WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Pentagon said Tuesday it is prepared to quickly resume special war crimes tribunals of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after a key ruling that removed a roadblock to such trials.
The Court of Military Commissions Review ruled late Monday that the special courts did indeed have jurisdiction in the case of Canadian national Omar Khadr, overruling a military judge who had thrown out the case in June.
"It is our intention to move out in an expeditious manner to get the military commission cases to trial," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.
In June, army judge Colonel Peter Brownback dismissed all charges against Khadr on the grounds that he had only been designated an "enemy combatant, " and so failed to meet the standard required for trial by military commission.
Legislation that created standards for the military tribunals in August 2006 says that they are to intended try "alien unlawful enemy combatants."
The government's case against Salim Ahmed Hamdan was also dismissed on the same day by another judge on the same grounds, hampering plans to try as many as 80 of the 340 detainees held at the US military base in Guantanamo.
The Court of Military Commissions Review agreed with Brownback that Khadr's classification as an "enemy combatant" by a military tribunal at Guantanamo failed to meet the requirements for jurisdiction set forth in the Military Commission Act of 2006.
But it said the judged erred in ruling that a military tribunal had to determine that Khadr was an "unlawful enemy combatant" as a pre-requisite for bringing charges against him under the Military Commissions Act.
It said Brownback should have decided whether Khadr was an unlawful enemy combatant based on the evidence the prosecution was prepared to present.
"This ruling may be a step forward for the military commissions but it's a step backwards for the rule of law," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberaties Union's national security project.
"While there are prisoners at Guantanamo who should be tried for war crimes, they should be tried under rules that are fair and that will be perceived as fair. The current rules fail this test," he said in a statement.
Khadr's defense team has five days to seek reconsideration of Monday's decisions, and if turned down again can file an appeal with the US Court of Appeals, which would delay action on other Guantanamo cases.
If those appeals are exhausted, the case goes back to Brownback, who will consider evidence brought against Khadr, including a videotape that allegedly shows him in civilian clothes planting roadside bombs.
Khadr, who was 15 years old when he was captured after being wounded in a firefight on July 27, 2002 in Afghanistan, is accused of killing a US army medic with a grenade.
The charges against him include the murder of a US soldier, attempted murder of US military and coalition personnel, conspiracy with Osama bin Laden and other top Al-Qaeda leaders to attack civilians, material support for Al-Qaeda, and spying.
The only Guantanamo detainee who has been tried so far is David Hicks, an Australian who was sentenced to nine months in prison in March after pleading guilty to providing material support for terrorism. He is serving his sentence in Australia.
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