WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has instructed U.S. diplomats abroad to defend its decision to seek the death penalty for six Guantanamo Bay detainees accused in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by recalling the executions of Nazi war criminals after World War II.
A four-page cable sent to U.S. embassies and obtained by The Associated Press says that execution as punishment for extreme violations of the laws of war is internationally accepted and points to the 1945-46 International Military Tribunals as an example. Twelve of Adolf Hitler’s senior aides were sentenced to death at the trials in Nuremberg, Germany, although not all were executed.
The unclassified cable was sent by the State Department to all U.S. diplomatic missions late Monday. In it, the department advises diplomats to refer to Nuremberg if asked by foreign governments or media about the legality of capital punishment in the Sept. 11 cases.
“International Humanitarian Law contemplates the use of the death penalty for serious violations of the laws of war,” says the cable, which was written by the office of the department’s legal adviser, John Bellinger. “The most serious war criminals sentenced at Nuremberg were executed for their actions.”
The cable makes no link between the scale of the Nazis’ crimes, which included the Holocaust that killed about 6 million European Jews and other minorities, and those allegedly committed by the Guantanamo detainees.
The decision to seek the death penalty for these defendants is likely to draw criticism from the international community. A number of countries, including U.S. allies, have said they would object to capital punishment for their nationals held at Guantanamo.
Experts said Tuesday that if the men are sentenced to death, U.S. Army regulations that were quietly amended two years ago open the possibility of execution by injection at the military base in Cuba. The condemned men could even be buried at Guantanamo in a Muslim section of the cemetery there.
