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11/16/06
Report
finds Guantanamo detainees routinely denied witnesses, evidence
in hearings
By BEN FOX
Associated Press Writer
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- The U.S. military called no
witnesses, withheld evidence from detainees and usually reached
a decision within a day as it determined that hundreds of
men detained at Guantanamo Bay were "enemy combatants,"
according to a new report.
The analysis of transcripts and records by two lawyers for
Guantanamo detainees, aided by more than two dozen law students,
found that hearings that determined whether a prisoner should
remain in custody gave the accused little opportunity to contest
allegations against him.
"These were not hearings. These were shams," said
Mark Denbeaux, an attorney and Seton Hall University law professor
who along with his son, Joshua, is the author of the report.
They provided an advance copy of the report to The Associated
Press late Thursday and planned to release it Friday on the
Internet.
Their report, based on an analysis of records of military
hearings of 393 detainees, comes as the U.S. government seeks
to severely restrict detainee access to civilian courts, arguing
that the Combatant Status Review Tribunals should be their
main legal recourse.
Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, dismissed
the findings as "recycled allegations," and noted
the tribunals gave each detainee an opportunity to contest
their designation as an enemy combatant.
"It is not a criminal trial and is not intended to determine
guilt or innocence," Gordon said. "Rather, it is
an administrative process ... to confirm the status of enemy
combatants detained at Guantanamo as part of the Global War
on Terrorism."
The military held Combatant Status Review Tribunals for 558
detainees at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in southeast
Cuba between July 2004 and January 2005 and found all but
38 were enemy combatants. Handcuffed detainees appeared before
a panel of three officers with no defense attorney, only a
military "personal representative."
According to the report, the representatives said nothing
in the hearings 14 percent of the time and made no "substantive"
comments in 30 percent. In some cases, the representative
even appeared to advocate the government's position, the report
said.
The report is based on transcripts of tribunals that the government
first released earlier this year in response to a Freedom
of Information Act lawsuit filed by The Associated Press as
well additional records provided by lawyers for 102 Guantanamo
detainees.
Twenty-one first-year law students at Seton Hall University
in Newark, N.J., analyzed the documents to create a database
analyzed by eight second- and third-year students.
Among their findings:
-- The government did not produce any witnesses in any hearing.
-- The military denied all detainee requests to inspect the
classified evidence against them.
-- The military refused all requests for defense witnesses
who were not detained at Guantanamo.
-- In 74 percent of the cases, the government denied requests
to call witnesses who were detained at the prison.
-- In 91 percent of the hearings, the detainees did not present
any evidence.
-- In three cases, the panel found that the detainee was "no
longer an enemy combatant," but the military convened
new tribunals that later found them to be enemy combatants.
"No American would ever consider this to be hearing,"
Denbeaux said. "This is a show trial."
The U.S. military now holds about 430 men at Guantanamo on
suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban and holds Administrative
Review Boards for them once a year to determine whether they
should still be held, released or transferred to another country.
The Military Commissions Act, which President Bush signed
on Oct. 17, strips all non-U.S. citizens held under suspicion
of being an enemy combatant of their right to challenge their
detention in civilian courts with petitions of habeas corpus.
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On the Net:
Seton Hall University Law School: http://law.shu.edu
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