Pentagon considers releasing some detainees

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon might release some Guantanamo Bay detainees deemed not to pose a security threat without first giving them access to civilian courts, a spokesman said Thursday.

Larry Di Rita, chief spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, told a news conference no final decisions have been made about how the government will respond to Supreme Court decisions this week requiring that detainees be given a way to challenge their incarceration.

But he said it was possible if it could be determined some people need not be held then they also "need not necessarily be part of a judicial process."

Di Rita referred to the Pentagon's newly adopted system for annually reviewing each of the nearly 600 detention cases at Guantanamo Bay. Under that system, a panel of three military officers would assess each case, but the detainees would not be represented by attorneys.

"If there are people who can be released after some due process of review that we've established, it's worth considering whether that's the right next thing to do," Di Rita said.

Separately, a group of human rights lawyers sent Rumsfeld a letter asking for access to 53 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Jeffrey Fogel, legal director for the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, said in the letter, "I write to insist that we be permitted unfettered access to our clients."

He also said it is "incumbent" on the U.S. government to allow all detainees to be informed of the Supreme Court decisions and their rights under the rulings.

Asked by a reporter how the Pentagon planned to notify the detainees of the court rulings, Di Rita said he did not know when or how it would be done, but he promised to find out.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, a nonprofit legal organization, represented two Australian detainees in the legal challenge that led to Monday's Supreme Court ruling.

"The Supreme Court made clear that our clients have a right to have the legality of their detention determined by a federal court," Fogel said in a statement sent to news organizations. "We must have immediate access to our clients in order to prepare their defense."

The Pentagon's annual reviews are to be overseen by Navy Secretary Gordon England, who said last week before the Supreme Court rulings that he expected the first review panel to meet within two weeks.

Most of the 595 detainees at Guantanamo were captured in the U.S. war in Afghanistan in 2001 and most have been held without access to lawyers for more than two years. Human rights groups have complained the prisoners are in a legal limbo with little chance to gain their release.

The annual review program was supposed to serve as the Pentagon's answer to those critics.

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled federal courts can hear the detainees' cases. The Bush administration believed the Guantanamo detention facility was outside the reach of American law.

The court also ruled the government has the right to seize and hold what it calls enemy combatants, but cannot indefinitely detain them with no meaningful way for them to challenge their captivity.

However, the ruling left it to other courts, the Bush administration and outside lawyers to sort out what happens next.

Also this week, the Pentagon announced that a five-member tribunal will try three suspects at Guantanamo. The military trial would be the first U.S. war crimes tribunal since World War II.