WP: Presiding Officer At Gitmo (trial) Faces Questions (on impartiality)

[DeepModem Mom]

Presiding Officer At Guantanamo Faces Questions

By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 16, 2004; Page A03


The chief Pentagon prosecutor in the military trials of alleged al Qaeda fighters at Guantanamo Bay has requested that the presiding officer in the cases "closely evaluate" his impartiality and consider resigning, according to a document filed in the tribunal proceeding.

The prosecutor, Army Col. Robert L. Swann, suggested in the document filed Sept. 7 that in effect he accepted some arguments put forward by military defense lawyers last month that the presiding officer in the four cases, Army Col. Peter E. Brownback III, should consider stepping down.

In hearings last month at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, attorneys for the detainees argued that Brownback should quit because he is close friends with retired Army Maj. Gen. John D. Altenburg Jr., who oversees the military trials as the tribunals' "appointing authority."...

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At preliminary hearings for detainees last month, defense attorneys asserted that the proceedings were stacked against the defendants and suggested that four others on the panel that will decide their guilt or innocence were also unqualified to serve. The lawyers' legal strategy, in part, is to get the prosecutions moved to U.S. criminal courts....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24538-2004Sep15.html