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New judge assigned to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed military commission trial

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The US military has assigned Army judge Col. Stephen Henley to preside over the the war crimes trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self proclaimed architect of the 9/11 attacks, according to a Miami Herald report. Henley replaces Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann whose announced retirement from the post of chief judge of the US military commissions was effective on Monday of this past week. Kohlmann had initially announced his retirement in September, but said then that it would not be effective until April 2009. Henley's first hearing is scheduled for Dec 8. Henley was first assigned as a military judge in 1998. In August, he ordered that military commissions legal advisor Gen. Thomas Hartmann not be allowed to participate in the Guantanamo trial of Afghan detainee Mohammed Jawad. Henley held that Hartmann had made public statements suggesting he was overly favorable to prosecutors despite the purported neutrality of his role. In October, Henley ruled that a confession given by Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohammed Jawad was obtained using torture and was inadmissible at his military commission trial. Henley found that Afghan officials threatened to kill Jawad and his family unless he admitted to throwing a grenade that injured three US soldiers in Kabul in 2002. He ruled that obtaining a confession using threat of death amounted to torture, and that under Guantanamo trial rules his confession is therefore inadmissible.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on November 23, 2008 (boomark / email).