Military Police: Enemy Prisoners of War, Retained Personnel, Civilian Internees and Other Detainees is the full title of a

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

regulation usually referred to as AR 190-8, that lays out how the United States Army should treat captives. This document is notable as the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

advised the

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

, in its ruling on '' Hamdi v. Rumsfeld'' in 2004, that the

Tribunals A tribunal, generally, is any person or institution with authority to judge, adjudicate on, or determine claims or disputes—whether or not it is called a tribunal in its title. For example, an advocate who appears before a court with a singl ...

the DoD convened to review the status of the

Guantanamo captive The Guantanamo Bay detention camp, also known as GTMO ( ), GITMO ( ), or simply Guantanamo Bay, is a United States military prison within Naval Station Guantanamo Bay (NSGB), on the coast of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It was established in 2002 by ...

s should be modeled after the Tribunals described in AR-190-8.

The authority of AR 190-8 Tribunals

As a signatory to the

Geneva Conventions upright=1.15, The original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are international humanitarian laws consisting of four treaties and three additional protocols that establish international legal standards for humanitarian t ...

, the United States is obliged to convene a " competent tribunal" to determine the status of any captive "should any doubt arise" as to their proper status. The

Third Geneva Convention The Third Geneva Convention, relative to the treatment of prisoners of war, is one of the four treaties of the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War was first adopted in 1929, but significantl ...

states that all captives must be accorded the protections of

POW POW is "prisoner of war", a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. POW or pow may also refer to: Music * P.O.W (Bullet for My Valentine song), "P.O.W" (Bull ...

status until a competent tribunal convenes, and determines the captive does not qualify for such status. *AR-190-8 Tribunals are authorized to confirm that a captive is a

lawful combatant Combatant is the legal status of a person entitled to directly participate in hostilities during an armed conflict, and may be intentionally targeted by an adverse party for their participation in the armed conflict. Combatants are not afforded i ...

, after all, who should continue to be detained as a prisoner of war until hostilities cease. *AR-190-8 Tribunals are authorized to determine that a captive is an innocent

civilian A civilian is a person who is not a member of an armed force. It is war crime, illegal under the law of armed conflict to target civilians with military attacks, along with numerous other considerations for civilians during times of war. If a civi ...

, who should be immediately released. *AR-190-8 Tribunals are authorized to confirm that a captive is a

combatant Combatant is the legal status of a person entitled to directly participate in hostilities during an armed conflict, and may be intentionally targeted by an adverse party for their participation in the armed conflict. Combatants are not afforded i ...

who acted in a way that he or she should be stripped of POW status. According to the Geneva Conventions, only captives who have been stripped of POW status, by a competent tribunal, can face charges for

war crimes A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hos ...

they committed in situation of

armed conflict War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

Structure of AR-190-8 Tribunals and Combatant Status Review Tribunals compared

June 4, 2007 dismissal of charges against Guantanamo captives

On June 4, 2007 Colonel Peter Brownback and Naval Captain Keith J. Allred dismissed all charges against Guantanamo captives

Omar Khadr Omar Ahmed Said Khadr (; born September 19, 1986) is a Canadian who, at the age of 15, was detained by the United States at Guantanamo Bay for ten years, during which he pleaded guilty to the murder of U.S. Army Sergeant 1st Class Christopher S ...

and

Salim Ahmed Hamdan Salim Ahmed Salim Hamdan (; born February 25, 1968) is a Yemeni man, captured during the invasion of Afghanistan, declared by the United States government to be an illegal enemy combatant and held as a detainee at Guantanamo Bay from 2002 to No ...

, on jurisdictional grounds. They ruled that the

Military Commissions Act of 2006 The Military Commissions Act of 2006, also known as HR-6166, was an Act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. The Act's stated purpose was "to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of ...

had only authorized the

Guantanamo military commission The Guantanamo military commissions were established by President George W. Bush through a military order on November 13, 2001, to try certain non-citizen terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison. To date, there have been a total of eight ...

s to charge captives who were classified as " illegal enemy combatants", and since Khadr and Hamdan's Combatant Status Review Tribunals had only made the determination that they were "

enemy combatant Enemy combatant is a term for a person who, either lawfully or unlawfully, engages in hostilities for the other side in an armed conflict, used by the U.S. government and media during the War on Terror. Usually enemy combatants are members of t ...

s", their military commissions lacked the jurisdiction to hear the charges.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Military Police: Enemy Prisoners Of War, Retained Personnel, Civilian Internees And Other Detainees Guantanamo Bay captives legal and administrative procedures United States military law United States Army publications

The authority of AR 190-8 Tribunals

Structure of AR-190-8 Tribunals and Combatant Status Review Tribunals compared

June 4, 2007 dismissal of charges against Guantanamo captives

See also

References