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theweaselkingThe US government routinely failed to give detainees at Guantanamo Bay access to witnesses who might have helped them prove their assertions of innocence, saying it could not locate the vast majority of the witnesses the terror suspects requested at special military hearings.
Within a three-day span, a [Boston Globe] reporter was able to locate three of those witnesses in the case of one detainee. The Globe found two of them in Afghanistan, and located a third in Washington, D.C., where he is teaching at the National Defense University.
A Globe review of the transcripts of the hearings, which were released to the public in March, identified 34 detainees who convinced tribunal officials that their overseas witnesses would provide relevant testimony. But in all 34 cases, detainees were told at their hearings that their witnesses could not be found. Military investigators and State Department officials did not even contact witnesses who were well known to US authorities.
In one case, the State Department said that it could not locate Ismail Khan , the well-known minister of energy in Afghan president Hamid Karzai's cabinet, who meets frequently with American diplomats.
The military did not initially intend to allow detainees to challenge their status through hearings or to be able to call witnesses. But in June 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that prisoners at Guantanamo had to be given a chance to prove their innocence, either in US federal court or in special military hearings. To satisfy the court ruling -- and to keep the cases out of federal court -- the military quickly set up "Combatant Status Review Tribunals" in which detainees could challenge their status as "enemy combatants" and call witnesses who were "reasonably available."
The tribunals, which began in the fall of 2004 and concluded in early 2005, represented the only opportunity for the vast majority of detainees to call witnesses to try to prove contentions of mistaken identity or misinformation. (Only 10 detainees have been granted formal trials, which provide a second opportunity for a defense.)
Detainees' lawyers were barred from participating in the hearings.
Within a three-day span, a [Boston Globe] reporter was able to locate three of those witnesses in the case of one detainee. The Globe found two of them in Afghanistan, and located a third in Washington, D.C., where he is teaching at the National Defense University.
A Globe review of the transcripts of the hearings, which were released to the public in March, identified 34 detainees who convinced tribunal officials that their overseas witnesses would provide relevant testimony. But in all 34 cases, detainees were told at their hearings that their witnesses could not be found. Military investigators and State Department officials did not even contact witnesses who were well known to US authorities.
In one case, the State Department said that it could not locate Ismail Khan , the well-known minister of energy in Afghan president Hamid Karzai's cabinet, who meets frequently with American diplomats.
The military did not initially intend to allow detainees to challenge their status through hearings or to be able to call witnesses. But in June 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that prisoners at Guantanamo had to be given a chance to prove their innocence, either in US federal court or in special military hearings. To satisfy the court ruling -- and to keep the cases out of federal court -- the military quickly set up "Combatant Status Review Tribunals" in which detainees could challenge their status as "enemy combatants" and call witnesses who were "reasonably available."
The tribunals, which began in the fall of 2004 and concluded in early 2005, represented the only opportunity for the vast majority of detainees to call witnesses to try to prove contentions of mistaken identity or misinformation. (Only 10 detainees have been granted formal trials, which provide a second opportunity for a defense.)
Detainees' lawyers were barred from participating in the hearings.