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Newscast: US Supreme Court Rules Guantanamo Detainees Have Rights Under Geneva Convention
NBC Nightly News
June 29, 2006
BRIAN WILLIAMS, anchor: The US Supreme Court ruled today those military tribunals set up by the Bush administration to try the detainees being held at GuantanamoBay violate both US military law and the Geneva Convention. It's a setback for President Bush who had ordered the trials. And while the president said today he wants to find a way forward, tonight that way is not yet clear. It's a trip-up for the White House in this war on terrorism, and Gitmo, as it is known, is where a lot of prisoners from that war have been housed. We know there are roughly 450 detainees being held at GuantanamoBay. Three hundred ten of them have been released or sent home over the past few years. As many as 80 prisoners currently being considered for trial. It's those trials that have to wait until the White house finds another way. We begin our reporting with our justice correspondent Pete Williams.
Pete, good evening.
PETE WILLIAMS reporting: Brian, good evening.
This decision says that the prisoners at GuantanamoBay and for that matter terror detainees anywhere can be held and put on trial, just not by the military commissions the president set up on his own.
Today's ruling is a victory for one of the first to be arrested while combat raged in Afghanistan, Salim Hamdan, a former bin Laden bodyguard sent to Guantanamo Bay four years ago, later put on trial there before a special military commission ordered by the president. But today the Supreme Court ruled that the commission lacked the authority to try anyone. And Hamdan's military lawyer said the decision shows that the war on terrorism is no excuse for abandoning fair trials.
Lieutenant Commander CHARLES SWIFT (Military Defense Lawyer): It means that we can't be scared out of who we are. And that's victory, folks.
P. WILLIAMS: The court's five-member majority, Justices Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer said the commissions failed to follow a longstanding federal law that requires all military courts to provide fair trial rights. Lawyers for Guantanamo detainees said the military commissions set up there lacked those basic protections.
Mr. TOM WILNER (Detainee Lawyer): It didn't even allow them to sit in their own trials, to see the witnesses or examine the evidence against them.
P. WILLIAMS: Today's ruling also said the Geneva Conventions apply to trials for detainees and require regularly operating military proceedings like a court-martial, not the president's special tribunal with its limited rights. Chief Justice Roberts, who ruled on this issue in a lower court, sat this one out. Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito, today's three dissenters, said the president's war-making powers allow him to tailor the military trials to a terrorist enemy. A former Justice Department lawyer agrees.
Mr. ANDREW McBRIDE (Former Justice Department Lawyer): The court has essentially reversed the Bush administration's position that al-Qaeda detainees have no rights under the Geneva Convention.
P. WILLIAMS: That's what GuantanamoBay human rights lawyers say. The president now has a reason to close it down.
Mr. BILL GOODMAN (Human Rights Lawyer): This is what he's been saying. He's looking for guidance from the Supreme Court. Well, wake up. Hello. They've given you guidance. Yes, shut it down.
P. WILLIAMS: By the way, Justice Clarence Thomas felt so strongly that this was the wrong ruling that today for only the second time in his 15 years here, he read his dissent out loud, Brian.
B. WILLIAMS: And, Pete, the natural question, what happens next?
P. WILLIAMS: Well, they could use simply garden variety military commissions, but the administration seems determined to ask Congress for permission to have military commissions with more limited rights. And tonight, congressional leaders say they'll start looking into that after the Fourth of July holiday.
B. WILLIAMS: Thanks for that, Pete. Our justice correspondent Pete Williams who was in the chamber for this ruling today.
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