UPDATE: Guantanamo Rulings Challenge Upcoming Trials

WASHINGTON- The Pentagon reviewed its option following a military judge’s ruling that raised questions about the impartiality of the first war crimes trial against an Al-Qaeda suspect.
Navy Captain Keith Allred, the military judge in the case of Salim Hamdan, disqualified the Pentagon’s legal adviser for the military commissions from further participation in the Hamdan case. Allred found that the legal adviser, Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, pressed for war crimes prosecutions based on “political factors such as whether they would capture the imagination of the American people, be sexy, or involve blood on the hands of the accused.” The general also attempted to direct prosecutors to use evidence at trial that the chief prosecutor “considered tainted and unreliable, or perhaps obtained as a result of torture or coercion.”

Allred stated that the commission was not persuaded, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the legal advisor to the convening authority retains the required independence from the prosecution function to provide fair and objective legal advice to the convening authority. The “convening authority” is responsible for overseeing the military commissions.

This ruling follows the testimony of Col. Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo. Davis resigned in October, saying that the prosecutions had become “deeply politicized” and appeared as a defense witness for Hamdan.

For more information, please see:
CNN- Gitmo Judges Bars Pentagon Official from Trial -12 May 2008

AFP- Guantanamo Ruling Challenges Upcoming Trials- 12 May 2008