Posted on 07/03/2003 2:07:00 PM PDT by Dog
Breaking
No names released yet...Pentagon is briefing reporters now..
WASHINGTON, July 3 — President Bush has determined that six terrorism suspects are eligible to be tried before military tribunals, where rules of evidence and standards of conviction are less strict than they are in standard U.S. courtrooms, defense officials said Thursday.
THE OFFICIALS would not identify the six suspects, but they said on condition of anonymity that no charges had yet been brought against them. That would mean that Zacarias Moussaoui, the Saudi flight-school student who is the only person known to be charged with direct involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, was not among them.
The ruling does not mean that the six are automatically bound for military courtrooms, NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski reported from the Pentagon. It was only the first official step in the process that will see Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz decide whether any of them should be ordered to stand trial and on what charges.
The U.S. military has built a courtroom at Camp Delta, the detention facility at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where 680 detainees classified by the administration as enemy combatants, primarily from the war in Afghanistan, are being held.
ONLY TWO-THIRDS VOTE NEEDED
Under an executive order he issued two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush had to determine under the law that there was reason to believe that each of the six detainees was a member of al-Qaida or another terrorist organization or was otherwise involved in terrorism directed against the United States.
If their cases do go before a military tribunal, the detainees would face possible trials before military commissions made up of three to seven members of the U.S. military, with one of the members presiding. Unlike in civilian criminal courts, where guilty verdicts must be unanimous, the government would need only a two-thirds vote to convict. However, imposition of a death sentence would still have to be unanimous.
Although there is a provision to permit news coverage of the proceedings, each presiding officer has the authority to close the trial to the media to protect classified or sensitive intelligence or the national security.
One more opportunity for them to show their true colors and proving once again that they have their lips firmly planted on the rear of every tin horn dictator and Arab terrorist across the globe
If only it could be.
I hope Moussaui's one of them. He's very close to walking out of court as free man because of how he's gamed the system.
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