2-02-06, 8:59 am

Changes to regulations governing the execution of prisoners held by the US military have opened the way for the execution of Guantánamo Bay inmates. The new rules authorise the army to set the location for executions “imposed by military court-martial or military tribunals and authorised by the President of the United States”. The Bush administration has never ruled out the death penalty for war-on-terror detainees.

Previously the only place where military prisoners could be executed was at the military prison at Forth Leavenworth, Texas. The new regulations stipulate that the executions are to be carried out by lethal injection. “The condemned prisoner will be placed on the execution table and restrained by means of appropriate fasteners to ensure safety and security of the prisoner and the execution watch team personnel”, the regulations state. “Once the prisoner is secured to the bale, the execution team will insert a large-bore intravenous channel into an appropriate vein, ensure the flow of a normal saline solution and connect the condemned prisoner to the electrocardiograph”, it says.

The senior military officer in charge would then read aloud the charges and give the order to commence the execution.

When he was governor of Texas, George W Bush signed hundreds of death warrants of prisoners in that state, including those of children and the mentally ill.

The new rules may be technically legal under US law, but prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay are illegally detained, imprisoned without due process and subjected to torture. Under international law any such prisoners condemned to death by military tribunals would constitute murder.

The US has declared that Guantánamo Bay detainees are “illegal enemy combatants” and that as such are not protected by the Geneva Conventions. The Bush administration has refused demands by the UN that human rights monitors be allowed unrestricted access to inspect the Guantánamo Bay prison.

From The Guardian