Court Ruling Allows Military Trials for Guantanámo Detainees
“A special military appeals court, overturning a lower court ruling, on Monday removed a legal hurdle that has derailed war crime trials for detainees at
In June, a military judge dismissed charges against a detainee, citing a statute that required that before a detainee could be tried in a military tribunal, the detainee had to be formally declared “alien unlawful enemy combatants.”
Today’s decision, which stated that Congress intended the Guantánamo tribunals to apply usual procedures of military courts, was “an important victory for the government in its protracted efforts to begin prosecuting some of the 340 detainees at Guantánamo.” The Times adds:
Under the ruling, prosecutors will be able to present new evidence to the war crimes trial judge hearing a case to support their contention that a detainee was an unlawful combatant.