 Protesters in prisoner suits in front of the FBI building display banners urging the closure of the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. AFP photo |
The prospect of the United States charging Guantanamo Bay detainees before new military tribunals unleashed a torrent of protests among human rights groups Thursday, Agence France Presse has reported.
The New York Times reported that Defense Secretary Robert Gates would soon lift an order blocking new cases from being initiated against detainees in special courts known as military commissions, a ban President Barack Obama ordered on his first day in office. The Pentagon would not immediately confirm the report.
According to the Times, three detainees will be referred for new charges, including Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of having organized the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors in Yemen. Nashiri is among three Guantanamo detainees U.S. authorities acknowledge were tortured. He was subjected to the simulated drowning technique of waterboarding as well as threatened with a gun and a power drill.
"Trying Guantanamo detainees in a system that is designed to ensure convictions, not fair trials, strikes a major blow to any efforts to restore the rule of law," the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement. It urged the Obama administration to try the suspects in U.S. federal courts, which have "well-established rules of procedure and evidence."
Nonprofit news organization ProPublica earlier reported on its website that Obama administration officials said they plan to reject Congressional efforts to limit the president's options on Guantanamo, setting the stage for a confrontation between the president and the new Congress on an issue that has been politically divisive since Inauguration Day.
According to ProPublica’s report, the Guantanamo provisions, which include limits on where and how prisoners can be tried, were attached to a spending bill for military pay and benefits approved by Congress late last year. Some administration officials are recommending that President Obama sign the spending bill and then issue a “signing statement” challenging at least some of the Guantanamo provisions as intrusions on his constitutional authority. Others have recommended that he express opposition to the Guantanamo sections without addressing their constitutionality.
The statement, officials said, would likely be released along with a new executive order that outlined review procedures for some – but not all – of the 174 Guantanamo prisoners still held without charge or trial. Obama has used signing statements in the past, but this one would carry political significance as the first test of his relationship with a Congress in which the House is firmly in Republican control.
Officials said the White House is still weighing how to calibrate the signing statement. A statement rejecting all of the bill's Guantanamo provisions would almost certainly be viewed as provocative by Congressional Republicans and some Democrats. But administration officials view the provisions as clear encroachments on the president's right to prosecutorial discretion and some are pushing for their blanket repudiation, ProPublica reported.
The reliance on detention orders and a signing statement – tools used repeatedly by former President Bush, who built Guantanamo nearly a decade ago – is seen by Obama's advisers as among the few options left for an administration that has watched the steady erosion of its first White House pledge nearly two years ago: to close the prison.
"There is obviously an irony here," said one Obama administration official, "but if we resort to this, it is to close Guantanamo, not keep it open."
The New York Times reported that Defense Secretary Robert Gates would soon lift an order blocking new cases from being initiated against detainees in special courts known as military commissions, a ban President Barack Obama ordered on his first day in office. The Pentagon would not immediately confirm the report.
According to the Times, three detainees will be referred for new charges, including Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of having organized the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors in Yemen. Nashiri is among three Guantanamo detainees U.S. authorities acknowledge were tortured. He was subjected to the simulated drowning technique of waterboarding as well as threatened with a gun and a power drill.
"Trying Guantanamo detainees in a system that is designed to ensure convictions, not fair trials, strikes a major blow to any efforts to restore the rule of law," the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement. It urged the Obama administration to try the suspects in U.S. federal courts, which have "well-established rules of procedure and evidence."
Nonprofit news organization ProPublica earlier reported on its website that Obama administration officials said they plan to reject Congressional efforts to limit the president's options on Guantanamo, setting the stage for a confrontation between the president and the new Congress on an issue that has been politically divisive since Inauguration Day.
According to ProPublica’s report, the Guantanamo provisions, which include limits on where and how prisoners can be tried, were attached to a spending bill for military pay and benefits approved by Congress late last year. Some administration officials are recommending that President Obama sign the spending bill and then issue a “signing statement” challenging at least some of the Guantanamo provisions as intrusions on his constitutional authority. Others have recommended that he express opposition to the Guantanamo sections without addressing their constitutionality.
The statement, officials said, would likely be released along with a new executive order that outlined review procedures for some – but not all – of the 174 Guantanamo prisoners still held without charge or trial. Obama has used signing statements in the past, but this one would carry political significance as the first test of his relationship with a Congress in which the House is firmly in Republican control.
Officials said the White House is still weighing how to calibrate the signing statement. A statement rejecting all of the bill's Guantanamo provisions would almost certainly be viewed as provocative by Congressional Republicans and some Democrats. But administration officials view the provisions as clear encroachments on the president's right to prosecutorial discretion and some are pushing for their blanket repudiation, ProPublica reported.
The reliance on detention orders and a signing statement – tools used repeatedly by former President Bush, who built Guantanamo nearly a decade ago – is seen by Obama's advisers as among the few options left for an administration that has watched the steady erosion of its first White House pledge nearly two years ago: to close the prison.
"There is obviously an irony here," said one Obama administration official, "but if we resort to this, it is to close Guantanamo, not keep it open."
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