Detainees require more legal rights in court: US officials

[SpartanDem]

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US administration officials said Tuesday that terror suspects tried before military commissions can claim some constitutional rights, including protection against evidence obtained through coercion.

The commissions, Assistant Attorney General David Kris said, should only allow evidence from detainees' voluntary statements or else risk having convictions thrown out on appeal in higher courts.

"It is the administration's view that there is a serious risk that courts would hold that admission of involuntary statements of the accused in military commission proceedings is unconstitutional," Kris told the Senate Armed Services Committee in written testimony.

Adding the safeguards upholding "due process" principles in the US Constitution would help commission convictions stand up on appeal, Kris told the panel.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iB502m5rHgYkfFeeKzp8IFeO9ymw

Another headline that you'd never see with Bush/McCain