Topic: Mukasey At Guantanamo To Confer On Trials

Philadelphia Inquirer
February 28, 2008 By Lara Jakes Jordan, Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey met briefly yesterday with government prosecutors at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as the government prepared its case against six al-Qaeda suspects accused of being responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
The attorney general was expected to spend only about six hours at Guantanamo during his unannounced first trip there, Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said.
Mukasey "is meeting with military personnel and other officials involved in the military-commissions proceedings," Carr said. He said Justice Department prosecutors "have been involved in the investigation since the high-value detainees were moved to Guantanamo Bay."
After the Sept. 11 attacks, 15 "high-value detainees" were held at length by the CIA in secret overseas prisons before being handed over to the military.
Six of them, including alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, are facing the death penalty in a military trial that officials say could still be months, if not years, away.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule in a few months on whether Guantanamo detainees can turn to civilian courts to challenge their confinement.
In 2006, the court ruled that a previous legal process for the detainees was unconstitutional, prompting Congress and the Bush administration months later to resurrect the tribunals in an altered form under the Military Commissions Act.
Critics of the untested military-commissions system say the high-profile trial will expose its flaws.
Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, the legal adviser to the military commissions, said earlier this month that the trial for the six Guantanamo detainees was at least 120 days away, "and probably well beyond that."
An estimated 275 men suspected of links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban are held at Guantanamo.