Guantánamo Detainees Make Their Case -NYT

[Rose Siding]

A 30-year-old Sudanese prisoner listened with barely concealed anger on Tuesday and slouched deeper into his seat as an Air Force officer told a military panel why the man remained a threat to the United States and should not be released from the prison camp here.

The slight and scraggly bearded Sudanese, hands cuffed and feet shackled to the floor, is among more than 500 prisoners from the fighting in Afghanistan who remain here and whose cases are being reviewed under the latest military legal proceeding intended to reduce Guantánamo's prison population and meet the terms of a Supreme Court decision allowing them to challenge their detention.

The prisoner never heard some of the evidence against him because it was deemed classified and was given to the court in secret. He disputed some of the charges, such as that he had participated in a prison riot in Afghanistan, and argued that it was legal for him to have traveled there.

Other prisoners have been more recalcitrant; most of those called for hearings have refused to attend.

http://nytimes.com/2005/03/24/national/24gitmo.html

[LiberalVoice]

1. So these guys dont even know what they've done...

We have the best damn legal system on earth :eyes:

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. So he's not even accused of fighting against the USA

He's accused of helping one side in a civil war in Afghanistan - which is what the whole USA military did - and paid other people to do twnety years earlier. DO you think the Northern Alliance that he was fighting against were obeying the Geneva Conventions of war? Of course not.

DO you think that even one tenth of the people in Guantanamo ever had any connection with actual terrorism?

[Briar]

3. Since the US regards the Geneva Conventions as "quaint"

and obsolete, I shouldn't think the fact that their allies ignored them too would worry anyone much. (I'd like to hear Bolton's real opinions on these inconvenient international laws.) As for their connections with terrorism, I'd be surprised if even a tenth had any real link. Their role is symbolic: they are trophies to satisfy the core religious right's lust for vengeance and a warning to the rest of the world.

[Richard Steele]

4. Schiavo