Obama to revive Guantanamo military trials

BAKU. May 13. KAZINFORM President Barack Obama is due to announce this week that he is reviving controversial military trials for suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, US officials said, AFP reported, Kazinform refers to Trend News.
None
None
But Obama, who sharply criticized the use of military commissions to try extremists under his predecessor George W. Bush, may ask lawmakers to expand legal protections for detainees, said the officials, who requested anonymity. The president could push the US Congress, which created the military commissions in 2006, to curb the use of hearsay evidence, ban coerced testimony and allow suspects to choose their defense counsel, one source said. The move would affect, among others, five detainees charged with having played key roles in the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes, including the plot's self-proclaimed mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Obama's decision would come as Republicans have fiercely assailed his order to close the detention facility at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba by January 22, 2010, and Democrats have rejected a White House funding request to shutter the prison. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Democrat, said trials by military commissions would only be acceptable under revised rules expanding the legal protections for defendants and that Obama may act quickly. "My hunch -- it's more than a hunch -- I believe there'll be something happening on that fairly soon," Levin told reporters. Republican Senator John McCain, a main author of legislation creating the commissions, said such trials were the only adequate venue for trying suspected terrorists and that he was working with the White House on a way forward. "I will be meeting with the White House people, (Republican) Senator (Lindsey) Graham and I, to try and help sort this out, but they've dug themselves a deep hole" on Guantanamo, McCain told reporters. "They made a significant error by announcing, with great fanfare, the closing of Guantanamo without a comprehensive plan to address the issue of enemy combatants, the return of people to countries that they came from, the whole issue of where you hold people if you close Guantanamo," said McCain. The facility, synonymous around the world with US "war on terrorism" excesses, still holds 241 inmates from 30 different countries, according to the Pentagon, Kazinform cites Trend News. See www. news-en.trend.az for full version.
Currently reading