Torture Call Threatens Gitmo Case

[unhappycamper]

Torture Call Threatens Gitmo Case
October 30, 2008
Associated Press

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The dismissal of a confession that a U.S. military judge said was tortured out of a young Afghan prisoner has "eviscerated" the government's case against him at Guantanamo Bay, the former case prosecutor said.

The statements Mohammed Jawad made to Afghan officials following his capture in 2002 were among the most important evidence for his upcoming war crimes trial, said Darrel Vandeveld, who quit last month in a dispute over the handling of the case.

"To me, the case is not only eviscerated, it is now impossible to prosecute with any credibility," Vandeveld told The Associated Press.

Jawad is scheduled to face trial Jan. 5 on charges that he threw a grenade that injured two U.S. soldiers and their Afghan interpreter. He was 16 or 17 at the time of the attack.

The Army judge, Col. Stephen Henley, found in his ruling Tuesday that the Afghan authorities who first interrogated Jawad at a Kabul police station were armed and threatened to kill him and his family if he did not confess.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/torture-call-threatens-gitmo-case.html?col=1186032310810&wh=wh

[Xipe Totec]

1. Threatens more than the case; this is an official finding of torture

Enough to open a war crimes case against the officers involved.