Rights Investigation
Hamdan's case tests legality of Guantánamo military commission
On 28 March 2006, the US Supreme Court begins to hear arguments in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan regarding the legality of trials before military commissions at Guantánamo Bay. Far from abandoning military commissions, or putting cases on hold pending the Supreme Court's decision, the US government is going ahead with these sham trials, with preliminary hearings scheduled to take place in the coming week.
Military commissions breach fundamental standards for fair trial. At worst, they can entail the death sentence and the admission of evidence obtained under torture, as well as severe limitations to the right of appeal and restrictions on the right to a lawyer of one's own choice. Salim Ahmed Hamdan told his military lawyer that whilst in US custody in Afghanistan he was “beaten, held for about three days in a bound position, cold…dragged, kicked, and punched.” In Guantánamo he was held for almost a year in solitary confinement. He said that he had considered signing false confessions in the hope that this would improve his situation.
Among the detainees who will appear before the commissions in the following weeks are Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who was just 15 years old when taken into US custody in Afghanistan, and Binyam Mohammad al-Habashi, a victim of the US practice of “rendition”. Both Omar Khadr and Binyam Mohammed al-Habashi have alleged that they have been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment at Guantánamo and elsewhere. Omar Khadr is facing trial by military commission on the basis of alleged acts committed when he was a child.
Ten detainees held at Guantánamo Bay have been charged by the US authorities and are facing trial by military commission. All those held at the detention centre at the US naval base in Cuba face the prospect of unfair trial by these commissions, as do any foreign nationals designated by President George W. Bush as “enemy combatants”. The Supreme Court faces an enormous responsibility with the Hamdan case. At stake are principles of fair trial, constitutionality and equality before the law.
The US authorities should stop trials before military commissions and the President should revoke the Presidential Order that established them.
Source: Amnesty International.
