Guantanamo Bay's Military "Trials" are Condemned as Grossly Unfair
Monday, August 23, 2004 at 03:14PM
TheSpook
Tomorrow for the first time since the Second
World War, America will start a series of military tribunals to
prosecute four of the 600 prisoners it is holding at Guantanamo Bay.
The US insists the tribunals will be fair, and are the appropriate way
to deal with prisoners that President George Bush described as
"killers" and his Attorney General, John Ashcroft called "uniquely
dangerous". But human rights groups and legal campaigners have
condemned the hearings as unprecedentedly unfair and in contravention
not just of the Geneva Conventions but a raft of other international
laws. "We're concerned that the military commission rules lack key
fair-trial protections," said Wendy Patten, a director of Human Rights
Watch, based in New York. "Under these rules, the military serves as
prosecutor, judge, jury, appeals court and, potentially, even as
executioner. The commission rules do not create a level playing field.
The military commissions offer no possibility for independent appeal,
no matter how serious the error. A fair system of justice provides an
opportunity for trial mistakes to be corrected through independent
review." [more ]
U.S. OKs Status of 10 Guantanamo Prisoners [more ]
Article originally appeared on (http://brownwatch.com/).
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