Justice must be seen to be done in Guantanamo

It has finally come but the sense that one injustice will be heaped upon another remains. The 9/11 attacks were a crime against humanity but there are grave doubts that the charges against the accused and their conditions in detention meet the basic criteria normally associated with American justice.

US military prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against six detainees held at Guantanamo, including the alleged mastermind of the plot, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad.

The men will be tried by military commissions and the charges bring the treatment of the 275 detainees remaining in Guantanamo, and particularly the 15 so-called "high-value" suspected terrorists held there since September 2006 under the spotlight.

Lawyers for the detainees have long criticised the commissions process - in which the judges are military personnel - as unfair, unduly secret and against the US constitutional right to habeas corpus.

The men have the right to remain silent but that was not a right extended to them up until now and certainly not a right when they were undergoing interogation techniques such as waterboarding. Michael Hayden, CIA director, has admitted that Mohammad had been waterboarded.

The process is obviously deeply flawed and it is far from certain how much of the evidence against them will be shown to the six defendants or their lawyers.

The events of September 11, 2001 demand justice but the justice delivered must meet the highest standards. Guantanamo is in every sense a lawless place, deliberately chosen by the Bush administration to be beyond American judicial reach. There is little indication that the forthcoming trials will do anything to alleviate its tarnished reputation.

Justice must be done and be seen to be done not despite the grave charges but because of them. By all indications, when these trials are over, any sense of justice done will be tempered.