The first Guantanamo terror suspects to be arraigned are an alleged al-Qaeda accountant, a poet who is accused of crafting terrorist propaganda, a man allegedly who drove Osama bin Laden, and an Australian who fought with Afghanistan's ousted Taliban.
The four prisoners will be arraigned in preliminary hearings this week before their cases go to military commissions, rather than trials, in an unprecedented judicial process that foreign governments, lawyers and human rights groups have criticized. None of the men are accused of killing Americans.
PHOTO: REUTERS
While the maximum sentence the four men face is life in prison, the military commissions will have the power to sentence others to death, and there is no independent appeal process.
Significant challenges already exist ahead of the first hearing scheduled for today.
One defense attorney hasn't seen his client in four months because of a government delay in giving clearance to a translator. Another defense lawyer has withdrawn from the case after accepting another job, leaving her client with no representation. Others say the broad restrictions, which include the military's right to monitor conversations between attorneys and clients, will make it nearly impossible to win their cases.
"I've never gone into a hearing with so little information," said Lieutenant Commander Charlie Swift, a military defense attorney representing Salim Ahmed Hamdan.
Hamdan, 34, a Yemeni driver for Osama bin Laden, is scheduled to be arraigned today on a charge of conspiracy to commit war crimes for his ties to al-Qaeda.
Two of the other men face similar conspiracy charges: Ali Hamza Ahmad Sulayman al-Bahlul, 33, also of Yemen; and Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi, born in 1960, of Sudan.
The fourth defendant is David Hicks, 29, of Australia, who faces the broadest set of charges: conspiracy to commit war crimes as well as aiding the enemy, and attempted murder for allegedly firing at US or Afghan coalition forces.
When many of the prisoners arrived at this US outpost in eastern Cuba in January 2002, the Bush administration was quick to declare them guilty: "These are killers," President Bush said. Attorney General John Ashcroft described them as ``uniquely dangerous.''
After comments like those, crit-ics doubt the detainees can receive a fair trial -- since top US officials also have the power to the choose commission members who pass judgement on the government's cases.
``If the US attorney would be able to handpick each jury, everyone in the world would say that is clearly not fair,'' said Kevin Barry, director of the National Institute of Military Justice.
The Bush administration defends the process, although only four of Guantanamo detainees have been charged so far, while 11 others' charges are pending approval. The prison camp now holds some 585 men, most of whom have been refused access to attorneys.
Navy Lieutanant Commander Philip Sundel, an attorney for al Bahlul of Yemen, who is to appear on Thursday, said that because of government red tape, he hasn't been able to meet with his client in four months and isn't prepared for the preliminary hearing.
Sundel said that although the commission is supposed to be responsible for getting translators he was told to find his own. Then the government held up her clearance so he had to find another, who didn't work out.
``I've operated in courts martial, federal courts and one international tribunal, and this is the only hearing I've entered with not even a clue as to what was going to take place,'' he said.
Army Colonel Peter Brownback will be the presiding officer of the five-member commission panel that will act as judge and jury.
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