Guantanamo war crimes tribunals resume

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By Jane Sutton

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Exactly four years after the first prisoners arrived at the Guantanamo prison camp, a Yemeni accused of being a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden will face a U.S. military tribunal on Wednesday to demand the right to act as his own attorney on war crimes charges.

A separate tribunal of U.S. military officers was scheduled to convene later on Wednesday in the murder case against Canadian prisoner Omar Khadr, 19. He is accused of killing an Army medic with a grenade during a firefight at a suspected al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan when he was just 15.

The tribunals get under way amid criticism that they leave the defendants at a major disadvantage.

The first tribunal will convene in a courtroom at the remote U.S. military base in Cuba to hear pretrial arguments in the case against Ali Hamza al Bahlul, who is accused of being a bin Laden bodyguard and al Qaeda videographer.

Bahlul acknowledged in an earlier hearing that he is "from al Qaeda" and says he wants to represent himself. He has refused to meet with Army Reserve Maj. Tom Fleener, the lawyer appointed by the military to defend him.

Bahlul and Khadr could face life in prison if convicted by the tribunals, which were authorized by U.S. President George W. Bush to try foreign terrorism suspects after the September 11 .....continued below

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The Pentagon is proceeding with the two cases even though U.S. courts have halted the trials of three other Guantanamo prisoners pending a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on whether Bush had authority to establish the tribunals. The high court will hear arguments in the case in March.

The United States has faced criticism at home and abroad for its treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo since the first group arrived from Afghanistan, shackled and wearing black-out goggles and surgical masks, on January 11, 2002.

Some of the harshest criticism of the tribunal system has come from the U.S. military lawyers assigned to defend the prisoners.

Fleener called the tribunals a sham and said "the rules just aren’t set up in a manner to help the accused."

Human rights groups have criticized rules allowing the use of secret evidence the prisoners might not be allowed to see and the use of evidence that may have been obtained through torture.

The 31-year-old military lawyer assigned to represent Khadr, Army Capt. John Merriam, has never represented a defendant at a trial before.

"It would be laughable if the stakes weren’t so high," said one of Khadr’s civilian lawyers, Muneer Ahmad.

Chief prosecutor Col. Moe Davis defended the tribunal system and said the rules were designed to provide a fair trial while addressing an al Qaeda enemy whose actions had not been anticipated under existing law.

"We have nothing to be ashamed of what we’re doing here," Davis said.

Only nine of the approximately 500 Guantanamo prisoners have been charged with crimes, and the legal advisor to the tribunals has said that probably no more than 50 to 75 ever will be.