Guantanamo defense lawyers criticize tribunals

International News Article Reuters.com

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - U.S. military officers ordered to defend accused war criminals at Guantanamo base in Cuba have joined the outcry of activists assailing the court system for human rights violations.

"It was horrific to sit there and watch this happen," said Army Maj. Tom Fleener, who represented a Yemeni prisoner in pretrial hearings at Guantanamo this week.

The nine Guantanamo prisoners charged so far are accused of conspiring with the Islamist militant al Qaeda group to kill Americans in the September 11 attacks and on the battlefield.

"We live in a country where we've spent a couple hundred years putting together a good system of justice where people have rights to counsel (of their choosing), people have rights to confront accusers, people have rights to evidence," Fleener told journalists.

"None of that stuff is present in these hearings."

The five military defense lawyers appointed so far have challenged every aspect of the tribunals.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, who represents another Yemeni prisoner, has asked the Supreme Court to rule that U.S. President George W. Bush lacked authority to create the new court system rather than try the prisoners under existing civilian or military law.

The Bush administration and the military prosecutors said the system was designed to provide fair trials for suspected terrorists whose crimes had not been contemplated under existing law.