[vaj3k]

From correspondents in Miami
June 12, 2007 08:18am
Article from: Reuters
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THE US war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo have betrayed the principles of fairness that made the Nazi war crimes trials at Nuremberg a judicial landmark, one of the US Nuremberg prosecutors said today.
"I think Robert Jackson, who's the architect of Nuremberg, would turn over in his grave if he knew what was going on at Guantanamo," Nuremberg prosecutor Henry King Jr said.
"It violates the Nuremberg principles, what they're doing, as well as the spirit of the Geneva Conventions of 1949."
Mr King, 88, served under Judge Jackson, the US Supreme Court justice who was the chief prosecutor at the trials created by the Allied powers to try Nazi military and political leaders after World War II in Nuremberg, Germany.
"The concept of a fair trial is part of our tradition, our heritage," Mr King said from Ohio, where he lives.
"That's what made Nuremberg so immortal - fairness, a presumption of innocence, adequate defence counsel, opportunities to see the documents that they're being tried with."
Mr King, who teaches law at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, also questioned whether former Guantanamo prisoner David Hicks deserved to be tried as a war criminal. After being held at Guantanamo for more than five years, the Australian pleaded guilty in March to a charge of providing material support for terrorism and was sent home to serve the rest of his nine-month sentence.
"He's not an arch-criminal type, just a guy who was disaffected from the system," Mr King said.
Hicks, who admitted training with al-Qaeda and briefly fighting on its side in Afghanistan, is the only person convicted in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals.
Mr King, who interrogated Hitler's architect, Albert Speer, was incredulous that the Guantanamo rules left open the possibility of using evidence obtained through coercion.
"To torture people and then you can bring evidence you obtained into court? Hearsay evidence is allowed? Some evidence is available to the prosecution and not to the defendants? This is a type of 'justice' that Jackson didn't dream of," Mr King said.
He said the Guantanamo prisoners should be tried in the court-martial system or the US federal courts, under fair rules that leave open the possibility of acquittal. Three Nuremberg defendants were acquitted, Mr King said.
The Bush administration has said it needs to hold the special tribunals at Guantanamo in order to protect national security.
Last year the US Supreme Court struck down the first version of the Guantanamo trials as illegal.
The 2006 Military Commissions Act, which set revised rules for trying suspected terrorists at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "sort of turns its back on Nuremberg", Mr King said. "I don't think it's a credit to us to have this thing."
"The United States has always stood for fairness. That's the important thing. We were the ones who started war crimes tribunals and we're the architects. I don't think we should turn our back on that architecture."

[Flexwave2003]

THE US war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo have betrayed the principles of fairness that made the Nazi war crimes trials at Nuremberg a judicial landmark, one of the US Nuremberg prosecutors said today.

Boy aint that the truth, Ive been screaming these things and more for years and people look at me like they have no clue. Thats usually because they truely dont.

[Howzah]

Boy aint that the truth, Ive been screaming these things and more for years and people look at me like they have no clue. Thats usually because they truely dont.

Terrorists aren't affiliated with any single nation state. They don't fall under Geneva Convention guidelines like the Nazis did. Beyond that, why the fuck are you idiots so concerned about the rights of terrorists anyways?

[VicDienekes]

Originally Posted by Howzah

Beyond that, why the fuck are you idiots so concerned about the rights of terrorists anyways?

They aren't.

They are concerned with the rights of people that are not terrorists.

[ShaolinSubz]

Originally Posted by Howzah

Terrorists aren't affiliated with any single nation state. They don't fall under Geneva Convention guidelines like the Nazis did. Beyond that, why the fuck are you idiots so concerned about the rights of terrorists anyways?

Here we go again, the troll

Many of these 'terrorists' are being held without evidence and without being charged. Read up on WW2 and the Geneva convention and then tell me how the principles within the Nurenburg convention would fall down in convicting real 'terror' suspects. Failing that STFU

[muerteverde]

Originally Posted by Howzah

Terrorists aren't affiliated with any single nation state. They don't fall under Geneva Convention guidelines like the Nazis did. Beyond that, why the fuck are you idiots so concerned about the rights of terrorists anyways?

No, for two reasons.

First, to sumarily deprive any group of people the right to a fair trial and hold them indefinitely with no charges is wrong. We knew very well that the Nazis had 1. started a war a of conquest 2. killed millions of civilians 3. and brutally oppressed millions. We had the leaders and we could have easily just dragged them out and shot them or hung them but it was realised then that this would taint what we had accomplished. Even though they were monsters, we had to try them and judge them to be guilty before killing them so that we would be better than they were. If these terrorists are so evil and so guilty (they are not as bad as the Nazis, you must admit) then prove it in court. Charge them with something, prove it in a court and if appropriate kill them or lock them away for the next 200 years.

Second, they are not all guilty. Some of the Guantanamo prisioners were given to the CIA and Army by rival warlords and had no connection or tenuous connection at best with terrorism. Others just got caught up in the arrests and, because they were given to chance to protest their capture, appeal their confinement or contact anyone on the outside, they were held for years. The military ahs since admitted this in several cases, and a few men have been freed (after years in Guantanamo). Their crime was being in Afghanistan.

I am concerned with the rights of terrorists because they are human beings. If they did terrible things and want to do more terrible things then we need to make that judgment fairly justly, with ample evidence, and act on our decision. If not, we are no better than the terrorists, imprisioning and even torturing innocent civilians (oh, in that case I am interested in the rights of innocents whom you call terrorists).

[James Bomb]

troll = owned

[clmetal]

Originally Posted by ShaolinSubz

Here we go again, the troll

Many of these 'terrorists' are being held without evidence and without being charged. Read up on WW2 and the Geneva convention and then tell me how the principles within the Nurenburg convention would fall down in convicting real 'terror' suspects. Failing that STFU

He gave specific answers. You call him a troll and now James Bomb chimes in to agree he is a troll

Were these guys in uniform? Do they follow the GC? Doesn't matter if they follow it I guess, right?

I am not opining either way, but the one sided concern by left wing posters (or in your case, anti-american posters) is kind of expected

[kartaron]

Originally Posted by vaj3k

From correspondents in Miami
June 12, 2007 08:18am
Article from: Reuters
Font size: + -
Send this article: Print Email

THE US war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo have betrayed the principles of fairness that made the Nazi war crimes trials at Nuremberg a judicial landmark, one of the US Nuremberg prosecutors said today.
"I think Robert Jackson, who's the architect of Nuremberg, would turn over in his grave if he knew what was going on at Guantanamo," Nuremberg prosecutor Henry King Jr said.
"It violates the Nuremberg principles, what they're doing, as well as the spirit of the Geneva Conventions of 1949."
Mr King, 88, served under Judge Jackson, the US Supreme Court justice who was the chief prosecutor at the trials created by the Allied powers to try Nazi military and political leaders after World War II in Nuremberg, Germany.
"The concept of a fair trial is part of our tradition, our heritage," Mr King said from Ohio, where he lives.
"That's what made Nuremberg so immortal - fairness, a presumption of innocence, adequate defence counsel, opportunities to see the documents that they're being tried with."
Mr King, who teaches law at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, also questioned whether former Guantanamo prisoner David Hicks deserved to be tried as a war criminal. After being held at Guantanamo for more than five years, the Australian pleaded guilty in March to a charge of providing material support for terrorism and was sent home to serve the rest of his nine-month sentence.
"He's not an arch-criminal type, just a guy who was disaffected from the system," Mr King said.
Hicks, who admitted training with al-Qaeda and briefly fighting on its side in Afghanistan, is the only person convicted in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals.
Mr King, who interrogated Hitler's architect, Albert Speer, was incredulous that the Guantanamo rules left open the possibility of using evidence obtained through coercion.
"To torture people and then you can bring evidence you obtained into court? Hearsay evidence is allowed? Some evidence is available to the prosecution and not to the defendants? This is a type of 'justice' that Jackson didn't dream of," Mr King said.
He said the Guantanamo prisoners should be tried in the court-martial system or the US federal courts, under fair rules that leave open the possibility of acquittal. Three Nuremberg defendants were acquitted, Mr King said.
The Bush administration has said it needs to hold the special tribunals at Guantanamo in order to protect national security.
Last year the US Supreme Court struck down the first version of the Guantanamo trials as illegal.
The 2006 Military Commissions Act, which set revised rules for trying suspected terrorists at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "sort of turns its back on Nuremberg", Mr King said. "I don't think it's a credit to us to have this thing."
"The United States has always stood for fairness. That's the important thing. We were the ones who started war crimes tribunals and we're the architects. I don't think we should turn our back on that architecture."

Thats actually pretty funny. The Allies prosecuted nazis for actions committed before 1945, with laws invented during 1946. Presumption of innocence? The laws were written to specifically catch the people charged.