Reuters News
28 February 2006
Prosecutor likens Guantanamo defendants to vampires
By Jane Sutton
GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Confronting the
defendants at the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals with the evidence
against them will be like dragging vampires into the sunlight the
chief prosecutor said on Tuesday.
The cases of two Guantanamo captives charged with conspiring with
al Qaeda to attack civilians, commit murder and destroy property will
begin pretrial hearings on Wednesday.
A scheduled hearing for a third defendant was delayed at the request of
his military lawyer, who sought more time to prepare his case.
The war crimes tribunals are the first held by the United States since
World War II and convened in August 2004, over 2-1/2 years after the
first prisoners were brought to the detention camp in Cuba as part of
the U.S. war on terrorism.
Defense attorneys sued to halt the tribunals, which they consider
fundamentally unfair for numerous reasons. These include the use of
secret evidence that defendants will not be allowed to see and the
potential use of evidence obtained through torture.
The chief prosecutor, Air Force Col. Moe Davis, blamed the delays on
the detainees and their lawyers and compared them to movie vampires.
"Remember if you dragged Dracula out into the sunlight he melted. Well
that's kind of the way it is trying to drag a detainee into the courtroom.
The facts are like the sunlight to Dracula. The last thing they want
is to face the facts in the courtroom," Davis told journalists. "But
their day is coming."
AL QAEDA SUSPECTS
One of those on the docket this week is Sufyian Barhoumi, an Algerian
accused of attending al Qaeda camps to learn and then train others to
make electronically controlled explosives for use against U.S. troops
in Afghanistan.
The other, Ali Hamza al Bahlul, is a Yemeni accused of acting as a
bodyguard for Osama bin Laden and making al Qaeda recruiting videos.
Only 10 of the 500 Guantanamo prisoners have been charged with crimes
and Wednesday's session will be the fourth round of pretrial hearings
to formally read charges and address issues such as which attorneys
will represent the defendants.
None of the cases has gone to trial and prosecutors said none will until
after the U.S. Supreme Court rules next summer on whether President George
W. Bush had authority to create the tribunals to try foreign terrorism
suspects after the Sept. 11 attacks. The court will hear arguments on
March 28.
U.S. judges have halted three of the 10 Guantanamo cases pending the
Supreme Court ruling and lawyers for some of the other seven said they
might ask for stays.
In the meantime, hearings are moving forward so trials can start as soon
as the court rules, Davis said.
"What we want to do is try to advance things, and not just sit at a
standstill for six or nine months waiting on a Supreme Court decision,"
he said. "I'm optimistic we'll prevail."
Legal and human rights monitors visiting Guantanamo called the tribunals,
formally known as commissions, an ad hoc system with no underlying law.
They said any charges against the prisoners should be brought in civilian
courts or the military courts-martial system, which have long established
rules.
Maj. Jane Boomer, a spokeswoman for the tribunals, said they are designed
to be full and fair, while protecting national security, but that "it will
be a developing process."