KANGAROO COURTS IN GITMO

It was bad enough to round up innocents, keep them imprisoned for years without due process and torture some of them, now we learn that the trials are corrupt, something we should've expected from the criminal Bush regime. I didn't see this on the mentioned on the front page of Limbaugh's site right now and I suspect that none of the wingnut radio gasbags will mention this.

Guantanamo prosecutor quits amid controversy
The Army reservist was concerned about a lack of due process for war crimes defendant, two defense attorneys say. A tribunal official denies their claims.
By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 25, 2008
LA Times


GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA -- Contending that the government had suppressed evidence that could help a young man facing life in prison, a prosecutor has quit the war crimes tribunals here, several military defense lawyers said Wednesday.

Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld quit the case -- and the Office of Military Commissions -- after growing increasingly concerned about the lack of due process afforded to Mohammed Jawad and his legal team, according to Michael J. Berrigan, deputy chief defense counsel for the commissions.

Vandeveld, an Army reservist, said in a four-page declaration filed with the court that "potentially exculpatory evidence has not been provided" to the defense.

The Jawad case is one of several in which the Pentagon's former legal advisor to military commissions, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, has been banned from playing an oversight role because of charges that he lost his neutrality by withholding exculpatory information in recommending the charges.

In his declaration, Vandeveld said military prosecutors routinely withhold exculpatory evidence from the defense in terrorism cases.