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Ex-prosecutor turns Gitmo critic
The Defence Department's former chief prosecutor for terrorism cases appeared on Monday at the controversial US detention facility here to argue on behalf of an accused terrorist that the military justice system has been corrupted by politics and inappropriate influence from senior Pentagon officials.
- Los Angeles Times-Washington Post
- Published: 00:14 April 30, 2008
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: The Defence Department's former chief prosecutor for terrorism cases appeared on Monday at the controversial US detention facility here to argue on behalf of an accused terrorist that the military justice system has been corrupted by politics and inappropriate influence from senior Pentagon officials.
Sitting just feet from the courtroom table where he had once planned to make cases against military detainees, Air Force Colonel Morris Davis instead took the witness stand to declare under oath that he felt undue pressure to hurry cases along so that the Bush administration could claim in advance of political elections that the system was working.
His testimony in a small, windowless room - as a witness for Salim Ahmad Hamdan, an alleged driver for Osama Bin Laden - offered a harsh insider's critique of how senior political officials have allegedly influenced the functioning of the system created to try suspected terrorists outside existing military and civilian courts.
Strategic value
Davis's claims, which the Pentagon has previously denied, were aired here as the Supreme Court is nearing a decision on whether the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that laid the legal foundation for these hearings violates the Constitution by barring any of the approximately 275 remaining Guantanamo prisoners from forcing a civilian judicial review of their detention.
Davis told Navy Captain Keith J. Allred, who presided over the hearing, that top Pentagon officials, including Deputy Defence Secretary Gordon England, made it clear to him that bringing charges against some of the most notorious detainees before elections this year could have "strategic political value".
Davis said Defence Department General Counsel William J. Haynes II, who announced his retirement in February, once bristled at the suggestion that some defendants could be acquitted, an outcome that Davis said would give the process added legitimacy.
"He said, 'We can't have acquittals,'" Davis said under questioning from Navy Lieutenant Commander Brian Mizer, the military counsel who represents Hamdan. "'We've been holding these guys for years. How can we explain acquittals? We have to have convictions.'"
Davis also said Air Force Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, the legal adviser to the top military official overseeing the commissions process, was improperly willing to use evidence derived from waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning. He quoted Hartmann as saying that "everything was fair game - let the judge sort it out."
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