Obama to restart military trials for terror suspects
In a statement, Obama announced the decision, arguing that it will ensure a legitimate forum to prosecute alleged terrorists being held at the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“This is the best way to protect our country, while upholding our deeply held values,” Obama said of his decision, that has been criticised by liberal groups.
He said the old system had only succeeded in prosecuting three suspected terrorists in seven years.
Answering liberal complaints, press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters: “First and foremost, the president does what is in the best security interest of the United States.”
For now, the military trials will remain on hold, as Obama changes the legal system that is expected to try fewer than 20 of the 241 detainees in Guantanamo.
The president said that rule changes governing the trials will begin to bring them in line with the rule of law, most significantly by altering rules of allowable evidence. Obama also is asking Congress to change the 2006 law that created the on-hold tribunals to enact more sweeping reforms.
“Military commissions have a long tradition in the United States. They are appropriate for trying enemies who violate the laws of war, provided that they are properly structured and administered,” Obama said.
Thirteen Guantanamo detainees – including five charged with helping orchestrate the September 11, 2001, attacks – are already in the tribunal system.
Pentagon lawyers filed a request with the military commissions judge seeking a 120-day delay in trials to give it time to enact at least the initial rule changes.
The tribunal system was established after the military began taking detainees from Afghanistan in late 2001. But it was immediately challenged by human rights and legal organisations, because it denied defendants most of the rights they would be granted in a civilian courtroom or even in a traditional military court martial.
Obama voted for one version of the tribunal law that gave detainees additional rights, but voted against the more limited 2006 law, calling it “sloppy.”
“We have rushed through a bill that stands a good chance of being challenged once again in the Supreme Court,” he said then. “This is not how a serious administration would approach the problem of terrorism.”
Liberal groups were angered by yesterday’s news.
“It’s disappointing that Obama is seeking to revive rather than end this failed experiment,” said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union. “There’s no detainee at Guantanamo who cannot be tried and shouldn’t be tried in the regular federal courts system. Even with the proposed modifications, this will not cure the commissions or provide them with legitimacy. This is perpetuating the Bush administration’s misguided detention policy.”
The restrictions on evidence almost certainly will result in only a fraction of detainees who ever will go to trial. The rest would be released, transferred to other nations or tried by civilian prosecutors in US federal courts, an official said.
It is also possible that some could be held indefinitely as prisoners of war with full Geneva Conventions protections, according to another official.
The decision to restart the process puts the administration in a race against the clock to conclude commission trials before the Navy prison is closed, by January 2010. If the trials are still going on, the detainees might have to be brought to the US, where they would receive greater legal rights.
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