Afghans Hold Secret Trials for Men That U.S. Detained

[babylonsister]

These trials are being held in the name of the good ole US of A. Makes you proud, doesn't it?


Afghans Hold Secret Trials for Men That U.S. Detained

By TIM GOLDEN and DAVID ROHDE
Published: April 10, 2008


KABUL, Afghanistan — Dozens of Afghan men who were previously held by the United States at Bagram Air Base and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are now being tried here in secretive Afghan criminal proceedings based mainly on allegations forwarded by the American military.

The prisoners are being convicted and sentenced to as much as 20 years’ confinement in trials that typically run between half an hour and an hour, said human rights investigators who have observed them. One early trial was reported to have lasted barely 10 minutes, an investigator said.

The prosecutions are based in part on a security law promulgated in 1987, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Witnesses do not appear in court and cannot be cross-examined. There are no sworn statements of their testimony.

Instead, the trials appear to be based almost entirely on terse summaries of allegations that are forwarded to the Afghan authorities by the United States military. Afghan security agents add what evidence they can, but the cases generally center on events that sometimes occurred years ago in war zones that the authorities may now be unable to reach.

“These are no-witness paper trials that deny the defendants a fundamental fair-trial right to challenge the evidence and mount a defense,” said Sahr MuhammedAlly, a lawyer for the advocacy group Human Rights First who has studied the proceedings. “So any convictions you get are fundamentally flawed.”

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/world/asia/10afghan.html?ref=world

[babylonsister]

1. PM kick because I find this so damn disturbing. nt

[fed-up]

2. K & R nt

[babylonsister]

3. Olbermann just mentioned this, so I'm going to kick it again. Sigh. nt

[Solly Mack]

4. Quick..someone wave the flag.....oh wait...

northing's gonna be done about it anyway...

I can hear the WH now "It's the sovereign nation of Afghanistan doing this"

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

5. I've been sitting here for 5 minutes and can't think of anything to say. Just feeling such

anger/sadness combined.

What bullshit when they say we're exporting democracy, those frigging sadistic fascists.

[babylonsister]

6. I read this this morning, and still feel the same way. Collectively

I think we're so immune to bad news because there is so much of it, that something like this doesn't even warrant a bit of concern. Or maybe it's the inability to do anything about it.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

7. Look how few responses this thread received. This morning I posted an article

about how government employees are stealing millions of dollars with the use of government issued credit cards. 4 responses on that one.

I am not immune from the bad news, just frustrated and exhausted by the breadth of it. It's layers and layers of noxious garbage being thrown upon us and we lack the ability to put an end to it. We are toothless. How many times can we call and write our Reps? We have no say. As you said "Or maybe it's the inability to do anything about it"

In reality, I believe our government was stolen from us a long long time ago and although I know it, I sometimes refuse to accept it, and think, maybe I'm wrong and there is still hope. Call me Pollyanna....

[malaise]

8. Freedom and democracy are on the way

Move along :sarcasm:

[bluesmail]

9. K&R Keep this on the front page so all DUers spread the word

dialog, if nothing else