Military Commissions

Hamdan's trial violated two of the most fundamental principles of the criminal justice systems of all civilized nations: the prohibition on the use of coerced evidence, and the prohibition on retroactive criminal laws.

Until now, the administration has maintained it has the right to hold "enemy combatants" without charge until the end of hostilities. A sentence has now ended that open-ended policy.

Let's be honest: this case was a joke in the annals of justice and a blotch on America's campaign to prevent future 9/11's.

As with justice, logic is in short supply in the executive's approach to terror suspects, who have been deprived of the protections of the Geneva Conventions to make false confessions.

In the surreal world of Guantanamo's military commissions, the government spares no expense and effort to control every movement in order to mimic, but avoid true operation of, the rule of law.

In the real world, where evidence obtained through torture is inadmissible, it remains unclear whether the government's attempts to set up a judicial system for alleged terrorists will ever be successful.

The hearings in Guantánamo were not in any way conducted like an American court of law, with the words torture so abundantly used and with lawyers denied the ability to assist their clients.

No matter how hard Bush tries to sell these arraignments as a great day for justice, it can't spin the Guantanamo courtroom spectacle into a fair judicial process worthy of the victims of September 11, 2001.

On Thursday, I will be at Guantánamo watching five men appear before a military commission. The men are accused of participating in the September 11 attacks, and the sentence could be death.

Nothing about Mohammed Hashim's story suggests that he should be standing trial in a court flagged up by the administration as required to prosecute "the worst of the worst."

Like alcoholics queuing up drinks at closing time, the US administration is pressing charges against prisoners at Guantanamo at a frantic rate.

In April, Ibrahim al-Qosi also boycotted his pre-trial hearing, telling the judge, "I do not recognize the justice or the lawfulness of this court,

Key elements of the Bush Administration's anti-terrorist detention policies appear to be unraveling, according to human rights and legal advocates. I...

Anyone who has kept half an eye on the proceedings at the Military Commissions in Guantanamo will be aware that their progress has been faltering at best.

In what appears to be nothing more than propaganda masquerading as news, the US military has announced that it will televise the Guantánamo trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

We've been at a critical juncture since September 11. How we respond to the atrocities thrust upon us after that terrible day says everything about who we are as Americans - what values we defend, how the world sees us, and how history will remember us.

Ahmed Ghailani is the sixth of the 14 so-called "high-value detainees" -- those held in secret, CIA-run prisons, who were transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006 -- to be put forward for trial.

If there is a "clean" case at Guantanamo that can be presented without ensnaring the administration in ever more damaging allegations relating to the use of torture by US forces, it has yet to be found.

The Bush administration's decision to choose a child soldier -- the Canadian Omar Khadr -- as its first attempt at a real conviction continues to attract heated opposition.

The reputation of the U.S. has been tarnished throughout the world since the Bush administration replaced our military justice systems with a regime of military commissions.

The US military has spent $12 million on a mobile court complex, which is intended to be used for the trial by Military Commission of up to 80 detainees, beginning in May.

The case of Maher Arar is one of many chilling examples of the damage caused by failed intelligence in the Americans' program of "extraordinary rendition."

Six years ago the first of 778 prisoners -- identified only by numbers -- arrived at the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.