Obama Resumes Guantanamo Trials, Enacts Indefinite Detention

In a series of decisions last Monday, President Barack Obama ordered the commencement of new special military trials and organized the unlimited detention of more than 40 inmates at Guantanamo, thus renouncing the majority of his campaign commitments on the subject. These new measures indicate long-term action by the White House on the U.S. naval base in Cuba. Once again, long trials will be organized for war crimes and the re-examination of individual situations must take place, in the cases of those who will be imprisoned indefinitely without trial. “We are doing our best to pursue the president’s objective of closing the Guantanamo prison, while establishing a legal framework in line with our security and values,” assured an upper-level Obama official, on condition of anonymity. In May 2009, Obama said he was not against the concept of special courts to judge terrorism suspects, only that he rejected the way they had been run by his predecessor.

The Democratic president “remains determined to close Guantanamo,” continued the official, even if the administration has recently recognized that this would not be possible before 2012. The freeze on Guantanamo trials was one of the first moves by the newly-elected Obama, who wanted to mark a clear rupture with the Bush years. However, Congress has since inhibited his progress by forbidding the transfer of any detainee to American soil, even to be judged there. Indeed, even Obama’s fiercest political opponents, such as Republican Representative Peter King, welcomed the measures adopted Thursday, saying that they serve to confirm the Bush Doctrine, according to which the American government holds the right to imprison dangerous terrorists until the end of the war. Concretely, the White House will ask Defense Secretary Robert Gates to send new suspects before the Guantanamo courts. These were reformed in 2009 by the Democratic administration and Congress in order to give more rights to the defense and to forbid declarations made under physical constraint.

These new trials would likely take place “very soon, it is a matter of weeks or even days,” according to another upper-level official. Among the proceedings, the most awaited is that of Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nachiri, the primary suspect in the 2000 strike on the USS Cole in Yemen. The legal future of the five men accused of organizing the events of 9/11 is likewise to be determined. Three trials already well-developed at the time of Obama’s election were halted in 2010. The administration sees it as “an important tool in combating international terrorists that fall within our jurisdiction while upholding the rule of law.” But it reiterated Monday its determination to bring certain trials before common courts of law. Likewise, a new decree stipulates the indefinite detention of more than 40 of the 171 Guantanamo prisoners; it pertains to those deemed too dangerous to liberate but against whom the evidence is insufficient or inadmissible in court.

A hearing before a mixed panel of civil and military individuals will give the detainee a chance to present his defense. The prosecution must provide him with all necessary elements in preparing his case. Following this hearing, a reassessment of the documents will be organized every six months over the course of three years; after this time, a new hearing will take place.