US eyes military-civilian terror prison: sources

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-03 15:03

It is unclear whether victims, particularly survivors of September 11 victims, would be allowed into the courtroom to watch the trials. Victims and family members have no assumed right under current law to attend military commissions, although the Pentagon does allow them to attend hearings at Guantanamo under a random selection process. That right is automatic in civilian federal courthouses.

"They'll have to sort it out," said Douglas Beloof, a professor at Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, and an expert on crime victims' rights. He said the new system "could create tension with victims who would protest."

US eyes military-civilian terror prison: sources

Brian Long, whose parents died when Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon in the September 11, 2001 attacks, chokes up during a news conference held by family members of victims of the attacks, at Camp Justice, the site of the US war crimes tribunal compound, at Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base, Cuba, July 16, 2009, in this photo reviewed by the US military. [Agencies]

The officials said that another uncertainty remains how many Guantanamo detainees would end up housed in the hybrid prison.

As many as an estimated 170 of the detainees now at Guantanamo are unlikely to be prosecuted. Some are being held indefinitely because government officials do not want to take the chance of seeing them acquitted in a trial. The rest are considered candidates for release, but the US cannot find foreign countries willing to take them. Almost all have yet to be charged with crimes.

Two senior US officials said one option for the proposed hybrid prison would be to use the soon-to-be-shuttered Standish maximum-security state prison in northeast Michigan. The facility already has individual cells and ample security for detainees.

Getting the Standish prison ready for the detainees would be costly. One official estimated it would cost over $100 million for security and other building upgrades.

Several Michigan lawmakers, including Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin and Rep. Bart Stupak, both Democrats, have said they would be open to moving detainees to Michigan as long as there is broad local support.

But the political support is not unanimous. Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee who is seeking his party's nomination for governor next year, is against the idea.

Administration officials said the US Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth is under consideration because it is already a hardened high-security facility that could be further protected by the surrounding military base.

It's not clear what would happen to the military's inmates already being held there. Nearly half are members of the US armed forces, and by law, cannot be housed with foreign prisoners.

Kansas' Republican-dominated congressional delegation is dead set against moving Guantanamo detainees to Leavenworth. Residents told Sen. Pat Roberts at a town hall meeting in May that 95 percent of the local community opposes it.

Administration officials say they are determined to keep to Obama's promise of closing Guantanamo in January as a worldwide example of America's commitment to humane and just treatment of the detainees.

Glenn Sulmasy, an international law professor at the US Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, said the prison-court complex will "be difficult, but it's logical."

"This is all based on closing Gitmo by 2010, which seems to be a priority, and if we are going to do it, we have to step up to the plate and find solutions to the conundrum we're facing," said Sulmasy, who agrees with the administration's efforts. "And this seems to be the most pragmatic way ahead."

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