[Ppnews] Supreme Court ruling cripples Guantanamo trials

[Political Prisoner News]

Supreme Court ruling cripples Guantanamo trials

June 12, 2008

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4123181.ece

The Supreme Court has ruled that Guantanamo detainees have the right 
to be heard in civilian courts

Tim Reid in Washington

The future of President Bush's controversial military trial system 
for terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay has been dealt a 
potentially terminal blow by the US Supreme Court.

In its third rebuke of the Bush Administration's treatment of 
prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the court ruled that the 270 foreign 
terror suspects have the right under the US Constitution to challenge 
their detention in civilian courts on the American mainland.

The 5-4 ruling did not order the military tribunal process to be 
halted but it could trigger a chaotic rush to civilian courts that in 
practical terms will leave the question of what to do with men such 
as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the September 11 mastermind, in the hands 
of the next president.

Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, has pledged to close down the 
site and opposes the military tribunals. John McCain, his Republican 
opponent, also wants Guantanamo Bay closed. Unlike Mr Obama, however, 
the Arizona senator supported a law rushed through Congress in 2006 
by Mr Bush to resurrect the tribunal system after the Supreme Court 
last ruled it unconstitutional.

That law, the Military Commissions Act, was passed when Republicans 
controlled the House and Senate and was the legislation declared 
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court today, because it denies the 
detainees the right of habeus corpus - an ability to ask a court if 
one is being held illegally.

The facility currently has 270 detainees - many of whom have been 
held without charge for over 6 years.

Democrats are now in the supremacy in both chambers and Mr Bush will 
be hard pressed to get Congress to circumvent the Supreme Court again.

Five alleged plotters of the September 11 attacks, including 
Mohammed, appeared in a Guantanamo courtroom last week for a 
pre-trial hearing, with prosecutors hoping to start a trial on September 15.

Nearly seven years after Mr Bush set up the tribunals, where he 
argued the detainees had no rights, not one trial has taken place. A 
military judge at Guantanamo postponed the trial of Osama bin Laden's 
one-time driver - which had been due to start last week - pending 
yesterday's Supreme Court ruling.

"The entire basis for the existence of Guantanamo Bay is gone," said 
Navy Lieutenant Commander Brian Mizer, the military lawyer assigned 
to defend Salim Hamdan.

Dana Perino, Mr Bush's spokeswoman, said the White House was 
reviewing the decision.

The Supreme Court's liberal justices were in the majority, with 
Justice Anthony Kennedy pivotal. Writing for the court, he said: "The 
laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, 
in extraordinary times."

He said the system that the Administration had put in place after 
previous Supreme Court rulings to classify them as enemy combatants 
and to review their status, was inadequate.

The court's four conservative justices dissented. Antonin Scalia said 
America "is at war with radical Islamists" and that the decision 
"will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more 
Americans to be killed".

Commander Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, said he had no 
immediate information on whether a hearing at Guantanamo for a 
Canadian charged with killing a US Special Forces soldier in 
Afghanistan would go forward next week as planned. Omar Khadr is one 
of 19 detainees so far facing the first US military war-crimes trials 
since the World War II era.

Although Mr Obama and Mr McCain say they want to shut down the 
facility, there is no easy answer as to how to do it. Processing the 
hundreds of detainees through the American federal court system could 
take years. Many of the detainees' home countries, including Saudi 
Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, are opposed to taking them back.

Mr Bush, speaking from Rome, said he did not agree with the decision 
and would consider new legislation to overcome it.

"I strongly agree with those who dissented," he said. "Their dissent 
was based on serious concerns about US national security."




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