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02/20/07
The slow pace of detainees' justice: 1 courtroom, thousands
of documents
By KATHERINE SHRADER
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Military prosecutors are poring over thousands
of pages of documents, and defense lawyers are traveling to
the Middle East as the United States prepares to bring charges
against dozens of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. They include
14 once held secretly by the CIA.
But trials will take time.
"The biggest limiting factor I have right now is that
I've got one courtroom," said Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas
Hemingway, the legal adviser to the Pentagon's office on commissions.
"I have told everybody the entire time that I'm here,
if they want a faster process, we are going to need additional
resources."
The military has prepared charges against three of the best
known detainees at Guantanamo: accused Australian Taliban
fighter David Hicks; Osama bin Laden's alleged former driver,
Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen, and Canadian Omar Khadr, who
is accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan.
In an interview Tuesday, Hemingway said charges against 14
more are in various stages of preparation. The military eventually
hopes to charge 60 to 80 of the 400 who are held at its detention
center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Operating under an executive order signed by President Bush,
the military charged 10 Guantanamo detainees and had begun
pretrial hearings before the Supreme Court halted the process
last June. The court said Bush's tribunal system violated
U.S. and international law.
Bush asked Congress to pass a new law authorizing the military
commissions, which he signed in October. That process is now
under way.
Hemingway said charges against the 14 former CIA detainees
-- some held in secret prisons for years -- will be especially
complicated. For just one of the 14, he said the government
has amassed 40,000 documents to be reviewed by the prosecution
to determine what charges -- if any -- should be made against
that individual.
He declined to say which detainee has such a thick case file,
but said it is an example of what the others also will be
like. Among those transferred was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
the operational planner behind the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,
and Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, a key facilitator of those attacks.
Bush announced in September that he had moved the 14 detainees
formerly held by the CIA to Pentagon custody, and said that
left the CIA prisons empty.
"There are now no terrorists in the CIA program,"
he said. "But as more high-ranking terrorists are captured,
the need to obtain intelligence from them will remain critical
-- and having a CIA program for questioning terrorists will
continue to be crucial to getting lifesaving information."
Asked on Tuesday if the prisons were still empty, a CIA official
declined to comment.
Hemingway expects some detainees will want to represent themselves.
Under the Military Commissions Act, they will have that right,
although lawyers will be on hand to step in if a judge finds
that is appropriate.
The prosecution requires the coordination of the Defense Department,
CIA, Justice Department and the Office of the National Intelligence
Director. In Hemingway's office alone, there are 54 people
on each case, including administrative staff and paralegals.
Hemingway said most of the work is being done in Washington
for the hearings that will be eventually be held in Guantanamo
Bay. He said defense counsel has traveled regularly to visit
their clients at the detention facility, and a number of them
have traveled considerably in the Middle East to prepare their
cases.
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On the Net:
Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/commissionspress.html
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