4 Guantanamo detainees affirmed as "enemy combatants"

The US military has classified four detainees held at the US naval base prison at Guantanamo Bay,Cuba, as legitimate "enemy combatants" after a review process that started late July, the Pentagon said Friday.

"Four cases have now been through the complete process -- given the OK by the convening authority. And in all four of those cases,the detainees were deemed to be enemy combatants," Navy Secretary Gordon England, who was overseeing the process, told a news conference at the Pentagon.

The identities of the four were not released, but England said the State Department was notifying the embassies of their home countries of their formal status.

Twenty-one of the about 585 prisoners at Guantanamo have received hearings in the process that started on July 30, but the results of 17 others have not been reviewed by a Navy admiral to decide their status, he said.

The Pentagon initially declared all detainees at Guantanamo, most of whom were captured during the US-led war in Afghanistan, were enemy combatants and could be held indefinitely without charges, rather than prisoners of war who would have the right to protection under the Geneva Conventions.

Most of the detainees from about 42 countries have been held there without charges or access to a lawyer for about two and a half years.

The military review process, called "combat status review tribunals" by the Pentagon, for the prisoners started after the US Supreme Court ruled in late June that the prisoners have the right to contest their detention in the US courts.

Eleven of the 21 prisoners who have received hearings so far have refused to appear and testify, England said.

England said an additional 150 cases have been opened, and all the prisoners would have their cases heard before the end of the year.

Source: Xinhua