|
MP3
ALBUM
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
DUBROOM
ARTICLE SECTION |
|
|
| Plans
for execution chamber at Guantanamo Bay |
| BABYLON
OBSERVER COMMENT: The people who are held at
the Guantanamo Bay camps in Cuba will not
only have to face torture and other inhuman
treatement, as their captors are now
building death rooms to kill them.
|
|
Detainee death chamber studied
By Matthew Hay Brown | San Juan Bureau
Posted June 6, 2003
Plans for an execution chamber at the Guantanamo
Bay Naval Base in Cuba are being studied by the
U.S. military as it prepares to bring suspected
al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists to trial later
this year.
A Pentagon spokeswoman said Thursday that the
base's prison commander is discussing whether to
include the death chamber in possible plans for a
permanent prison.
However, Lt. Cmdr. Barbara Burfeind stressed that
the proposals being put together by Maj. Gen.
Geoffrey Miller still have to be submitted to
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and President
Bush.
About 680 people captured during the war in
Afghanistan are being held at the base in the
makeshift prison known as Camp Delta.
Burfeind said Miller was being prudent in planning
for all the elements that military tribunals could
bring -- including long-term prison sentences or
even death penalties -- once they start. The
trials could start later this year.
At Guantanamo, prison-camp spokesman Lt. Col.
Barry Johnson said authorities have started
preparations for the trials. Several old offices
at the base are being spruced up for use as
courtrooms, and base commanders are discussing a
permanent facility to house prisoners for years.
In addition, Johnson said, the base command has
discussed building a death-row facility and a
chamber for execution by lethal injection.
That prospect is hardening opinion against the way
the United States is handling the foreign
detainees, who have been held indefinitely as
"enemy combatants," without access to
lawyers, courts or relatives.
"Now the captors are planning how to execute
them," said Vienna Colucci of Amnesty
International.
With courtroom rules finalized and military
prosecutors and defense attorneys selected, the
tribunals -- the Pentagon calls them
"commissions" -- now await the go-ahead
from Bush, who will make the final call on
individuals to be considered for charges.
Maj. John Smith, a judge advocate assigned to the
commissions, said it is premature to talk about
executions.
"We don't even have a person under
jurisdiction or charges filed," he said.
But Eugene Fidell, president of the National
Institute of Military Justice, said such
preparations would make sense.
"It certainly shouldn't surprise anyone that
the necessary steps might be taken, since the
death penalty is provided for in the order
establishing the commissions," Fidell said.
Administration officials have indicated plans to
refer about a dozen detainees to the tribunals.
Under rules developed by the Pentagon, the
president would identify the individuals to be
tried, prosecutors would draft charges and the
secretary of defense would appoint the commissions
to try them.
Cases would be argued by military prosecutors and
defense attorneys before panels of three to seven
officers. Defendants could retain civilian
counsel, but such attorneys would have to be U.S.
citizens, would be responsible for travel to and
from the commission and would have to achieve at
least a "secret"-level security
clearance -- and still they could be excluded from
sensitive information presented before the
tribunal.
The panels would vote on verdicts and sentences.
Cases could be appealed to a military review panel
and on to the president, but no appeal is allowed
through the traditional judicial system.
Legal analysts, rights advocates and others have
criticized the Bush administration for refusing to
declare the detainees either prisoners of war or
criminal suspects and honor the rights that would
apply in either case. Now they say the commissions
fall short of basic fair-trial standards.
"It's not the military-justice system; it's
not the criminal-justice system -- it's a thing
unto itself," said Elisa Massimino, director
of the Washington office of the Lawyer's Committee
for Human Rights. "Repressive dictators would
like to copy this."
Colucci, of Amnesty International, called the
tribunals a "parallel justice system that is
essentially accountable only to the executive
branch."
"There's no meaningful right of appeal, no
appeal outside of the system," she said.
"Conceivably, someone who is not guilty, who
has been subjected to an extended period of
interrogation under coercive circumstances, could
be brought before the commission, [which] doesn't
meet fair-trial standards, convicted and put to
death."
Massimino said restrictions on civilian counsel
make it unlikely that competent attorneys would be
able to participate. Holding the tribunals at
Guantanamo would make it difficult for the public
to gain access to any proceedings not closed on
national-security grounds, she said.
"There are a lot of rules, a lot of
words," Massimino said. "But the bottom
line is that there could be a trial pursuant to
all those rules that wouldn't look anything like
what we would think of as fair."
Smith, the military lawyer, said the presumption
of innocence, the burden on the prosecution to
present proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt
and other standards familiar to the criminal- and
military-justice systems should protect the rights
of defendants.
"There's been criticism, but the proof will
be when you see how the trials will be
conducted," he said. "There are
safeguards and procedures that will guarantee a
fair trial."
Smith said civilian attorneys have expressed
interest in serving as defense counsel, but none
has filed an application yet.
Col. Will A. Gunn, the acting chief defense
counsel, said in a news briefing last month that
he was looking for attorneys who would fight hard
for the detainees.
"We believe in this country, and we believe
in what this country espouses as its key
values," Gunn said. "And among those key
values is the concept that every individual
accused of a crime is presumed to be
innocent."
"We've all represented individuals that
others may have despised, others may have been
leery of, but we had a job to do," he said.
"We have a job to do."
Fidell, a retired Coast Guard judge advocate who
practices in Washington, D.C., and has taught
military justice at Yale Law School, said
constraints on defense counsel and the lack of an
independent appeals process could limit public
confidence in the tribunals.
"This increasingly complex canvas that we're
watching may change dramatically," he said.
"Large parts of it continue to be
unknown."
Burfeind said Pentagon investigators now are
preparing information on potential defendants for
review by Bush. She said it probably would not be
until this summer, at the earliest, before Bush
signs an executive order identifying individuals
to face trial.
One potential candidate is Zacarias Moussaoui, the
suspected 20th hijacker from Sept. 11, 2001. In a
federal appeals court this week, attorneys for the
French citizen argued his right to call a captured
al-Qaeda member as a witness in his federal trial.
If the courts rule in his favor, the government is
expected to move his case to a military
commission.
Under current rules, only non-U.S. citizens may be
tried by military commission. The Justice
Department earlier this year proposed a measure
that would allow the attorney general to strip
U.S. citizenship from individuals for supporting a
terrorist group.
"Some attention should be paid to that,"
Massimino said. "That may make some people
take greater interest."
Richard A. Serrano of the Los Angeles Times, a
Tribune Publishing newspaper, contributed to this
report. Matthew Hay Brown can be reached at
787-729-9072 or mhbrown@tribune.com.
ORIGINAL
|
|
|
|
|
|
DISCLAIMER |
|
In
case the article on this page was quoted from
another source, the two following statements
apply:
-1- Fair Use policy applies since the quote is for
non-profit educational and research purposes only.
For more information, go to: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
-2- The DUBROOM has no affiliation whatsoever with
the originator of the articles nor is The DUBROOM
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.
|
|
|
|
ADVERTIZEMENT
www.reggaeloops.com |
|
|
|
|
|
