Third Guantanamo Prosecutor Quits

[Tetrahedrite]

This is most disturbing:

A third US military prosecutor has quit the military commission process under which Australian David Hicks will be tried' date=' over concerns it is unfair.

 

US Air Force Captain Carrie Wolf has chosen to take a reassignment along with other prosecutors, ABC radio reports.

 

The news follows the release of emails by two former prosecutors who say the Guantanamo prosecutions are rigged to ensure guilty verdicts against mainly low-level suspects.[/quote']

 

Captain Carrie Wolf asked to leave the Office of Military Commissions at the same time as the two email authors' date=' Major Robert Preston and Captain John Carr.

 

It was understood Captain Wolf had shared her colleagues' concerns about the military commission process.

 

Major Preston and Captain Carr said in their leaked memos that the evidence gathered against four detainees, including Hicks, was "half-assed".

 

The emails have prompted criticisms from the Law Council of Australia, the federal Opposition, and the Australian defence Forces' to lawyer, Captain Paul Willee, who said if the allegations were true, the process was a "charade".

[/quote']

 

The article can be found here, but once again it is a subsciber only site (free to subscribe).

 

I have followed this story with interest for several days now, particularly as an Australian citizen, David Hicks, is to be tried at one of these "military commissions".

 

It disturbs me to no end.

 

The defence teams have said all along that none of the accused will get a fair trial, and now it is revealed that even the prosecutors think that the commission is rigged to ensure the "right" verdict is reached. Any credibility that the military commission process had is certainly now destroyed.

 

Many things that the Bush administration does make me extremely angry, and at the the moment this is the worst case of hypocracy I have witnessed on my short time on this earth.

[atinymonkey]

It may be hard to assess what is really going on. Military trials are usually a closed process, and sometimes completly archaic. Plus this trial is not involving just the US, legal representatives from around the world are involved. The trial is one of the first none UN international military trials since Nurenberg, and the confusion could be a result of the process to adapt the trial to an international standard.

[Thomas Kirby]

The people of lesser military status who were convicted of the abuses of Abu Ghraib said that they were ordered to by superior officers. None of the superiors were convicted that I know of. This isn't fair and it isn't honorable. Honorable officers would take responsibility for the carrying out of their own orders to the point of placing their careers on the line by demanding to be prosecuted either with or before their subordinates are.

[Tetrahedrite]

The term "kangaroo court" comes to mind when I hear how the commissions are being run....