U.S. May Not Release Guantanamo Prisoners Even If Found Innocent of Charges Against Them

[kpete]

U.S. May Not Release Guantanamo Prisoners Even If Found Innocent of Charges Against Them

Submitted by davidswanson on Sun, 2008-04-13 10:33.
By Sherwood Ross

Even if a Guantanamo prisoner is acquitted on all counts at his trial, the Pentagon may still not release him on grounds he might return to the battlefield, according to an article in the April 14th issue of The New Yorker.

The magazine’s Jeffrey Toobin quotes Brig. General Thomas Hartmann, legal adviser to the Pentagon’s Office of Military Commissions, as saying, “What’s unusual about what we’re doing is that we’re having the commissions before the end of the war. The Nuremberg trials (of accused Nazi war criminals) were after World War Two, so there was no possibility of the defendants going back to the battlefield.”

But, Hartmann continued, “We still have that problem. We are trying these alleged war criminals during the war. So, in order to protect our troops in the field, in general we are not going to release anyone who poses a danger until the war is over.”

By this reasoning, Toobin writes, “even those Guantanamo detainees who are acquitted of the charges against them are analogous to Nazi war criminals.”

more at:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/32716

[Echo In Light]

1. "...until the war is over." Meaning, when empire collapses, or we all get flash fried in world war?

[Elspeth]

2. This is ridiculous. Unless they are worried about the fallout

Then it makes sense. If you were innocent, had been turned over for a couple of grand by an Afghan looking to make some money, and had been tortured by the US for years, you're either going to be completely broken or a loose canon when you leave. You'll probably be looking for a group to join to get revenge. Gitmo creates terrorists.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. The Nuremberg Trials released Germans acquitted of war crimes.

Isn't this so extraordinary that the World Court takes notice?