Wheels of justice barely turn at
Guantanamo prison
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[October 17, 2016]
By Ian Simpson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - War crimes trials at
Guantanamo Bay for suspects accused of attacks against the United States
have ground to a near halt a decade after the military courts' creation,
with lawyers warning that some detainees could spend many more years
waiting to be tried.
Despite President Barack Obama's early vows to close the facility in
eastern Cuba amid charges that suspects had been tortured, the United
States continues to spend some $91 million a year on military trials at
the base, which has 61 remaining inmates.
"The military commissions in their current state are a farce," Marine
Brigadier General John Baker, the chief defense counsel, said last month
at a Washington legal conference, of the tribunals that prosecute
detainees. "The Guantanamo Bay military commissions have been
characterized by delay, government misconduct and incompetence, and more
delay."
James Connell, a defense lawyer for Kuwaiti Ammar al Baluchi, one of
five suspects on trial for their alleged roles in the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks, said that trial was not likely until maybe 2020, almost two
decades after airline hijackers killed nearly 3,000 people.
Because the court and much of the evidence lies outside the United
States, the trial "is 100 times more complex than even a complex
ordinary death penalty case," said Connell.
In contrast with Guantanamo, federal prosecutors operating in U.S.
courts have secured more than 340 terrorism convictions over the last
decade, a Justice Department spokesman said. Tanzanian Ahmed Khalfan
Ghailani was transferred from Guantanamo to New York in 2009, and 17
months later a civilian jury convicted him for his role in al Qaeda
bombings in East Africa. He is serving a life sentence.
Just six Guantanamo cases have resulted in convictions so far, with two
guilty verdicts being appealed, according to the military commissions'
website. In one appeals case, a federal court overturned two of the
three convictions of Ali Hamza al Bahlul, the suspected publicist for
slain al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. An appeal decision is pending on
the third charge.
Pentagon officials defended the pace of proceedings, saying that it
takes time to resolve many of the classified documents submitted as
evidence.
"The Department of Defense is committed to fairness and transparency in
the military commissions proceedings," Pentagon spokeswoman Lieutenant
Colonel Valerie Henderson said in an email.
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Chain link fence and concertina wire surrounds a deserted guard
tower within Joint Task Force Guantanamo's Camp Delta at the U.S.
Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba March 21, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas
Jackson/File Photo
'RISK-AVERSE SYSTEM'
President George W. Bush signed the law creating the tribunals on
Oct. 17, 2006, after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down previous
tribunals set up to try al Qaeda suspects, ruling that they violated
U.S. military law and the Geneva Conventions.
Obama took office in 2009 and vowed to close the prison. He approved
legislation that included barring the use of evidence obtained under
torture. The effort to close Guantanamo stalled amid opposition from
Congress, with Republicans saying many of the prisoners are too
dangerous to release.
John Yoo, who helped draft the Bush administration's legal strategy
after 9/11, said the Guantanamo courts were designed for plea
bargaining to get suspects to cooperate with government intelligence
agencies.
The Supreme Court ruling "slowed the whole thing down, and it has
become a risk-averse system that doesn't want to make another
mistake," said Yoo, now a law professor at the University of
California, Berkeley.
Government interference is also an issue. Sept. 11 defense lawyers
have found their meeting rooms bugged, had mail with clients seized,
and contend that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has tried to
infiltrate a defense team.
Last year, a Sept. 11 suspect at Guantanamo recognized that a court
interpreter had also worked at a Central Intelligence Agency prison
where he was held.
"Every issue that comes up is a new and novel issue that can take
days" to resolve, said Morris Davis, a former Air Force colonel and
the first Guantanamo prosecutor.
(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Scott Malone and Andrew Hay)
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