Chimp_Junta Tells Guantanamo Bay Prisoners to Just Suck It Up--Supreme Court Was Wrong and Junta Could Care less
The New York Times > National > Guantanamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court: "(G)UANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Nov. 7 - Each day, several shackled detainees are marched by their military guards into a double-wide trailer behind the prison camp's fences and razor wire to argue before three anonymous military officers that they do not belong here.
(War Crimes Being Committed By George W Bush and Chimp_junta are the same ones the Japanese and Germans were HUNG BY THE NECK TO DIE for, and it is expected that Bush will eventually hang as well.)*aj*
One, a 27-year-old Yemeni, spent more than an hour on Saturday telling a panel that he was not a member of Al Qaeda or a sympathizer, saying that he had never fought against the United States and should never have been detained here at Guantanamo as an unlawful enemy combatant.
The Yemeni, a scraggly-bearded man bound hand and foot, sat in a low chair, his shackles connected to a bolt in the floor, frustrating his efforts to gesture with his hands to make his arguments. Inside the small, harshly lighted room, he alternated between pleading his case and angrily criticizing the process as unfair. Although he spoke Arabic that had to be translated by a woman sitting beside him, there was no mistaking his contempt for the panel members, who sat on a raised platform about 10 feet away and whose questions he ridiculed frequently.
These briskly conducted proceedings, which have received little notice, constitute the Bush administration's principal answer to the Supreme Court's ruling regarding the rights of detainees who have been imprisoned since the administration began its fight against terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks. The court ruled 6 to 3 in June that the detainees had a right to challenge their detentions in federal court, saying that even though the base is outside the sovereign territory of the United States, federal judges have jurisdiction to consider petitions for writs of habeas corpus from those who argue that they are being unlawfully held.
The hearings here have come under heavy criticism because they do not meet the traditional standards of court proceedings. For one thing, the detainees are left to argue their cases for themselves, without assistance from lawyers.
(War Crimes Being Committed By George W Bush and Chimp_junta are the same ones the Japanese and Germans were HUNG BY THE NECK TO DIE for, and it is expected that Bush will eventually hang as well.)*aj*
One, a 27-year-old Yemeni, spent more than an hour on Saturday telling a panel that he was not a member of Al Qaeda or a sympathizer, saying that he had never fought against the United States and should never have been detained here at Guantanamo as an unlawful enemy combatant.
The Yemeni, a scraggly-bearded man bound hand and foot, sat in a low chair, his shackles connected to a bolt in the floor, frustrating his efforts to gesture with his hands to make his arguments. Inside the small, harshly lighted room, he alternated between pleading his case and angrily criticizing the process as unfair. Although he spoke Arabic that had to be translated by a woman sitting beside him, there was no mistaking his contempt for the panel members, who sat on a raised platform about 10 feet away and whose questions he ridiculed frequently.
These briskly conducted proceedings, which have received little notice, constitute the Bush administration's principal answer to the Supreme Court's ruling regarding the rights of detainees who have been imprisoned since the administration began its fight against terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks. The court ruled 6 to 3 in June that the detainees had a right to challenge their detentions in federal court, saying that even though the base is outside the sovereign territory of the United States, federal judges have jurisdiction to consider petitions for writs of habeas corpus from those who argue that they are being unlawfully held.
The hearings here have come under heavy criticism because they do not meet the traditional standards of court proceedings. For one thing, the detainees are left to argue their cases for themselves, without assistance from lawyers.
The hearings, formally called combatant status review tribunals, were hurriedly devised and put into place just weeks after the Supreme Court's ruling. The administration, which has been battling to have the military retain as much control as possible over the detainees, told a federal court in Washington last week that the tribunals more than satisfy the Supreme Court ruling. The government argued that because of the tribunals, federal judges should reject the dozens of petitions they have received from defense lawyers asking them to intervene.
posted by A. J. Franklin @ 09:39
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