House passes bill with emphasis on military sexual assaults

WASHINGTON, June 14 (UPI) -- The U.S. House of Representative passed a defense bill Friday that includes measures to deal with sexual assaults in the ranks.

The $638 billion legislation strips commanders' ability to overturn guilty verdicts in sexual assault cases, establishes a minimum sentence of dismissal for sexual assault offenders, expands legal counsel to victims and authorizes removal of service members who have inappropriate relationships with people they train, the Washington newspaper The Hill reported.

The bill was approved, 315-108, with only 18 Republicans opposing it.

Democrats had pushed for even more changes to the way the military handles sexual assault cases, favoring rules to take cases out of the hands of military commanders, similar to legislation proposed in the Senate by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.

The bill also restricts transfer of detainees from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, funds construction of an East Coast missile defense site and gives the Pentagon $5 billion more than it requested for the war in Afghanistan, but the issue of sexual assault has received the most public attention, the newspaper noted.

A report estimated there were 26,000 sexual assaults in the military in 2012, up a third since 2010.