Washington, DC - U.S. Senator Mark Dayton today praised the Senate Armed Services Committee’s passage of legislation that would establish military tribunals to try accused terrorists. The Warner-McCain-Graham legislation creates a legal system for these prosecutions, in response to the recent Hamdan versus Rumsfeld ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which declared the Bush Administration’s current detainee procedures unconstitutional.

“The Warner-McCain-Graham legislation adheres to the Supreme Court Hamdan decision, to the Geneva Conventions, and, I think, to the sensibilities of the civilized world,” said Dayton. “I commend highly those three Republican senators for standing up to the Bush Administration’s expressed desire to continue to condone what the rest of the world would define as torture and secret gulags run by the CIA.”

In contrast with the Administration’s proposal, the Warner bill would allow defendants to have access to the evidence used in cases against them, without jeopardizing classified intelligence. It would also limit the use of coerced testimony and would maintain broader protections for detainees against cruel and inhumane punishment. The Senate Committee, of which Dayton is a member, passed the Warner-McCain-Graham bill 15 to 9. It now heads to the full Senate for consideration.

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