Reply #4: If he is a detainee and not a combatant, then what...

[teryang]

...is the need for the Review Board procedure? The combatants are those alleged to be in the threat category. Detainees by definition are non combatants incidentally caught up in an armed conflict. At some practicable point after it is determined that they are detainees they should be returned to their mother country.

This proceeding seemed to be focused on whether or not the individual was properly determined to be a combatant without distinguishing between illegal or legal combatant status. That is a completely different issue from whether they continue to be a threat. It would seem that the proper focus would be a trial before a competent tribunal of some sort to make findings of fact and a determination of guilt concerning alleged criminal violence as an illegal combatant. The "review board" seems procedurely out of place. Secret hearsay evidence. No lawyers. Right.

The rules for the military tribunals laid out by Rumsfeldt's office for conducting the so called trial phase are joke legally.