Guardian UK: Smoke, mirrors and American justice

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Smoke, mirrors and American justice
Six key Guantánamo detainees are to undergo trial by military commission. But having been tortured, how can they expect a fair trial?
Victoria Brittain


The announcement by the Pentagon of trials by military commission for six of the big-name prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, is the latest in the series of smoke-and-mirror tricks used by the Bush administration to cover the inhuman illegality of the regime in the prison.

The issue is straightforward: the men cannot receive fair trials.

In these first cases linked to 9/11, prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the six men, who include the self-declared mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and of other al-Qaida attacks such as the east African US embassy bombings and the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The best-known of the other five defendants are Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a Yemeni, said to have been the intermediary between the hijackers and al-Qaida, and Mohammed al-Qahtani, believed originally to have been the 20th hijacker for 9/11, although he failed to make it into the US.

The immediate problem for the holding of any successful trial of these men is that they are known to have been severely tortured by the CIA and contractors working for them. No evidence obtained by torture is admissible in any court, and senior US lawyers are lining up to make all necessary legal challenges to the government.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, for instance, is one of three men (the others are Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri) who the CIA has recently admitted were tortured with "waterboarding" by their operatives.

The descriptions of this technique of simulated drowning, carried out in secret prisons halfway round the world, are the stuff of nightmares. It is torture, and that is outlawed under international law. No words of excuse from the powerful can change that. And to see the CIA chief, Michael Hayden, in Congress openly justify waterboarding, is to see how far the war on terror has degraded the American government and its complicit allies here. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/victoria_brittain/2008/02/smoke_mirrors_and_american_justice.html

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1. evidence

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2841686&mesg_id=2841967">obtained from waterboarding