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Military Tribunals Resume at Guantanamo Despite Pending Supreme
Court Case on Legality of Hearings
Inside the Resistance: Leading Arab Journalist Zaki Chehab
on the Iraqi Insurgency and the Future of the Middle East
Military Tribunals Resume at Guantanamo Despite Pending
Supreme Court Case on Legality of Hearings
A Canadian teenager and nine other detainees are appearing
before a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay this week even
though the legality of the pre-trial hearings remains in doubt
with the Supreme Court case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld still pending.
We speak with ACLU attorney Ben Wizner. [includes rush
transcript]
We turn to the U.S. military prison at the Guantanamo Bay
where a Canadian teenager and nine other detainees are appearing
before a military tribunal this week even though the legality
of the pre-trial hearings remains in doubt. Last week the
Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
that will decide whether the government can legally use military
commissions to try detainees.
Although the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the case,
the military is going ahead with the pre-trial hearings.
One of the detainees appearing before the tribunal today
is the Canadian-born Omar Khadr. U.S. forces detained him
four years ago in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old.
Human rights lawyers say Omar is the first person in modern
world history to face a military commission for alleged crimes
committed as a child. He is accused of killing U.S. special
forces soldier Christopher Speer with a grenade during a firefight
near the village of Khost, Afghanistan in July 2002.
Earlier this week Khadr's attorney challenged the fairness
of the proceedings. Over the past few months the attorney,
U.S. Marine Lt. Col Colby Vokey, has only been allowed to
talk to his client for two hours and he has been unable to
see all of the evidence against the teenager. Khadr's legal
team is expected to file a motion to halt the tribunal proceedings,
arguing that the hearing's presiding officer does not have
the power to put the Canadian on trial.
Similar complaints have been expressed by other attorneys
representing detainees before the military tribunal.
- Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the American
Civil Liberties Union. In January, he traveled to Guantanamo
Bay to observe some of the proceedings before the military
tribunals. He has also been closely monitoring the Supreme
Court case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and authored a friend of the
court brief in the case.
- ACLU blog on Guantanamo
tribunals
Inside the Resistance: Leading Arab Journalist Zaki
Chehab on the Iraqi Insurgency and the Future of the Middle
East
We speak with leading Arab journalist Zaki Chehab about
the insurgency in Iraq. Chehab was the first journalist to
broadcast interviews with members of the Iraqi resistance
and has covered conflicts in the Middle East for over 25 years.
He discusses the different groups and individuals who make
up the resistance in Iraq and why they are fighting, the role
of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and much more.
Chehab is author of "Inside the Resistance." [includes
rush
transcript - partial]
We turn now to Iraq where widespread violence killed at least
22 people on Tuesday. In eastern Baghdad, a car bombing near
a Shiite mosque left at least 10 dead. Another blast in the
capital killed a woman and her two young sons. Elsewhere in
Baghdad, two employees of the United Arab Emirates embassy
were slain as they left the building. Separate attacks across
the country killed several more, including a judge and several
Iraqi policeman.
On Monday, nine US troops were killed, making it the deadliest
day of the year for the United States. 13 U.S. troops have
already died this month, nearly half the number who died in
all of March.
The latest bloodshed comes amid reports that Jordanian militant
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been forced to step down as the leader
of a coalition of Iraqi militants. Huthaifa Azzam - whose
father was a mentor of Osama Bil Laden - told an Arabic news
channel that Zarqawi was replaced by an Iraqi two weeks ago.
He claimed some were unhappy about Zarqawi's tactics and tendency
to speak for the insurgency as a whole. Huthaifa Azzam claims
close contact with the insurgents and is the son of Abdullah
Azzam, who is described by the BBC as "one of the seminal
figures in the modern Jihadi movement in the Muslim world."
Today we are going to take a look inside the Iraqi resistance
with a leading Arab journalist. Zaki Chehab is one of the
few reporters to have met the numerous groups and individuals
that make up the armed resistance in Iraq. In fact, he was
the first journalist to broadcast interviews with members
of the Iraqi resistance. Born in a refugee camp in southern
Lebanon, Chehab grew up during that country's civil war. When
he was 17, Israeli forces launched a heavy assault on the
camp. Chehab covered the story for a local paper and has worked
as a journalist ever since. He has covered the Middle East
for over 25 years and has travelled through war zones from
Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Bosnia.
Zaki Chehab is currently political editor of the London-based
Al Hayat newspaper and the Arabic TV channel LBC. He is author
of "Inside the Resistance: The Iraqi Insurgency and the
Future of the Middle East"
- Zaki Chehab, political editor of the London-based Al
Hayat newspaper and the Arabic TV channel LBC and author
of "Inside the Resistance
Read article by Zaki Chehab: They
Ask, We Ask: Was it Worse Under Saddam?
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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