By Kenneth J. Theisen, 4/26/07
In still another move to limit or virtually eliminate the
legal rights of detainees held at Guantanamo
Bay, the U.S. Department of Justice
(DOJ) under Attorney General Gonzales has filed a request with the United
States Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia to limit detainee access to legal
counsel. DOJ is claiming that lawyer
visits and mail from counsel are causing “intractable problems and threats to
security at Guantánamo.” DOJ accuses
attorneys as serving as conduits to the media and causing unrest among
prisoners.
To remedy these alleged problems, DOJ wants the court to
limit attorney client contact and restrict access to evidence in cases. DOJ has
asserted that, “There is no right on the part of counsel to access to detained
aliens on a secure military base in a foreign country.” In other words, DOJ is claiming that it is
doing the detainees a favor by allowing them to see an attorney at all. What
generosity!
DOJ is requesting that the court restrict attorney visits to
only three times. It would further limit attorneys to only one visit to have a
detainee authorize an attorney to handle his case. The DOJ also proposes that intelligence
officers and military lawyers not assigned to prisoners” case be allowed to
read all legal mail sent to the detainee by his attorney destroying the
attorney client privilege. Finally DOJ wants to permit government agents to withhold
access to secret evidence from attorneys even though this evidence is used by the
military tribunals to determine that their clients were enemy combatants. DOJ
should just waive all fiction of due process and request that kangaroos preside
over the proceedings as well.
Lawyers for the accused assert that they often need to visit
detainees several times just to convince them that they are not government
agents. Most detainees have been incarcerated, abused, and tortured for years,
with many suffering mental problems as a direct result of their abuse at the
hands of the Bush regime. Therefore they
are distrustful of any one from the outside, even those that are there to
assist them such as their attorney. In
addition, their cases are incredibly complex in most instances, so limiting
attorney visits to a total of three amounts to inadequate preparation. From the
very beginning of the capture of detainees in the so-called “war on terrorism,”
the Bush regime has done everything possible to strip prisoners of any legal
due process rights. That is the primary reason
they located the detention facility outside the country. This latest proposal
by DOJ is just one more attempt to make sure that the defendants never get a
fair hearing.
The main “intractable problem” that DOJ wishes to avoid is
having their prosecutions fall apart. If detainees are given a fair chance to
contest their cases, the government’s cases would be exposed for the briefcase
of lies that many of them are. If DOJ’s request to the appellate court is
granted, some 300 prisoners will be railroaded in these so-called tribunals.
The court will hear the DOJ request on May 15, 2007.
World Can’t Wait! will continue to follow this for our
readers.