21 May 2009
Obama Sets Framework for Trying Terrorist Detainees
Washington — President Obama said the remaining 240 detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, will be treated consistent with the rule of law and American values, but none who pose a danger to American citizens and national security will be released.
Saying that this generation of Americans faces “a great test in the specter of terrorism,” Obama laid out a framework for how the United States will proceed in trying and treating detainees accused of acts of terrorism that conforms to accepted U.S. legal practice, and how they will be confined if convicted by U.S. federal district courts or revised military commissions.
“Instead of building a durable framework for the struggle against al-Qaida that drew upon our deeply held values and traditions, our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law,” Obama said. “Indeed, part of the rationale for establishing Guantánamo in the first place was the misplaced notion that a prison there would be beyond the law — a proposition that the [U.S.] Supreme Court soundly rejected. Meanwhile, instead of serving as a tool to counter terrorism, Guantánamo became a symbol that helped al-Qaida recruit terrorists to its cause. Indeed, the existence of Guantánamo likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained.”
Obama delivered the 50-minute speech May 21 in front of about 200 people at the National Archives in Washington while flanked by the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence, regarded as America’s “Charters of Freedom” that help define the United States and its values.
The 240 detainees are confined at a specially designed military detention center on the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo. The detention center was designated in 2001 by then-President George W. Bush as a facility for holding non-U.S. citizens who were believed to have committed acts of terrorism. It began receiving detainees in early 2002. On January 22, Obama ordered the facility holding detainees to be closed within one year.
“I knew when I ordered Guantánamo closed that it would be difficult and complex. There are 240 people there who have now spent years in legal limbo,” Obama said. “In dealing with this situation, we do not have the luxury of starting from scratch.”
“We are currently in the process of reviewing each of the detainee cases at Guantánamo to determine the appropriate policy for dealing with them. Going forward, these cases will fall into five distinct categories,” Obama said.
First, when feasible, detainees who have violated U.S. criminal laws will be tried in U.S. federal district courts. Obama noted that terrorists have already been tried in federal courts with U.S. citizens sitting on juries, and those found guilty have been sentenced to U.S. federal prisons.
Second, cases involving detainees who violated internationally recognized laws of war will be tried by a revised military commission system that adheres to U.S. Supreme Court decisions and provides added safeguards for detainees’ rights. “They are an appropriate venue for trying detainees for violations of the laws of war,” the president said. “My administration is bringing our [military] commissions in line with the rule of law.”
Under the previously devised system, military commissions at Guantánamo convicted three suspected terrorists in slightly over seven years, Obama said. “Instead of bringing terrorists to justice, efforts at prosecution met setbacks, cases lingered on, and in 2006 the Supreme Court invalidated the entire system,” the president said. At the same time, 525 detainees were released from Guantánamo.
In the third category, Obama said, 21 detainees who have been ordered released by the federal courts because there is no legitimate reason to hold them further will be released.
In the fourth category, Obama said some detainees, who authorities have determined can be transferred to another country, will leave as soon as arrangements can be made. The president said the review team has approved 50 detainees for transfer.
Finally, Obama said some detainees at Guantánamo cannot be prosecuted, and continue to pose a clear danger to the American people. “I want to be honest: This is the toughest issue we will face,” he said.
Every effort will be made to prosecute those who can be tried who pose a danger to the United States, he said, but even with that, some cannot be prosecuted for a number of legal reasons.
“These are people who, in effect, remain at war with the United States,” Obama said. They will not be allowed to endanger the American people, he said, but detention policies for this last category of detainees cannot be unbounded.
“That is why my administration has begun to reshape these standards to ensure they are in line with the rule of law,” the president said. The standards being developed must be lawful, must be fair, and must have a thorough process of periodic review, he said.
“I want to be very clear that our goal is to construct a legitimate legal framework for Guantánamo detainees, not to avoid one,” he said.
Obama’s speech, planned earlier, by coincidence came after the U.S. Senate rejected $80 million in funding to close the detainees’ detention center and blocked transfer of the remaining detainees to the United States mainland.
What foreign affairs decisions should President Obama consider? Comment on America.gov's blog.
