Los Angeles Times
August 25, 2004
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — The first trial to be conducted by a military
commission since World War II got underway Tuesday, with a detainee's lawyer
asserting that the presiding officer and all but one of the other panel members
should step down because they lacked the qualifications and credibility to try
terrorism suspects.
Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was a driver for Al
Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was the first prisoner to appear at a preliminary
hearing here — the first in a series being held this week by the military
commission in a courtroom at the brig at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
Hamdan's military lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, immediately
challenged whether Army Col. Peter Brownback should preside over the
five-member panel, which will act as judge and jury in the proceedings. Swift
said that Brownback, a retired military judge, was not qualified to practice law
because he was not a current member of the bar in his home state of Virginia.
"Are you challenging the system or are you challenging me?" Brownback
asked.
"We're challenging you, sir," Swift replied.
But the
system itself also was put on trial, the defense made clear in the first of four
days of courtroom sessions. Swift has 11 motions outstanding, broadly
challenging the system. Among other issues, Swift said that Hamdan, who has
spent 2 1/2 years in custody, was denied a speedy trial — as were other
detainees — and that his client was charged with violating laws written
after the acts he allegedly committed.
"In a military commission, one
has to be particularly careful that what you are meting out doesn't appear to be
victor's justice," Swift said.
He posed complex legal questions
Tuesday designed to show that members of the panel and the alternate —
none of them lawyers — were ill-prepared to address some of the most
complex issues of international law in recent years and would defer to
Brownback's legal training in what woul d amount to "unlawful command
influence."
"The presiding officer would not even be qualified to be
civilian defense counsel here," Swift told reporters afterward.
Swift
also alleged that Brownback's office had had improper out-of-court discussions
with the Office of Military Commissions. And he accused Brownback of prejudice
against timely justice for allegedly saying in a meeting with defense lawyers
that a speedy trial was "not an issue here."
If Swift's challenges are
successful, the commission would fall short of the three members it needs to
function under its founding order by President Bush.
"To state the
obvious, we don't believe the defense will be successful in their challenges,"
said the prosecutor, Navy Cmdr. Scott M. Lang.
Swift's questioning
of the panel members revealed that three have what he described as "extensive
backgrounds" in dealing with detainees, intelligence and the war in
Afghanistan.
One, Air Force Lt. Col. Timothy K. Toomey, serve d in
Afghanistan as the intelligence officer in a task force charged with capturing
detainees who were eventually sent to Guantanamo Bay. A second, Marine Col. R.
Thomas Bright, was a U.S. Central Command officer responsible for moving
detainees from Afghanistan to Guantanamo.
"That's a little too close
for comfort," said Deborah Pearlstein of Human Rights First, one of five
representatives of nongovernmental organizations observing the trials. "These
are clearly good people trying to do the right thing in a badly damaged system."
Another panel member, Marine Col. Jack K. Sparks Jr., visited the
World Trade Center two weeks after the towers were leveled in the Sept. 11
attacks. He was in New York to attend the funeral of a firefighter killed in
the attacks who had served under Sparks as a Marine reservist.
The
alternate panel member, Lt. Col. Curt S. Cooper, expressed "strong emotions"
about the attacks and acknowledged that he knew little about the principal body
of international l aw.
"Do you know what the Geneva Convention is,
sir?" Swift asked.
"Not specifically. No, sir," Cooper answered.
"And that's being honest." But, he added, he knew that there were three
articles of the Geneva Convention.
"Actually," Swift said, "there are
six, sir."
Swift sought to disqualify the five panelists he
challenged, which would leave just Air Force Col. Christopher C. Bogden, whose
only apparent connection to the war in Afghanistan was that a "professional
acquaintance" was killed during the Sept. 11 attacks.
Brownback said he
would send the challenges to retired Army Maj. Gen. John Altenburg, the
appointing authority for the Office of Military Commissions, as required under
Pentagon rules. Critics, however, noted that Altenburg was the official who
appointed all the panel members. Because the commission is setting precedents,
Altenburg previously had asked lawyers on both sides to recommend a standard
that any such challenge should meet.
< /strong>The defendant,
Hamdan, entered the courtroom barefoot and unshackled, wearing a checked sport
coat, a traditional long white robe and a silk head scarf supplied by his
family. It was the first time in more than two years he dressed in attire other
than the prisoners' standard orange jumpsuit.
Occasionally smiling
broadly at his attorney, Hamdan said few words. When asked whether he wanted to
keep his lawyer, he said through a translator, "I need attorney Swift and I need
an assistant with him as well."
Hamdan deferred until October his plea
on charges of being a member of Al Qaeda, conspiring with the organization in
committing terrorist acts and destruction of property. That will allow Swift to
continue his effort to have the military commission declared unconstitutional in
federal court. If convicted of all charges, Hamdan could receive a life
sentence.
Moments after Brownback called the hearing to a close, Swift
asked him to reopen the proceedings to request that he be allo wed to send to
Altenburg an audiotape, recorded during Brownback's meeting with defense
attorneys, of which Swift apparently had just learned.
After sitting
silently for more than a minute, a visibly shocked Brownback wiped his hands
over his face and agreed to allow Swift to pass on the tape, "although the tape
was made without my consent." He added: "I'm telling you right now that I
don't have a predisposition toward speedy trial."
As Hamdan completed
his rare appearance outside his cell, the family of Australian detainee David
Hicks — who also is to be tried by the military commission — arrived
at Guantanamo, preparing to see their son for the first time in five years.
Hicks' father, Terry, denied that his son could be guilty of murder and
conspiring with Al Qaeda. He said his son was nothing more than an
adventurer.
"David's been an adventurer all his life," he said. "He
always wanted to see what was over the fence, and as he got older, the fence got
taller."