Print

Mail

wiki links

Guantanamo prosecutor becomes defense witness

In a stunning turnaround, the former chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay said on Thursday he would be a defense witness for the driver of Osama bin Laden.

Air Force Colonel Morris Davis, who resigned in October over alleged political interference in the US military tribunals, said he will appear at a hearing for Salim Ahmed Hamdan.

"I expect to be called as a witness ... I'm more than happy to testify," Davis said in a telephone interview from Washington. He called it "an opportunity to tell the truth."

At the April pretrial hearing inside the US military base in southeast Cuba, Hamdan's defense team plans to argue that alleged political interference cited by Davis violates the Military Commissions Act, said Navy Lieutenant Brian Mizer, Hamdan's military lawyer.

Davis alleges, among other things, that Pentagon general counsel William Haynes said in August 2005 that any acquittals of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo would make the US look bad, calling into question the fairness of the proceedings.

Davis recalled: "He said `We can't have acquittals, we've got to have convictions.'"

The former chief prosecutor says the statement by Haynes, first reported this week in The Nation magazine, occurred after the general counsel compared the Guantanamo tribunals to Nuremberg and Davis says he pointed out some of those tried at the end of World War II were acquitted, giving them more credibility in the eyes of the world.

At the time, Davis says, he shrugged off the comments. But he came to view them as alarming after he was placed in a chain of command under Haynes and the prosecutor began to sense political pressure on his work.

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Commander Jeffrey Gordon, denied that Haynes made such a comment. Gordon also denied the former prosecutor's allegations of political interference.

If the judge rejects the motion to dismiss, Mizer said the defense will seek to remove two top officials in the military commissions system -- legal adviser Air Force Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann and Convening Authority Susan Crawford -- from Hamdan's case.

It is not clear whether the Pentagon will allow Davis to testify. In December, two months after he resigned as chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals, the Defense Department barred Davis from appearing before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.

Hamdan faces up to life in prison if the tribunal convicts him of conspiracy and supporting terrorism. His lawyers admit he was a driver for bin Laden, but say he had no significant role in planning or carrying out attacks against the US.
This story has been viewed 683 times.