Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
February 15, 2008 Lawyers for Osama bin Laden's driver can question alleged al Qaeda leaders at Guantanamo, a judge ruled.
By Carol Rosenberg
Overruling government objections, a military judge has agreed to let lawyers for Osama bin Laden's driver send written questions to Khalid Sheik Mohammed and six other alleged senior al Qaeda captives in seclusion at Guantánamo, according to a decision made public Thursday.
Navy Capt. Keith Allred gave the U.S. government until Tuesday to set up an independent security arrangement to help lawyers for Salim Hamdan gather evidence they say could exonerate their client. Hamdan, a 36-year-old Yemeni with a fourth-grade education, is facing trial by military commissions at the remote U.S. Navy base.
At issue is whether captives identified as the senior leadership of al Qaeda can say whether the $200-a-month driver was among those who plotted the suicide attacks on the 1998 U.S. embassies in East Africa, on the USS Cole off Aden, Yemen, in October 2000 and the 9/11 attacks.
If he wasn't part of the plot, his lawyers say, he should be found innocent of overarching conspiracy charges. They sought face-to-face interviews with the alleged al Qaeda leaders.
The prosecution argues that Hamdan need not have belonged to the cells that plotted the attacks to have been part of the conspiracy to kill Americans.
In a five-page ruling disclosed by the defense Thursday, Allred ordered the government to assign an independent security officer -- with no ties to the prosecution -- to review the defense lawyers' written questions.
The questions would then be translated by an independent linguist with national security clearances. If Mohammed and the other men reply, their answers would likewise be translated and subjected to a security officer's scrutiny to censor out national security secrets.
Allred limited questions to the captives' duties between 1996 and 2001, when the government alleges Hamdan was a co-conspirator as a driver and sometime bodyguard for bin Laden. They can describe what they did and what their al Qaeda roles were, what they know Hamdan did and the ``relationship between Hamdan and the leaders of al Qaeda, including whether he was planning a conspiracy or a common criminal enterprise to conduct attacks against the West.''
Permissible questions don't include where the men were held or how they were treated in three-plus years of secret CIA custody before their September 2006 transfer to the base at Guantánamo.
The Bush administration considers those details to be national security secrets, which is why 15 former CIA captives are now kept in seclusion at Camp 7 apart from the other 260 detainees at the prison camp.
Navy Cmdr Rick Haupt, the prison camps' spokesman, said Thursday that he was unaware of Allred's order and would inquire whether those responsible for Camp 7 would be able to implement it.
February 15, 2008 Lawyers for Osama bin Laden's driver can question alleged al Qaeda leaders at Guantanamo, a judge ruled.
By Carol Rosenberg
Overruling government objections, a military judge has agreed to let lawyers for Osama bin Laden's driver send written questions to Khalid Sheik Mohammed and six other alleged senior al Qaeda captives in seclusion at Guantánamo, according to a decision made public Thursday.
Navy Capt. Keith Allred gave the U.S. government until Tuesday to set up an independent security arrangement to help lawyers for Salim Hamdan gather evidence they say could exonerate their client. Hamdan, a 36-year-old Yemeni with a fourth-grade education, is facing trial by military commissions at the remote U.S. Navy base.
At issue is whether captives identified as the senior leadership of al Qaeda can say whether the $200-a-month driver was among those who plotted the suicide attacks on the 1998 U.S. embassies in East Africa, on the USS Cole off Aden, Yemen, in October 2000 and the 9/11 attacks.
If he wasn't part of the plot, his lawyers say, he should be found innocent of overarching conspiracy charges. They sought face-to-face interviews with the alleged al Qaeda leaders.
The prosecution argues that Hamdan need not have belonged to the cells that plotted the attacks to have been part of the conspiracy to kill Americans.
In a five-page ruling disclosed by the defense Thursday, Allred ordered the government to assign an independent security officer -- with no ties to the prosecution -- to review the defense lawyers' written questions.
The questions would then be translated by an independent linguist with national security clearances. If Mohammed and the other men reply, their answers would likewise be translated and subjected to a security officer's scrutiny to censor out national security secrets.
Allred limited questions to the captives' duties between 1996 and 2001, when the government alleges Hamdan was a co-conspirator as a driver and sometime bodyguard for bin Laden. They can describe what they did and what their al Qaeda roles were, what they know Hamdan did and the ``relationship between Hamdan and the leaders of al Qaeda, including whether he was planning a conspiracy or a common criminal enterprise to conduct attacks against the West.''
Permissible questions don't include where the men were held or how they were treated in three-plus years of secret CIA custody before their September 2006 transfer to the base at Guantánamo.
The Bush administration considers those details to be national security secrets, which is why 15 former CIA captives are now kept in seclusion at Camp 7 apart from the other 260 detainees at the prison camp.
Navy Cmdr Rick Haupt, the prison camps' spokesman, said Thursday that he was unaware of Allred's order and would inquire whether those responsible for Camp 7 would be able to implement it.