Hundreds of current and former European officials, including a former British attorney general and numerous parliamentarians, have asked a US judge to block a military trial against Osama bin Laden’s former driver.
The 375 officials from England, Northern Ireland and the European Parliament represent all major political parties, court documents filed in Washington on Friday said.
Many of the officials disagree on key foreign policy issues but believe many aspects of Salim Hamdan’s scheduled military commission “are clearly at odds with the most basic norms of fair trial and due process,” the friend-of-the-court brief said.
CHALLENGE
Hamdan, born in Yemen, has been challenging the legality of the military commission system since 2004, but the case stalled as courts wrestled with the question of whether Guantanamo Bay detainees have the right to use civilian courts. A recent Supreme Court decision gave Hamdan’s case new life in a federal courthouse, but by the time a judge could consider the legality of the military commission system, Hamdan’s trial might already be over. It is scheduled to begin on July 21.
He has asked a judge to block the trial, and the European officials sided with him. In particular, they worry that Hamdan’s military commission trial will allow evidence obtained by coercion, possibly including some of the CIA’s harshest interrogation methods.
The court documents filed by the Europeans also say Hamdan should not be tried for conspiracy and material support for terrorism, since neither was recognized as a violation of the law of war before 2006.
STANDARDS
During a global struggle to defend freedom, the officials wrote, the US should act in the “shared legal tradition” of the international community.
“It is essential to the international legal order that, even when faced with the threat of international terrorism, all states comply with the standards set by international humanitarian law and human rights law,” the court documents said.
Among the hundreds of officials listed on the brief were former attorney general Nicholas Lyell, former archbishop of Canterbury George Carey and former speaker of the House of Commons Betty Boothroyd.
The Justice Department has said the recent Supreme Court ruling changes nothing for the upcoming military commissions. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has said the trials will be held in the best traditions of the US legal system.
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