Detainee’s lawyer claims charges are about politics

By Carol Rosenberg
McClatchy Newspapers

MIAMI — The Navy lawyer for Osama bin Laden’s driver argues in a Guantánamo military commissions motion that senior Pentagon officials are orchestrating war-crimes prosecutions for the 2008 campaign.

The Pentagon declined Friday to address the defense allegations, noting that the issue is being litigated.

The brief filed Thursday by Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer directly challenged the integrity of President Bush’s war court.

Notably, it describes a Sept. 29, 2006, meeting at the Pentagon in which Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, a veteran White House appointee, asked lawyers to consider Sept. 11, 2001, prosecutions in light of the campaign.

“We need to think about charging some of the high-value detainees because there could be strategic political value to charging some of these detainees before the election,” England is quoted as saying.

The quote is recounted by a former, disgruntled Pentagon prosecutor, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, who quit the post five months ago, alleging political interference.

The Defense Department has steadfastly maintained that its wartime prosecution policy is fair, and affords accused terrorists extraordinary rights.

“We’re not going to respond to every allegation that’s made out there, especially now that these cases are in litigation. The trial process will surface the facts in these cases,” said Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman.

“Leadership has always been extraordinarily careful to guard against any unlawful command influence.”

The defense brief quotes England in a list of examples of alleged political interference, which Mizer argues makes it impossible for Salim Hamdan, 37, to have a fair trial.

It asks the judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, to dismiss the case against Hamdan as an alleged Sept. 11 co-conspirator on the grounds that Bush administration leadership exercises “unlawful command influence.”

Allred’s next hearing at Guantánamo is May 30. Hamdan’s lawyers have called Davis as a witness and said Friday they are leaving to the prosecutors to decide whether to call England in rebuttal.

Hamdan is the former Afghanistan driver of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden whose lawyers challenged an earlier war court format to the U. S. Supreme Court, which struck down the war court as unconstitutional.

Pentagon prosecutors call him a war criminal for driving bin Laden in Afghanistan before and at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks and allegedly also working as his bodyguard. Even if he didn’t help plot the suicide attacks, they argue, he is an al-Qaida co-conspirator.