| Author (Person) | Beatty, Andrew |
|---|---|
| Series Title | European Voice |
| Series Details | 29.06.06 |
| Publication Date | 29/06/2006 |
| Content Type | News |
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An imminent ruling from the US Supreme Court and last week's EU-US summit offer some glimmers of hope that the four-year long transatlantic row over the Guantánamo Bay prison may be coming to an end. This Friday (30 June) the US Supreme Court will rule on the legality of the special military tribunals that have tried ten of the 759 detainees who have been held at the US naval base since it began receiving 'unlawful combatants' in 2002. The court will examine the question of whether a US president has the powers to establish the ad-hoc tribunals and may also comment on the legality of indefinite detentions. Last week in Vienna, flanked by EU leaders, US President George W. Bush indicated that he would like the camp to close, even if he still thinks that some of the inmates should not be released. The court judgement, according to some egal experts, is likely to rule that normal civilian or military courts must be used to try the detainees, closing a legal loophole. For EU officials, Bush's decision to use the EU-US summit to express - in the strongest terms to date - his desire to close Guantánamo was politically important. Although the EU has been only one voice in a chorus of calls for the base to close, Bush's comments have been seen as an important signal that European views are being taken into account. The summit struck a significantly less acrimonious tone than the EU's reaction, almost a month ago, to the suicides of three inmates. A resolution from the European Parliament following the deaths had prompted fears that tensions with Congress and the Bush administration would be rekindled. But at the summit, the host, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel, tried to offer the Bush administration a way out, suggesting third parties could have a role in deciding the fate of the camp's remaining prisoners. "We have to help if we're to find a way-out strategy, to help countries to take back the prisoners, either to charge them or to release them. And there are international organisations which could help and could assist," he said. According to Austrian diplomats this could mean, for example, international organisations such as the International Red Cross or the UN, monitoring those who return to their home countries. Schüssel's comments were being portrayed as an attempt to shift the debate from 'why' Guantánamo should be closed to a more constructive 'how'. His comments were seen by some MEPs as a productive way of assuaging concerns that those returned to Afghanistan, Yemen or Saudi Arabia would not suffer a worse fate at home. But according to human rights groups crucial problems remain despite the apparent transatlantic rapprochement. Human rights group Amnesty International is opposed to transferring the detainees to their home countries against their wishes and are pressing EU states to grant asylum to some of the inmates who are not tried. Some EU diplomats say that their countries are highly unlikely to accept any of the inmates under the current circumstances. They also doubt that the Red Cross or any other international group would want to take responsibility for such a politically sensitive subject. Some member states are opposing anything more substantial, such as the international tribunal proposed by the Parliament, for fear that it would undermine the International Criminal Court. A week on from EU-US summit it is also unclear how much Schüssel's comments reflect a common EU approach. As one Austrian foreign ministry official put it, this was "Schüssel's own idea", although it echoes calls made by the United Nations in the form of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, also an Austrian. Ahead of the court's verdict, US diplomats were keeping close-lipped on the way ahead, but what-ever diplomats say the question is now "if and how quickly the US can act". Notes implicate Spain in Guantánamo flights Published: December 2 2008 18:05 | Last updated: December 2 2008 18:05 A dispute over European complicity in the sending of prisoners to Guantánamo Bay, the US military detention centre in Cuba for suspected terrorists, has erupted in Spain following the publication of leaked letters from 2002. The Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the prime minister, and the opposition Popular party (PP) were at loggerheads on Tuesday over a damning series of letters and notes. They showed that the PP government of José María Aznar helped the Bush administration arrange the transfers of prisoners from Afghanistan to Guantánamo following the US-led attack on the Taliban regime and its al-Qaeda allies in 2001. The emergence of the letters, published in the left-leaning newspaper El País, has revived a court investigation into Spain’s involvement in the transport of prisoners, detained without charge or trial, by US military aircraft using Spanish airbases or Spanish airspace. “The US is very shortly going to begin flights to transfer Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners from Afghanistan to the Guantánamo base in Cuba,” Miguel Aguirre de Cárcer, then director-general of the foreign ministry, wrote to Josep Piqué, his ministerial boss, according to a letter dated January 10 2002. Mr Aznar prided himself on his friendship with President George W. Bush and alienated the majority of Spanish voters by supporting the war in Iraq. Mr Zapatero, in contrast, angered Mr Bush by withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq as soon as he was elected in 2004. In the leaked letters, government officials made it clear that they supported the US and suggested that Spain would need to be discreet about the flights. As in other countries, there were doubts about the wisdom of allowing Spanish soil or airspace to be used for transporting detainees deprived of normal human and legal rights. PP representatives were incensed by the leak this week, accusing Miguel Ángel Moratinos, the foreign minister, of being behind it and showing “tremendous irresponsibility and a lack of trustworthiness”. They also noted that of the 11 flights known to have actually landed in Spain, nine were in 2005 and 2006 – during Mr Zapatero’s first administration. Mr Zapatero denied he knew about the letter from Mr Aguirre de Cárcer. He has repeatedly denied knowledge of any flights going to Guantánamo. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008 |
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