Litigation

Gitmo Military Panels Restart, Amid Debate

By Peter Hardin

A military court at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba held a hearing this week in the case of Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi, accused of serving as a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden. It was a prelude, the Washington Post reported, to what may become an “ongoing debate about the legitimacy” of military commissions under a newly enacted law.

The article provides a good  overview of complex legal issues swirling around the cases set to come before the new commissions. This paragraph  sums up related legal and political debates:

“The restart of tribunals shows the hard choices the Obama administration is facing in pursuing prosecution of Guantanamo Bay detainees. While moving some to federal court, evidence rules have forced the administration to keep some cases before military commissions, which the president had criticized during his campaign. That has opened military prosecutors to complaints from human rights groups and defense lawyers about the fairness of decisions determining in which courts detainees should be tried.”

You may want to check out related stories, including one in the Miami Herald headlined, ”Guantánamo judge won’t expand Sudanese captive’s war crimes case,” and another from the Huffington Post, written by an advocacy counsel for Human Rights First and entitled, “Try, Try and Try Again: the Military Commissions that Couldn’t.” You can follow in Gavel Grab the debate over the Obama administration’s decision to try alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four co-defendants in civilian court in New York.

(The courtroom sketch above of Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi is courtesy of the Miami Herald.)

Full post as published by The Gavel on December 04, 2009 (boomark / email).