Gitmo Prosecutions May Be Impossible Because Evidence Is In Chaos, Says Ex-Prosecutor

A former military prosecutor said in a declaration filed in federal court yesterday that the system of handling evidence against detainees at Guantanamo Bay is so chaotic that it is impossible to prepare a fair and successful prosecution.

Darrel Vandeveld, a former lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, filed the declaration in support of a petition seeking the release of Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who has been held at the military prison in Cuba for six years. Jawad was a juvenile when he was detained in Kabul in 2002 after a grenade attack that severely wounded two U.S. Special Forces soldiers and their interpreter.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[MaybeMilo]

I don't care if some of these folks ARE terrorists - this is a national shame, plain and simple.

Way to go, Georgie.

[markusmarkus]

At least georgie is consistent.

[stormerF]

You are right we should have,enforced the Geneva convention and treated them as spies and executed everyone of them.

[HurryUp1212009]

They can't prosecute these people, because the more information that comes out, the more obvious it will be how many of these people were TORTURED!

I hope Holder prosecutes Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo and Addington for WAR CRIMES.

[markusmarkus]

Addington is the "brains" behind all this. Go after him last. Just like Jack McCoy (L&O), start at the bottom and work your way up. But, go after Addington last. He's the true puppet.meister.

[JohnFromCensornati]

"Cheney: I think on the left wing of the Democratic Party, there are some people who believe that we really tortured."

Imagine that!

[HurryUp1212009]

He's a bona fide psychopath, and Addington's worse!

[mergina]

Look. This is America. Get rid of Gitmo. We do not need archaic places to administer justice.

[watchingthings]

Truth may be the last thing that those connected with Gitmo want. It is terrible when a country stoops so low asto disregard all human rights and apprehend people without reason, then imprison them without charges.

[Y2KCockroach]

Much of the blame for what has been going on needs to be placed at the desk of Colonel Lawrence Morris, Chief Military Prosecutor. Do a little research on the guy (you need look no farther than "Google") in order to get some sense of what a mess he has presided over, and it is then easy to understand why the whole thing has gone to sh*t. It is also then easy to understand why Lieutenant Colonel Vandeveld would now state "I wouldn't believe a word he says". Yup, those are words that instill confidence, coming from someone speaking about someone who was once his commanding officer.

[StillAmused]

I keep waiting for one of the right-wing hard cases to explain (1) how someone held incommunicado for five years can possibly have any current, useful "intelligence" to share, and (2) what mental defect causes someone to believe that indefinitely detaining a few hundred insurgents in any way 'protects' us from an attack by a few of the remaining millions we've infuriated by invading Iraq.

The right wing's problem isn't ideology... it's basic math.

[naeldwyck]

It's an intelligence failure on so many levels...

[Ramirez]

1) The detainees were interrogated when first taken. It is doubtful they still have actionable intelligence, but that is not why they are still detained.
2) The continued detainment of these captured militants protects us because many of them tend to return to the battlefield when released.

From AP:
***
Pentagon: Gitmo detainees returning to battlefield
WASHINGTON – Terror suspects who have been held but released from Guantanamo Bay are increasingly returning to the fight against the United States and its allies, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Sixty-one detainees who have been released from the U.S. Navy base prison in Cuba are believed to have rejoined the fight, ...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090113/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/guantanamo_detainees_4

[StillAmused]

Oooohhh... sixty-one? REALLY?

Ya' suppose the rest of the hundreds of thousands of insurgents in the region have been sitting cross-legged around campfires, singing sad folk songs about 'The Sixty-One' and anxiously awaiting their return... so they can be told what to do next?

I asked what mental defect causes someone to believe that indefinitely detaining a few hundred insurgents in any way 'protects' us from an attack by a few of the remaining millions we've infuriated by invading Iraq.

... and, reliable as ever, you've raised your hand and offered yourself as a clinical example.

There's stupid -- and then there's knuckle-dragging, cross-eyed, drooling stooooopid.

[1dogs2]

If you were among those who were sold to American forces to settle a feud or make a few bucks and you had endured the kind of treatment detailed in this piece, what do you think you would do when, after years of confinement and abuse, your captors suddenly freed you? Do you think your treatment might have a tendency to radicalize you?

[squander123]

Aside from the individual suffering caused by these policies, the conceptual problem they cause is going to take a long, long time to fix.

If you breach your own Constitution in the name of defending its principles, what is there left to defend? If freedom, democracy, the rule of law and the application of human rights in the US are denied in the process of (supposedly) defending them, what exactly does the US now stand for?

Once moral crimes as serious as these have been committed - and committed over a sustained period of time and as part of an articulated policy - then it's going to take a lot more than a new President and the closing of a particular prison to expunge the guilt which the United States, as a nation, now bears. Some prosecutions in the Hague might be a start, but ultimately I think it's simply going to take a long time - a generation or more - of the US proving itself as a law-abiding and honourable nation to the rest of the world. The probation period will begin the day Guantanamo Bay is closed.

[hortonhearsawho2]

Eight years of guilt , yes. Probation...no. Hague is not a state of the U.S.A.. Live abroad here and there...whine and roses at home doesn't help.

[squander123]

I'm sorry, I don't understand the grammatical construction of this comment, and I don't know what you're trying to say.

If, however, you're saying that the US isn't going to be on probation with the rest of the world for trustworthiness, then I'm sorry, but that's not how trust works. You can't order others to trust you: it's theirs to give, and will only be given when it's been earned.

[FogBelter]

I'm wondering the real reason an ad hoc group of Afghans were rounded up and held incommunicado in Guantanamo for so long? It is known many of those apprehended were ratted out by neighbors with grudges or because of rewards given by the United States. It almost seems to me that these prisoners are little more than props used to maintain the notion of a dangerous world in the minds of Americans, allowing the Bush Administration to push forward with its goals.

On the other hand, many of today's Taliban, Al Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf terrorists began as Ronald Reagan's Mujahideen "Freedom Fighters" ... funded, trained, and armed by US Intelligence in the late 70's early 80's. Now, "Charlie Wilson's War" gave the impression that the US just abandoned Afghanistan ... but the CIA never leaves a base of operations, it may go dormant, but it maintains a presence and continues to cultivate resources. For instance, the US Military Bases in the Philippines closed in 1992, but the CIA never left.

Remember that CIA agent who was guarding captured Taliban forces and was killed? What if some of those prisoners were some of his assets? What if CIA was unsure of what they knew or were involved with? What if they could place Al Qaeda elements in proximity to US Intel personnel prior to 9/11? That would be one reason you would want to round up anyone remotely involved with the situation and make sure they don't talk freely. Just a

[watchingthings]

Funny how chickens come home to roost.

[Indubio]

I'm not sure why this matter is causefor such rejoicing. I believe Gitmo is wrond but my point is that at least some of the people there are terrorists andthey would happily kill Americans in this country if given the chance. So lettingthee people go is good news? What should have happned a logn time is that the prisoners should have been transferred to the Us and treated just like any other prisoner. They should have been indicted and if no evidence for an indictment existed, they should have been released, given a healthy stipend, and returned home with an apology. Ifguilty they should have been tried. What's happened is terrible but simply releasing every one ofthese people might not be such a good idea.

[dems08]

The point is Cheney & Friends failed to prosecute the actual terrorists there (if there are any), and made it impossible to give them a fair trial in the future.

No one is rejoicing about letting actual terrorists go.

[rabiddog6708]

Gitmo is a blight on the US Constitution. It should be closed ASAP. The detainees should either be tried or released. Holding them indefinitely without charge or legal recourse is something China or Russia would do. It should not be something America does.

[dems08]

It's something China, Russia, and Cheney and the pubs do.

[Gripen]

Yes and even russia is improving on this, why should then USA degrade.

[mikesw]

Of course we knew this a long time ago.

Terrorism is a federal crime, one, which is punishable by death. If the "detainees" in Gtmo were truly guilty terrorists and could be so proven, there was no reason to keep them in this imagination-land limbo.

Rather, I bet most of the gtmo detainees were people who we thought might know something or could help our intelligence gathering, whether or not they really were "terrorists".

[dems08]

Someone got a $5,000 bounty from the US for turning them in, even if they were just a neighbor someone disliked.

[drolleen]

So HAMAS violates everything. We violate a significant amount. Israel violates the least. Who should we punish?

Yet readers here have advocated using economic sanctions not against Hamas, or against the US, or against Egypt which is where Guantanamo detainees were sent for the torture treatment, but against Israel.

(See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marjorie-cohn/israels-collective-punish_b_155700.html?show_comment_id=19488754 )

Personally I think we should follow Hillary, as she said it today in the senate, principle and pragmatism: The principle is a viable democratic (and if need be unarmed for a few years) Palestinian state within a year, and a commitment of all nations to solve the refugees problems, including the problem of 1 million Jewish refugees from Arab lands http://www.meforum.org/article/2633) and 1 million Palestinians from the Palestinian parts of Israel (see http://www.un.org/unrwa/publications/pdf/figures.pdff).

All of that with dismantling of illegal (but not legal) settlements with due process monitored by international courts.

Lets hold Israel to international courts laws, but try to pressure Hamas to do the same through Egypt and even Iran and Russia.

[drolleen]

I do not justify the Gaza war. Every war is a mistake due to a large number of wrong moves, and Israel had its share of those wrong moves before this war.
Yet many writers on the Huff are hypocritical in their attitude towards Israel in its war in Gaza (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marjorie-cohn/israels-collective-punish_b_155700.html?show_comment_id=19488754
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/10/israel-tells-gazans-prepa_n_156792.html?page=7 etc. ).

Look at Guantanamo! We broke many conventions - because we are a superpower.
Israel in its Gaza war did not violate the rules in its war with Hamas.
HAMAS IS BREAKING EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE IN THESE CONVENTIONS. See for example http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/hague02.asp#art1. Article 1 requires that militias wear identifying symbols and carry their weapons openly - All 60 articles are violated. In Part II from 1907 for war on land articles 1-56 are violated ( http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hague04.asp).
Then articles 1-96 and beyond of the Geneva convention for treatment of prisoners of war were messed up in Guantanamo and violated by Hamas in their treatment of Gilad Shalit for 3 years. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/geneva02.aspp)

[badmama]

I would like to see President Bush fly all the prisoners to New York, give them each $250k and let them go free. I'm sure they will start new businesses to help the economy.

[speciallady2003]

I'd like to see him at Gitmo enduring all the deprivations he has placed on these people to feed his ego.

[JZ735]

Surely you jest...that may be true of a few...let them have trials, but start businesses? Are you NUTS?