US Senate restores right to appeal: Terror suspects
By Our Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Nov 15: The US Senate has worked out a compromise that would allow terror suspects in US custody a final appeal against military convictions but deny them broad access to federal courts. The compromise would allow more than 500 suspects -– including 40 Pakistanis — detained in Guantanamo Bay to challenge their conviction by US military tribunals.
They will, however, not have the right to file habeas corpus petitions against their detention as allowed under a 2004 decision by the US Supreme Court. Almost 300 Guantanamo detainees have filed petitions in US district court in Washington since.
It is, however, not clear if the detainees will now be forced to withdraw their petitions.
The compromise is an improvement on an earlier measure adopted last week which denied the suspects all access to civilian courts.
Republican Lindsey Graham and Democrat Carl Levin, who arranged the compromise, said the chamber moved too far in blocking inmates’ access to courts.
Senator Graham sponsored the original amendment passed by the Senate on Thursday that denied enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay the right to go to federal court to challenge their detention.
Mr Graham of South Carolina said the compromise ‘corrects a flaw in my amendment’ which did not provide the right of an appeal from a military tribunal to federal court.
The compromise also restores federal court jurisdiction over pending cases, and provides for a court review of whether standards and procedures of the tribunals are consistent with the US constitution.
With the compromise, there would be an automatic appeal for detainees facing a death sentence or at least 10 years imprisonment.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia would determine whether it would hear cases with less than 10-year sentences.
Civil rights advocates were alarmed when Mr Graham’s amendment cleared the Senate last week on a 49-42 vote, saying it would strip any federal court oversight for people the Bush administration has declared enemy combatants in the war on terror and who are being held at Guantanamo Bay.
