AI press release: more military commission proceedings at Guantánamo

Amnistía Internacional publicou onte unha nota de prensa sobre os novos procesos perante “comisións militares” en Guantánamo. Dous dos tres “combatentes inimigos” que van “xulgar” tiñan menos de 18 anos cando os detiveron…

A nota de prensa leva por título “USA: More military commission proceedings at Guantánamo”. Copio un extracto do seu contido:

This week, the US government will be conducting further military commission proceedings at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. Amnesty International will once again have an observer at these pre-trial proceedings.

Two of the three detainees – so-called “enemy combatants” – whose cases are due to come before military judges this week were under 18 at the time they were taken into custody. They are Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan national who was 16 or 17 years old at the time of his detention in Kabul in December 2002, and Omar Khadr, a Canadian national who was 15 years old at the time he was taken into US custody in Afghanistan in July 2002. Amnesty International considers that no one under 18 years old should ever have been transferred to Guantánamo, and that no one who was a child at the time of their alleged crime should be subject to a military commission trial. Moreover, these military commissions have no juvenile justice provisions whatsoever, as required under international law. [...]

The Pentagon has said that it expects as many as 80 detainees to face trial by military commission. To date 13 Guantánamo detainees have had charges sworn against them or referred on for trial under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), including six “high-value” detainees whom the US government intends to try jointly and against whom it intends to seek the death penalty (the charges against these six have not yet been referred on for trial). Of the nearly 800 detainees who have been held at Guantánamo since detentions began there in January 2002, the only conviction by military commission to date is that of David Hicks, an Australian national, who pleaded guilty in March 2007 to providing material support for terrorism and was sentenced to seven years [...]