11/13/01

WASHINGTON - President Bush signed an order yesterday allowing the United States to try suspected members of the Qaeda organization and other accused foreign terrorists in special military tribunals, rather than in civilian courts.

The military order, which Bush signed before departing for his ranch in Crawford, Texas, declares an ''extraordinary emergency'' and says the order is needed ''to protect the United States and its citizens, and for the effective conduct of military operations and prevention of terrorist attacks.''

Anne Womack, a White House spokeswoman, said: ''This gives President Bush an additional tool to fight terror. This has been done in wartime situations in the past. It is not an unusual step.''

White House officials said the president's action is designed to give the current US government the flexibility that was employed by Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration when prosecuting saboteurs in World War II and by Abraham Lincoln's administration in fighting the Civil War.

Under the terms of the order, Bush will have the option of designating for military trial any non-Americans accused of terrorist acts, of being members in Al Qaeda, or of aiding and harboring terrorists.

Once singled out by the president, the accused would be transferred to military custody, detained and tried, and sentenced if convicted. The standards of evidence would be determined by the court, but would have to meet the legal standard of having ''probative value to a reasonable person.''

The accused would have the right to a lawyer. A two-thirds vote of the tribunal members would be required for conviction and sentencing, with review by the Secretary of Defense and the president.

White House officials said the US government needs the flexibility to protect classified and secret sources of evidence, and means of gathering evidence, in the war against terrorists.

''The evidence used to prosecute them could be considered classified,'' one White House official said, allowing US prosecutors to try and punish members of terrorist organizations without alerting other members of the organization of turncoats within the group, ongoing wiretaps, or other secret eavesdropping and surveillance techniques.

Using a military base or overseas facility for trials would also protect American citizens, the official said, by keeping the judicial proceedings in secure locations, away from the federal courthouses located in crowded centers.

''Say you have a global terrorist like, say, Osama bin Laden, and you capture him,'' a White House official said. ''It would be very difficult to bring him back to the US [for a civilian trial in federal district court] and also protect the safety of American citizens. It could put a lot of people's lives at risk.''

The order is the latest in a series of steps the US government has taken to strengthen its legal powers and options in the weeks since Sept. 11. Civil libertarians and lawmakers approached for comment last night had not had time to study the order, but have worried aloud in recent weeks about the administration's detainment of foreigners.

Securing the conviction of a defendant like bin Laden in the civilian court system could be difficult. Before Sept. 11, other members of bin Laden's network have been convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms in federal district courts, but even their noteworthy crimes had not attracted the tremendous media coverage of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the subsequent US military campaign in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden has told associates he would rather die than allow the United States to imprison him, but the sudden collapse of Taliban rule in Afghanistan may increase the chances that an informant seeking the $5 million US government reward would turn him in.