CBS– In an apparent reversal, President Barack Obama
is reviving the Bush administration’s much-criticized military tribunals for Guantanamo
Bay detainees, shocking those who
expected the president to end them completely.
CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier reports that the president says these
will not be your Bush-era tribunals, promising a new system that guarantees
more legal rights for detainees.
Mr. Obama said the changes were designed to give defendants stronger legal
protections, such as a ban on evidence “obtained through torture, or by
using cruel or degrading interrogation methods,” like waterboarding;
limiting use of hearsay evidence; granting the accused more say in who
represents them; and protecting detainees who refuse to testify from legal
sanctions.
But his action was almost instantly denounced by critics who called the new
tribunals “Bush Lite,” reports Dozier.
During his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama was highly critical of the
commissions used by the Bush administration.
“By any measure, our system of trying detainees has been an enormous
failure,” he said last June 18.
And one of his first actions as president was setting in motion the closing of Guantanamo
Bay prison within 12 months.
Re-opening these military tribunals may also delay the closing of Guantanamo,
says
Dozier. The earliest the trials of 13 defendents (9 of whom are
charged with helping orchestrate the September 11 terror attacks) can resume is
September. That would give prosecutors about four months to finish before the
end of the year, because these military tribunals cannot be held back in the United
States.
The rest of the 241 Guantanamo detainees will either be released, transferred to other countries, tried in civilian U.S. federal courts or, potentially, held indefinitely as prisoners of war with full Geneva Conventions rights.
Finish reading about Obama’s Tribunals Being Bush-Lite.
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