• Lawyers worried about prisoners

    From Otis Willie@warlibrary@pacbell.net to alt.society.civil-liberty on Friday, September 12, 2003 20:41:01
    From Newsgroup: alt.society.civil-liberty

    Lawyers worried about prisoners

    (EXCERPT) AFP Friday, Sep 12, 2003,Page 7

    For nearly two years, US President George W. Bush's administration has
    kept hundreds of prisoners of the war on terror at its naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, leaving them in a legal void that is beginning to
    worry US lawyers.

    "A rogue justice!" exclaims Michael Ratner, an attorney for the Center
    for Constitutional Rights, playing off the State Department's
    expression "rogue states" for countries that support terrorism.

    One of his clients, a British national captured in Afghanistan,
    insists he has been able to see the sun for only seven minutes in the
    last seven months and does not even know he has an attorney.

    "Moazzam Begg was allowed to read only one letter sent by his
    parents," says Ratner, who is also defending Australian prisoner David
    Hicks.

    Begg is among the 660 people from 42 countries, kept behind barbed
    wire at the camp, whose fate is unclear. The Bush administration has
    refused to grant them prisoner of war status as outlined by the Geneva conventions.

    Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has made it clear that people will
    remain in detention until the war on terror ends.

    "The prisoners find themselves in a gray zone where military justice
    overlaps with...

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    http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2003/09/12/2003067550

    ---------------------------
    Otis Willie
    Associate Librarian
    The American War Library
    http://www.americanwarlibrary.com
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