WASHINGTON - July 26 - Larry Cox, Amnesty International USA's executive director, made the following statement in response to the White House's proposed legislation regarding trials for war on terror detainees:

"How many times does President Bush need to be told that the military commissions he created are unlawful? If the administration continues to fiddle with the now-discredited system, it will spend far more time litigating the fairness of the procedures than trying suspects for alleged war crimes.

"The Supreme Court's ruling on Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was a strong rebuke of the administration's detainee policy. The decision stated that any legal proceedings must provide fundamental fair trial rights to any detainee charged with a crime. The administration's current attempts to exclude suspects from hearing the evidence against him or to admit information obtained through coercion does not meet this threshold.

"There are already established systems of justice to try suspected war criminals. Instead of continuing to push an ad hoc system with shifting rules and uncertain procedures, the administration needs to use the existing avenues rather than digging roads to nowhere."

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