WASHINGTON (AFP)
The former chief prosecutor for "war on terror" tribunals has testified the Guantanamo proceedings have been undermined by political pressure and the use of evidence obtained through abuse of prisoners, U.S. media reported Tuesday.
Colonel Morris Davis, who resigned last year as the Pentagon's chief prosecutor for terrorism cases, told a military commission hearing at the remote U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba that senior officials in President George W. Bush's administration urged him to move high-profile trials along quickly for political reasons, the Washington Post reported.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England and other Pentagon officials told him that charging well-known detainees before elections this year could have "strategic political value," Davis was quoted as saying by the Post.
Davis also accused Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, the legal adviser to the military official in charge of the tribunals, of tolerating evidence obtained from waterboarding, an interrogation method that simulates drowning and is widely condemned as a form of torture.
"To allow or direct a prosecutor to come into the courtroom and offer evidence they felt was torture, it puts a prosecutor in an ethical bind," Davis told the court. But he said Hartmann replied that "everything was fair game -- let the judge sort it out."
Davis said that Defense Department General Counsel William Haynes once took issue with the possibility that some defendants could be acquitted by the commissions, which Davis said would give the system more legitimacy.
"He said, 'We can't have acquittals,'" Davis said. "'We've been holding these guys for years. How can we explain acquittals? We have to have convictions.'" |
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Salim Hamdan Davis, a prosecutor turned defense witness, appeared in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the alleged driver for Osama bin Laden who is charged with material support for terrorism.
Hamdan, 36, a Yemeni national, appeared disheveled at the hearing and threatened a boycott of the proceedings.
His lawyers argued his mental state has deteriorated due to virtual solitary confinement at Guantanamo and demanded military authorities take action.
Military officials running the camp say there is no solitary confinement and that conditions are humane for the inmates.
The officer presiding over the hearing Monday postponed a hearing on the matter until before Hamdan's trial begins in June.
Hamdan appeared distraught at the decision, the Miami Herald reported, and threatened to boycott the process.
"I refuse all the lawyers. I refuse them working on my behalf and I'm sorry," Hamdan said. "I don't allow them to represent me when I'm not here."
Davis also said that he came under political pressure to press charges against Australian David Hicks despite his preference to proceed with other cases first.
Hicks, dubbed the "Aussie Taliban," received a nine-month prison term under the plea deal and was allowed to serve out his time in Australia.
One of Hamdan's lawyers, Joe McMillan, said after the hearing that Davis's testimony "calls into question the impartiality and independence of this court." |
