The U.S. came under fire from human rights watchdogs over detention of Guantanamo detainees without charges

WASHINGTON, July 4 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – U.S. President George W. Bush has designated six terror suspects held in American custody to become the first people who could be tried before military tribunals, the Pentagon announced Thursday, July 3, sparking renewed criticism from human rights watch-dogs.

"The president determined that there is reason to believe that each of these enemy combatants was a member of Al-Qaeda or was otherwise involved in terrorism directed against the United States," the Pentagon said in a statement.

Although no details were given on their whereabouts, the six were believed to be among some 600 detained without charges or trials in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Senior defence officials, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, declined to identify the six, either by name or nationality, stressing that no charges have yet been brought against them, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"There's evidence that they may have attended terrorist training camps, they may have been involved in the kind of activities that are consistent with terrorist activities, financing, recruiting. ... Those are the kinds of things that would lead us to the kind of determination the president made today," an official said.

The BBC has learnt that two of the men are the Britons Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi. Another is believed to be Australian David Hicks.

In Sydney, Attorney-General Daryl Williams confirmed Friday, July 4, that Hicks is among the six detainees eligible for trial by military tribunal.

He said Hicks had not been charged "at this time" and Canberra did not know if he would be.

William asserted, however, Australia had been assured that if Hicks was tried by a military commission he would be entitled to the normal rights accorded to an accused in a criminal court.

Hicks would be entitled to a presumption of innocence, the requirement of proof beyond reasonable doubt, access to legal representation, a right to silence without adverse inference and access to witnesses and documents.

Williams said Hicks' family, through his lawyer, had made public the fact that he was one of six detainees in the U.S. camp at Cuba's Guantanamo bay who was on a list of prisoners U.S. authorities had determined were eligible for trial.

Hicks father, Terry Hicks, shut himself in a wire cage near the venue of a function attended by Prime Minister John Howard Sunday, June 8, to highlight his son's plight.

He said the cage was similar to his son David's cell at the U.S. Camp X-Ray, where he has been held for 18 months without charge.

"The Australian government has had very extensive discussions over a range of levels with U.S. government authorities," Williams said.

"The purpose of these discussions, from an Australian point of view, was to ensure if any Australians are subject to military commission trial that the processes are fair and transparent."

Any suggestion of a conviction leading to a death sentence would not be supported by the Australian government, he said.

Hicks and another Australian citizen, Egyptian-born Mamdouh Habib, are in U.S. custody in Cuba.

No Specific Charges

Another official said no specific charges had yet been brought against any of them and no decision had been made on which military body would try them, if they are charged.

The forum before which the six would be tried was still vague, but would be military and criminal in nature, he said, adding that Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz would lead the process of deciding who would be brought to trial and on what charges.

"No criminal process or rights and procedures that normally attend a criminal process have begun yet. They (the six) will be given legal representation when those decisions are made," the official said.

Criticized

The new announcement by Washington drew fire from several international human rights organizations.

The BBC News Online quoted Neil Durkin, a spokesman for Amnesty International, as saying they had real concerns over the use of military tribunals.

"If you have been held for over a year in legal limbo and you have been interrogated then you have to worry very much that "evidence" is going to be brought before the military tribunal that has been extracted out of individuals," he said.

"We want no use of material taken from people under those circumstances - we think it should be thrown out."

This was the first time Bush has decided any terror suspects should be tried in a military court, he said.

Bush issued an order authorizing such military trials in November 2001, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, which killed more than 3,000 people.

The Defence Department has since been preparing to conduct military trials of non-U.S. citizens caught in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the war on terrorism, including those held at Guantanamo.

The Pentagon in May issued detailed instructions for conducting the trials and named Colonel Will Gunn as lead defence counsel and Army Colonel Frederic Borch as head prosecutor.

The commissions will include three to seven commissioned U.S. military officers, including a presiding officer who must be a military judge. A two-thirds vote is needed to convict.

In January, Amnesty International called on the U.S. to resolve the "legal limbo" of hundreds of prisoners detained at Guantanamo, slamming Washington's continuing defiance of international law.

Amnesty also condemned Wednesday, May 28, U.S. breaches of international law under the cover of the war against terror but Washington dismissed the criticism.

The Washington-based Human Rights Watch also demanded the Bush administration to investigate and address charges of torture of the detainees or risk criminal prosecution.

In June 2003, a lawsuit was filed in a Belgian court against Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on charges of war crimes under the universal competence law.

British Junior Foreign Office Minister Mike O'Brien had urged Washington to resolve the "anomalous situation" faced by al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects held at Guantanamo.