Gitmo Trials To Resume ASAP

Military trials of two terror suspects imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay will resume "as soon as possible," in light of a court ruling against a detainee who challenged the system, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday.

Rumsfeld did not name the suspects, but two other officials said later they are David Hicks, an Australian accused of having fought alongside the Taliban regime against U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni whose challenge to the legality of the trial system was initially upheld but was overturned Friday by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Rumsfeld said more details would be provided later in a written statement.

At a joint news conference at the Pentagon with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Rumsfeld applauded the court ruling and said it would help expedite the military trials, which are criticized by some as unfair.

"The court's ruling marks an advance in the global struggle against extremists and aids the effort to protect innocent life," he said. "It vindicates the president's determination to treat suspected terrorists humanely but not to grant them the protections of the Geneva Conventions as a matter of right."

As a result of the ruling, the Pentagon also will prepare charges against eight other individuals held at the detention compound in Cuba, Rumsfeld said. It was his first public remarks on the subject since the ruling Friday. Those eight, whose names have not been released, had previously been declared eligible for trial by military commissions, but no charges have yet been filed against them.

Howard, whose government is a close U.S. partner in the war on terror, said he is confident that Hicks will get justice.

"Particularly in the wake of some changes that were made to the process, Australia is satisfied that the military commission process in relation to David Hicks, since he is the one Australian held in Guantanamo Bay, will provide a proper measure of justice," Howard said. Later he said the allegations against Hicks are "particularly serious" and that he welcomes Rumsfeld's decision to resume the trial as soon as possible.

Hicks pleaded innocent to the charges against him. He could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of conspiracy to commit war crimes, aiding the enemy and attempted murder.

Rumsfeld also said more detainees at Guantanamo Bay beyond the four who have been charged and the eight who are about to be charged would be declared eligible for trial by military commissions. He did not say how many more.

Just 15 of the 520 detainees at Guantanamo Bay have been designated for such trials and only four have been charged.

The rest face indefinite detention, and the Bush administration refuses to grant any of the detainees prisoner-of-war status, a decision that has fueled international criticism of the United States.

Hamdan, a mechanic with a fourth-grade education, says he left his home country of Yemen looking for work and wound up in Afghanistan, working for bin Laden from 1997 until the U.S. attack in Afghanistan in 2001.

Hamdan denies conspiring to engage in acts of terrorism and denies he was a member of al Qaeda.

Hamdan's lawyers, who said they will appeal Friday's court ruling, claim he simply wanted to earn enough money to return to Yemen, buy his own vehicle and support his family as a driver.

The issue of military commissions has been eclipsed by alleged mistreatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, putting the Bush administration — and some of its loudest critics — on the defensive.