The White House has drafted a legislation covering trials of terror detainees, allowing hearsay evidence. It would however exclude defendants from trials to protect national security, The New York Times has reported.
The Times said the draft was being circulated within the administration and among military lawyers in the Pentagon. The present draft preserves the idea of using military commissions to prosecute terror suspects and makes only modest changes in their procedural rules including some expanded protections for defendants.
President Bush wants to push a bill through Congress this fall to allow trials of suspects held at the US naval facility at Guatanamo Bay in Cuba. The bill is a fallout of the Supreme Court ruling that the military commissions Mr. Bush set up were not in accordance with US or international laws.
The plan could run into trouble in Congress where some lawmakers have said they want to base the new rules on the military code of justice which significantly increase a detainee’s rights.
The Times said the draft measure notes that court martial procedures are not ‘practicable in trying enemy combatants’ because doing so would ‘require the government to share classified information’ and exclude ‘hearsay evidence determined to be..... reliable’.
Rather than requiring a speedy trial for enemy combatants, the draft says they ‘may be tried and punished at any time without limitations’, the Times says.
The legislation would bar ’statements obtained by the use of torture’ for use as evidence but evidence obtained in interrogations where coercion was used would be admissible unless found ‘unreliable’ by a military judge. To prevent them hearing classified evidence, The Times said the draft would allow defendants to be barred from trial, but would require them to be given a summary of the information.
The report cited deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino as saying the Administration was ‘working to strike a balance of a fair system of justice that deals with terrorists who do not recognize the rules of war.’
The copy of the draft legislation provided to The Times was labeled ‘for discussion purposes only, deliberative draft, close hold,’ the report said, and the official who shared it did so on condition of anonymity.
The Times cited Senator Lindsey Graham , a South Carolina Republican, and former military lawyer, as calling it ‘a good start’ but adding , ‘I have some concerns’ but refusing to be specific, but saying he wanted to withhold judgment until hearing the views of military lawyers.
Terrorists and terrorism have spread their tentacles far and wide. Their attempts to intimidate peace-loving people throughout the world have to be countered with draconian measures. Only then will this scourge be wiped off the face of the world. Any government calling them misguided youth and trying to reintegrate them into the mainstream of society are only deluding themselves and indirectly helping militants and militancy to regroup and rearm.
Mr. Bush is to be lauded for showing the world how to deal with these so-called misguided youth. The Indian Government, regardless of the party in power, would be well advised to take a leaf out of Mr. Bush’s draft legislation so that thousands and thousands of innocent lives would not be lost and people would not be rendered homeless.
Via : Reuters
White House drafts bill on terror trials, report
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