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TechnoratiGuantanamo Trials Hit Setbacks
NEW YORK - Key elements of the George W. Bush administration's anti-terrorist detention policies appear to be unraveling, according to human rights and legal advocates.
In the past two weeks alone, a military judge has disqualified a Pentagon legal official from participating in the Guantanamo war crimes trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, because he had pushed for "sexy" cases that would capture attention.
The U.S. government dropped all charges against the man alleged to have been the "20th hijacker" in the Sep. 11th 2001 terrorist attacks because it is believed his military commission trial would expose evidence obtained through torture.
And, in a totally unexpected move, Al Jazeera cameraman Sami Al-Haj was released from Guantanamo after six years in detention without charge.
In the Hamdan case, the judge ruled that the military must appoint a replacement to Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, the legal adviser to the military tribunals, before the Yemeni's scheduled trial in June. Hamdan is charged with supporting terrorism and faces life in prison if convicted. His trial would be the first U.S. war crimes trial for a Guantanamo prisoner.
The dropped charges were against Mohammad al-Qahtani, who has been held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002, following his detention in Afghanistan. In February, he was charged with conspiracy, terrorism, and murder in violation of the laws of war, among other offences.
The Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which has provided many of the lawyers representing Guantanamo detainees, said it believed the charges against al-Qahtani had been dropped because he had been tortured. "The government's claims against our client were based on unreliable evidence obtained through torture at Guantanamo," the group said.
"Using torture to string together a web of so-called evidence is illegal, immoral and cannot be the basis for a fair trial," the CCR added.
Defence lawyers say Hartmann rushed proceedings in hopes of speedy convictions and sought to improperly influence who was prosecuted, selecting cases based on their potential to sway public opinion of the process.
At an Apr. 28 hearing on the issue, former chief prosecutor Air Force Colonel Morris Davis testified that Hartmann had pushed for "sexy" cases that would appeal to the media. Colonel Davis resigned when he was placed directly under the command of the General Counsel of the Department of Defence, a principal author of the military commissions system.
As legal adviser, Hartmann was charged with providing counsel to the official who makes key decisions such as whether to approve charges against individual detainees.
According to Clive Stafford Smith, a British lawyer who represents a number of Guantanamo detainees, Hartmann "was basically telling (Col. Morris) what to do and saying, 'Look, there's an election coming up. It's in November. We've got to have prosecutions now against the high-profile guys. It doesn't matter if you're not ready to prosecute them, but we need Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on trial because of electioneering'."
Prosecutors deny that Hartmann ever subjected subordinates to unlawful influence.
While the judge's ruling directly affects only Hamdan's case, lawyers for the Yemeni detainee said it raises questions about the validity of charges that Hartmann was involved in preparing against other suspects at Guantanamo.
A case currently before the Supreme Court -- Boumediene v. Bush -- is challenging the legality of military commissions under the constitution. The Court is expected to rule in the next two months.
Hamdan has already become part of U.S. jurisprudence. In 2005, he brought suit against then Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.
The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions.
Three years ago, the Supreme Court rejected Bush's claim to have the authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny them access to courts or lawyers. In this follow-up case, the justices focused solely on the issue of trials for some of the men.
Published reports in 2006 described al Qahtani's interrogation. The reports -- based on leaks from the Pentagon -- said he had been subjected to stress positions, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures, humiliation and other highly coercive practices.
Some lawyers believe military officers did not want to face a discussion of these interrogation techniques in court, nor to have their case collapse publicly because the evidence obtained using such techniques might be ruled inadmissible.
It was recently revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Defence Secretary Rumsfeld, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former CIA chief George Tenet, and former Attorney General John Ashcroft had met in the White House and personally authorised specific torture techniques including waterboarding. President Bush has admitted he knew and approved of their actions.
Human and legal rights advocates have been outspoken on the military commissions issue. Columbia University law professor Scott Horton told IPS he believes the process used to establish the commissions -- criminal courts run by the U.S. armed forces -- is likely to result in what says will be "a series of show trials" timed to strengthen the Republican Party's chances in the 2008 presidential election.
This viewed is shared by Michael Ratner, CCR's president, who told IPS that the Military Commission system "has none of the guarantees of regular trials. Coerced and hearsay evidence can be used. There is no jury -- only a group of military officers and the judge is appointed by the Bush administration."
"Much of the trial can be held in secret and the defendant does not get to see all of the evidence," Ratner noted. "After this sham process the defendant, if convicted, can receive the death penalty. There is a barbarity to the actions of the Bush administration that is without precedent."
And Gabor Rona, International Legal Director for advocacy group Human Rights First, told IPS, "Much of the world considers the death penalty an international human rights violation even when imposed after the fairest of procedures. To impose it through an untested, ad hoc process that has not yet successfully completed a trial even for a misdemeanor will likely be viewed with deep scepticism."
In related developments, the American Civil Liberties Union has joined with the National Association of Criminal Defence Lawyers to assemble defence teams to assist in the representation of detainees facing prosecution in the military commissions proceedings at Guantánamo "in order to protect American values of fairness and justice and the constitutional guarantee of due process."
And another legal advocacy group, the National Lawyers Guild, called on Congress to appoint a Special Prosecutor, independent of the Department of Justice, to investigate and prosecute senior Bush administration officials and lawyers for their role in the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody.
Since the U.S. detention facility on this southeastern corner of Cuba opened in January 2002, only one military commission has reached a verdict, when Australian David Hicks pleaded guilty to terrorism charges in March 2007. It was part of a politically orchestrated deal that returned Hicks to his home country to serve out his sentence. He was released last December.
The Al Jazeera cameraman, who had been on a protracted hunger strike during his detention, was flown back to his native Sudan. The Pentagon has not explained his release.
© 2008 Inter Press Service
9 Comments so far
Show AllThe only thing needed to be able to SEE is, say, some [real] "streets wisdom" (and, or, commonsense).
A correction for my above post, in which the third-to-last paragraph of my above posts begins with the following.
"Their pleas, cries, opposition were totally and disgustingly, hellbent, and treasonously rejected by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-… CABAL; and that, in and of itself, also immediately that that cabal was definitely lying ...."
"immediately that that in and of itself" should read, "immediately shows that that ...".
There's an old schmuck saying in the U.S., in terms of its schmuck elitist ways, though the saying is fitting in terms opposite from what those criminals mean; and it is the following expression.
"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."
What the criminal elites really mean is understandable in terms like words claimed to have been quoted from Henry Kissinger and on what he thought of U.S. troops or simply soldiers in general; and he replied that they're just dumb animals to do the masters' bidding. And that of course is the opposite of what we can do [for] our countries.
But, and if understood correctly, the expression is fitting in terms of saying that DENOUNCING the criminal elites for corrupting and hijacking our govt indeed is to do great service for one's country. Risky, sure, and the Bush-Cheney-... cabal have proven that it's risky; but right and honourable service? Damn right it is.
" TheProf May 21st, 2008 12:41 pm
I seriously doubt whether there will ever be a "trial" at Guantanamo. The whole process has been a sham from the beginning, in 2001, when the administration invented the category of "illegal combatant". ..."
True, but I think that particularly key are the following facts.
*) Following the Sep. 11, 2001, attacks in and on (by whom?, in terms of greatest responsibility; and who likely are the people who did literally hijack the U.S. presidency in 2000) the U.S., while prior to the actual date of the launch of the West's war machinery against the Taliban (and much of Afghanistan in terms of its population anyway), well, what did Bush say? He said that the Taliban had had NOTHING at all to do with the Sep. 11th attacks, but that they were associated with Usama Bin Ladin, that he and his Al Qa'ida leaders were in Afghanistan relating with the Taliban, and that the Taliban refused to hand him over; that this supposedly justified launching the war machinery against them.
Oddly though, the Taliban had offered to hand UBL over to Pakistan, according to a number of respected analysts outside of govt employment, and Pakistan refused to take UBL. And I believe these analysts, so Bush et al were damn LYING again; about the Taliban refusing to hand over UBL. All they had done was to hestitate, demanding that if they handed him over, then he had to stand a fair trial and in the courts of international law, which is a fact that was reported by far more than these analysts I refer to and who only dug deeper, for more of the whole truth.
*) Over the past few years, or less, a reporter approached an FBI official and asked why the FBI does not have any legal charges established against UBL at all; and what did the official reply? They have NO concrete evidence against him whatsoever.
It's been a totally PHONY GWoT all along; unless we translate GWoT such that the 'o' is not 'on', but 'OF', of course. It's as obvious as the fact that day and night are very distinct periods of the 24-hour day, that this most definitely is a GW-OF-T; a global war of terrorism, of, by and for the Imperialist West's terrorist elites.
The famous 9-11 widows, whom I believe to recall named their group the 'Jersey Girls', opposed the launching of the war machinery against the Taliban, saying that it was not yet proven to be justifiable; that there remained too many unanswered questions about the 9-11 events, and which I believe to recall having seen (on Canadian tv reporting anyway) a Congresswoman, one who is black and who I had thought was Cynthia McKinney, stomping in Congress, demanding that the unanswered questions, and many enough they were, be answered first; before launching the war on the Taliban (and Afghanistan).
Their pleas, cries, opposition were totally and disgustingly, hellbent, and treasonously rejected by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-... CABAL; and that, in and of itself, also immediately that that cabal was definitely lying and if not fully, then nonetheless MOSTLY. I think it was fully, or so close to it that we may as well get with being practical, instead of trying to "split hairs", and accept that it was indeed 'fully'.
These are only a few examples of signals that told us quite very clearly that the whole GWoT could never be justifiable; absolutely NO part of it at all.
The White House is controlled by people who perhaps are the very worst of traitors that have ever existed, so far; and let's hope they're the last example of this likeness.
You won't find this type of analysis at CD, or else it'll have been ... like extremely rare; but, and among other surely good resources, just that this one is one I regularly, daily employ, is www.globalresearch.ca . Some of the above may possibly be difficult to find articles for at GR, but there are surely websites or a combination thereof that will provide for all of the above; just that I am a sort of "storehouse" of this sort of information, given I've not stopped watching as closely as I could, and as of 9-11.
"According to Clive Stafford Smith, a British lawyer "
I believe I heard him say he was a USA'er on Amy Goodman's show the other day.
question to mccain supporters:
do you really wanna support the only guy promising to continue bush's numerous failed policies?
national security presidential directive no. 51.
/'cause elections help the terr'ists
Why is Obama/Clinton;s party, the "Democratic" party not impeaching and prosecuting the Bush administration for war crimes? Because the Dems are complicit too.
Question to Obama/Clinton supporters. Do you want to be complicit in American war crimes (just like the two parties, corporate media and pundits)?
I seriously doubt whether there will ever be a "trial" at Guantanamo. The whole process has been a sham from the beginning, in 2001, when the administration invented the category of "illegal combatant". Terrorists are either criminals to be dealt with by the criminal courts or, in the case of occupied territories, "freedom fighters" and lawful combatants.
Of course no real attempt has ever been made or will ever be made to actually prosecute the vast majority of the suspects. It is obvious that to do so would force the real story of 911 out into the open. Not very likely huh? Deep down we all suspect that the dozens of deliberately unanswered questions about 911 indicate a crime on that date as heinous as the Maine's destruction in Havana's harbor (ca.1899), the Gulf of Tonkin (ca.1965).
Never would have believed we would take this road though, through the torture and prison gulag nightmare. But after incessant carpet bombing of innocent rice farmers in Vietnam we still could not manage to show any remorse, I guess I shouldn't be surprised...Hell, the Russkies laughed at international norms, and now they are accepted as nice guys. When folks find out about what we have been doing though, heads will roll. Gotta keep the faith.
What happened? When I was a child - America was "the best"! It was the vanguard of liberty in the world.
Liberty.
Freedom for all.
The problem is that the people are sleeping. Democracy is not working. The people are lazy and apathetic. For that, we are all paying... and we and our children will pay more... if the people do not get up off their backsides and demand justice and the old fashioned rule of law.