Ex-Gitmo prosecutor alleges politics( Col. Morris Davis)

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — A former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay testified Monday that he faced growing interference from his Pentagon superiors following the arrival at the Navy base of "high-value" detainees with direct links to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Air Force Col. Morris Davis, who was called to testify by lawyers for Osama bin Laden's former driver, said Pentagon officials showed increased interest in the schedule and the selection of detainees for trial once the prisoners arrived from secret CIA custody in September 2006.

"Suddenly, everybody had strong opinions about how we ought to do our job," Davis said. "If you can get the 9/11 guys charged, you get the victims' families energized, and if the case is rolling, whoever took the White House would have difficulty stopping this process."

Davis was cross-examined by the Army officer who replaced him after his resignation last October, Col. Lawrence Morris, in one of the most dramatic challenges to the first American war-crimes tribunals since World War II.



Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iuZWtyV2t6N6AYyrw6fDnm3R36dgD90B6SOO0

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Former Guantanamo prosecutor says trials tainted
GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba: The former chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals testified on Monday that the tribunals were tainted by political influence and evidence obtained through prisoner abuse.

Air Force Col. Moe Davis, who quit the war court last year, said political appointees and higher-ranking officers pushed prosecutors to file charges before trial rules were even written.

A supposedly impartial legal adviser demanded they pursue cases where the defendant "had blood on his hands" because those would excite the public more than mundane cases against document forgers and al Qaeda facilitators, Davis said.

He said the pressure ramped up after "high-value" prisoners with alleged ties to the September 11 plot were moved to Guantanamo from secret CIA custody shortly before the 2006 U.S. congressional elections and amid the ongoing U.S. presidential campaigns.

"There was that consistent theme that if we didn't get this thing rolling before the election it was going to implode," Davis testified in the courtroom at the remote Guantanamo naval base in Cuba.

more:http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/04/29/news/OUKWD-UK-GUANTANAMO-HEARINGS.php

[PSPS]

1. Gee ... YA THINK?

The whole idea is to have the climax of the kangaroo court occur right around election day. What a farce. The RW media is salivating over the role it will play to "catapult the propaganda." I can hear the mighty Wurlitzer starting up.

[maddezmom]

2. Col. Davis Says He Rebuffed ‘Guy Who Said Waterboarding is A-OK’

Col. Davis Says He Rebuffed ‘Guy Who Said Waterboarding is A-OK’
Posted by Dan Slater
“Suddenly, everybody had strong opinions about how we ought to do our job,” testified Air Force Col. Morris Davis yesterday. “If you can get the 9/11 guys charged, you get the victims’ families energized, and if the case is rolling, whoever took the White House would have difficulty stopping this process.”

Davis, the military-commissions-advocate-turned-critic, was testifying at Gitmo yesterday in the lacase of Osama bin Laden’s former driver, Salim Hamdan. Davis — who as Gitmo’s chief prosecutor initially filed charges against Hamdan, and has conceded that he “never had any doubts about Mr. Hamdan’s guilt” — was nevertheless put on the stand by the defense to testify that he faced growing interference from Pentagon superiors, who allegedly pressured him in deciding which cases to prosecute and whether to use evidence obtained from aggressive interrogation methods, such as waterboarding. Here are stories from the AP, the NYT and the WaPo. Click here and here for past LB coverage.

Davis said Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, a senior Pentagon official who oversaw the military commissions, directed him last year to push war crimes cases quickly. According to the Times, Davis testified that the general was trying to give the system legitimacy before a new president took office. He testified that General Hartmann said, “If we don’t get some cases going before the election, this thing’s going to implode.”

Davis said he quit after he was put in a chain of command beneath Defense Department GC William Haynes, who allegedly encouraged the use of evidence obtained through waterboarding. “The guy who said waterboarding is A-OK I was not going to take orders from. I quit,” Davis said.

more:http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/04/29/col-davis-says-he-rebuffed-guy-who-said-waterboarding-is-a-ok/?mod=WSJBlog