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Pentagon Legal Adviser's Objectivity Challenged
Khadr's lawyers want charges thrown out because of improper political influence exerted by general
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - Canadian Omar Khadr is the one facing prosecution for war crimes but it was the actions of top Pentagon official U.S. Air Force Brig.-Gen. Thomas Hartmann that were probed during pre-trial hearings this week.
Guantanamo's former chief prosecutor, Air Force Col. Moe Davis, alleged Hartmann pushed prosecutors to lay charges in cases that weren't ready in the hopes of getting the trials started before the U.S. presidential election this fall.
"In his mind he was large and in charge," Davis testified by video from the Pentagon about his former boss.
"He became the de facto chief prosecutor."
Davis, once the Pentagon's most ardent supporter of the military trials of Guantanamo detainees, resigned as chief prosecutor in October, saying he could no longer support prosecutions he believed were tainted by politics.
The debate about the independence and fairness of the trials could prove important in Khadr's case.
His lawyers argue the charges should be thrown out due to Hartmann's improper political influence. Failing that, they want Hartmann disqualified from any further involvement in the case.
Khadr, 21, is charged with five war crimes, including the alleged murder of Sgt. Christopher Speer, who was killed in a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002.
The charges are covered by the Military Commissions Act, which became law in 2006.
The new legislation created an office known as the "convening authority," which was intended to be a neutral arbiter between the defence and prosecution. Hartmann is the current legal adviser to the convening authority.
In closing arguments yesterday, Khadr's Pentagon-appointed lawyer, Rebecca Snyder, told presiding military judge Army Col. Patrick Parrish that Hartmann "has abandoned his objectivity" and his influence should disqualify the entire judicial system.
Col. Lawrence Morris, who replaced Davis as chief prosecutor, said the issue was nothing more than a personality dispute between Davis and Hartmann.
"This is a courtroom, not a sentencing session on someone's leadership style," Morris told Parrish.
Hartmann testified via video on Wednesday and denied Davis' allegations, adding he has had very little to do with Khadr's case.
Parrish has not ruled on the motion concerning Hartmann's influence, or others presented by the defence over the two days of hearings.
In another case, involving Afghan detainee Mohammed Jawad, a military judge yesterday granted the defence's request to remove Hartmann from that case.
Parrish is expected to respond by the weekend to Khadr's lawyers request to grant an independent psychiatrist and psychologist access to the base to examine their client.
The Pentagon has offered to have Khadr assessed by military doctors but his lawyers objected, stating that physicians here involved in the interrogation of detainees should not be the ones now conducting mental evaluations.
The issue revives the debate concerning the medical ethics of doctors working with prisoners at the U.S. prison here.
Military doctors aided interrogators in conducting and refining programs for questioning terrorism suspects, which included advice on how to increase their stress and exploit their fears.
Doctors have also conducted force-feedings of detainees who have waged prolonged hunger strikes.
Their actions were widely condemned by the medical community, who accused the doctors of violating their ethical and moral obligations.
Khadr faces a September hearing in advance of his Oct. 8 trial.
© 2008 The Toronto Star
22 Comments so far
Show Allkadr is 21 now
his alleged "crimes" were committed when he was 15 although it is not clear that he committed any crimes at all
ah...to bask in american justice
as a detainee you have no right to due process, no right to hear the evidence against you, no right to respond to that evidence
if you are found not guilty you have no right to your freedom
hey this is more fun than when we were hanging niggers from oak trees for looking the wrong way at white women
Odoco, I must insist that you apologize for your insult to "whores" everywhere, when you compare these miserable people to "Whores".
At the very least "Whores" do not pose as anything else but what they are.
Once more another reflection on the "Corrupt Culture" that the USA exhibits.
Career Military Officers, Doctors, Lawyers, the list could go on and on---but why go on?
A corrupt culture is capable of anything; as this latest war of "liberation" has revealed.
Many Americans will justify the unethical and illegal treatment of so many people as justified by "9/11"----but that is only an illusion and another example of the age old dictum that goes like this "if you wallow in the mud with a pig, you just get muddy yourself".
The USA actually has never been anything else but corrupt; the only difference now is that it is reported more often ----and still---little is done to stop it.
In 1873 the Kiowa War Leader, MoManTee surrendered to the Army at Fort Sill, (OK territory). He was promptly put into a two foot tall crawl space under the Commanding Officers Office where he was taunted and starved and taken out only for torture. When he was "visited" by officials he was taken out, cleaned up and dress out in "full regalia" only to be returned to the crawl space after the 'visitors' left. It was later reported that he "starved himself to death in protest to his being imprisoned"-----
It just goes on and on.
This is not at all justice. It's is a hunt! I have lost respect for this process of folly. I think it best that characters like Hartmann should wear a clown nose as that reflects the honor he bring's to justice and his country.
Khadr, 21, is charged with five war crimes, including the alleged murder of Sgt. Christopher Speer
Since when is defending yourself against the illegal invasion of your host country considered a war crime?
Hell, if Bushies US Mafia ever invaded Canada, I would start throwing grenades myself.
Col. Moe Davis should know everything thats needed about this. If he says that the process is tainted, his resignation verifies that. I'm sure it will cost him in the military. This guy is a real hero.
Khadr needs to be released as soon as possible. I think we established once before he was on the battlefield as a soldier, so the question of murder is moot.
"Khadr needs to be released as soon as possible"
It is evidently the job of the US army to give pseudo-legal cover to itself and Bush. If the captives in the torture prisons are not rubber stamped guilty of something, then how do the "heroes" in the American Army justify their crimes?
Remember this from Colonel Davis:
Davis continued. "At which point, [Haynes's] eyes got wide and he said, 'Wait a minute, we can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can't have acquittals. We've got to have convictions.'"
So it's one bogus trial down, it doesn't matter the sentence, as long as they are found guilty of whatever made-up charge the Democrats and Republicans in congress handed them in the Military Commissions Act. Next up is the child soldier. Pass the popcorn America!
When I was in Vietnam in 1969, people like Hartmann were referred to as REMFs. Hartmann is clearly a NeoCon who is a disgrace to the very most basic tenets upon which great men founded this nation over 200 years ago. It is very important for Pres Obama to, over the period of about 12 months, retire every one of the Bush flag and general officers.....starting with Petraeus and Odierno.
"Khadr, 21, is charged with five war crimes, including the alleged murder of Sgt. Christopher Speer, who was killed in a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002.
The charges are covered by the Military Commissions Act, which became law in 2006."
Ok, so I've outlined before all the wrongs about this case... but here's something new...
Khadr is being charged with "crimes" he "committed" in 2002... crimes that weren't officially crimes until 2006. What a farce!
For those that don't know what biwee meant by REMF...
"Rear Echelon Mother Fucker. One who has no frontline or combat experience, and therefore makes huge errors at expense of human life."
From the Urban Dictionary
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=REMF
Close these dreadful prisons, free those held against their will.
I'm sure these secret military trials are totally fair, just like Stalin's were.
The current military leadership is the whore of the republican party and corporate America.
The current Democratic leadership - especially in the House - is the whore of the whore.
Enough said.
It is ironic; we tried and convicted German Judges at the Nuremberg trials because they followed the rule of law in Germany promulgated by Hitler and the Third Reich. The United States convicted the judges under the theory that the judges should not have enforced the grossly unjust, but arguably binding, laws because they were immoral laws. We also convicted the doctors because they did experiments on the individuals. Now we have doctors and lawyers violating their respective oaths, and military judges enforcing grossly, but arguably binding, laws. Who will decide the morality of this whole affair; the World Court like they did after WWII? Can these individuals be tried for war crimes? Google "The Nuremberg Trials."
"including the alleged murder of Sgt. Christopher Speer, who was killed in a firefight"
Call me naive, but it seems like an awfully slippery slope to start handing out murder charges to people who kill someone during a firefight, in a war.
These hostages were bought with our tax money and now they are being tortured and 'tried' with our tax money. The criminals are our military doing this and our congress paying for this and the Americans voting for this atrocity.
The Reps, the Dems, the Military, the Media... all whores.
And the general public.... The Sheeple.
Good night, and good luck.
But in 50 years the world will ask: were were the good American?
SO, vote for anybody but the two parties.
We used to be concerned about "the appearance of evil", and that should be enough for Hartman to resign. That he won't says enough about him.
Moe Davis resigned. He might have taken on the issue more directly by moving to dismiss. Such motions by the prosecutor are routinely granted in deference to prosecutoral discretion, without consideration of any underlying factual bases. Maybe the heat was too great. Maybe he has mouthes to feed, but I'd sure like to see a prosecutor brave enough to throw the fat in the fire. Lets get to the facts eventually -- put them in issue. It's a duty imposed by the oath of office at this point, and I cannot believe Moe Davis hasn't satisfied the need for a preliminary showing of deference to authority. So, unless they're all simply sycophants, which I doubt, there is no need for niceties. Throw the fat in the fire in the interests of patriotism for the American Dream now lying in it's death writhings.
I don't believe its about the neo-cons or the military industrial corp. structure, even thou these ideals are pretty scary. Its my opion that its about resources shrinking and the priviledged class bunkering down . Their fear of loosing their privilege is so great that they are striking out at anyone or anything that they can't recognize as homogeneous to their class.
Its exemplified by the shortage of oil, the national debt, their cannibalizing of the legal system, and the arm twisting taking place with the national media.. I'm afraid its going to get a hole lot worse. whether you approve of the Democratic candidate or the Greens . makes no difference, they will not be allowed the reigns of power. I'm afraid our experiment in democracy was lost when we par lied up to the Zionist.
And America slides even further down the slope towards all-out fascism with every day that these sham "hearings" are conducted. The rest of the world despises us not "for our freedoms," as the Dipshit-In-Charge alleges, but because of the way we treat the rest of the world, including our own citizens, as the Guantanamo hearings exemplify. Torture, rendition, secret prisons, illegal wiretapping, trumped-up charges, erasing Habeas Corpus, illegal invasions, treaty violations, global kidnapping/snatching of free citizens, assasinations - do these sound like the actions of a "free and democratic society," or the actions of a rogue dictatorship? Duh. No wonder the world despises us.
The measure of any society is how it treats the least of its citizens and its enemies. By this measure, the U.S. continues to rank as one of the worst nations on the face of the earth.
The fall cannot come soon enough.
U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section 9: Limits on Congress:
"No bill of Attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed."
If top-down actions to investigate, charge and penalize war criminals and human rights violators do not occur due to cowardice, ignorance, indolence, blackmail or political calculation, a bottom-up approach could be used. State bars, boards of medicine and psychology, and other regulatory agencies can revoke the licenses of guilty professionals. Civil lawsuits can be filed against violators.
These unjustly imprisoned people have become the objects of a power game played by delusional immature sociopaths who pretend to honour justice by going through meaningless motions.
Is it not about time America woke up and told their "GI Joe soldier heroes who can do no wrong" that play school is over? The world and its inhabitants are not bugs in the yard to have their legs pulled off by overgrown self indulgent sadistic children pretending to play a game of king of the castle.
The first lesson of military education should be Karmic Law.