AP. 20 January 2002. Rumsfeld Backs Treatment of Prisoners.
WASHINGTON -- Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld on Sunday defended
the idea of trying terrorist suspects by military tribunal after a week
of rising international concern over how prisoners from Afghanistan and
beyond are being treated.
He spoke as 34 more prisoners from the war on terrorism were headed to
the makeshift U.S. prison in Cuba, including six Algerians captured in
Bosnia.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw asked the United States to explain
published photos showing al-Qaida and Taliban captives kneeling on the
ground in handcuffs at the jail in Guantanamo, Cuba.
"The British government's position is that prisoners -- regardless of
their technical status -- should be treated humanely and in accordance
with customary international law," Straw said in a statement released
Sunday.
"We have a just criminal system in the United States and people do get
treated right," Rumsfeld said on NBC's Meet the Press.
"And I think that any suggestion to the contrary is basically coming
from people who are not well-informed."
He was commenting about prisoners in general after being asked why John
Walker Lindh's lawyer had not been allowed to see the American Taliban
fighter during Lindh's nearly two months of detention by American
troops.
Rumsfeld said Lindh never asked for attorney.
But questions about physical treatment of prisoners as well as the kind
of justice they will get have turned into a drumbeat as the Bush
administration struggles to make up new rules for the anti-terror
campaign as it goes along.
"We've been fashioning exactly what the rules and procedures might be,
and we're not yet quite ready to announce them," Rumsfeld said.
President Bush has authorized establishment of military tribunals, but
so far no one has been assigned to go before one.
One matter at issue is the U.S. decision to call the prisoners
"battlefield detainees" and "unlawful combatants" rather that prisoners
of war with assigned legal rights.
Under the Geneva Convention, POWs would have to be tried by the same
courts and procedures as U.S. soldiers.
They could be tried for war crimes through courts-martial or civilian
courts but not by tribunals.
Prisoners at Guantanamo also haven't seen lawyers.
They haven't been charged, and the administration hasn't said exactly
what it will do with them, nor how long it might hold them.
Rumsfeld said the tribunals are a good idea.
"There are distinctive things about this conflict that suggest that it
may very well be a useful way of achieving ... a just decision," he
said.
There's been no declaration of war, officials contend as they argue
against pressure to label the detainees POWs.
Rights groups also have criticized prisoners' physical treatment,
including the fact that they were shackled and hooded in transit to
Cuba. There's also been criticism of the size of the open-air cells they
are held in and the shaving of their beards.
A number of newspapers and television stations Sunday used Navy photos
of the prisoners kneeling and handcuffed -- and the Mail tabloid in
London ran the headline "Tortured" over one of them.
In Washington, a defense official said the pictures were taken right
after the prisoners arrived at the base and were being processed. They
were wearing ear cups to block out the loud noise of the plane, and
other items were for warmth on the plane, he said [!].
A group of British parliamentarians already had asked Saturday to meet
with U.S. Ambassador William Farish to express their concerns. Ann
Clwyd, chairwoman of Parliament's Human Rights Committee, said members
wanted assurances the detainees were considered prisoners of war.
"It's time we had a clear statement," she said. "We fought the war
shoulder to shoulder, now it seems that we are being frozen out of the
aftermath."
The six Algerians were arrested three months ago after U.S. intelligence
informed the local police they were planning to attack U.S. and other
Western facilities in Bosnia.
The U.S. government subsequently refused to provide any evidence against
the suspects, and Bosnia's Supreme Court Thursday ordered their release
for lack of evidence, but Bosnian authorities handed them over to U.S.
officials anyway.
Police later used batons to disperse protesters who objected to their
extradition.
The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights also had criticized the men's
detention without charges or evidence.
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