OneWorld.net (U.S.)

NEW YORK, July 2 (OneWorld) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruling against the Bush administration's use of military tribunals has prompted fresh calls for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and other secret prisons run by the U.S. military.

Welcoming the long-awaited Court decision announced last Thursday, two of the world's leading human rights organizations said the Bush administration had no justification whatsoever to continue its current detention policies and practices against terror suspects.

"The decision should become a turning point in the effort to return the United States to principles of due process and fundamental rights," said Jumana Musa of Amnesty International's U.S. chapter.

Added Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, an influential advocacy group based in New York, "the Bush administration should now focus on properly prosecuting terror suspects and providing justice for their victims."

For more than a year, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have been demanding the closure of Guantanamo Bay prison, with detainees either freed or tried in accordance with internationally recognized standards of justice.

In addition to human rights groups, in recent months both the United Nations and the Council of Europe have raised serious questions about the use of torture at Guantanamo and other policies, amid calls for fair trials.

The Bush administration denies charges of torture and continues to defend its policy of keeping a vast majority of suspects at Guantanamo prison in Cuba without any indictment or trial. Currently, more than 400 suspects are believed be in U.S. military custody in Guantanamo Bay.

Last month, three prisoners killed themselves, which human rights groups described as an act of despair on part of the detainees. U.S. officials shrugged off such remarks, declaring that the suicides were a "good PR (public relations) move."

Thursday's 5-3 Court decision is likely to compel the administration to transfer Guantanamo cases to federal courts or courts-martial, or to drop pending criminal cases.

But it seems that the Bush administration is in no mood to reverse its policy on the so-called "war on terror," which it says justifies the indefinite detention of terror suspects, also referred to as "enemy combatants."

"The American people should know the ruling won't cause killers to be put out on the street," Bush said in comments on the Court's ruling against the legality of military commissions.

Earlier, in response to increasing international and domestic pressure for the closure of Guantanamo, Bush repeatedly said that any decision to close the prison would have to wait until the Supreme Court ruled on the military commissions.

Indications are that the Bush administration may seek other legal avenues to continue its current policy on detentions as some of his supporters on Capitol Hill are reportedly making efforts to seek Congressional approval for military trials.

In its majority ruling, the Court found that Bush had no authority to set up military commissions and called them illegal under both military justice law and the Geneva Convention.

The case involved a Guantanamo Bay prisoner who reportedly claimed that he worked as Osama bin Laden's driver in Afghanistan to make a living and that he had nothing to do with terrorism.

The Court found that Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Convention applies to the armed conflict with al-Qaeda. The article provides that all detainees, whether prisoners of war, civilians, or so-called unlawful combatants, are legally entitled to human treatment "in all circumstances."

Independent legal experts say this holding would not only apply to some Guantanamo prisoners charged with crimes, but to all detainees held by the United States in its "war on terror," including those being held in secret prisons in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

"It strongly calls into question the legality of holding detainees incommunicado and the CIA's use of coercive interrogation techniques," said Roth, whose organization has documented several cases of prisoner abuse.

Both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have repeatedly charged the military commissions at Guantanamo with allowing interrogators to use abusive methods and techniques to gather evidence against suspects.

The groups acknowledged that the Court's decision has no "direct impact" on the continued use of Guantanamo to detain suspects, but said it may require that their treatment conform to the requirements of the Geneva Convention.

"The ruling has sent a clear message to President Bush that he cannot act unilaterally to create a system of law from thin air," said Musa, who has served as Amnesty International's legal observer at the military commission hearings at Guantanamo Bay.

"The military commissions have been a disaster for the United States," added Roth, who believes that shifting the Guantanamo trials to regular courts "will provide for fair trials and advance the fight against terrorism."