US detainee tribunals notch wins, raise concerns
Successes include David Hicks's guilty plea this week. But experts say the process is riddled with problems.
from the March 30, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
Some analysts say this recent flurry of public disclosures from Guantánamo is no coincidence. "This is an attempt by the government to legitimize everything that has happened up to this point," says J. Wells Dixon, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents several detainees at Guantánamo. "They are trying to show the world that these detainees have some measure of fair process." He adds, "That is just not the case."
Legal analysts say the detainee procedures at Guantánamo are riddled with problems that will taint and undermine the legitimacy of the process from beginning to end.
For example, Mohammed's rambling March 10 confession was presented to the military panel assembled to determine whether he is an enemy combatant eligible to be held indefinitely in a cell at Guantánamo. But it could also be used as evidence against him in a subsequent military commission trial. Although Mohammed said he was mistreated and tortured during his interrogation by US officials, the panel – and any future military commission – is empowered to accept coerced information as valid evidence.
Mohammed's admissions, if proven at trial, would make him eligible for a death sentence. But there is no suggestion that Mohammed was granted access to legal counsel prior to making his incriminating public admissions.
Legal analysts say the most revealing assessment of the legitimacy of the Guantánamo procedures will come when a terror suspect and his lawyers test the fairness of the system in the crucible of a full war-crimes trial.
Then it will be largely up to a military judge presiding over the military commission to determine to what extent trial protections taken for granted in American courts may apply to terror suspects on trial at Guantánamo.
Such criticism underscores the substantial hurdles faced by the Bush administration in seeking to build national and international credibility for its commission process. Guantánamo has become for many an international symbol of oppression and injustice.
Even Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested Thursday that Congress consider moves that would close the detention camp but allow the US to hold some terror suspects for life.
Justice Department officials oppose such a move in part because it would undermine the government's long-held strategy of sharply limiting the legal rights and legal recourse of terror suspects by continuing to hold them outside sovereign US territory.
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