Guantánamo trials to resume

WASHINGTON — Backed by a favorable court ruling, the Pentagon intends to resume shortly the military trials of two detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and to file charges against eight others.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the ruling Friday by a three-judge federal appeals court panel was vindication of the Bush administration's approach to prosecuting suspected terrorists. Critics say the approach is flawed by inadequate legal protections.

"Proceedings will resume as soon as possible against two detainees," Rumsfeld said yesterday without identifying them by name. Charges will be prepared against eight other suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, he said, and President Bush will be asked to declare additional detainees there eligible for military trials.

Later, the Pentagon issued a statement saying the men whose trials would be resumed first are David Hicks, an Australian accused of having fought with Taliban against U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni whose challenge to the legality of the trial system was initially upheld but was overturned Friday by the three-judge panel.

Gordon England, the acting deputy secretary of defense and overseer of the military-trial process, said in the Pentagon statement that the Hamdan and Hicks trials will be reconvened "as soon as any necessary court orders are issued."

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, noted that lawyers for Hamdan said after Friday's ruling that they planned to further appeal it, either to the full United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit or to the Supreme Court. Tobias questioned whether it makes sense for the administration to resume the trials before the appeals process has run its full course.

Trial proceedings were begun last summer against Hicks, Hamdan and two other suspects, but they were halted after a district court ruled in November that Hamdan could not be tried by a U.S. military commission unless a "competent tribunal" determined first that he was not a prisoner of war under the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

In Friday's ruling, the three judges said that the commission itself is such a competent tribunal, and that Hamdan could assert his claim to prisoner of war status at the time of his trial before the commission.

Hamdan's lawyers said Bush violated the separation of powers when he established military commissions. The appeals court disagreed, saying Bush relied on Congress' joint resolution authorizing the use of force after the Sept. 11 attacks, as well as two laws enacted by Congress.

The other two suspects whose trials were started and then suspended are Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi, a Sudanese citizen accused of conspiracy to commit terrorism, and Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al-Bahlul, a Yemeni accused of conspiring to commit war crimes. Officials said yesterday that these cases would not be resumed as quickly as the Hamdan and Hicks cases because there are procedural issues to be settled.

At a joint news conference at the Pentagon with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Rumsfeld applauded the court ruling and said it would help expedite the military trials.

Howard, whose government is a close U.S. partner in the war on terror, said he is confident that Hicks will get justice.

"Particularly in the wake of some changes that were made to the process, Australia is satisfied that the military commission process in relation to David Hicks ... will provide a proper measure of justice," Howard said.