Ex-Gitmo Prosecutor Says Meddling Drove Him from Job
Guantanamo’s former chief prosecutor tells the Wall Street Journal he resigned after concluding that U.S. meddling in the prosecutions of accused terrorists would not end with the guilty plea of David Hicks of Australia.
Col. Morris Davis said he opposes a new structure in which Guantanamo’s chief prosecutor must report to the Pentagon general counsel appointed by the White House. The system “takes the ‘military’ out of military commissions and makes them political commissions,” Davis told the newspaper (sub. req.).
He says the Hicks plea bargain came amid pressure from the Australian government to move quickly to avoid political embarrassment, a charge that has been denied by Australian government officials, the Jurist blog reports.
A Pentagon spokesman said Davis’ charges of political interference are not supported by the facts. Brig. Gen. Thomas Hemingway, who negotiated Hicks’ plea, backs up that claim, telling the WSJ it was not “done in an untoward way.”
The Sydney Morning Herald takes Davis’ side, opining that Hicks’ guilty plea to providing material support to terrorism represented a “political fix” of a “corrupted legal process,” ABAJournal.com recently reported.
