Red Cross slams US terror laws

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has expressed concern that controversial new US anti-terror laws do not conform with the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners.

In an interview for the ICRC website, the organization's President Jakob Kellenberger said a preliminary reading of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 "raises certain concerns and questions."

Kellenberger said there was a "very broad definition of who is an unlawful enemy combatant" and there was no "explicit prohibition on the admission of evidence attained by coercion."

He also said he disputed the US interpretation of international conventions setting

out binding minimum standards for detainees in custody. It failed to prohibit certain violations, he said, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment of prisoners and the denial of the right to a fair trial.

The organization, which was recently given access to 14 prisoners transferred from secret CIA detenbtion centres to Guantanamo, has consistently voiced its concerns to the US authorities over the treatment of detainees.

The new law signed by President George W Bush sets up military commissions to try terror suspects which Bush said were "lawful and fair."

There has been criticism that they strip terror suspects of many of the rights. DPA