Gitmo's Kangaroo Combatant Court

[Vyan]

Under both the Geneva Conventions and the newly passed Military Commissions Act, hearings are required for each detainee to determine if they are in fact an "Enemy Combatant" or not. With the virtual revokation of Habaes Corpus under the MCA these Status Tribunals are currently the only measure of justice that these detainee's are likely to see. But a university review of 390 of such hearings has found that they are little more than a "Sham".

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The U.S. military called no witnesses, withheld evidence from detainees and usually reached a decision within a day as it determined that hundreds of men detained at Guantanamo Bay were "enemy combatants," according to a new report.

Their report, based on an analysis of records of military hearings of 393 detainees, comes as the U.S. government seeks to severely restrict detainee access to civilian courts, arguing that the Combatant Status Review Tribunals should be their main legal recourse.

We've already found that the U.S. Government is far from infallable when it comes to identifying who may be an "Enemy" and who may not especially in regards not just those held in Gitmo, but to the estimated 14,000 detainees currently being held in Bush's Secret Prisons (or rendered) all around the globe.

We have the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian national who was detained at Kennedy Airport when his name was mistaken on a watchlist, before the mistake was corrected he had been transported to Syria and tortured.

There is Abu Omar, an innocent man who was mistakenly kidnapped by CIA agents in Italy, transported to Egypt and also tortured.

Even being a member of the media is no protection, as Pulitzer Prize winning AP Photographer Bilal Hussein has discovered during the seven months that he's been held by the U.S. Military on suspicion of aiding insurgents in Iraq - and has not yet been granted his Status Review hearing. (Disturbingly the original AP Story on Hussein has also disappeared, not that the story can't still be found as various Newspaper editorial boards have begun to speak out).

The ban on Habeas is quite far reaching and includes even immigrants living legally in the U.S.

WASHINGTON - Immigrants arrested in the United States may be held indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism and may not challenge their imprisonment in civilian courts, the Bush administration said Monday, opening a new legal front in the fight over the rights of detainees.

In court documents filed with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., the Justice Department said a new anti-terrorism law being used to hold detainees in Guantanamo Bay also applies to foreigners captured and held in the United States.

Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar, was arrested in 2001 while studying in the United States. He has been labeled an "enemy combatant," a designation that, under a law signed last month, strips foreigners of the right to challenge their detention in federal courts.

That law is being used to argue the Guantanamo Bay cases, but Al-Marri represents the first detainee inside the United States to come under the new law. Aliens normally have the right to contest their imprisonment, such as when they are arrested on immigration violations or for other crimes.

Now the only method for persons such as Al-Marri to question his detainment is before the Combat Status Review - and that process is basically rigged.

The one peice of good news is that although Habeas for Non-U.S. Citizens is now none existent under the MCA and the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 the findings of the Combatant Status Review Tribunal can be appealed to the DC Circuit. However one must temper this encouraging news for the wrongly accused by considering the reality that before he was even allowed access to his attorney Hamdan had to frist plead guilty, and that even after winning his case before the Supreme Court Lt. Cmd. Swift was passed up for promition and effectively drummed out of the military. So Hamdan's isn't exactly a course we can expect to be readily followed by other defendants or attorney's which is troubling since there may indeed be fertile grounds for the reversal of many of the findings of this court.

The military held Combatant Status Review Tribunals for 558 detainees at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in southeast Cuba between July 2004 and January 2005 and found all but 38 were enemy combatants. Handcuffed detainees appeared before a panel of three officers with no defense attorney, only a military "personal representative."

According to the report, the representatives said nothing in the hearings 14 percent of the time and made no "substantive" comments in 30 percent. In some cases, the representative even appeared to advocate the government's position, the report said.

The report is based on transcripts of tribunals that the government first released earlier this year in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by The Associated Press as well additional records provided by lawyers for 102 Guantanamo detainees.

Among their findings:

* The government did not produce any witnesses in any hearing.
* The military denied all detainee requests to inspect the classified evidence against them.
* The military refused all requests for defense witnesses who were not detained at Guantanamo.
* In 74 percent of the cases, the government denied requests to call witnesses who were detained at the prison.
* In 91 percent of the hearings, the detainees did not present any evidence.
* In three cases, the panel found that the detainee was "no longer an enemy combatant," but the military convened new tribunals that later found them to be enemy combatants.

"No American would ever consider this to be hearing," Denbeaux said. "This is a show trial."

Showing that the light at the end of this long dark tunnel really isn't an oncoming train. Yesterday Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) introduced legislation "that would amend the existing law governing military tribunals of detainees. Among other things, the bill "seeks to give habeas corpus protections to military detainees" and narrow the definition of "unlawful enemy combatant" to individuals who directly participate in hostilities against the United States."

Dodd's bill, which currently has no co-sponsors, seeks to give habeas corpus protections to military detainees; bar information that was gained through coercion from being used in trials and empower military judges to exclude hearsay evidence they deem to be unreliable.

Dodd's bill also narrows the definition of "unlawful enemy combatant" to individuals who directly participate in hostilities against the United States who are not lawful combatants. The legislation would also authorize the U.S. Court of Appeals for the armed forces to review decisions made by the military commissions.

Moreover, Dodd seeks to have an expedited judicial review of the new law to determine the constitutionality of its provisions.

Make no mistake, this move by Dodd is a risky one. He will be swiftboated, accused of "coddling our enemies" and being "Soft on terrorism" for simply requiring that Justice be Served.

We seem to have forgotten that this nation is built on a foundation that the innocent be protected, that those who are accused of crimes by the government be given the benefit of the doubt and considered innocent until proven guilty. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 is a travesty that has violated our core principles, but regaining what was lost will most certainly be an uphill battle. Dodd is simply attempted to correct our mistake.

Yes or course, we all want to fight terrorism - we just want to make sure it's against the right terrorists. We wouldn't want to go off half-cocked and invade the wrong country based on false confessions we gained through use of torture now would we?

Ooops. Never mind.

Vyan