Defense lawyers accused the government of rushing the Sept. 11, 2001, defendants to trial at Guantanamo to influence the US presidential elections, and asked the military judge to dismiss the case in a court filing obtained on Thursday by The Associated Press.
The filing also shows that the former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo, who resigned in October over alleged political interference, was sanctioned by the military on May 23 after testifying for the defense in a Guantanamo hearing.
The former prosecutor, Aair Force Colonel Morris Davis, wrote that the action would discourage other military members from providing information about the controversial war-crimes tribunals. The tribunals’ legal adviser, Air Force Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, said that Davis was sanctioned because of poor performance and not because he testified.
Military lawyers for alleged Sept. 11, 2001, mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants said prosecutors were seeking a Sept. 15 trial date — weeks before the Nov. 4 election.
The five men accused of mounting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed almost 3,000 people are to be arraigned June 5 at the US Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — the most high-profile of the military commissions, as the war-crimes proceedings are called.
“It is safe to say that there are senior officials in the military commission process who believe that there would be strategic political value to having these five men sitting in a death chamber on Nov. 4, 2008,” said Navy Lieutenant Commander Brian Mizer, a defense attorney.
Davis recently testified that while he was chief prosecutor, “There was that consistent theme that if we don’t get these [trials] rolling before the election, this thing is going to implode, and if you get the 9/11 guys charged it would be hard for whoever wins the White House to stop the process.”
Senator John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee for president, supported the Military Commissions Act that in 2006 resurrected the war-crimes tribunals after the Supreme Court earlier declared the previous system unconstitutional.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, battling for the Democratic nomination, opposed the measure.
Hartmann denied political interference affected decisions on whom to try and when to try them.
“It has not existed at all,” Hartmann said on Wednesday. “I say that absolutely, without equivocation.”
But at an April 28 hearing for Osama bin Laden’s former driver and bodyguard, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Davis testified that Hartmann pushed to pursue “sexy” cases over less dramatic ones. The military judge subsequently ordered Hartmann’s removal as legal adviser in that proceeding.
Documents attached to the new filing showed the military acted against Davis less than a month after his testimony, saying he had served dishonorably and would be denied a medal for his more than two years as prosecutor.
Hartmann, who had clashed with Davis when he was chief prosecutor, said he didn’t get the decoration because “his performance was not up to standard.” Hartmann worked with Davis from July last year to October.
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