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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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July 16th,
2009 - Guantánamo War Court Faces Technological, Legal Challenges |
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Guantánamo War Court Faces Technological,
Legal Challenges By Carol Rosenberg Miami Herald July 16, 2009 Guantanamo Bay Navy Base,
Cuba - The Pentagon plunged forward Wednesday with pretrial hearings against
eight detainees in its beleaguered war court system with challenges to both
the ongoing terror prosecutions and their remote state-of-the-art technology. “Hopefully, this is going to
get better,” Navy Cmdr. Dirk Padgett said as court staff complained they
couldn't hear him introduce himself as a prosecutor in the case of Ibrahim
Qosi inside the $12 million expeditionary legal compound. Qosi, 49, allegedly served
as Osama bin Laden's bodyguard and sometime driver, as well as on an al Qaeda
mortar crew in Afghanistan. Military prosecutors sought to delay the case
while the Obama administration reviews how to proceed. The Sudanese captive's
military lawyers struck a contrarian's note by arguing for a speedy trial in
the case, invoking a “justice-delayed, justice-denied” argument on the
grounds Qosi was among the first men taken to the prison camps when they
opened in January 2002. Obama has ordered the prison camps emptied by Jan.
22. “He was one of the guys who
was kept in the dog cages. Talk about oppressive confinement,” argued Navy
Lt. Cmdr. Travis Owens, Qosi's Pentagon-paid defense lawyer. The hearings were expected
to continue later Wednesday in the case of Canadian captive Omar Khadr, who
fired all of his U.S. military lawyers but one after they squabbled over
defense strategy. On Thursday, five men
accused as 9/11 co-conspirators will appear in court on how to decide whether
two of the men are sane enough to proceed to an eventual death penalty trial. President Barack Obama has
frozen the commissions themselves to give his lawyers time to decide in what
venue, if anywhere, to put select Guantánamo detainees on trial. He has said
he prefers civilian prosecutions. The Pentagon's chief war
crimes prosecutor, Navy Capt. John Murphy, told reporters on the eve of the
hearings that prosecutors are moving forward incrementally on issues that don't
change the status quo in cases, even as Obama attorneys adjust court rules to
benefit the accused. He also said the war crimes
prosecutor was preparing “about 66 cases,” none approved by an Obama task
force sorting through Guantánamo case files. But mostly this week's
session illustrated the uncertainty of the moment as Pentagon staff struggled
over what should take place, if anything, at the crude compound called Camp
Justice on an abandoned airstrip overlooking Guantánamo Bay. The Pentagon brought in more
than 160 lawyers, administrators, observers and reporters aboard a charter
flight on Tuesday morning and then turned on the lights in the war court,
which has been dark since Khadr fired his lawyers six weeks ago. After landing, escorts
forgot to have the families of Sept. 11 victims file off the aircraft last, a
practice that has permitted military and civilian photographers to document
their arrival. A Pentagon escort then
offered to put the nine parents and children of World Trade Center and Flight
77 victims back aboard the charter, and have them climb down the steps again.
The media declined. The idea was floated but not
formally offered to the visiting media, said Pentagon spokesman Jeffrey
Gordon, who added he would not have permitted the victims to be used in that
manner, even had the journalists accepted the offer. Later, two lawyers didn't
make the hearings, testing the reach of Camp Justice's video-conferencing
capabilities. A third-trimester pregnant
prosecutor, Navy Lt. Rachel Trest, offered the government's side for delay in
the case of Afghan Mohammed Kamin, 30, by closed-circuit feed from suburban
Washington. But her argument was
inaudible at the media center designed years ago to simultaneously broadcast
both trials to journalists. Soon after technicians
repaired that problem, the transmission of a second trial broke because of an
electrical overload. That feed was fixed in the media center, but then broke
between Guantánamo and the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, causing the judge
to order a recess. A court tip sheet to media
predicted that Kamin defense lawyer Rich Federico, also a Navy lieutenant,
would ask for guidance on how much trial preparation could take place during
the White House-mandated interregnum. Instead, Federico urged
dismissal by turning a senior Obama administration attorney's testimony
before Congress against the case. Last week, he noted, Justice Department
national security lawyer David Kris told a Senate committee that the current
legal analysis was that a military commissions conviction over a charge of “providing
material support for terror” would not be appeal-proof. It is a crime in federal
courts, and the only charge Kamin faces at the war court. But Justice Department
lawyers were at odds with Defense Department lawyers over whether to subject
detainees to trial for that violation, which was legislated as a war crime in
the 2006 Military Commissions Act. Kamin allegedly got al Qaeda
training after U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban and
capture Osama bin Laden - and then deployed missiles and mines against
coalition forces that never exploded. He was sent to Guantánamo as an enemy
combatant in September 2004. Kamin's judge, Air Force
Col. Thomas Cumbie, did not rule on the spot and agreed with the defense
lawyer that the rules of court were still evolving. “I'm not saying in any
way that you ambushed me. Things change.” At the simultaneous hearing
for Qosi, Air Force Lt. Col. Nancy Paul, the judge, said she would rule in
writing on the government lawyers' bid for delay and defense attorneys' bid
for a speedy trial. That hearing tested military
commission technology, too, by having Qosi's Sudanese lawyer consultant,
Ahmed el Mofti, monitor the session by video from the U.S. Embassy in
Khartoum. Both Qosi and Kamin face
maximum life prison sentences if convicted of their current charges by a
military commission. © 2009 Miami Herald Media
Company. All Rights Reserved. External link: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/breaking-news/story/1142817.html |