WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon paved the way for trials of detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay yesterday, issuing new rules that activate the nation's controversial law on interrogating and prosecuting terrorism prisoners.
With the rules in place, the military plans to charge between 60 and 80 of the about 395 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Trials are likely to begin this spring, officials said, but it is unlikely the so-called "high value" detainees formerly held by the CIA will be among the first to be given a hearing.
Instead, the military is first likely to issue new charges against the 10 detainees who were first brought to court under the old commission rules that were tossed out by the Supreme Court last year. Trials have been on hold since the court's ruling in June.
The rules implement the controversial compromises worked out last year by Congress - including provisions that ban the use of statements obtained through torture but allow some coerced statements to be admitted with the permission of a judge. The law was enacted in the weeks before last fall's midterm elections, pushed by Republicans in a last-ditch effort to maintain control of Congress.
With its new rules, the Pentagon, as expected, created a legal system for the detainees held at Guantanamo that eliminates the use of Miranda rights or search warrants, legal protections that officials say make little sense for suspects captured on the battlefield.
But the rules unveiled yesterday touched off a new debate over the role of harsh interrogations - and torture - in prosecutions. In some cases, the rules appear to go further than the military commissions act itself in relaxing usual standards of American jurisprudence by allowing use of potentially tainted evidence.
For instance, under normal U.S. court practices, any evidence obtained illegally - such as through torturing or abusing a witness - is excluded from use because it is considered "fruit of the poisoned tree."
Under the rules issued by the Pentagon yesterday, statements obtained through torture are not allowed to be entered as evidence. But if the questionable treatment of a detainee yielded a piece of physical evidence - such as the location of an incriminating document - that information could be used.
Human rights organizations reacted angrily to that rule, arguing that the use of tainted evidence sent the message that torture could sometimes be justified.
