Gitmo Tribunals: Al-Qaeda Defenders on the Move as Judge Knocks a Surreptitious Censor
The military defenders are capable lawyers, but the passion in the courtroom is interjected by the civilian defense attorneys, whether it’s Nevin declaring he has no fear sleeping in a cell with the man who confessed to beheading Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl or Chicago attorney Cheryl Bormann donning an abaya in the presence of her client, bin Attash, but a skirt when the al-Qaeda operatives are back in their cells.
Nevin is there under the umbrella of the John Adams Project, which is a shorter way of saying the ACLU and National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers have joined forces to send high-profile, pit-bull defense to the aid of al-Qaeda. The project is named so after the Founding Father who defended British soldiers charged with killing Americans in the Boston Massacre.
“We took this step because of our grave concerns that the Guantanamo military commissions process does not reflect our country’s commitment to justice and due process. The military commissions’ authorization of the use of coerced evidence possibly derived from torture, secret evidence, and hearsay is unconstitutional and counter to American traditions of fairness and justice,” the ACLU says. The organizations call the military tribunals of the enemy combatants “an egregious situation.”
Nevin, from Boise, Idaho, represented and guided Kevin Harris to acquittal in the deadly 1992 Ruby Ridge siege and secured an acquittal for Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, a Saudi national brought up on charges of providing assistance to terrorists. For the latter case, Nevin received an award from the ACLU.
The John Adams Project’s supporters include former President Jimmy Carter and former Attorney General Janet Reno.
“I applaud efforts of the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to ensure that the principles of our country are not compromised and the Guantanamo detainees are afforded a fair trial with basic rights of due process,” Carter said in a statement of support.
Nevin constantly drops the word torture in his arguments, foreshadowing how the defense will use the admitted waterboarding of Mohammed and next week’s defendant — Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused mastermind of the 2000 USS Cole bombing — to try to exonerate their clients.
“He was tortured and that torture that was inflicted upon him bears on many things that are related to this case,” Nevin said Tuesday in arguing for overnight visits. “One of the primary reasons, in my mind, for the request for 48 hours of continuous presence at the facility, is for us to be able to observe, document, understand, be able to discuss with the court, if it becomes appropriate, exactly what life in these camps is like, and particularly considered in the context of a person who was tortured.”
Al-Nashiri is represented by Indiana attorney Richard Kammen, who has called the military proceedings “hopelessly unfair” and referred to his client, implicated in planning multiple attacks outside of the deadly Cole assault, not without “heart or feeling.”
For his part, the al-Qaeda member refers to his lawyer as “Mr. Rick,” having explained to the judge previously that he has problems pronouncing Kammen’s last name.
Kammen today followed Nevin’s motion to suspend proceedings due to concern about the security of defense communications. It’s the latest in a flurry of motions filed over the past several weeks before court convenes Monday, including one that moved to dismiss the case from the military tribunal because Congress and the president “impliedly made a political judgment regarding the existence of hostilities through its recognition of military commissions as a forum for adjudication of violations of the laws of war occurring ‘before, on, or after Sept. 11, 2001.’”
Saying that he was also subjected to mock execution during his black site interrogations, opponents of the al-Nashiri prosecution will be pressing to allow his recantations of torture. Kammen has compared the military commissions to the Spanish Inquisition and Soviet show trials, has tried to replace the military judge on the grounds that a jurist paid by the Pentagon couldn’t rule fairly, and will keep moving for dismissal.
Next week’s revisiting of the USS Cole attack, in which 17 were killed and dozens injured in the port of Aden, often falls in the Gitmo shadow of 9/11 and KSM, but the victims and families deserve no less justice.
And to opponents of the military tribunal, the al-Nashiri case offers a platform as they try to paint an al-Qaeda commander as the victim and the U.S. government as the torturer.
Stay tuned to PJM for ongoing coverage of the Guantanamo tribunals.
Just remember – Democrats and liberals think of Tea Party members and conservatives as terrorists. It’s not just hyperbole when they use such language, they honestly, truly believe it. And once they feel secure enough they are likely going to act on it.
Publisher of Blagojevich book under fire.
Chicago Review Press: Do they ignore the facts?
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2013/02/02/chicago-review-press-do-they-ignore-the-facts/
We’ve captured these scumbags – er “Detainees” while they were conducting war on the USA. The “Detainees” call it Jihad (Holy War) and we call it a “War on Terorrism.”
Seeing how prisoners of war are kept locked up until the end of said war, we should keep them locked up until Jihad is no loner waged on the USA or its allies. No lawyers, no tribunals, and no releasing until the ending of hostilities. According to fatwas againts us, that should be about 1,000,000 years from now.
The real problem is that there are no ongoing declared wars. Dude, when were all the last times the US declared war in accordance with our Constitution? I’ll answer this question for you…we declared war in 1812, the Mexican-American War in 1846, the Spanish-American War in 1898, WWI in 1917, and WWII in 1941. What war are you talking about? Do you believe that some unconstitutional war conducted by some scumbag president who ignores our Constitution counts? If so, I consider you an enemy of our Republic and an enemy of our Constitution!
Dude,
Do your homework.
Over the past decade, the federal courts, with the Supreme Court in the lead, have answered many of the Authorized Use of Military Force’s (AUMF) unanswered problems. Thus, the courts have now established that the AUMF does authorize detention, including of U.S. citizens captured on foreign battlefields. Similarly, the Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that the AUMF should be read consistently with international law — which may not settle some of the hardest questions raised in these cases, but at a minimum provides far better guidance than the amorphous language Congress enacted one week after September 11 (e.g., the requirement that the detainee be a belligerent properly subject to military detention under the laws of war). Military detention can last a lifetime, if needed.
Before you declare me an enemy for supporting the Supreme court, the president and congress (for passing AUMF), then meet me here in Afghanistan, and tell me how I am being unconstitutional. Tell it to my fellow soldiers, marines and Airmen who share in harm’s way. Looks like you have the luxury of being an arm-chair quarterback.
I am retired military. Our Supreme Court is corrupt. It has been corrupt for more than a century. I would advise you as a military person to obey all lawful orders and specifically, disobey all unlawful orders. After all, you swore that you would uphold the Constitution. If you obey unlawful orders, you will be a criminal.
The Obama administration moved with astounding alacrity to lock up the man who insulted the so called prophet Mohammed with a 13 minute video.
But look at the case of the Mohammedan Major down at Ft. Hood. Three years later, the Uniform Code of Military Justice is arguing whether or not the accused can sport a beard at his trial, instead of whether or not the guilty Jihadist should be flogged before being hung.
This administration is the greatest disaster to ever hit this nation.
The UCMJ and the military in general has been violated by the so-called Generals/Admirals who are nominally in charge. They have been appointed by Obama. They are, for the most part, traitors to the US Constitution.
2.3 TRillion Dollars Missing from DOD The Day before 9/11/2001
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rRqeJcuK-A
Al Qaeda Never Existed
An excerpt from the documentary, “The Power of Nightmares” Robin Cook, a former British MP and Minister of Foreign Affairs wrote that Al-Qaeda, “literally ‘the database’, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.” Thus, “Al-Qaeda” was born as an instrument of western intelligence agencies. The creation of Al-Qaeda was facilitated by the CIA and allied intelligence networks, the purpose of which was to maintain this “database” of Mujahideen to be used as intelligence assets to achieve US foreign policy objectives, throughout both the Cold War.
http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2010/12/al-qaeda-never-existed
You are not even useful with your repeated attempts to distract from the islam. Here you go, learn a little more history..
http://www.danielpipes.org/8412/islamists-dominate-european-islam
In 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower hosted a group of foreign Muslims that included Said Ramadan (1926-95), a leader of arguably the most influential Islamist organization of the twentieth century, the rabidly anti-West Muslim Brotherhood – and also Tariq’s father. The Eisenhower-Ramadan meeting took place in the context of sustained U.S. government efforts to rally Muslims against Soviet communism, in part by putting Said Ramadan on the CIA payroll. Talcott Seelye, an American diplomat who met with him about that time explains: “We thought of Islam as a counterweight to communism.”
2.3 TRillion Dollars Missing from DOD Day before 9/11/ 2001
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rRqeJcuK-A
What do you know about this?
– has ceased to exist, same as the “homeless”, but the press/media will bring back for propaganda if a Republican is ever president again.
One of Bush’s biggest mistakes was “capturing” these sh!tbags for their “intelligence” “value,” instead of simply killing them on the battlefield. Our fastidious, squeamish fixation on limiting “collateral” damage (i.e. enemy civilians) has brought us this indigestible mess of a court proceeding.
Under international law and the law of wars, these detainees are illegal combatants. A rudimentary drum head battlefield hearing to summarily establish affiliation with either Al Quaeda or Taliban at a reasonable suspicion burden of proof, followed by a bullet to the ear and kicking the still quivering body into bulldozed pit is all the “Due Process” that is due.
In fact, Obama’s much disdained “Signature drone strikes” wherein suspicious looking groups of men of a certain age level in Pakistan are vaporized is the preferable method, and all the process that is required by Al Quaeda’s declaration of war against the United States.
Dubai Ice Rinkstar An Olympic-size ice rink, open to all!
http://www.thedubaimall.com/en/entertainment/entertainment-section/dubai-ice-rink-entertainment.html
Now, I can see how the wealth is being distributed!