Military tribunal or civil court? In the US, there are discussions about who should judge the terrorists.
The administration of the President of the United States recently revised its decision on the place in which Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the organizer of the 11 attacks of September 2001, will be tried. According to the latest decision, he and four other accomplices will be tried by a military tribunal in Guantanamo Prison, in Cuba, and not a civilian American federal court, as it were. This decision of the Obama Administration immediately raised a lot of questions about how it was achieved and what could be the legal consequences?
US Attorney General Eric Golder opposed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed being tried by a military tribunal. However, he finally agreed, in view of the fact that the Congress had opposed hearing the case in federal court.
“I know this business from the side from which its congressmen do not know. I saw the documents, spoke with the prosecution. I respect their right to disagree with me, but I think that they should take into account the fact that such issues relate to the function of the executive branch of government, ”Golder said.
In January, lawmakers passed a law banning the transport of prisoners from Guantanamo to the United States at the expense of the federal budget. Eric Golder agreed that the Administration could not hesitate with the beginning of court hearings, which the relatives of those killed in the terrorist attacks of 2001 had been waiting for for almost ten years. Alexander Santori - the father of fireman Christopher Santori, who died on September 11:
“We must be at the stage of sentencing and dismissing the case. And now we are only standing at the beginning of the consideration of the case. It just doesn't fit in my head. ”
Critics say that just a military tribunal may be the reason why the establishment of justice is delayed. Gina Shamsi, director of the national security project for the American Civil Liberties Union, says that military tribunals operate at lower standards:
“Since they have lower standards for obtaining secret testimony, and some confessions could be obtained in a way that does not fully comply with the letter of the law, the legitimacy of these testimonies can be questioned and appealed.”
In the event of a conviction, convicted persons have the right to appeal up to and including the Supreme Court. This process can drag on for years. Annemarie Makawa, a law professor at Fordham University, says some public procedures cannot be performed when terrorism cases are heard:
“In the US, you have the right to a lawyer. How can you deliver a lawyer to Afghanistan, where the war is fought, in an hour or even a day? You can not. Especially when it comes to a lawyer who knows the legal procedure in the USA well and, at the same time, can speak the language in which the defendant speaks. ”
She adds that, unlike civil hearings, military tribunals, in order to protect the source of information, can present evidence of guilt, not to tell the suspect, by what methods this evidence was obtained. Annemarie Makawa notes:
“The problem of civil lawsuit in the United States is that here you have the right to access all information without exception, even if this information is related to national security issues. And it can harm us all. ”
Professor Makawa said that a court hearing on terrorism, if conducted in New York, puts the city at risk. However, the representative of the American Civil Liberties Union Gina Shamsi does not agree:
“Hundreds of terrorist cases were heard in federal courts and did not constitute any threat to national security. On the contrary, the experience of these cases shows that the American judicial system and the defense system know how to resolve such issues. ”
The mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, has repeatedly said that trials in the case of terrorism require an increase in security measures in his city. But in contrast to this, Gina Shamsi says that the existence of Guantanamo spoils the image of the United States in the international arena, because President Obama at one time promised to close this prison. Meanwhile, US Attorney General Eric Golder said it is not yet known whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four accomplices could be sentenced to death if the military court finds them guilty.
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