MIAMI — Critics of the war crimes tribunal at Guantanamo Bay have consistently assailed the coerced confessions that may be used as evidence against the defendants and have repeatedly charged that the prisoners' severe isolation causes mental illnesses that make them unable to aid in their own defense.
Now, the critics add, evidence has emerged to show that the government advised interrogators to destroy their notes to evade legal consequences for their actions.
As the Bush administration revs up its prosecution of suspected terrorists ahead of the November election, defense lawyers and human rights advocates are ratcheting up their criticism of the offshore justice system.
The Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony Tuesday about the treatment of prisoners at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and demands that all U.S. interrogators renounce coercive techniques.
"Cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners under American control violates our nation's laws and values," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat chairing the committee.
"It damages America's reputation in the world and serves as a recruitment tool for our enemies," she said. "Perhaps most importantly, it has also limited our ability to obtain reliable and usable intelligence to help combat the war on terror, prevent additional threats and bring to justice those who have sought to harm our country."
Feinstein and the federal lawyers and agents who addressed the committee called for the shutdown of Guantanamo and the transfer of suspects' trials to U.S. federal courts.
The renewed condemnation of coercive interrogation techniques followed the revelation this week that the Pentagon had advised federal agents to destroy any written records of their attempts to exact confessions or intelligence from terrorism suspects.
Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler, the Navy lawyer defending young Canadian prisoner Omar Khadr, encountered the directive in an unclassified portion of the 2003 Guantanamo "standard operating procedures" manual that was in effect at the time Khadr was interrogated at the naval base.
Because the mission "has legal and political issues that may lead to interrogators being called to testify, keeping the number of documents with interrogation information to a minimum can minimize certain legal issues," the manual notes.
