Case fails at Guantanamo

CUBA – With one word – ‘unlawful’ – the only two war-crimes trials against Guantanamo detainees fell apart in a single day.

Two military judges dismissed charges on Monday against a Guantanamo detainee who chauffeured Osama bin Laden and another who allegedly killed a US soldier in Afghanistan, marking a stunning setback to Washington’s attempts to try dozens of detainees in military court. Canadian Omar Khadr, who was only 15 when he was arrested on an Afghan battlefield, and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, of Yemen, were the only two of the roughly 380 prisoners at Guantanamo charged with crimes under a reconstituted military trial system.The surprise back-to-back rulings stand to complicate efforts by the United States to try other suspected al Qaeda and Taliban figures in military courts.Defence attorneys and legal experts blamed the rush by Congress and US President George W Bush last year to restore the war-crimes trials after the US Supreme Court threw out the previous system, declaring it unconstitutional.It was a lawsuit by Hamdan that led to the Supreme Court ruling.In both of Monday’s cases, the judges ruled that the new legislation says only “unlawful enemy combatants” can be tried by the military trials, known as commissions.But Khadr and Hamdan had previously been identified by military panels here only as enemy combatants, lacking the critical “unlawful” designation.”The fundamental problem is that the law was not carefully written,” said Madeline Morris, a Duke University law professor.”It was rushed through in a flurry of political pressure from the White House …and it is quite riddled with internal contradictions and anomalies.”Army Major Beth Kubala, spokeswoman for the Office of Military Commissions that organises the trials, said “the public should make no assumption about the future of military commissions.”She said they will continue to operate openly and fairly and added that dismissals of the charges ‘reflect that the military judges operate independently’.She declined to comment on how the Office of Military Commissions planned to respond to the setbacks, saying she didn’t want to speculate.Military prosecutors declined to appear before reporters after their cases collapsed.The distinction between classifications of enemy combatants is important because if they were ‘lawful’, they would be entitled to prisoner of war status under the Geneva Conventions.A Pentagon spokesman said the issue was little more than semantics.Nampa-APCanadian Omar Khadr, who was only 15 when he was arrested on an Afghan battlefield, and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, of Yemen, were the only two of the roughly 380 prisoners at Guantanamo charged with crimes under a reconstituted military trial system.The surprise back-to-back rulings stand to complicate efforts by the United States to try other suspected al Qaeda and Taliban figures in military courts.Defence attorneys and legal experts blamed the rush by Congress and US President George W Bush last year to restore the war-crimes trials after the US Supreme Court threw out the previous system, declaring it unconstitutional.It was a lawsuit by Hamdan that led to the Supreme Court ruling.In both of Monday’s cases, the judges ruled that the new legislation says only “unlawful enemy combatants” can be tried by the military trials, known as commissions.But Khadr and Hamdan had previously been identified by military panels here only as enemy combatants, lacking the critical “unlawful” designation.”The fundamental problem is that the law was not carefully written,” said Madeline Morris, a Duke University law professor.”It was rushed through in a flurry of political pressure from the White House …and it is quite riddled with internal contradictions and anomalies.”Army Major Beth Kubala, spokeswoman for the Office of Military Commissions that organises the trials, said “the public should make no assumption about the future of military commissions.”She said they will continue to operate openly and fairly and added that dismissals of the charges ‘reflect that the military judges operate independently’.She declined to comment on how the Office of Military Commissions planned to respond to the setbacks, saying she didn’t want to speculate.Military prosecutors declined to appear before reporters after their cases collapsed.The distinction between classifications of enemy combatants is important because if they were ‘lawful’, they would be entitled to prisoner of war status under the Geneva Conventions.A Pentagon spokesman said the issue was little more than semantics.Nampa-AP