Guantánamo trials ruled illegal
Mark Oliver and agencies
Thursday June 29, 2006
A detainee's arm hangs outside his cell at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay. Photograph: Mike Brown/EPA
The US supreme court ruled today that the US president, George Bush, overstepped his authority in creating military war crimes trials for detainees at Guantánamo Bay.
In a rebuke to the administration, Justice John Paul Stevens said the proposed trials were illegal under US law and Geneva conventions.
The ruling could hasten the closure of the US detention centre in south-east Cuba, which is used to hold terror suspects picked up in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere beyond the reach of the US constitution and international law.
The case before the supreme court focused on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a body guard and driver for the al-Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the US prison in Cuba. He faces a single count of conspiring against US citizens from 1996 to November 2001.
Inmates endure open-ended interrogation and detention at the prison, which has become a symbol of the Bush administration's aggressive anti-terror policies.
Mr Bush said last week that he would like to close the camp, but was waiting for direction from the US supreme court. "I'd like to end Guantánamo. I'd like it to be over with," he said after meeting European leaders in Vienna last Wednesday.
Two years ago, the court rejected Mr Bush's claim to have the authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny them access to courts or lawyers. In this follow-up case, the justices focused solely on the issue of trials for some of the men.
More than 750 inmates have passed through the steel mesh cages of Guantánamo.
Its numbers of prisoners, however, have been reducing, with no new detainees arriving since September 2004. There are currently around 460 inmates and the Pentagon has already said it intends to transfer 120 of these to their home countries.
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Good job Supreme Court!
Mark Oliver and agencies
Thursday June 29, 2006
A detainee's arm hangs outside his cell at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay. Photograph: Mike Brown/EPA
The US supreme court ruled today that the US president, George Bush, overstepped his authority in creating military war crimes trials for detainees at Guantánamo Bay.
In a rebuke to the administration, Justice John Paul Stevens said the proposed trials were illegal under US law and Geneva conventions.
The ruling could hasten the closure of the US detention centre in south-east Cuba, which is used to hold terror suspects picked up in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere beyond the reach of the US constitution and international law.
The case before the supreme court focused on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a body guard and driver for the al-Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the US prison in Cuba. He faces a single count of conspiring against US citizens from 1996 to November 2001.
Inmates endure open-ended interrogation and detention at the prison, which has become a symbol of the Bush administration's aggressive anti-terror policies.
Mr Bush said last week that he would like to close the camp, but was waiting for direction from the US supreme court. "I'd like to end Guantánamo. I'd like it to be over with," he said after meeting European leaders in Vienna last Wednesday.
Two years ago, the court rejected Mr Bush's claim to have the authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny them access to courts or lawyers. In this follow-up case, the justices focused solely on the issue of trials for some of the men.
More than 750 inmates have passed through the steel mesh cages of Guantánamo.
Its numbers of prisoners, however, have been reducing, with no new detainees arriving since September 2004. There are currently around 460 inmates and the Pentagon has already said it intends to transfer 120 of these to their home countries.
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Good job Supreme Court!
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