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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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August 22nd,
2009 - A Gitmo Prosecutor’s Act of Conscience |
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A Gitmo Prosecutor’s Act of
Conscience Darrel Vandeveld Helped Secure Release of Prisoner Who Confessed Under
Torture; Now He’s a Pariah From CBS News August 22, 2009 One of the youngest
detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison is expected to be returned this
weekend to Afghanistan where he was arrested seven years ago for allegedly
throwing a grenade at American soldiers. Mohammed Jawad's break came
when a U.S. military lawyer made a choice - to follow his conscience, as CBS
News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan reports. Reserve Lt. Col. Darrel
Vandeveld could not keep silent. As he put it, "Silence in the face of
evil is collaboration with evil." Vandeveld was a military
prosecutor at Guantanamo - until he decided to speak against the corruption
of justice he found there. "Our fighting men and
women who've been putting themselves in harms - They're not fighting for
rigged, kangaroo trials," Vandeveld said. That is exactly the kind of
trial Col. Vandeveld says they were getting at Guantanamo. And he should
know. He was the lead prosecutor in seven cases. When Vandeveld arrived there
in May 2007, fresh from the battlefield in Iraq, he said, "I wanted to
punish them. I wanted vengeance." "I would characterize
him as a true believer at that point," said Maj. David Frakt, a military
commission defense counsel. Frakt was the defense
attorney in the case that would ultimately compel Vandeveld to risk
everything. Mohammed Jawad was accused
of throwing a hand grenade at two U.S. special forces soldiers in 2002,
injuring them severely. At the time, this Afghan boy was 16 or 17 years old.
Vandeveld aggressively prosecuted his case. "I had no doubt in my
mind, based on what I had received, that he would be convicted,"
Vandeveld said. But a chance discovery would reveal that important evidence
in the case had been withheld. "I saw something that
floored me," he said. In the evidence file of an
unrelated trial, Vandeveld discovered that Jawad had made a statement to
military investigators - a statement that was backed up by the U.S. guard
force at his prison. "He had been hooded and
slapped, that he had been shackled, hooded, and thrown down stairs,"
Vandeveld said. "I knew nothing about the existence of the statement. …
The evidence was in a state of chaos." By law, Vandeveld had to
share his discovery with the defense. He now believed Jawad had been tortured
even though he had no intelligence to offer. And he did not believe Jawad
could be convicted. "I think he was just as
appalled by what he found in those records as I was," Frakt said. Frakt says that discovery
changed Vandeveld forever. He could not ignore the violations of law he
discovered - critical evidence that was missing, lost, or withheld. "The rules are
applicable to everyone," Vandeveld said. "There is no exception.
There are no different forms of justice." That led Vandeveld to make
the most agonizing decision of his life. In September 2008, he resigned from
the military commissions. But, Vandeveld, said,
"My conscience is not clear. I prosecuted Mohmmed Jawad for too long. I
participated in the commissions for too long." The Pentagon, in a statement
to CBS News said, "Vandeveld's statements are proven to be
unsubstantiated." But Frakt asserts that
"The Pentagon propaganda machine is hard at work to try to discredit
Darrel Vandeveld." He received a poor
evaluation report, which effectively ends his military career. "You do the right
thing, you will be forever grateful that you did it no matter what happens to
you," Vandeveld said. © MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. External link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/22/eveningnews/main5259681.shtml |