Charges dropped for two at Guantanamo

Omar Khadr seen in a file photo. A dismissed all charges against the young Canadian. Photo / Reuters

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - Judges in the US war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo dropped all charges against the only two captives facing trial, rulings that could preclude trying any of the 380 prisoners any time soon.

The judges said they lacked jurisdiction under the strict definition of those subject to trial under a law the US Congress drafted last year.

The charges did not affect US authority to hold foreign prisoners at the Guantanamo detention and interrogation camp in southeast Cuba.

But it was the latest setback for the Bush administration's efforts to put the Guantanamo detainees through some form of judicial process. It was forced to rewrite the rules last year after the US Supreme Court deemed the old tribunals illegal.

Charges were also dropped against Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen, who is accused of driving and guarding Osama bin Laden. Hamdan last year won a US Supreme Court challenge that scrapped the first Guantanamo tribunal system.

"It's not a technicality. It's another demonstration that the system simply doesn't work," said the tribunal's chief defence counsel, Marine Col.

Dwight Sullivan. "Fundamentally it is a system of justice that does not comport with American values."

The judge said a military review board had labelled Khadr an "enemy combatant" during a 2004 hearing in Guantanamo. But the Military Commissions Act adopted by the US Congress in 2006 said only "unlawful enemy combatants" could be tried in the Guantanamo tribunals.

Brownback said Khadr did not meet that strict definition because there had been no formal proceeding designating him as unlawful.

Because none of the 380 foreign captives held at Guantanamo have been designated in that way, lawyers said they could not be tried unless they first faced proceedings reclassifying them as unlawful enemy combatants.

Brownback dismissed the charges against Khadr, but left open the possibility that charges could be re-filed if Khadr went back before a review board and was formally reclassified.

This was the latest setback for the Bush government's efforts to put the Guantanamo detainees through some form of judicial process. It was forced to rewrite the rules last year after the US Supreme Court deemed the old tribunals illegal.

Khadr, who was captured in a firefight in Afghanistan at age 15, was accused of killing a US soldier with a grenade and wounding another in a battle at a suspected al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan in 2002.