Amnesty International Urges Bush Administration to Abandon Military Commissions

Hicks to be Arraigned Under New Rules

    WASHINGTON, March 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Amnesty International
 today released a new report, Justice Delayed and Justice Denied?, calling
 on the U.S. government to abandon its proposed military commissions and try
 any charged Guantanamo detainees in the federal courts. The first
 proceeding under the military commissions is due to take place on March 26,
 with the arraignment of Australian detainee David Hicks. He was one of 10
 detainees charged under the previous military commission system struck down
 by the U.S. Supreme Court last year.
     Trials under the revised military commission process will fail to
 comply with international standards, Amnesty International charges in the
 new report. The organization is also deeply concerned that detainees could
 face execution after such trials.
     "The pervasive unlawfulness that has marked the past five years of
 detentions cries out for the strictest adherence to fair trial standards,"
 said Susan Lee, Amnesty International's Americas Program Director.
 "Instead, these trials threaten to cut corners in pursuit of a few
 convictions and add to the injustice that the Guantanamo detention facility
 has come to symbolize."
     The military commissions will operate in something approaching a legal
 vacuum. Defendants cannot turn to international human rights law, the
 Geneva Conventions or the United States Constitution for protection. The
 military commissions are part of a universe absent of judicial remedy for
 detainees and their families. Even if a detainee is acquitted, he may be
 returned to indefinite detention as a so-called "enemy combatant".
     In the "war on terror," detainees in U.S. custody have been treated as
 potential sources of information first and potential criminal defendants a
 distant second. They have been subjected to repeated interrogations without
 access to lawyers or the courts. Interrogation techniques and detention
 conditions amounting to torture or other ill-treatment under international
 law have been authorized and used against them.
     "The military commissions are patently tailored to fit the unlawful
 practices that have preceded them," said Lee. "Information coerced by
 cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment will be admissible. At the same time,
 the government may introduce evidence while keeping secret the methods used
 to obtain it."
     In September of last year, 14 detainees were transferred from years of
 secret CIA custody to Guantanamo for the stated purpose of trial by
 military commission. They have not yet been charged, and are being denied
 access to lawyers even as the government is building its case against them.
     "We fear that the military commissions will lack the independence
 necessary to guarantee fair trials for those charged and to apply the
 relevant scrutiny to government misconduct," said Jumana Musa, Advocacy
 Director for Domestic Human Rights and International Justice at Amnesty
 International USA. "Under such circumstances, justice will neither be done
 nor be seen to be done."
     Musa served as Amnesty International's observer to military commission
 hearings at Guantanamo under the previous system.
     Because of the absence of fair trial guarantees, and the trail of
 illegality that precedes the trials, Amnesty International is calling on
 other countries not to provide any information to assist the prosecution in
 military commissions.
     Background Information
     Pentagon officials have suggested that 60 to 80 of the thousands of
 detainees it has held as "enemy combatants" may eventually face trial by
 military commission, while admitting that even this may be an overestimate.
 There are currently more than 350 detainees unlawfully held in Guantanamo
 and hundreds more in U.S. custody in Afghanistan. It is not known if there
 are any detainees currently held in the Bush administration's secret
 detention program.
     Amnesty International is campaigning for repeal of the Military
 Commissions Act (MCA) or its substantial amendment in line with
 international law. As well as providing for trials by military commission,
 the MCA strips the U.S. courts of jurisdiction to consider habeas corpus
 appeals of any non-U.S. citizen held as an "enemy combatant", and further
 entrenches impunity of U.S. personnel by narrowing the scope of the War
 Crimes Act.
     A copy of the new report's summary is attached. For a copy of the full
 report, please contact the AIUSA press office at 202.544.0200x302.
 
 

SOURCE Amnesty International