U.S. general barred from another Guantanamo trial

A photo of a sketch by courtroom artist Janet Hamlin, reviewed by the U.S. Military, shows the Sept. 11 attacks co-conspirator suspects (L) during their court hearing inside a U.S. military war crimes court at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, on 5 June 2008.

14 August 2008

By Jane Sutton

A military judge barred a U.S. general on Thursday from further involvement in the war crimes trial of a young Afghan prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, the second time the legal advisor has been blocked from a case.

The judge also ordered that the attempted murder charges against defendant Mohammed Jawad, 23, be sent back to the overseer of the tribunals for revalidation.

But the judge denied a defense request to dismiss all charges against Jawad, who is accused of throwing a grenade into a U.S. military jeep at a bazaar in Kabul in December 2002, wounding two U.S. soldiers and their Afghan interpreter.

Jawad's military lawyers said the charges should be thrown out because they were tainted by unlawful influence from Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, the officer appointed to give impartial legal advice to the Pentagon appointee overseeing the war crimes tribunals at the U.S. military base in Cuba.

The judge said there was evidence Hartmann "desired to control the entire operation" but that the decision to charge Jawad was made independently by an acting chief prosecutor.

Still, he said Hartmann's public statements aligning himself with the prosecution had compromised his ability to act impartially in an appeals process if Jawad is convicted.

The barring of Hartmann from Jawad's case highlights some of the fractures within the U.S. military regarding a tribunal process condemned by human rights advocates as unfair and corrupted by politics.

Hartmann had earlier been barred from the case against Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, who was convicted last week at Guantanamo of providing support for terrorism.

Hamdan's case was the first full trial since the United States began sending hundreds of suspected al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners to Guantanamo in January 2002. The Pentagon plans to try as many as 80 of the detainees.

Defense lawyers said Hartmann failed to turn over certain defense documents to Susan Crawford, the Pentagon appointee who oversees the trials and validates charges for prosecution. They said those documents outlined mitigating circumstances that might have altered her decision to endorse the charges.

The judge ordered the documents to be sent to Crawford and that she again review the charges against Jawad.