U.N. Official Decries Anti-Terror Bill

[ProSense]

U.N. Official Decries Anti-Terror Bill

Friday September 29, 2006 8:46 PM

By PAUL HAVEN

Associated Press Writer

MADRID, Spain (AP) - The top U.N. official on torture said Friday that a bill before the U.S. Congress could deprive terrorism suspects of a fair trial and was especially troubling after the mistreatment of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

Snip...

Manfred Nowak, the U.N. anti-torture investigator, said the bill was particularly troubling following known abuses in U.S. detention facilities.

``I'm very disappointed,'' he told The Associated Press in Geneva. ``It doesn't send the signal that we would have expected after Abu Ghraib.''

Snip...

In an editorial on Friday, the Swiss daily Tribune de Geneve said: ``Bush Junior now has tailor-made justice.''

The legislation would apply its rules for court proceedings only to those selected by the military for prosecution and would not generally affect the rest of the 14,000 prisoners in U.S. military custody, most of whom are in Iraq. The bill would protect detainees from blatant abuse - such as rape and torture - but does not require automatic legal counsel and specifically bars detainees from protesting their detentions in federal courts.

Snip...

Boar Ganor, a terrorism and security analyst at Israel's Interdisciplinary Center, said the new U.S. legislation balanced effectively fighting terrorism and guarding democratic liberties.

``You have to consider sacrificing some effectiveness in counterterrorism for the sake of democratic values, and some democratic values for the sake of efficiency in counterterrorism,'' Ganor said. ``Israeli governments and the Israeli Supreme Court have recognized that guarding people's lives is the most important liberal and democratic value of all.''

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6114565,00.html

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``I'm very disappointed,'' he told The Associated Press in Geneva. ``It doesn't send the signal that we would have expected after Abu Ghraib.''