Pentagon Sets Rules for Detainee Trials

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Military.com | January 18, 2007

WASHINGTON - The Defense Department has drafted a manual for trying detainees at the Guantanamo, Cuba, jail that would allow terror suspects to be imprisoned, convicted and executed on the basis of hearsay evidence or coerced testimony.

According to a copy of the manual obtained by The Associated Press, a terror suspect's defense lawyer cannot reveal classified evidence in their defense until the government has had a chance to review it.

The manual, sent to Congress on Thursday and scheduled to be released later by the Pentagon, is intended to track a law passed last fall in which lawmakers restored President George W. Bush's plans to have special military commissions try terror suspects. Those commissions had been struck down earlier in the year by the Supreme Court.

Last September, Congress, then led by Republicans, sent Bush a bill granting wide latitude in interrogation and detention of alleged enemy combatants. The legislation also prohibited abuses such as mutilation and rape but granted the president leeway to decide which other interrogation techniques are permissible.

Passage of the bill, which was backed by the White House, followed more than three months of debate that included angry rebukes by Democrats of the administration's interrogation policies and a short-lived rebellion by some Republican senators.

The Detainee Treatment Act, separate legislation championed in 2005 by Republican Sen. John McCain, prohibited the use of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners held by either the military or the CIA. It was approved overwhelmingly by Congress despite a veto threat by Bush, who eventually signed it into law.

The Pentagon manual is aimed at ensuring that enemy combatants, the Bush administration's term for many of the terror suspects held at Guantanamo, "are prosecuted before regularly constituted courts affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized by civilized people," according to the document.

As required by law, the manual prohibits statements obtained by torture and "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" as prohibited by the Constitution.

However, the law does allow statements obtained through coercive interrogation techniques if obtained before Dec. 30, 2005, and deemed reliable by a judge.

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