Gitmo Sham Hearings Appalling

[Doug]

AP Gets Shocking New Report on Gitmo



Published: November 17, 2006 7:50 AM ET

SAN JUAN The U.S. military called no witnesses, withheld evidence from detainees and usually reached a decision within a day as it determined that hundreds of men detained at Guantanamo Bay were "enemy combatants," according to a new report.

The analysis of transcripts and records by two lawyers for Guantanamo detainees, aided by more than two dozen law students, found that hearings that determined whether a prisoner should remain in custody gave the accused little opportunity to contest allegations against him.

"These were not hearings. These were shams," said Mark Denbeaux, an attorney and Seton Hall University law professor who along with his son, Joshua, is the author of the report. They provided an advance copy of the report to The Associated Press late Thursday and planned to release it Friday on the Internet.

Their report, based on an analysis of records of military hearings of 393 detainees, comes as the U.S. government seeks to severely restrict detainee access to civilian courts, arguing that the Combatant Status Review Tribunals should be their main legal recourse.

Read the rest here.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

This is what MCA was for. There is no evidence against the people in Gitmo, or they would have been tried through the regular system and would have been a vindication of the administration ordering the "sweep" post 9/11. Since there's no evidence against them, the only thing people with a mindset like this administration's to do is create mock trials. Like Scalio's statement after giving W the presidency (we have to stop the recount or it would impinge on the credibility of the Bush presidency), it's a total reversal of reality. Mock trials do not prove the validity of the W way any more than not counting votes proves the validity of the W election.