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Khadr Judge Fired Amid Record Squabble
The Pentagon has dismissed the Guantanamo Bay judge presiding over the case of Omar Khadr, raising questions about political interference and marking another setback in the beleaguered prosecution of the Toronto detainee.
U.S. Army Col. Peter Brownback, 60, a Vietnam veteran who once admitted he was under pressure from Washington concerning Khadr's case, was relieved of his duties yesterday and replaced by another military judge.
There was no comment from the Pentagon or the U.S. Office of Military Commissions last night concerning the short email announcing Brownback's departure.
There had been speculation that Brownback had wanted to return to retirement, but most observers had assumed it would be at the end of Khadr's trial.
Khadr's military lawyer, U.S. navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, said the announcement took him by surprise and suggested that the motive for the military judge's removal was political. Brownback had refused to set a trial date for Khadr, which Kuebler said angered those eager to have his case wrapped up before a change in the U.S. administration.
"The timing is certainly suspicious," Kuebler said yesterday. "They're trying to get to trial as quickly as possible. The one thing you can say in (Brownback's) favour was that he was holding the government's feet to the fire."
In recent months, Brownback has ordered the prosecution to hand over documents to the defence as part of the "discovery" process and ruled on more than 50 motions filed by Khadr's legal team.
Prosecutor Marine Maj. Jeff Groharing had argued that Khadr's lawyers were needlessly delaying the trial and spending more time fighting the case in the media, than preparing a defence.
"I have been badgered, beaten and bruised by Maj. Groharing ... to set a trial date," Brownback said during the last hearing. "To get a trial date, I need to get discovery done."
He threatened to suspend the proceedings altogether if the prosecution didn't hand over a military diary detailing Khadr's confinement by last week - a deadline that prosecutors met.
Brownback, a military judge who had never practised civilian law, was the chief judge over the first round of military commissions that were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court as illegal in June 2006. After the Military Commissions Act was signed into law that fall, Brownback returned as a judge.
Direct and gruff in court, he often frustrated lawyers on both sides. When presiding over the case of Australian detainee David Hicks, Brownback derogatively referred to the military defence lawyer as "Sunshine." It wasn't uncommon for him to laugh or shake his head during arguments made by Groharing during Khadr's hearings.
Brownback had retired from the army in 1999, admitting during a Guantanamo hearing where lawyers were able to question his impartiality, that he was restless once he left the military.
"I intended to be retired. However, I soon discovered that I was slightly bored," he told the lawyers during a hearing for the Hicks case. "Consequently, at the urging of my wife, I took several part-time jobs."
Before being called back into active duty to preside over the Guantanamo cases, Brownback worked as a census enumerator and a "safety person for beach renewal operations," as well as an instructor at a local college.
"I enjoyed all of the jobs and I regretted having to quit two of them upon my recall to active duty," he said.
During the hearings for Khadr's case over the last two years, Brownback has been deferential when speaking to the Canadian detainee, often checking to see if Khadr understood the proceedings.
Khadr has been held at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2002, following his capture in Afghanistan at the age of 15. He is charged with five war crimes including murder in the death of Delta Force soldier Christopher Speer.
Brownback had recently turned down a defence motion to dismiss the case on the grounds international law stipulated Khadr was a child soldier in need of protection, not prosecution. That cleared the way for his trial, which was expected to begin later this year.
Brownback will be replaced by U.S. Col. Patrick Parrish. It is unclear if the new judge will now delay the process further.
Khadr's Canadian lawyer, Dennis Edney, said he hoped this new development would get some attention in Ottawa.
"It has been six years. This government should wake up and assert its moral authority," Edney said.
Khadr is the sole Western detainee remaining in Guantanamo after other U.S. allies successfully negotiated the repatriation of their citizens.
Canada's Supreme Court ruled last week that Khadr's rights had been violated when Canadian agents interrogated him as a teenager in 2003. While the ruling received much attention in a growing community of supporters calling for action in Khadr's case, government officials repeated their refrain that Canada would not interfere with the U.S. case.
© 2008 The Toronto Star
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14 Comments so far
Show AllHomeward angel---- I don't know for sure, but I think that this is a Military tribunal---- subject to very different rules than the civilian judiciary. I personally feel that these people, at least most of them should have never been charged, and that the ones, if they exist, who should have been charged, should be tried in the regular justice system. If you cannot convict there, with the rules of evidence, then you just cannot convict. If you can, then they will be convicted. The rules in these "tribunals" are rigged.
So a Col. made it to 60 in the military without having his conscience removed? Back to re-education camp for you Colonel. This is America. You're supposed to lynch anybody they tell you to lynch, rape any child they tell you to rape, eviscerate any man woman or child they command and cover yourself in their blood like an animal. Military Justice, in hell. MAKE HIM SCREAM LOUDER, we're Americans, we're hard of hearing.
I suppose using delay as a tactic is one of the few things people of good conscience can do in a kangaroo court. Peter Brownback may have done all he could in Kadr's case to permit a semblance of fairness until he ran afoul of his master.
I wasn't aware that Brownback had no experience as a judge in a real court. Perhaps it is difficult for the US, even given it's immense human resources, to find someone willing to go down in history as the patsy who oversaw the crime that is the "military tribunal system".
Surely, qualified judges know that trying someone for a crime that allegedly occurred in 2001, under a law passed in 2006 is a violation of the rule of law in free and open societies.
Brownback couldn't make a decision to save someone else's life, and he had all the qualities lawyers despise in a judge: autocratic, unable to admit mistakes, caustic, and a charter member of the "I've been given a black robe and am therefore superior to those who practice before me" club. A drunken tobacco-chewing dimwit who was in way over his head. So he served in Viet Nam in 1970, when most of the men in his charge had to have been pot-smoking losers too stupid to avoid the draft? As a veteran of both Afghanistan and Iraq, big effing deal. Khadr is a terrorist murderer. Prepared to be judged, you hulking, bearded fanatic.
Gee, johngladsd,
Please share what you know that makes Khadr a 'terrorist murderer'. I have seen no proof and apparently neither has the kangaroo court.
Also 'Prepared to be judged...'? You should tell the new judge that he's wasting his time - YOU have already judged Khadr!!!
I'm sure the administration will be glad to hear that - and in time for the election, too.
Maybe you should get youself checked for PTSD - I mean, your rant sounds like one of the symptoms.
johngladsd: As a veteran of both Afghanistan and Iraq, that means you participated in two illegal wars of aggression and YOU are the terrorist murderer. Even if Khadr threw the grenade that killed a US soldier, which there is doubt that he actually did, he was DEFENDING himself against US aggression... not a crime there. YOU on the other hand, were the aggressor and in my opinion, are a war criminal.
elmysterio:
Though I disagree strongly with johngladsd, the real criminals are the politicians and generals that ordered and voted for those wars.
It is true that our soldiers have a duty to disobey unlawful orders, but they have been put in an impossible situation - they are told they are defending the country which is what they signed up to do.
The worst way of reaching out to service men and women who put their lives on the line with the best of intentions is to call them terrorist murderers.
johngladsd:
The government has been trying to limit evidence of Khadr's innocence from being allowed in the trial - evidence that is the testimony of the soldiers at the scene. Is a government that lies what you are fighting for?
.
U.S. Service Personnel should be very worried, even to the point of refusing to reenlist........
President Bush has lied to them. Bush and his NeoCons Administration have ordered War Crimes in an illegal invasion of Iraq. The innocent deaths of over one and a half million non-combatant civilians are on their heads.
U.S. Troops are captured or arrested they can expect no justice, just torture and death......just the way the U.S. holds its foreign prisoners.
My children will NEVER join Bush's Imperial Military!!!!!
No intelligent and moral person should enlist in the U.S. Military, it has been subverted to a corrupt legion of thugs.
.
Omar Khalid is facing charges of being a child soldier (he was captured when he was 15) and getting shot in the back twice by our brave and courageous "fighters".
Shouldn't really be hard to get an acquittal if we were dealing with any known form of jurisprudence in the history of the western world except for the one currently operating out of the white house.
To begin with when you invade another country, drop bombs and shoot rockets, well you naturally expect the local people to shoot back. you do not capture them and charge them with murder. never. unheard of. in all history. until now. until the world's biggest crybabies showed up try to defeat a people with no defenses no planes and no buildings left to bomb but cried "ma they're shooting back!" and arrested them and charged them with murder
and is there even one tiny shred of evidence to indicate Omar did it? there is none. if there was a real judge in a real court, he'd dismiss the whole non- case in 2 seconds
yeah sure but why go on? they have been at this so long now no one expects rational behavior from them anymore.
the rest of the world though should be screaming at us to stop. or maybe bring murder charges against our troops.....
I guess this kangaroo didn't hop fast enough for the Pentagon
kangoroo court, if i EVER HEARD THE DEFINITION OF ONE
so apparently the white house can appoint or dismiss whatever judge in the "judicial branch" of government
THIS EXECUTIVE BRANCH HAS GONE WAYYYY OVERBOARD. since when did they have the power to deseat a sitting judge without congressional approval?
SINCE WHEN DOES THE EXECUTIVE"dictate" when
a judge can order reasonable discovery? what a freckin show.
this whole show is such is freckin show...
"what really burns is that they have the gall to deseat a patriot from the vietnam era, served nearly 40 years, to get the boot because he had the "nerve" to look into "discovery"
any law school professor should look into these cases, this case in particular,
and raise an eyebrow
Hitler stacked the benches too.
If you Can Vote in the US, Demand that congress force the bush administration to close Gitmo. They can stop funding it.
Why even give the apperance of a fair trial...
abuelito
Actually there have been cases when civvies have been tried for fighting against army units. In both World Wars the Germans prosecuted civvies for firing on German units, both right after the invasion and after the conquest. There's a rich history of charging 'unlawful' combattants. That being said, there is also the recent Geneva Conventions that allow civvies to join militias and fight as long as they intend to form into a 'regular' army.