Gitmo Inmates May Be Held Indefinitely in US

Detainees may be held without trial under authority of national security court
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted May 14, 2009 2:39 AM CDT
Gitmo Inmates May Be Held Indefinitely in US
Ankle handcuffs are shown locked to a chair and floor in an interrogation room at Camp V, at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba.   (AP Photo/Haraz Ghanbari, file)

The Obama administration is considering moving the remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay to US soil and holding them in prisons indefinitely without trial, the Wall Street Journal reports. The proposal would take place under the authority of a new national-security court, according to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has met with White House officials to discuss the plan.

There are roughly 50 to 100 detainees out of the 241 still at Guantanamo "who we cannot release and cannot trust," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last month. Their fate has been the subject of much wrangling within the administration. President Obama’s 120-day suspension of military tribunals expires next week, and the administration has been working on retooling the system to give some of the accused more legal protection. (More Guantanamo Bay stories.)

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