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| US defence budget includes plans to reform military tribunals | |
| 2009-06-26 | |
| THE defense budget approved by US senators includes a plan to reform the controversial military tribunal process at Guantanamo Bay. "Those commissions... and their procedures have got to be changed to ensure that they are consistent with American principles of justice," said Democratic Senator Carl Levin. "The use of coerced testimony, we have put in our bill, it is not going to be admissible," Levin said in comments to the media.
Levin said he had worked "very closely" with the White House, as well as McCain and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on the plan. President Barack Obama decided last month to keep the military commission system set up by former president George W. Bush to prosecute detainees at Guantanamo, although he pledged reforms would be made to the system. One of Obama's first acts after taking office in January was to order a fourth-month suspension of the commissions process, which was established in 2006. The halt in proceedings was intended to give the administration time to assess its options after Obama pledged to close the Guantanamo prison camp for "war on terror" detainees by January 2010. The defense budget approved by the committee must still be approved by the Senate as a whole. | |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #2 Bambi, Levin, Graham, McCain. There are not four people on the planet whose involvement would be less likely to lead to sensible procedures. The commissions were consistent with our principles in their first edition, much less the multiple ones produced in response to the outrageous bait-and-switch Third World antics of the SCOTUS. One more disgrace and blow to sanity and international law courtesy of the self-appointed guardians of justice and fairness. Kinda takes the sting out of large-casualty Predator strikes and the like - the unfortunate deaths of innocents will still be far preferable to the idiocy that ensues when America now actually captures someone alive. |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2009-06-26 18:37 |
| #1 Who decides it was 'coerced'? Maybe it's if you ask the same question more than once? |
| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2009-06-26 17:06 |