GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Jan. 20 -- In one of its first actions, the Obama administration instructed military prosecutors late Tuesday to seek a 120-day halt of legal proceedings involving detainees at the Guantanamo Bay naval base -- a clear break with the approach of the outgoing Bush administration.
The instruction came in a motion filed late Tuesday with a military court handling the case of five defendants accused of organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The motion called for "a continuance of the proceedings" until May 20 so that "the newly inaugurated president and his administration
review the military commissions process, generally, and the cases currently pending before military commissions, specifically."
Such a request may not be automatically granted by military judges, and not all defense attorneys may not agree to such a suspension. The government's request will have to be ruled on by military judges Wednesday.
But the move is a first step towards closing a detention facility and system of military trials that became a worldwide symbol of the Bush administration's war on terror, and its unyielding attitude to foreign and domestic critics.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/20/AR2009012004743.html?hpid=topnews
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