Guantanamo executions seen taking years

By Jane Sutton - Analysis

MIAMI (Reuters) - There is little chance any of the alleged September 11 conspirators at Guantanamo will be convicted, let alone executed, before the clock runs out on the Bush administration, military lawyers and analysts say.

The Pentagon announced on Monday that it was charging the alleged mastermind of the 2001 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and five other prisoners with murder and would seek to execute them if convicted.

President George W. Bush has made the war on terrorism the cornerstone of his administration. But trial rules, a shortage of military defence lawyers and pending legal challenges almost guarantee the next U.S. president will inherit the Guantanamo trials when he or she takes office in January.

The leading Republican and Democratic contenders for the November presidential election say they want to shut down the Guantanamo detention operation.

Air Force Col. Moe Davis, who resigned as the Guantanamo chief prosecutor earlier this year because of what he considered political interference, suggested the Bush administration was racing the clock to ensure the trials went forward after he leaves office.

"Several layers below the White House, there was kind of a common theme that these things had to get going before the election," Davis said. "If you get that train rolling, it's going to make it difficult for whoever wins the election to stop that. Who's going to tell the 9-11 families they want to stop this process?"

But the rules require that the six detainees charged with conspiring to murder nearly 3,000 people by flying hijacked planes into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon be "zealously and vigorously" defended at trial by U.S. military lawyers.

The chief defence lawyer for the trials, Army Col. Steve David, said he does not have enough attorneys to defend the men.