Three-person panels of military officers would conduct annual reviews of prisoners at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Defense Department announced yesterday in proposing rules that were immediately condemned by human rights groups. The review panels, announced Feb. 14 by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, are designed “to reassess the need to continue to detain an enemy combatant at least annually” and to allow each inmate “to explain why he is no longer a threat to the United States and its allies,” according to the proposed regulations released yesterday. Since the prison for alleged al Qaeda and Taliban inmates was established on the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba in early 2002, none of the detainees has received a judicial or military hearing of any kind. U.S. officials say the laws of war permit a nation to detain enemy combatants without hearings until the end of a conflict, an assertion disputed by human rights activists. Full Story
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