02/11/08 (DC):
Military Tribunals To Be Tested In Terror Trials
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The Pentagon has announced that six Guantanamo detainees are to be tried by a Military Commission for their alleged roles in the 9/11 attacks. Previous attempts at introducing the system have failed after the Government tried to bring two cases last summer but was thwarted by Congress and the Supreme Court.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is likely to go on trial with a number of other high profile defendants later this year despite rumblings of discontent from home and overseas. No doubt the prosecution will rely heavily upon the well documented links between some of the accused and al-Qaida, particularly Mohammed and the alleged "20th hijacker" Ramzi Binalshibh who, it is said, would have participated in the attacks had he not been refused a visa to enter the U.S.
However, many observers are concerned about the methods used to obtain confessions from the accused, in particular 'waterboarding' where a suspect has a stream of water continually poured over their covered face to simulate drowning.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, a Pentagon legal adviser, said it will be left up to the judges to decide which evidence may be admitted. "We are a nation of laws and not of men," Hartmann said at a DOD briefing. "The questions about techniques will be decided in the courts in front of a judge. That's the rule of law."
Critics of the Bush administration's detention policies will want a microscope on the tribunal proceedings, but they are not likely to get it. The defendants are considered high-value detainees, and were held in secret foreign locations before being transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006.
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