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U.S. May Build Execution Chamber at Gitmo

By Jeralyn

Yesterday, we noted that the U.S. will be seeking to execute six detainees at Guantanamo. Today, the AP reports that those executions may take place at Guantanamo, thanks to a 2006 Military Order (available here. (pdf)

Any executions would probably add to international outrage over Guantanamo, since capital punishment is banned in 130 countries, including the 27-nation European Union.

Conducting the executions on U.S. soil could open the way for the detainees' lawyers to go to U.S. courts to fight the death sentences. But the updated regulations make it possible for the executions to be carried out at Guantanamo.

That, of course, is what the Bush Administration wants: No oversight. As former Navy lawyer David Sheldon says, [More...]

"I think that's the administration's idea, to try to use Guantanamo as a base to not be under the umbrella of the federal district courts," he said. "If one is detained in North Carolina or South Carolina in a Navy brig, one could conceivably file a petition of habeus corpus and because of where they're located, invoke the jurisdiction of a federal court."

Other signs the Administration may be planning executions at Gitmo: It's built a Muslim burial site.

A Muslim section of the cemetery at Guantanamo has been dedicated by an Islamic cultural adviser, said Bruce Lloyd, spokesman for the Guantanamo Naval Station. Among those buried elsewhere at the cemetery are U.S. servicemen.

Until the 2006 regulation, military executions had to take place at Fort Leavenworth, KS.

But in January 2006, the Army changed its procedures for military executions, allowing "other locations" to be used. The new regulations say that only the president can approve an execution and that the secretary of the Army will authorize the location.

Bush already is trying to sell the executions of Gitmo detainees overseas:

The Bush administration has instructed U.S. diplomats abroad to defend its decision to seek the death penalty for the six men by recalling the executions of Nazi war criminals after World War II. A four-page cable sent to U.S. embassies and obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press says that execution as punishment for extreme violations of the laws of war is internationally accepted.

The cable points to the 1945-46 Nuremberg war crimes trials in Germany. Twelve of Adolf Hitler's senior aides were sentenced to death at the trials, though not all were executed in the end.

To find someone to agree with Bush's policy decision, the AP drudged up Cully Stimson, (Remember him ? He's the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs who caused a national outcry and ended up resigning after he made reprehensible comments about the lawyers defending the Gitmo detainees.)

"If these guys are found guilty, I can't think of any other case more appropriate for the death penalty," said Charles "Cully" Stimson, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. "An overwhelming majority of Americans support the death penalty."

That's the best the AP could do? Very telling.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 12, 2008 (boomark / email).