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Military Judge's Release of Pleading by 9/11 Defendants Draws Criticism
The decision by a military judge at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to order the release yesterday of a pleading by defendants accused of planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was criticized by defense counsel and civil liberties groups, who said the judge was defying President Obama's executive order to halt all military commissions.
Defense Department officials defended the judge's order to release the six-page filing from Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four co-defendants, saying that it was in compliance with Obama's order.
Shortly after taking office, Obama wrote that "all proceedings of military commissions to which charges have been referred but in which no judgment has been rendered . . . are halted" pending a government review of the cases of all detainees.
Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, said: "The military judge's order authorizing release of the 9/11 co-conspirator filing does not constitute a 'proceeding.' No new charges have been filed, nor have court sessions been held. The defendants may communicate with the military judge while the case remains in a pending status, and the judge is authorized to release any filings which they may make."
But Michael Berrigan, deputy chief defense counsel in the Office of Military Commissions, said the Pentagon's understanding of "proceeding" is flawed.
"Look up the definition of 'proceeding' in Black's Law," he said, referring to the standard legal dictionary. "Hopefully, Obama's people will see what's going on."
"A judge is still issuing orders in military commissions that the president insisted to be halted. It's astonishing. What part of 'halt' does the judge not understand?" said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "This is a public relations stunt and a stick in the eye of the Obama administration from its own Defense Department."
The White House declined to comment.
In the filing, Mohammed and his co-defendants called the charges against them "badges of honor, which we carry with pride." The statement, sprinkled liberally with quotations from the Koran, echoes previous pronouncements in court by the defendants, particularly Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks and the clear leader of the group, which is allowed to meet to plot legal strategy.
"Your intelligence apparatus, with all its abilities, human and logistical, had failed to discover our military attack plans before the blessed 11 September operation," the five wrote, adding, "We are terrorists to the bone."
Defense attorneys and civil liberties groups said that the speed with which Judge Stephen R. Henley, an Army colonel, released the statement after reviewing it March 5 was troubling. They pointed to an e-mail from the clerk of court for the military commissions to counsel on the issue, which said, "I have been asked by our . . . folks to release the documents ASAP."
Defense attorneys said they are still trying to secure the release of pleadings they filed eight months ago.
In another Guantanamo case, a federal judge in Washington yesterday dismissed a lawsuit brought by a 34-year-old Saudi challenging his confinement.
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan wrote in his ruling that it was clear the detainee, Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi, did not want to proceed with his case because he had "a lack of confidence" in the U.S. judicial system and that he understood the consequences of dropping it. Under Sullivan's ruling, Sharbi can bring the lawsuit again.
The suit was brought by a lawyer hired by the detainee's father, in a letter sent to the judge in August.
Staff writer Del Quentin Wilber contributed to this report.
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8 Comments so far
Show AllIt far worse then this article suggests. The so called plea was a document entered by 5 peoples held at 9/11 JOINTLY agreeing they were responsible for 9/11 then claiming that they would support other attacks on the United States of America.
The Scenario is absurd and there an article where it throughly ridiculed. Not only were no defense attorneys aware of this statement "Jointly issued" by the persons in question, but it suggests that WHILE at Gitmo these 5 people all held in isolation were allowed to have meetings with one another all at once and issue a joint statement claiming responsibility.
They then, again without consulting their own lawyers or wiithout their defense attorneys having any clue this was going on , JOINTLY asked that the document be entered into the Court as evidence against them and the court agreed to their wishes.
Absolutely absurd.
This makes a mockery of the system of justice as practised in the "leader of the free world" and the one "Indispensable nation".
I just had to add , that in issuing the statement the 5 claimed "we are terrorists to the bone". Now these are Arabs, English as a second language if they can even speak it. Would they really issue such a statement?
"What part of 'halt' does the judge not understand?"
It is not just "halt" that American judges can't grasp. There is also:
torture(as in false coerced confessions)
fisa(as in getting warrants before spying on millions of citizens)
illegal war(as in imaginary wmd)
-of course this is a partial list.
Yeah, right. They are very energetically demanding to be convicted of planning the terrorist attacts of 9-11, that 5 years of torture and degrading couldn't produce? I wonder how they got inside the World Trade Center to wire the demolition. I would assume that these unfortunate folks were subjected to 5 years of brain manipulation. They are crackpots, and could not in the covert operation.
Fighting for real change
Could be that some commanders might be afraid of being called to task?
Smells of coverup to me.
Sincerely
Just look at the way the defendants' statements were worded. Doesn't that suggest something to you? Don't you think that these men have given up on their lives, of ever seeing their families again, of ever being free? Don't you think they now actually hate the US with a passion? You say well they already hated the US, that's why they did what they did on 9/11. But did they actually do what you think they did on 9/11? That is the question which up to now has not been answered and was not investigated in a legal setting. Why? We don't know. So then comes the kicker, "we wear our terrorism like a badge", "they were never able to find out our methods" or some such words. To me that is the sign of a made in prison martyr, not an Islamic extremist from day one, but now, absolutely. They have no hope so they will go out in a blaze of glory. How sad and how unjust! Either you have proof they did the dirty deeds or you don't. If you don't then you should have released them ages ago. If you do then you should have tried them ages ago. Either way you robbed yourself of the high road no matter their guilt or innocence. Very, very foolish!
When the clerk of the military court sent his e-mail to the lawyers, explaining why this "joint" pleading of the five Gitmo detainees was being made public (while other pleadings filed by the defense lawyers themselves for their clients were apparently remaining classified), the clerk's e-mail is quoted as stating "I have been asked by our... folks to release the documents ASAP".
Perhaps the cryptic string of periods in the middle of this sentence... were supposed to indicate a redaction of words that still remain classified. Or perhaps... was meant to simply indicate editorial deletions, made by the reporter Peter Finn and/or his editors at the Washington Post as a matter of journalistic judgment.
Regardless, who pray tell are "our folks" that "asked" the military court's clerk to selectively leak/disseminate this particular pleading? I do not think this clerk was referring to his or her stateside family kin. Was it intelligence folks? Was it the Pentagon psy-ops folks? Was it folks further up the chain of command who wear uniforms? Or was it folks in civvies?
Now there would be a potentially newsworthy trail for some inquisitive, diligent WaPo investigative journalist to explore with a few well placed follow up questions.
I mean, who has an axe to grind or an ox to gore by publicizing - as soon as possible - KSM's latest braggadocio about how he and his four Gitmo codefendants are supposedly "terrorists to the bone", eagerly seeking martyrdom at the hands of the infidel crusaders, and forever proud that their al Qaeda cell had avoided detection, and successfully outfoxed the entire United States "intelligence apparatus", in order to pull off the 9/11 attacks?
Where have I heard this scenario before? Oh yes, the 911 Commission report. The left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing. As a result, the evil doers slipped through the crack despite everybody's best efforts and best intentions.
According to Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the perps themselves now want to confess and get it over with, confirming the official US government 9/11 narrative, so that they can then be promptly executed, and the case gets neatly, finally closed.
Too neat by half, methinks.
Bill from Saginaw
Does anyone actually believe this fairy tale?
The last time I was this gullible I was about 8or 9 and clapping my hands so Tinkerbell wouldn't die.
{COUGH!} Whitewash! {COUGH!}
Sorry. Excuse me.