Gitmo War Court Back For What May Be Last Session

A US Army guard opens the gate at Camp Delta at Guantanamo Naval Base in Guantanamo, Cuba, in 2004. The United States tortured an alleged plotter of the September 11, 2001 terror plot held at the Guantanamo detention center, the Washington Post reported Wednesday, citing a Pentagon official. (AFP/POOL/File/Mark Wilson)

From Yahoo News/AP:

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba – Military judges in a Guantanamo war crimes court were pressing forward Monday with hearings for five men accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks and a Canadian accused of killing a U.S. soldier.

Several days of pretrial motions were scheduled to start a day before the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, who has said he will close the offshore prison at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.

Lawyers and representatives of human rights groups who have come to observe the hearings believe Obama will suspend the military commission system created by Congress and President George W. Bush in 2006 to prosecute dozens of men held at Guantanamo.

Read more ....

My Comment: President Obama and his administration are philosophically committed to stop the military tribunals in favor of using the regular U.S. criminal justice system.

I think this is a mistake. Much of the evidence that has been accumulated cannot be used in a regular criminal trial .... especially since a good number of the detainees themselves were picked up after firefights with U.S. and coalition soldiers and/or by foreign agencies when provided intercepts and other intelligence on these suspects. I am also sure that even when the opportunity arose to collect evidence in some of these arrests and/or confrontations with U.S. and coalition soldiers .... this was never done nor documented.

What I see is the following .... an official announcement on the closing of Guantanamo Prison. A review of what legal jurisdiction should these prisoners be put through .... and when this is decided upon is when these prisoners will be shipped out of Guantanamo.

And then the fun starts.