Roughly 255 people currently imprisoned at Guantánamo (GTMO) ; only 23 have been charged so far. President -elect Obama has vowed to close the detention camp and reject the Military Commissions Act, the 2006 law underpinning the ongoing GTMO tribunals.
The detainees would face four possible fates: being charged with offenses that could be tried in federal courts; court-marshaled according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice; turned over to the governments of their native countries; or simply released. Many civil rights activists say existing military and civilian criminal courts can handle the GTMO cases and decide on the disposition of each of those 255 individuals, despite the Bush Administration's arguments otherwise. The legal limbo many detainees have endured for years still poses significant problems. That is because the primary purpose of detaining these people was not to stage trials but rather to gain usable intelligence through interrogation. Forming proper criminal cases at this point would be difficult.
Bush Administration has held them for so many years by Executive Orders in contravention of regular U.S. criminal and military law. Supporters of Bush's policy like to argue on the basic that those detainees are enemy combatants and terrorists , they do not have any rights under Geneva convention signed by USA since their native country is not a signatory to the treaty, USA has no obligation to put them on trial as accorded to prisoner of war under Geneva 's rule or by mere fact of being a terrorist or combatant, USA does not have to respect individual detainee's universal human rights .Some even argued that the indefinite detention is part of the global war on terrorism since the detainees are major source of intelligent on Al-Queda for the military like the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed .
Issues concerning detainees civil liberty rights under USA jurisdiction or whether they are entitled to fair and speedy trial will be the call of the next commander-in-chief, It's no doubt if president-elect Obama would to reverse his predecessor's executive order and grant some detainees' trials, he will be met with some opposition and face procedural snafu surrounding legal limbo and appropriate proceeding for the accused.
1 comment:
No intelligent person will recognize Al Queda and Taliban terrorists right to trial, since they do not consider any individual has human rights especially those they murdered, so they do not cover in prisoner of war rights protection under geneva rule, as their "terrorist" rights do not include in the treaty.
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