Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: former military prosecutor denounces trial [View all]
Source: The Guardian
The former chief US prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay has denounced the military trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks due to appear in court at Guantanamo on Saturday, as intended primarily to prevent the defendants from presenting evidence of torture.
Morris Davis, a former colonel who was chief prosecutor when Mohammed was brought to Guantanamo in 2006, said the military commissions will be badly discredited by the use of testimony obtained from waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation" techniques used on the accused men.
Mohammed and his four co-accused – Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi and Walid bin Attash – are to appear at an arraignment hearing before a military commission to plead to charges of 2,976 counts of murder for each of the victims who died on 9/11, terrorism, hijacking, conspiracy and destruction of property. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty for all of the men.
Davis, who resigned over the issue, wanted to see Barack Obama follow through on a commitment to move the trials to more open civilian courts but said that advocates of military tribunals prevailed in large part because the rules of evidence prevent the defendants from giving detailed descriptions of how they were tortured as well as other sensitive information such as details of the CIA's secret detention programme and the co-operation of foreign countries, such as Britain, in their capture and interrogations.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/04/khalid-sheikh-mohammed-military-prosecutor
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