Until You Get the Answer You Want
Jun 23rd, 2007 at 9:34 am by Susie
Someone who was on the inside describes how it worked:
WASHINGTON — An Army reserve officer who served on a military panel at Guantanamo Bay that determined whether a detainee should be held indefinitely as an “enemy combatant” has said the process is deeply flawed, relying on vague evidence prepared by poorly trained personnel, and is subject to undue pressure from the military chain of command, according to an affidavit unsealed yesterday.
In the first account of the miltary review process by a participant, Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Abraham wrote that when he and two other officers assigned to serve on the tribunal concluded that a detainee should not be classified as an “enemy combatant,” his superiors in charge of the process forced him to reopen the hearing so the government could present more evidence.
After they reconsidered the case but refused to reverse their decision, he wrote, their superiors questioned them in follow-up meetings about “what went wrong” with the case. Abraham was never asked to serve on another panel, according to the affidavit.
TPMMuckraker has more.
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