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Military Judge Denies Obama Request to Suspend Hearings at Gitmo

by René | January 29, 2009 at 02:03 pm

70 views | 17 Recommendations | 8 comments

A military judge in Guantanamo Bay today denied the Obama administration's request to delay proceedings for 120 days in the case of a detainee accused of planning the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole warship, an al-Qaeda strike that killed 17 service members and injured 50 others.

The decision throws into some disarray the administration's efforts to buy time to review individual detainee cases as part of its plan to close the U.S. military prison at the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba. The Pentagon may now be forced to temporarily withdraw the charges against Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi citizen of Yemeni descent.

Nashiri is facing arraignment on capital charges on Feb. 9, and Judge James Pohl, an Army colonel, said the case would go ahead.

An interesting perspective on this thorny problem:

Most people conveniently forget that Congress has twice addressed the structure of military tribunals, the last time in a Democrat-run Congress and on a bipartisan basis. Those laws allow for review by federal courts on appeal and remain in force. The judges should act on the laws at hand, not rumors of new policy coming down the pike. If all courts acted on that basis, trials would never take place.

The Obama administration can withdraw charges, but to do so while keeping Nashiri detained will be tantamount to holding him without charge — which is what Democrats disliked about Gitmo in the first place. They could release him outright, but since Nashiri is one of the masterminds of the attack on the USS Cole, which killed 17 American sailors, it would be political suicide to do so. Setting the murderer of American service members free would not only send a terrible signal to the terrorist networks, it would also enrage the rank and file in the military.

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158

at 20:38 on January 29th, 2009

Good. Trials should go forward while Obama decides what to do.

René

at 22:18 on January 29th, 2009

"The Commission is unaware of how conducting an arraignment would preclude any option by the administration," Pohl wrote in an opinion obtained by The Washington Post. "Congress passed the military commissions act, which remains in effect. The Commission is bound by the law as it currently exists, not as it may change in the future."
The decision was lauded by some survivors of the attack on the Cole, who said it illustrated the independence of the military judiciary at Guantanamo.

Barry Artiste

at 13:33 on January 30th, 2009

Boy someone is going to PO the President

Barry Artiste

at 13:34 on January 30th, 2009

Ya cant go against your commander in chief, isn't that an military offence to the penalty box?

René

at 14:28 on January 30th, 2009

But he has to follow the law too. His 'commands' are not law, Barry. Chalk it up to an extreme inexperience. What? He thought being President was the same as being King?

"Congress passed the military commissions act, which remains in effect. The Commission is bound by the law as it currently exists, not as it may change in the future."

Roy C

at 00:00 on January 31st, 2009

Obama had begun to believe his own propaganda, his demagoguery, in the campaign. Reality has begun to trump him.

Frankly, this is all Bush's fault, though. We should have declared war on Al Qada, and then built POW camps and held them there until the end of the war, naturally without trial.

Or we could have set up a prison in Afghanistan and let them be "in charge" while we provided the muscle and the intelligence to keep it running.