Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: US court: Guantanamo tribunals illegal

 US court: Guantanamo tribunals illegal
Tuesday 09 November 2004, 15:01 Makka Time, 12:01 GMT
The judge has ruled that the commissions' rules must change
A US federal court has ruled that Usama bin Ladin's driver is entitled
to a legal hearing on whether he is a prisoner of war.
The landmark opinion issued on Monday could prevent military trials of
alleged enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay.
It was the first time a court has stalled hearings in the military
commissions, resurrected from the second world war and heavily
criticised by lawyers, legal observers and human rights groups.
A competent tribunal should have evaluated whether Salim Ahmad Hamdan
was a prisoner of war under the Geneva Conventions, Judge James
Robertson of the US District Court in Washington ordered in an opinion
issued on Monday.
The judge added that Hamdan should not be tried unless rules of the
military commissions were changed to conform to the Uniform Code of
Military Justice.
Hamdan's defence team said the 34-year-old from Yemen was "ecstatic".
The court ruled in favour of Hamdan's habeas petition and against the US
government's contention that Hamdan and other detainees were not
prisoners of war but "enemy combatants", a classification affording
fewer legal protections.
"What people in the United States haven't realised is that if we don't
comply with them [the Geneva Conventions], no other country is required
to comply with them, looking at our example"
Barbara Olshansky, from the Centre for Constitutional Rights
Core points in the ruling included Hamdan's right to a tribunal that
looked at whether he qualified as a prisoner of war and his right to
challenge all the evidence against him.
He is only allowed to hear unclassified evidence against him.
The US Justice Department said it would appeal.
Barbara Olshansky of the Centre for Constitutional Rights said the
judge's emphasis on the Geneva Conventions was a key point in his
ruling.
"What people in the United States haven't realised is that if we don't
comply with them, no other country is required to comply with them,
looking at our example," Olshansky said. "That places our own soldiers
at risk whenever they are fighting abroad."
US supports Bush
Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said the government stood
behind President George Bush's assertion that the Geneva Conventions did
not apply to members of al-Qaida and said with the ruling, "the judge
has put terrorism on the same legal footing as legitimate methods of
waging war".
Most of the 550 prisoners at Guantanamo were classified as enemy
combatants before they arrived at the US prison camp.
It was only after a Supreme Court decision in June that allowed them to
challenge their detentions in a federal court that the government
established the Combatant Status Review Tribunals to evaluate their
cases.
Hamdan's case went before the tribunals last month.
More than 300 of the cases have gone before the three-member tribunals
but only one person has been released.
Rules must change
None of the detainees are allowed lawyers for the proceedings and they
are allowed to hear only portions of the evidence against them.
None of the detainees has been
allowed lawyers at hearings
In its decision, the court also said unless military commission rules
were changed to conform to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Hamdan
should not be tried by the commissions and should be moved from a prison
wing for those awaiting trial to the general population.
The ruling suggests anyone deemed an enemy combatant whom the government
wants to try must first go before a panel to determine whether he is a
prisoner of war.
Hamdan is charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, including
attacking civilians and murder, but he says he never supported
"terrorism" and was not an al-Qaida member.
He says he earned a pittance driving the al-Qaida leader bin Ladin.
Civil rights victory
Civil rights groups have condemned the military commissions because the
panels are made up of military officers - many of whom have no judicial
experience - and because defendants are excluded from hearings where
classified evidence against them is raised.
Defendants are prevented from
hearing all the evidence
"This is a clean victory," said Eugene Fidell, president of the National
Institute of Military Justice, a non-government group. "He [Hamdan] is
entitled to a full trial in a proper military court and it doesn't get
any better than that.
"This ruling rightly demolishes the Bush administration's argument that
the Geneva Conventions did not universally apply to prisoners detained
in Afghanistan," said Amnesty International in a statement.
"This ruling should put the final nail into the coffin of the military
commissions," said Jamie Fellner, director of the US programme at Human
Rights Watch.
"They should never have been created in the first place and their
implementation has been a disaster."
Military lawyers have argued that Guantanamo detainees should not get
prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Conventions because they are not
fighting for a state but for al-Qaida.
The judge responded by saying: "That argument is rejected."

non ho compreso il senso e la ragione del breve allegato.
tu che sei il capofila dell'antiamericanismo (che nascondi sotto la
definizione di antimperialismo), dovresti essere il primo a trarre le dovute
considerazioni dal messaggio che hai postato :
gli U.S.A. sono la migliore democrazia sul pianeta
o forse la Francia..................
GIGAMAIL by X-Privat: 
http://www.x-privat.org/gigamail.php

 gli U.S.A. sono la migliore democrazia sul pianeta
con il peggior governo...
Saluti
Il GecKo
P.s.
Si dice che ogni popolo ha il governo che si merita, giusto ?
-- 
I videogiochi non influenzano i bambini. Voglio dire, se Pac-Man 
avesse influenzato la nostra generazione, staremmo tutti saltando in 
sale scure, masticando pillole magiche e ascoltando musica elettronica 
ripetitiva." -Kristian Wilson, Nintendo Inc
Smettila di dire queste cazzate!! Le armi ci sono!!Mi vien voglia di 
andare in Iraq domani solo per trovarle e poterti cosě sputtanare! 
(Guelfo su it.politica) 

 Si dice che ogni popolo ha il governo che si merita, giusto ?
hai detto una fesseria.
Non meriti risposta


 
Te l'ho ficcato nel culo, per l'ennesima volta, e tu non sai come 
controbattere.
E' questa, per te, la tristissima notizia.
Capisci ?
Saluti
Il GecKo
