A former US military prosecutor at Guantanamo who accuses his superiors of suppressing evidence refused on Thursday to testify in a war crimes case unless he is granted immunity.
Army Lieutenant Colonel Darrel Vandeveld, who was called as a defense witness, revealed a day earlier that he quit over what he called ethical lapses by prosecutors.
His defection has sent ripples throughout the US military’s tribunal system, with prosecutors dismissing his claims as “ridiculous” and defense attorneys in other cases seizing on them as proof the government does not share evidence in good faith.
Defense attorneys asked the judge to give Vandeveld immunity.
“The suggestion he may have something criminal to hide is intriguing and suggests there is something very, very important this commission needs to get to the bottom of,” said Air Force Major David Frakt, the Pentagon-appointed attorney for Mohammed Jawad.
Jawad, 23, faces charges including attempted murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that injured two US soldiers and their interpreter in Afghanistan in 2002. A conviction at his trial, which is scheduled to begin in December, could keep him in prison for life.
In his written declaration, Vandeveld said that he was available and willing to testify for the defense. Prosecutors prevented him from traveling to the US Navy base in Cuba, but the judge agreed to have him testify by video link. It was not immediately clear why he first wanted immunity and an attorney.
Frakt told the judge on Thursday that Pentagon officials were trying to discredit Vandeveld and block his testimony.
The officer who oversaw the tribunals until last week, Air Force Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, allegedly asked Vandeveld to get a psychiatric exam. But Frakt said the former prosecutor was evaluated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington last week and cleared to stay on active duty.
“He is very intimately involved in the effort to prevent Colonel Vandeveld from being able to testify,” Frakt told the judge.
Hartmann was disqualified from participating in the case last month for aligning himself too closely with prosecutors.
The chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo tribunals, Army Colonel Lawrence Morris, said there were no grounds to Vandeveld’s “ethical qualms.”
“We are the most scrupulous organization you can imagine in terms of disclosure to the defense,” he told reporters.
Vandeveld wrote that the “slipshod” process for providing evidence is bogged down in part by the bureaucracy involved in obtaining and declassifying material from different branches of the US military and intelligence agencies.
He said he personally shared any helpful evidence with the defense, including proof that Jawad was subjected to sleep-deprivation at Guantanamo, but not all his colleagues had the same policy.
“Potentially exculpatory evidence has not been provided,” he wrote.
An attorney for a Canadian detainee Omar Khadr said he may also call Vandeveld to testify in their case, which is scheduled to go to trial in November.
“These are the very same practices that have been used to withhold key evidence from defense lawyers in the Khadr case,” said Navy Lieutenant Commander William Kuebler, the lead attorney for the young Canadian accused in a grenade attack that killed a US solder in Afghanistan.
Jawad is one of 21 Guantanamo detainees facing charges. Military prosecutors say they plan trials for about 80 of the 255 men held here on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban.
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