EU-DIGEST

Portugal Urges E.U. to Accept Former Guantanamo Detainees - by Michael Abramotiwitz

Portugal's foreign minister has called for European countries to accept detainees released from the Guantanamo Bay detention center, a move that U.S. officials and human rights advocates regard as a possible harbinger of a new willingness by Europe to assist in closing the controversial facility. "The time has come for the European Union to step forward," Luís Amado told other E.U. countries in a letter made public yesterday. "As a matter of principle and coherence, we should send a clear signal of our willingness to help the U.S. Government in that regard, namely through the resettlement of detainees. As far as the Portuguese Government is concerned, we will be available to participate."

Note EU-Digest: it might be a better idea to hand the terrorist over to the Iraq and the Afghanistan government where they committed their crimes, to have them sentenced. Taking them into Europe is ridiculous.

Labels: EU, Guantanamo, Portugal

Holding Obama's feet to the fire in respect Guantánamo as his legal advisers are said to be drafting plans-by Suzanna Goldenberg

Hopes that Obama would move swiftly to dismantle the detention facility rose after the Associated Press reported today that his legal advisers were drafting plans to ship scores of inmates from the offshore prison to the mainland to stand trial in US courts. Under plans drawn up by Obama's advisers, between 60 and 80 detainees would be put on trial in the US in a mix of civilian criminal courts and the court martial system. About 17 high-level detainees, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, would also go on trial but before a new version of a national security court - not the Bush administration's much criticised military tribunals. The American Civil Liberties Union immediately called on Obama to ban torture and rendition as well as close down Guantanámo.Also pressure has been coming on this issue from the European Union.

Labels: Barack Obama, EU, Guantanamo

When is war a crime? - by Carol Rosenberg

When did the war on terror begin? Is the globe really one big battlefield? Can one gunman's firefight be another man's terror?

Or, is it like US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's definition of pornography: "People know it when they see it"? At the military commissions in Guantanamo, the definition of the ongoing war on al Qaeda -- when it started, who is immune from prosecution -- is emerging as a core issue for military judges and eventually U.S. officers who will sit in judgment on alleged terrorists swept up in the Pentagon's global war on terrorism.

Defense lawyers for Guantánamo captives accused the prosecution of, in a sense, shaping the war to fit each detainee's circumstance. In the case of Omar Khadr, accused of throwing a grenade at age 15 that killed an American soldier in a firefight in Afghanistan, his case alleges a war crimes conspiracy dating back to 1997, when his father moved the family from Toronto to Afghanistan. 'According to a recent US government filing, Omar allegedly began `conspiring' with al Qaeda to commit 'war crimes' as a 10-year-old child,'' Khadr's defense lawyer, U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, said in an e-mail. Ridiculing the US government's case, he added: 'Omar's `war' has consisted of being shot in the back, while wounded, after a four-hour bombardment, followed by years of illegal detention, coercive interrogation, and a planned trial for war crimes, which will likely result in a life sentence for little more than surviving the firefight in which he was shot.''

Labels: Guantanamo, Terrorism

Rep. Lantos offends Dutch Lawmakers - by Desmond Butler

Dutch lawmakers who visited the Guantanamo Bay military prison this week said they were offended by a testy exchange in Washington with a senior congressional Democrat. The lawmakers said that Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told them that "Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay."

Before the Guantanamo exchange, the lawmakers had discussed a debate in the Netherlands about whether the country should maintain its 1,600 troops serving in NATO's Afghanistan operations. "You have to help us, because if it was not for us you would now be a province of Nazi Germany," Lantos said, according to the Dutch lawmakers. "The comments killed the debate," said Harry van Bommel, a member of the Socialist Party. "It was insulting and counterproductive." It was not the first time that Lantos had offended European political circles. In May, he lashed out at the former leaders of France and Germany. His comments, which included calling former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder a "political prostitute," provoked a rebuke from German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Labels: Afghanistan, EU, Guantanamo, Netherlands, Tom Lantos, US Congress