GUANTANAMO BAY US NAVAL BASE, Cuba, Aug 26 (AFP) - The US military on Thursday promised to reopen special tribunals on the status of Guantanamo Bay war on terror detainees where translation mistakes have been made.
Military authorities acknowledged errors after two Arabic television journalists watching Combatant Status Review Tribunals noticed what they called glaring mistakes in translations of statements made by a Saudi inmate.
Mohammed Alami, a correspondent for Al-Jazeera television network, said that when the detainee explained that he went to Afghanistan for training but wanted to go on to Chechnya "it came out as `he went to Afghanistan for training but wanted to go on to join some kind of cult`."
Nadia Charters of Al-Arabiya said she was "shocked" by the standards of the translation.
When the Northern Alliance, a coalition of Afghan opposition groups was mentioned, it was translated as "the United States or the United States and its allies," Alami added.
More serious, the journalists added, was when the Saudi was asked whether he had gone to Afghanistan for training before the September 11, 2001 attacks. According to Alami and Charters, he was asked if he had left Afghanistan after the attacks.
"The questions have a completely different meaning and consequence for the detainee," said Alami.
A military spokesman told journalists "when questions occur as to the translation, the tribunal will be reconvened with another translator."
The spokesman added: "We are committed to showing that the process is fair" and added that there was an established process for certifying translators.
Each of the 585 detainees at the detention camp for Al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will go before the status review tribunals, which will decide whether they were fairly declared `enemy combatants`.
Enemy combatants enjoy fewer rights than prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.
More than 30 review tribunals have been heard, and the authorities announced last weekend that the first 14 cases decided had all ruled that the inmate was an enemy combatant who would not immediately qualify for release.
There have also been translation problems during military trials for detainees, which started at Guantanamo Bay this week.
One translator was replaced during Monday`s hearing of the personal driver for Osama bin Laden.
The Yemeni defendant, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, was seen smiling when his charge was read out but his lawyer, Navy Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, explained later that this was because Hamdan had not understood what was being said.
In Washington, Brigadier General Thomas Hemingway, a legal advisor to the military authority that runs the commissions, defended the organisation of translations at Guantanamo.
"I can tell you that each one of the accused has a linguist with them who is privileged to object immediately whenever they find problems with translation," Hemingway told a briefing.
"We have a contractor who is providing translators to us. Any time we`ve found deficiencies, we`ve brought in other translators. But I`ll have to look at each specific instance to make a determination whether or not we need to bring in a new team."