The military trials against US-held detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba will not be affected by a Supreme Court ruling that the detainees have the right to appeal in US civilian courts, US Attorney General Michael Mukasey said yesterday.
Mukasey, speaking at a G8 meeting of justice and home affairs ministers in Tokyo, said he was disappointed with the decision because it would lead to “hundreds” of detention cases being referred to federal district court.
“I think it bears emphasis that the court’s decision does not concern military commission trials, which will continue to proceed,” he said.
“Instead it addresses the procedures that the Congress and the president put in place to permit enemy combatants to challenge their detention,” Mukasey said.
“Obviously we’re going to comply with the decision, we’re going to study both the decision itself and whether any legislation or any other action may be appropriate,” he said.
A divided US Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that foreign detainees held for years at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have the right to appeal to US civilian courts to challenge their indefinite imprisonment without charges. It was a stinging rebuke to US President George W. Bush.
Bush, in Rome on Thursday, said he strongly disagreed with the decision — the third time the court has repudiated him on the detainees — and suggested he might seek yet another law to keep terror suspects at the prison camp “so we can safely say to the American people, ‘We’re doing everything we can to protect you.’”
“It was a deeply divided court, and I strongly agree with those who dissented,” he said.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the 5-4 high court majority, acknowledged the terrorism threat the US faces, but he declared, “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”
In a blistering dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia said the decision “will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.”
Kennedy said federal judges could ultimately order some detainees to be released, but he also said such orders would depend on security concerns and other circumstances. The ruling itself will not result in any immediate releases.
The decision, however, also cast doubt on the future of the military war crimes trials that 19 detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged Sept. 11 plotters, are facing so far. The Pentagon has said it plans to try as many as 80 men held at Guantanamo.
Human rights groups and many Democratic members of Congress celebrated the ruling as affirming the nation’s commitment to the rule of law. Several Republican lawmakers called it a decision that put foreign terrorists’ rights above the safety of the US public.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)