Executions may be carried out at Gitmo

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-02-13 09:05

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- If six suspected terrorists are sentenced to death at Guantanamo Bay for the Sept. 11 attacks, US Army regulations that were quietly amended two years ago open the possibility of execution by lethal injection at the military base in Cuba, experts said Tuesday.

This undated file photo provided by ABC News shows Waleed bin Attash. Bin Attash, a Yemeni portrayed as an al-Qaida operative and a member of a terrorist family, confessed to plotting the bombings of the USS Cole and two US embassies in Africa, killing hundreds, according to a Pentagon transcript of a Guantanamo Bay hearing, released Monday March 19, 2007. [Agencies]

Any executions would probably add to international outrage over Guantanamo, since capital punishment is banned in 130 countries, including the 27-nation European Union.

Conducting the executions on US soil could open the way for the detainees' lawyers to go to US courts to fight the death sentences. But the updated regulations make it possible for the executions to be carried out at Guantanamo.

David Sheldon, an attorney and former member of the Navy's legal corps, said an execution chamber at Guantanamo would be largely beyond the reach of US courts.

"I think that's the administration's idea, to try to use Guantanamo as a base to not be under the umbrella of the federal district courts," he said. "If one is detained in North Carolina or South Carolina in a Navy brig, one could conceivably file a petition of habeas corpus and because of where they're located, invoke the jurisdiction of a federal court."

The condemned men could even be buried at Guantanamo. A Muslim section of the cemetery at Guantanamo has been dedicated by an Islamic cultural adviser, said Bruce Lloyd, spokesman for the Guantanamo Naval Station. Among those buried elsewhere at the cemetery are US servicemen.

"A small area of the cemetery has been fenced off and remains ready for the burial of any Muslim who may die here and not be repatriated to another country, for whatever reason," Lloyd told The Associated Press.

When two Saudis and a Yemeni committed suicide at Guantanamo in 2006, military officers said the men could be buried at the cemetery, but the remains were instead sent back to their homelands.

Up until recently, experts on military law said, it was understood that military regulations required executions to be carried out by lethal injection at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.

But in January 2006, the Army changed its procedures for military executions, allowing "other locations" to be used. The new regulations say that only the president can approve an execution and that the secretary of the Army will authorize the location.

"Military executions will be by lethal injection," the regulations say.

The last US military execution was in 1961, when President Kennedy signed off on the hanging of Army Pfc. John A. Bennett for the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old Austrian girl.

Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann refused to discuss details on executions when he announced Monday the Pentagon was charging the six Guantanamo detainees and seeking the death penalty.

"We are a long way from determining the details of the death penalty, and when that time comes ... we will follow the law at that time and the procedures that are in place," Hartmann said.

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