Thursday, February 21, 2008

Former chief prosecutor for Guantánamo says trials are rigged

From The Nation article. "Davis" in the excerpt below is the former Gitmo prosecutor. Six detainees will probably be put to death, and Pentagon counsel thinks the spectacle will be the "Nuremberg of our time."

"[Pentagon general counsel William Haynes] said these trials will be the Nuremberg of our time," recalled Davis, referring to the Nazi tribunals in 1945, considered the model of procedural rights in the prosecution of war crimes. In response, Davis said he noted that at Nuremberg there had been some acquittals, which had lent great credibility to the proceedings.

"I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process," Davis continued. "At which point, [Haynes's] eyes got wide and he said, 'Wait a minute, we can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can't have acquittals. We've got to have convictions.'"

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