http://www.msnbc.com/news/934663.asp?0cv=CB10
Quote:
Two Britons and one Australian detained in Guantanamo Bay are among the six prisoners designated by President Bush who likely would face a U.S. military trial, British and Australian officials said Friday. The move has drawn renewed criticism from defense lawyers of the secretive special courts.
U.S. OFFICIALS refused to identify the six suspects being held in U.S. custody and suggested their identities might be kept secret during any military trial.
That drew criticism from the chairman of the American Bar Association’s task force on the treatment of detainees in the war on terrorism.
“The State Department issues a report every year in which it criticizes those nations that conduct trials before secret military tribunals. What I’m hearing sounds alarmingly like something similar,” said Neal Sonnett, also a former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
“If they’re going to be charged by military tribunals then they have a right to full due process and the public has a right to know who’s being tried and what the charges are and the government has an obligation to run these tribunals in a fair and transparent way.”
All six suspects are believed to be either members of the al-Qaida terrorist network or otherwise involved in terrorism, said two Pentagon officials who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity Thursday.
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The US government coerces countries into signing onto making US soldiers immune to war crimes tribunals, so this new example of their double standards is really no surprise.
But it is still infuriating.
Let us reiterate that point.
“The State Department issues a report every year in which it criticizes those nations that conduct trials before secret military tribunals. What I’m hearing sounds alarmingly like something similar,”
What is the government so afraid of that it engages in things that it blasts other countries for doing?
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