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Statement from Prominent Conservatives on Using U.S. Prisons to Hold Guantanamo Detainees (11/16/2009)
As it moves to close Guantanamo and develop policies for handling terrorism suspects going forward, the government should rely upon our established, traditional system of justice. This includes our system of federal prisons, which have repeatedly proven they can safely hold persons convicted of terrorism offenses. We are confident that the government can preserve national security without resorting to sweeping and radical departures from an American constitutional tradition that has served us effectively for over two centuries.
Today, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will face prosecution in a federal court in New York for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Also announced were plans for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a suspect in the U.S.S. Cole bombing, along with four other detainees, to be tried using military commissions. The Constitution Project welcomes the decision to prosecute in federal courts some detainees suspected of acts of terrorism, while expressing concern about the decision to abandon that system for other detainees in favor of military commissions.
The largest bipartisan group of prominent Americans to propose a plan for closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility has backed a single scheme for the disposition of cases of current and future detainees. Former members of Congress, diplomats, federal judges and prosecutors, high-level military and government officials, as well as national security experts (list available here) today backed a plan for the handling of detainees when the detention facility is closed.
