Jesus, George W.! Even Nazi war criminals had lawyers!

[displacedtexan]

Why do we have to read Australian newspaper articles in order to keep up with W's antics?

I covered this story on my blog (link below) this morning and added a list of Nuremberg trial defense attorneys and the story behind the American initiative which created the Nurmeberg trial.

I'm tired of being humiliated by these neocons!

http://ascrivenerslament.blogspot.com/

Detainees shouldn't have lawyers: US
August 11, 2004 - 7:24AM

The US government contested the right of detainees held at a naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to be represented by a lawyer before tribunals to determine whether they were really "enemy combatants" when they were captured.

The US Supreme Court ruled in June that the Defence Department had failed to give the inmates, most of whom were detained during the Afghanistan war in 2001, their full rights. In response, special tribunals began July 29 to determine whether the detainees really were "enemy combatants" when they were captured.

However, in a 26-page document, US federal prosecutors stated their opposition to a request by lawyers representing several dozen Guantanamo detainees for the right to talk to their clients.
--snip--
The ruling "says nothing at all" to suggest that the inmates have "a right to counsel, much less a right to the type of unrestricted access to counsel they seek, in order to pursue their case," according to the brief released by the government.

No "principle of law or reason entitles alien enemy combatants detained on a military base outside the sovereign territory of the United States to define the terms of their access to counsel," the brief read. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/11/1092102481479.html