US sets rules for camp X-ray prosecutions
The US government has set the rules for conducting military tribunals for prisoners from the Afghan war, including five Britons being held at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay.
The rules, which were expected to be formally announced today, could reassure critics who worried the tribunals would simply shuttle defendants to a hasty execution, the New York Times said.
Under the rules, suspects will be presumed not guilty and can see the evidence against them.
The rules now also require a unanimous verdict for the death penalty, let the press cover most proceedings and allow defendants to have military lawyers at government expense and also hire their own civilian lawyers at their own expense.
But officials said the rules on introducing evidence were still looser than in civilian courts, with hearsay allowed, as well as any evidence that would be convincing to a ‘‘reasonable person.’’
Mary Cheh, a professor of criminal procedure and constitutional law at George Washington University, told the newspaper the administration appeared to be listening to some of its critics.
‘‘Over all,’’ Professor Cheh said, ‘‘they have given ground on points that are fundamentally important.’’
There is no provision for independent appeals, however.
Amnesty International said the lack of appeals gave ‘‘unfettered and unchallengeable discretionary power to the executive to decide who will be prosecuted and under what rules, as well as to review convictions and sentences.’’
President George Bush will have final review of the cases, although he has already called for the prisoners to be tried as ‘‘killers.’’
‘‘They don’t share the same values we share,’’ he said.
The administration has yet to determine a number of matters, including the sites of the tribunals, when they would start and who might be tried.
Officials said the trials might not begin for several months, because investigators were still sifting through evidence obtained on the battlefield.
Five Britons are being held in Camp X-Ray after being detained by US forces in Afghanistan. They are Shafiq Rasul, 24, Asif Iqbal,, 20, and Ruhel Ahmed, 20, all of Tipton, West Midlands; Feroz Abbasi, 22, of Croydon, Surrey and Jamal Udeen, 35, from Manchester.
