for all 595 detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison as it scrambles to respond to the Supreme Court ruling last week that the government was jailing terrorism suspects without due process.

The new hearings are designed to determine whether the 595 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, meet the definition of "enemy combatants," as President Bush and the U.S. military have said for more than two years. The administration has used the enemy combatant designation to argue that the detainees do not warrant some protections afforded by the Geneva Conventions.

Since the prison for alleged terrorists opened in early 2002, some human rights activists have said that the government was obligated under international law to hold these hearings. But the government refused, saying the detainees did not deserve such rights because they are terrorists who wore no soldier's uniform and violated the laws of war by killing civilians.

The new hearings -- to be called Combatant Status Review Tribunals -- are separate from the hearings in federal court that the Supreme Court ruled the government must offer to all the inmates to contest their detentions. But administration officials and experts on military law said the new tribunals are designed to buttress the government's case -- that it has been deliberative in its detention decisions and afforded due process -- when it confronts defense attorneys in the federal court hearings.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35423-2004Jul7.html

[Rose Siding]

1. Pentagon Thumbs Nose At SCOTUS

What's to stop them? The protections are shattered.

[TahitiNut]

2. Rumsfeld to SCOTUS: "Go fuck yourself!"

It seems Rummy is taking a cue from his former underling and current Reichsmarshall.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. DUers with legal knowledge, please weigh in on this -- n/t

[JSJ]

4. the scotus decision...

...merely sent the Padilla case back to the district judge. Citing circumstances that held Padilla's attorney filed in a NY district venue, where Padilla was arrested and arraigned, rather than the SC jurisdiction where Padilla resides in a military brig. The tip-off that this Supreme Court decision was anything but a victory for civil liberty advocates is that the decision was 5-4- with five of the injustices ruling against the Administration on only the technical question. The same justices who ruled in the majority are the same ones who helped George W Butcher become the dick-tater he is today. Great article on the same subject here:

http://counterpunch.com/norton07062004.html

Forgot to mention that the failure of the court to rule on the validity of 'enemy combatant' keeps that status alive for current and future detainees determined solely by the Executive to be enemy combatants. Pretty fucked, huh?

[JSJ]

5. kick