GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA — Military judges threw out war-crimes cases Monday against the only detainees here who have been indicted, in rulings that suggest the hastily reassembled military tribunals have no jurisdiction over any of Guantanamo's 380 prisoners.
In separate hearings, an Army colonel and a Navy captain granted motions to dismiss the cases because the 2006 Military Commissions Act that Congress passed last year gave the tribunals jurisdiction only over "unlawful alien enemy combatants."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday June 07, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 69 words Type of Material: Correction
Guantanamo cases: An article in Tuesday's Section A about dismissal rulings in two Guantanamo cases misquoted John D. Hutson, a former Navy lawyer and now dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center in New Hampshire. In assessing the significance of detainees who have faced trial at Guantanamo Bay, Hutson said, "We aren't exactly talking about Himmler and Goering, so far," not "Hitler and Goering," as it appeared in the article.
Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, and Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was 15 when arrested five years ago in a firefight with U.S. forces in Afghanistan, were designated "enemy combatants" during 2004 Combatant Status Review Tribunals.
Reconciling the different labels is sure to slow prosecution of these and other Guantanamo detainees. All 380 detainees received the same label during their initial status reviews.
It was the second time in less than a year that the Bush administration's process for bringing terror suspects to justice has failed. An earlier version of the commissions -- created by Bush in November 2001 without congressional participation -- was struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court last June 29.
Army Maj. Beth Kubala, the legal advisor and spokeswoman for the tribunals, said, "Based on today's rulings, the public should make no assumptions about the future of the military commissions."
The Geneva Convention protects the rights of "lawful combatants," who are usually members of national armed forces fighting with another country's soldiers. Captured lawful combatants are supposed to be designated prisoners of war and held in communal conditions.
But when the Bush administration devised the tribunals, it eliminated that designation to deprive the war-on-terror suspects of POW rights and living conditions. That left the three-officer status review boards with the choices of "enemy combatant" or "no longer an enemy combatant."
In the second of the two rulings, Navy Capt. Keith Allred suggested that Bush's blanket branding of all Al Qaeda members as illegally engaged in hostilities against U.S. forces was illegitimate because it failed to examine whether each individual had committed war crimes.
"He's either entitled to the designations as a prisoner of war or as an unlawful alien enemy combatant," Allred said of Hamdan.
