Defence lawyers for Omar Khadr and several other defendants in war crimes trials here at Guantanamo Naval Station in Cuba think the special military commissions process set up to try terrorism-related cases is flawed, that the rules of evidence and procedure are geared to produce wins for the prosecution. These folks aren't arguing that Khadr and others should be set free; they argue that the U.S. Federal Courts are the best place for their defendants to receive a fair trial. (In fact, a report by Human Rights First, a group which opposes the Guantanamo trials, concludes that the U.S. government has had much more success in Federal Court in securing convictions in terrorism-related cases than it has using the military commissions process.).
One of the reasons Khadr's lawyers and others make this claim that the military commissions process is skewed is the behaviour of Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartman (left), a senior Pentagon official whose job is to supervise the chief prosecutor for all these cases; provide logistical support for the commissions process; and provide independent advice about the cases to other senior Pentagon officials.
This morning, defence lawyers for Mohammed Jawad, also accused of war crimes, managed to get Hartman disqualified from any further participation in their case. Last May, a military judge ordered Hartman not to participate in the Hamdan case, which wound up here last week.
Khadr's lawyers, in fact, had Hartman on the stand yesterday making the same argument in their case that Jawad's and Hamdan's lawyers made: Hartman is “unlawfully interfering” in the process.
The combination of a relatively light sentence in the Hamdan case and, now, the double-censure of a top Pentagon official charged with overseeing the whole process, has some political implications for those trying to build support for the commissions process.