US to carry on military trials at Gitmo despite ruling

Posted June 24, 2008 13:15:00

Hearings for terrorism suspects before US military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay are going ahead despite a Supreme Court ruling that affirmed the detainees have a right to challenge their detention in a civilian court.

Legal experts had described the high court's decision as the death knell of the special tribunals created by President George W Bush and his Republican allies in Congress to try "war on terror" suspects.

But Justice Department chief Michael Mukasey said the controversial tribunals at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would continue their work and last week, two preliminary hearings were held as scheduled.

The hearings focused on Omar Khadr and Mohammed Jawad, a Canadian and Afghan both detained in Afghanistan for having allegedly thrown grenades when they were still teenagers.

The new judge overseeing the Canadian's case, Colonel Patrick Parrish, who replaced another military judge who was forced to step down, announced that the trial for Khadr would start on October 8.



The decision though does not preclude federal judges from wading directly into the tribunal trials in Guantanamo in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's ruling, which rejected the government's assertion that the detainees lack habeas corpus rights.




'More to come'



Among those already charged are several suspects who allegedly planned the September 11 attacks, as well as Al Qaeda militants accused of having fired rockets in the vicinity of US troops in Afghanistan or having undergone training in the use of explosives.



The fallout from the high court's ruling is still unclear.




Topics: courts-and-trials, world-politics, law-crime-and-justice, unrest-conflict-and-war, terrorism, cuba, united-states