One of the more puzzling aspects of Bush's admission that his administration has been holding "high value" terrorism suspects in secret prisons and subjecting them to an "alternative set of [interrogation] procedures" was his claim that these people would now face prosecution in American courts and military tribunals. What I'm wondering is "how"? I cannot imagine any court in any civilised country (and that still barely includes the US) allowing proceedings against someone who has been held without charge for five years, denied access to lawyers and the ICRC, and questioned while being waterboarded, and I certainly cannot imagine them allowing any evidence tainted by the suggestion of torture. That would be anathema to the common law tradition of which the US is a part, as well as contrary to the US's obligations under Article 15 of the Convention Against Torture. Make no mistake, these people deserve prosecution, and if found guilty, long jail sentences - but the Bush administration's treatment of them has tainted the entire case and effectively precluded any possibility of prosecution.
Tools for democracy
Themes:
New Zealand
- Forest & Bird
- Gordon Campbell
- Greater Auckland
- Imagine My Relief
- Imperator Fish
- Kiwipolitico
- Lefthandpalm
- Media Law Journal
- NZ Council for Civil Liberties
- NZ Open Government Blog
- Proactively Open
- Public Address
- Pundit.co.nz
- Reading the Maps
- Republican Movement
- The Apocrypha of Noah
- The Progress Report
Overseas
Friends & Others
Blog Archive:
-
▼
2006
(1477)
-
▼
September
(126)
- Extradite him
- An unnecessary erosion
- The "beacon of freedom" goes out
- Jorge Julio López
- Che retires
- The campaign ad we'd like to see
- This is corruption
- Cook Islands election
- Carnival of the liberals
- Make Poverty History
- Fallout
- Leadership
- Republican structures
- Blair's successor?
- Why not?
- Brash does the decent thing
- Brash and Baragwanath
- Jared Diamond on National Radio
- Grudging compliance
- Blogs and debate
- Not the sort of politics I like to see
- Stating the obvious
- Blasphemous libel index
- Would it matter?
- A lesson for National
- Saying it doesn't make it so
- Sharks
- Very dirty pool III
- Making friends and influencing people
- Polish political crisis
- Worse than under Saddam II
- The junta cracks down
- Guest column: the new tactics of the right
- The CIA thought it was torture
- Sedition in Australia V
- Why didn't anyone tell me about this?
- Because the union made them strong
- Non-answers on Afghanistan
- Endorsement
- Darfur: the AU stays
- Extreme Rhetoric
- Written questions
- Repealing the Foreshore and Seabed Act?
- Brash's "integrity"
- Thai coup
- On the radio
- And now in Victoria
- The cost of lying to win
- Suffrage Day
- NZ companies don't want to talk about climate change
- The real risk of terrorism
- Good news for supermarket workers
- Dirty dairying: "spring cleaning"
- Lying to win in Hungary
- The Brethren smear in Sweden as well
- The (not very) right wins in Sweden
- Very dirty pool II
- Bush to move on climate change?
- Day for Darfur
- Very dirty pool
- New Fisk
- "Vague"
- In the ballot XV
- Ongoing support
- Some "revolt"
- Submit!
- A generational thing
- Carnival of the Liberals
- Shrinking icecaps
- Reversing inequality
- What's at stake
- Pointing the finger
- The new latifundia
- Verdict on the 100 MP bill
- Sedition in Australia IV
- Religion in schools
- Analogous defences
- One law for all, for everyone but National
- Pushing the market
- Turning full circle
- On their best behavior
- Hope for change in Tonga?
- Something to go to in Wellington
- Dunne on Parliamentary funding
- Brethren back in 2008?
- Why you shouldn't shop Progressive
- Terrorists under the bed
- "Hate speech"
- Destroying the evidence
- Truth and torture
- New Fisk
- Defeating moral panic
- Tainted cases
- Not the end of the world
- The US no longer even has a sense of shame
- Australian Culture
- It's all about the money
- Support the supermarket workers!
- Drawn
- The beginning of the end for Blair?
-
▼
September
(126)
8 comments:
Reuters: "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has said the administration would propose trying enemy combatants based on military court martial procedures -- although with a number of key changes such as admitting hearsay evidence, limiting rights against self-incrimination before a trial and limiting defendants' access to classified information."
Or as a Fark submitter put it: "The good news is, the Bush administration has a new plan for trying Gitmo prisoners. The bad news is, if you float, you're a terrorist"
Posted by Lyndon : 9/08/2006 03:34:00 PM
As long as any confession or evidence obtained as a result of torture or torture-lite is not admitted (or any evidence arising therefrom) then isn't too great a concern with the delay is there?
(of course, delay can, if certain factors are present, be grounds for a permanent stay of prosecution on its own right)
Posted by Graeme Edgeler : 9/08/2006 04:09:00 PM
One could argue there is no point puting terrorists through a judicial system and imprisoning them (in terms of deterance/rehabilitation). Unless it is a method of killing them (can you imagne a terrorist in the prison showers in a tough US prison?).
Posted by Genius : 9/08/2006 07:05:00 PM
"Make no mistake, these people deserve prosecution"
How can you be so sure I/S? The Bush regime has shown itself time and time again to lie and imprison people for no reason.
Posted by Anonymous : 9/08/2006 07:22:00 PM
Anonymous,
1) there would be nothing wrong with funding osama prior to him having actually done anything wrong (rather like it would be considered illegitimate imprison a person in case they commit murder) except that the US apparently didn't do that as far as Osama knows (and Osama as crazy as he may be is probably a pretty honest bloke). Maybe they helped someone else out.
Still abandoning afganistan (and all the other countries) to the soviets might have been the right call, afterall, there is nothing wrong with conquoring your neighbours eh?
Posted by Genius : 9/08/2006 10:54:00 PM
Ah, now that's the genius of what they've done. The Bush Administration intends to force a Senate vote on the legitimacy of the trials just before the upcoming elections. The Democrats get to decide if they want to (a) vote for the trials, thus legitimising the use of torture and illegal imprisonment, or (b) oppose the trials and allow some of Al Qaedas senior leaders to walk free.
Posted by Anonymous : 9/09/2006 07:41:00 AM
They have been riding that horse for a long time now.
I wonder what the reform party and so forth position themselves on these issues (or if they have positions between elections at all).
Posted by Genius : 9/09/2006 08:36:00 AM
Lyndon: which is a breach of Common Article 3 in itself. CA3 bars the
"passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgement pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."
Admitting hearsay, denying the accused the right to hear and contest the evidence against them is a violation of the US's international obligations (and not just under the Geneva Conventions, but under things like the ICCPR). Not to mention an insult to justice and to the ideals the US was founded on.
Posted by Idiot/Savant : 9/09/2006 03:27:00 PM
Post a Comment
(Anonymous comments are enabled).