Ethics

Pentagon Removes Judge from Gitmo Tribunals

By Ed Brayton

Here's a good way to judge the legitimacy of the quasi-courts set up at Gitmo: if the prosecution can simply remove the judge from a case when he issues a ruling they don't like, they're probably not legitimate. Check this out.

Providing more evidence of the illegitimacy of the Bush administration's fundamentally flawed military commission system, the Pentagon abruptly dismissed judge Army Col. Peter Brownback without explanation late yesterday from the case of Omar Khadr, a Canadian detainee. According to Khadr's lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, the timing of the judge's removal was suspicious because Brownback had recently threatened to suspend the case if prosecutors refused to hand over important records about Khadr's confinement to the defense lawyers.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on June 04, 2008 (boomark / email).