Friday, May 30 2008
Lawyers want 9/11 trial dismissed
By Andrew O. Selsky
May 29, 2008
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Defense lawyers accused the government of
ru****ng the Sept. 11
defendants to trial at Guantanamo to influence the U.S. presidential
elections, and asked the
military judge to dismiss the case in a court filing obtained 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, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, wrote that the action
will discourage any
other military members from providing information about the controversial
war-crimes tribunals.
The tribunals' legal adviser, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, told
the AP Davis was
sanctioned because of poor job performance and not because he testified.
Military lawyers for alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
and four co-defendants
revealed that prosecutors are 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 U.S. 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 Lt. Cmdr. 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."
Sen. John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee for president, sup****ted
the Military
Commissions Act that in 2006 resurrected the war-crimes tribunals after
the Supreme Court
earlier declared the previous system unconstitutional.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, who are 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 told the AP 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 "***y" cases over
less dramatic ones.
The military judge subsequently ordered Hartmann's removal as legal
adviser in that proceeding.
Do***ents 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 to October 2007.
"He had a very im****tant position as chief prosecutor, and had an
obligation to lead people, to
inspire them and to train them," Hartmann said by telephone. "And that
wasn't happening."
In response, Davis e-mailed AP a performance re****t from Air Force Brig.
Gen. Thomas Hemingway,
Hartmann's predecessor, that said Davis' "personable leader****p style
infused enthusiasm and
focus despite political uncertainty, delays, countless issues" in the Bush
administration's
attempts to bring suspected terrorists to trial. The review, covering
September 2006-April
2007, said Davis was the "perfect choice" to "bring masterminds of 9/11,
USS Cole, & embassy
bombings to justice."
"I have got no regrets about the way I ran things," Davis told AP. "I will
put my leader****p up
against (Hartmann's) any day."
In their filing Wednesday to Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, the judge
presiding over the Sept. 11
trial, the lawyers asked for Hartmann to be removed as legal adviser to
war-crimes trials.
Sixteen of the 260 men being held under indefinite detention at Guantanamo
face trial after
having been charged.
Source URL:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZXxZ9jWlnYZ5G_1_W_-FG8F2vHwD90VLAVG2
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