GENEVA (AP) – The international Red Cross said Thursday it has “concerns and questions” over whether a new U.S. anti-terror law signed by President Bush complies with the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war.

The legislation, signed into law Tuesday, authorizes military trials of terrorism suspects, eliminating some of the rights defendants usually are guaranteed under U.S. law while allowing continued harsh interrogations of terror suspects, a provision Bush has said was vital.

The Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross said it was studying the law, which it said was very complex and entailed both positive and negative elements. But it said it had some immediate reservations.

“Our preliminary reading of the new legislation raises certain concerns and questions,” said Jakob Kellenberger, president of the Red Cross.

“The very broad definition of who is an ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ and the fact that there is not an explicit prohibition on the admission of evidence attained by coercion are examples,” he said.

Kellenberger said the Red Cross would discuss its concerns with the Bush administration, such as how the law “omits certain violations from the list of acts that are war crimes under U.S. domestic law.”

“These include the prohibition of outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment, and the prohibition of the denial of the right to a fair trial, which is a basic protection provided for in international law,” Kellenberger said.

Opponents of the legislation say it eliminates defendants’ rights considered fundamental to American values, such as the use of coerced testimony as evidence.

For example, the military commissions which will try terror suspects are allowed to consider hearsay evidence so long as a judge determines it is reliable – a provision barred in civilian courts.

Kellenberger said the Geneva Conventions guarantee prisoners “the presumption of innocence, the right to be tried by an impartial and independent court, the right to qualified legal counsel and the exclusion of any evidence obtained as a result of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”

Bush pushed for the legislation because the Supreme Court in June said the administration’s plan for trying detainees in military tribunals violated U.S. and international law.

The act, which sets the rules for court proceedings, applies to those selected by the military for prosecution and leaves mostly unaffected the majority of the 14,000 prisoners in U.S. custody, mostly in Iraq.

It says the president can “interpret the meaning and application” of international standards for prisoner treatment, which was intended to allow him to authorize aggressive interrogation methods that might otherwise be seen as illegal by international courts.

In Washington, John Bellinger III, the State Department’s legal adviser, told reporters Thursday the Bush administration has not decided whether it will give the Red Cross access to any future CIA terrorism detainees or identify them.

“We think there’s no requirement to do it” under the Geneva Conventions, he said.

Before President Bush announced last month that the CIA had turned over its terrorism detainees to the U.S. military, the administration did not acknowledge the program existed and provided no information or access to the Red Cross.

Bellinger recently returned from Berlin and The Hague, where he discussed the new law with officials there. Bellinger acknowledged that defending U.S. detention practices to the nation’s allies has been a tough job, but said he thinks progress has been made in recent months.

“This is clearly an uphill battle to try to explain policies that people are uncomfortable with,” he said. “On the other hand, we have not done a very good job at engaging in dialogue about these issues over the previous number of years. And as a result a lot of inaccurate perceptions have grown up.”

Kellenberger, of the Red Cross, said it was “noteworthy” the act spelled out what the U.S. regards as “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions that go even farther than the 1949 accord. These included specifying the prohibition on rape, sexual assault, biological experiments and intentionally causing serious bodily injury, he said.

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Associated Press writers Alexander G. Higgins in Geneva and Anne Plummer Flaherty in Washington contributed to this report.

AP-ES-10-19-06 1641EDT

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