Any Excuse Will Do
The administration's chops got busted by the federal courts once again, and once again the case involved Guantanamo Bay and the bogus military hearings. From an article in today's NY Times:
In the first civilian judicial review of the government’s evidence for holding any of the Guantánamo Bay detainees, a federal appeals court has ordered that one of them be released or given a new military hearing.
The ruling, made known Monday in a notice from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, overturned a Pentagon tribunal’s decision in the case of one of 17 Guantánamo detainees who are ethnic Uighurs, a Muslim minority from western China. ...
By law, the appeals court has the power to review Pentagon hearings known as combatant status review tribunals, one of which found Mr. Parhat to be an enemy combatant. At those hearings, detainees are not permitted lawyers, cannot see all the evidence against them and face hurdles in trying to present their own evidence. [Emphasis added]
Some due process, eh?
The panel's decision is unavailable presently because it deals with "classified" information. A redacted version will be published, presumably in the near future, but just what the decision was based on will probably be difficult to discern unless the panel explicitly condemns the procedure of those combatant status review tribunals. It certainly can do so, given how those show trials are set up. If in fact that is the basis for the decision, then the system itself has been thoroughly undercut right from the beginning.
The good news is tempered by the actual effect in Mr. Parhat's case, however.
Its practical consequences for Mr. Parhat, however, are not clear. The administration has said it will not return Uighur detainees to China because of concerns about their treatment at the hands of the Chinese government, which views them as terrorists. A State Department official said Monday that the department had not found a country to accept any of the Guantánamo Uighurs since Albania accepted five of them in 2006.
As a result, said one of Mr. Parhat’s lawyers, Susan Baker Manning, court victory may not mean freedom for him.
So Mr. Parhat will continue to sit in Guantanamo Bay for the foreseeable future, all because the US screwed up, and continues to screw up.
Shameful.
In the first civilian judicial review of the government’s evidence for holding any of the Guantánamo Bay detainees, a federal appeals court has ordered that one of them be released or given a new military hearing.
The ruling, made known Monday in a notice from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, overturned a Pentagon tribunal’s decision in the case of one of 17 Guantánamo detainees who are ethnic Uighurs, a Muslim minority from western China. ...
By law, the appeals court has the power to review Pentagon hearings known as combatant status review tribunals, one of which found Mr. Parhat to be an enemy combatant. At those hearings, detainees are not permitted lawyers, cannot see all the evidence against them and face hurdles in trying to present their own evidence. [Emphasis added]
Some due process, eh?
The panel's decision is unavailable presently because it deals with "classified" information. A redacted version will be published, presumably in the near future, but just what the decision was based on will probably be difficult to discern unless the panel explicitly condemns the procedure of those combatant status review tribunals. It certainly can do so, given how those show trials are set up. If in fact that is the basis for the decision, then the system itself has been thoroughly undercut right from the beginning.
The good news is tempered by the actual effect in Mr. Parhat's case, however.
Its practical consequences for Mr. Parhat, however, are not clear. The administration has said it will not return Uighur detainees to China because of concerns about their treatment at the hands of the Chinese government, which views them as terrorists. A State Department official said Monday that the department had not found a country to accept any of the Guantánamo Uighurs since Albania accepted five of them in 2006.
As a result, said one of Mr. Parhat’s lawyers, Susan Baker Manning, court victory may not mean freedom for him.
So Mr. Parhat will continue to sit in Guantanamo Bay for the foreseeable future, all because the US screwed up, and continues to screw up.
Shameful.
Labels: Guantanamo Bay, Justice
posted by Diane at 3:50 AM
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