US prepares to lift ban on Gitmo cases

The Obama administration is preparing to increase the use of military commissions.

The Obama administration is preparing to increase the use of military commissions to prosecute Guantánamo detainees,an acknowledgment that the prison in Cuba remains open for business after Congress imposed steep new impediments to closing the facility.

Defence Secretary Robert M Gates is expected to soon lift an order blocking the initiation of new cases against detainees,which he imposed on the day of President Obamas inauguration. That would clear the way for tribunal officials,for the first time under the Obama administration,to initiate new charges against detainees.

Charges would probably then come within weeks against one or more detainees who have already been designated by the Justice Department for prosecution before a military commission,including Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri,a Saudi accused of planning the 2000 bombing of the American destroyer Cole in Yemen; Ahmed al-Darbi,a Saudi accused of plotting,in an operation that never came to fruition,to attack oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz; and Obaydullah,an Afghan accused of concealing bombs.

Preparations for the tribunal trials including the circulation of new draft regulations for conducting them were described by several administration officials familiar with the discussions.

With the political winds now against more civilian prosecutions of Guantánamo detainees,the plans to press forward with additional commission trials may foreshadow the fates of many of the more than 30 remaining detainees who have been designated for eventual prosecution: trials in Cuba for war crimes before a panel of military officers.

The administration is also preparing an executive order to create a parole board-like system for periodically reviewing the cases of the nearly 50 detainees who would be held without trial.

Any charging of Nashiri would be particularly significant because the official who oversees the commissions,retired Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald of the Navy,may allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty against him which would set up the first capital trial in the tribunal system. The Cole bombing killed 17 sailors.

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Nashiris case would also raise unresolved legal questions about jurisdiction and rules of evidence in tribunals. And it would attract global attention because he was previously held in secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons and is one of three detainees known to have been subjected to the drowning technique known as waterboarding.