WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has drafted a manual for upcoming detainee trials that would allow suspected terrorists to be convicted on hearsay evidence and coerced testimony and imprisoned or put to death.
According to a copy of the manual obtained by The Associated Press, a terror suspect's defense lawyer cannot reveal classified evidence in the person's defense until the government has a chance to review it.
The manual, sent to Capitol Hill on Thursday and scheduled to be released later by the Pentagon, is intended to track a law passed last fall by Congress restoring President Bush's plans to have special military commissions try terror-war prisoners. Those commissions had been struck down earlier in the year by the Supreme Court.
The Pentagon manual could spark a fresh confrontation between the Bush administration and Congress — now led by Democrats — over the treatment of the nation's terrorism suspects.
Last September, Congress — then
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070118/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/detainees_trials