Prisoners Rights

A military judge Wednesday strongly advised two accused co-conspirators in the Sept. 11 attacks not to represent themselves in their upcoming trial because their defense would suffer from several factors, including a lack of access to the classified evidence that the government plans to use against them. "It would be best for you to accept the assistance of counsel. If it sounds as if I am trying to talk you out of representing yourself, that would be accurate," Judge Ralph H.

Female inmates in the Los Angeles County jail system have waited weeks, even months, before receiving medical treatment that should have been provided within 24 hours of their requests for help, according to a monitor's report released Friday. Additionally, Sheriff's Department officials have inadequate written policies on how to treat sick or pregnant women housed in their jail facilities, according to Merrick Bobb, a special counsel hired by the county Board of Supervisors to monitor the department.

The Bush administration has the authority to capture and detain suspected "enemy combatants" in this country but must give them an adequate opportunity to challenge their military detention, a closely divided federal appeals court ruled in Richmond. The decision by the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals concerned Ali Marri, the only combatant seized and held on U.S. soil. The ruling was 5 to 4.

More than six years after the Bush administration sent hundreds of foreign prisoners to Guantanamo Bay, the rules for deciding just who can be held and for how long remain unclear. Comments Monday by the attorney general and congressional Democrats suggest such issues will not be resolved soon -- and not before a new administration takes power. Roughly 270 prisoners remain at Guantanamo, of whom about 20 are slated to be tried as war criminals.

From the start, the military trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan had the makings of a mock trial, an exercise in testing the system. Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, hardly fit the profile of a major war criminal. And for him, the stakes were low. He had been held at Guantanamo Bay for six years, and Bush administration officials said they would continue to hold him, whether he was convicted or acquitted.

Contending that the government had suppressed evidence that could help a young man facing life in prison, a prosecutor has quit the war crimes tribunals here, several military defense lawyers said Wednesday. Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld quit the case -- and the Office of Military Commissions -- after growing increasingly concerned about the lack of due process afforded to Mohammed Jawad and his legal team, according to Michael J. Berrigan, deputy chief defense counsel for the commissions.

Senior Bush administration officials held a series of meetings in the White House in 2002 and 2003 to discuss allowing the CIA to use harsh interrogation methods on Al Qaeda detainees, according to a written statement Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently provided to Senate investigators.

A U.S. military officer warned Pentagon officials that an American detainee was being driven nearly insane by months of punishing isolation and sensory deprivation in a U.S. military brig, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press. The documents shed new light on how two American citizens and a legal U.S. resident were treated in military jails inside the United States.

A federal appeals court Wednesday temporarily blocked a judge's decision to release 17 Chinese Muslims held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into the U.S. In a one-page order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued the emergency stay at the request of the Bush administration. The three-judge panel said it would postpone Friday's scheduled release of the detainees at least until late next week to give the government more time to make arguments in the case.

Darrel J. Vandeveld was in despair. The hard-nosed lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, a self-described conformist praised by his superiors for his bravery in Iraq, had lost faith in the Guantanamo Bay war crimes tribunals in which he was a prosecutor. His work was top secret, making it impossible to talk to family or friends. So the devout Catholic -- working away from home -- contacted a priest online.