GENEVA, Feb 8: US President George W. Bush’s decision to deny Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters prisoner of war status prompted an outcry on Friday as the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, jurists and campaigners said the decision could only be taken by a court.

Bush announced late on Thursday that the 1949 Geneva Conventions would apply to captured Taliban detainees taken from Afghanistan to a US military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, but not to Al Qaeda fighters.

However, Washington said that neither group would be accorded POW status.

“Anybody captured in a context of an international conflict... is covered by the Third Geneva Convention and therefore is presumed to be a prisoner of war unless a competent tribunal decides otherwise,” a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.

The ICRC is the internationally-recognized guarantor of the Conventions. Spokesman Kim Gordon-Bates said the Geneva-based ICRC welcomed all efforts to ensure that war criminals do not benefit from impunity, but stressed that a judicial procedure must be followed.

“One doesn’t shelter people behind statutes, conventions, you insist on the process to be followed,” Gordon-Bates said, adding that no one was outside the law.

He said the ICRC “had, on first sight, no problem with the fact that some people are refused” the status of POW by a tribunal, but said the decisions should be taken on a “case by case” basis. The ICRC said that it was awaiting the formal written statement from the White House to weigh the full legal implications of the decision. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters the Taliban were ineligible for POW status under the convention because they had not effectively distinguished themselves from the civilian population and had shunned “the laws and customs of war”.

The US decision was also criticized by the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists, an international non-governmental organization that works to support international law that advances human rights.

“The decision by president Bush to apply the Third Geneva Convention to the conflict in Afghanistan but deny prisoner of war status to Guantanamo Bay detainees is incorrect in law,” it said in a statement.

“President Bush has said this convention is applicable. That application cannot be selective or partial,” ICJ said highlighting the contents of a letter sent to US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

It echoed the ICRC in stating that the convention “required” the conferral of prisoner of war status unless a “competent tribunal” decides otherwise.

“Only a US court, and not the administration, has the legal authority to make such a determination,” it added.

The letter stated that the ICJ “does not understand the attitude taken by the US government” in relation to the Guantanamo detainees, but added it hoped “such attitude will be duly corrected”.

The ICJ said captured Taliban fighters were entitled to POW status as members of armed forces, irrespective of non-recognition of the Taliban authorities as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

“That same status may or may not be extended to Al Qaeda fighters but must be determined by a competent tribunal,” it added. Under the Third Geneva Convention, prisoners of war are not bound to answer questions beyond their name, rank, date of birth and serial number, the ICJ pointed out.

But the organization added that nothing in the same convention would prevent US authorities from interrogating and prosecuting detainees in Guantanamo Bay for any alleged actions that amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Human rights group Amnesty International also stressed the authority lay with a tribunal and not with Bush or his advisers, while France said it disagreed that only Taliban fighters should be given protection under the Geneva Conventions.

“When they say we are applying the Geneva convention we would like to know what exactly they are applying because they are not applying this particular article, which says the presumption is that they are a prisoner of war until proven otherwise,” Claudio Cordone, Amnesty’s research chief, said.—AFP