WASHINGTON - The US Department of Defense is mulling changes to the military tribunals established by the administration of President George W. Bush to prosecute foreign terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including strengthening the rights of defendants, The New York Times reported Sunday.
Citing "military and administration officials," the newspaper said the military's proposed changes come after the tribunals have weathered "widespread criticism" from federal courts, foreign governments and human rights groups.
However, the report said the Bush administration's willingness to change the tribunals remains "unclear." The article pointed out that Vice President Dick Cheney has opposed changes to the tribunal process in the past.
"There are a number of folks who would like to make changes," one Pentagon official said of the current rules governing the military commissions.
But, the official added, "Cheney is still driving a lot of this."
At a high level government meeting earlier this month, the paper reported, Cheney's counsel, David Addington, "rebuffed" the question of possible modifications to the tribunal process.
The proposed changes, many of which are detailed in a 232-page draft manual for the tribunals that has been circulating among Pentagon lawyers, also include establishing more independent judges to lead the panels and barring confessions obtained by torture, the unnamed officials told the Times.
The proposals gained some momentum following discussions late last year between officials at the Pentagon, the office of the White House counsel and the National Security Council.
The proposals would generally move the tribunals, formally known as military commissions, more into line with the judicial standards applied to the US military in traditional courts-martial, officials said.
The draft manual would bar any "confession or admission that was procured from the accused by torture," according to portions of a draft read to a reporter.
The definition of torture in the draft is fairly broad, the Times said, covering any act "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain and suffering."
Separately, The Washington Post reported Sunday that newly declassified government documents relating to Murat Kurnaz, a German national being held at Guantanamo, show he has no ties to the Al-Qaeda terror network after the US authorities had said he was an Al-Qaeda member.
A military tribunal determined last fall that Kurnaz, seized in Pakistan in 2001, was a member of Al-Qaeda and an enemy combatant whom the US government could detain indefinitely at Guantanamo.
But, according to the Post, the declassified documents obtained by the newspaper show the US military and German authorities had largely concluded there was no information that linked Kurnaz to Al-Qaeda, any other terrorist organization or terrorist activities.
However, his detention has been backed by a "brief, unsupported memo" written by an unidentified US government official, the paper added.