Cuba suspects learn of rights

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon began informing detainees at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Monday that they could challenge their captivity before newly created military tribunals.

But the one-page notice, which was translated into 17 languages, provided scant information about the detainees’ right to petition a federal judge for release and made no mention of a recent Supreme Court decision affirming that right.

“I feel like this is flouting the words of the Supreme Court, and that is amazing to me,” said Barbara Olshansky, a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has represented Shafiq Rasul, a British detainee whom the U.S. government accuses of being an “enemy combatant” who fought for al Qaeda and Afghanistan’s Taliban.

The Bush administration has maintained that enemy combatants aren’t entitled to the traditional legal rights provided under international law or the U.S. Constitution and can be detained indefinitely. In particular, the Bush administration has argued that enemy combatants in prison on Guantanamo aren’t entitled to access to U.S. courts. Some detainees on Guantanamo have been held without charges since January 2002.

Last month, the Supreme Court rejected the administration’s position and ruled that detainees could ask a federal court to determine whether they were legally detained.

In response, the Pentagon said it was creating special “combatant status review tribunals” that would provide each detainee the opportunity to argue his case before a three-member military tribunal that will determine whether he’s been properly classified as an enemy combatant or should be released.

In explaining the creation of the new tribunals, Pentagon officials said they hoped the tribunals would convince federal courts that detainees had been given fair hearings. But lawyers for the detainees and some legal experts have criticized the idea for robbing detainees of due process, in other words depriving them of established judicial proceedings that guarantee their legal rights.

In particular, critics have condemned the Pentagon’s refusal to allow lawyers to represent the detainees before the tribunals. Instead, the notice says each detainee will be assigned a military officer to act as his “personal representative” before the tribunal.