High-quality prints of historic sites and events, cityscapes , sports venues and more.
WASHINGTON - An Army officer who criticized the Bush administration's "enemy combatant" hearings at Guantanamo Bay does not understand the process and did not back up his claims, the Justice Department said Friday.
Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, a 26-year veteran of military intelligence who served on the tribunals, said in court documents last month that the tribunals relied on vague and incomplete information while being pressured to rule against detainees, often without any specific evidence.
"What were purported to be specific statements of fact lacked even the most fundamental earmarks of objectively credible evidence," Abraham said in the affidavit, which represented the first criticism by a tribunal member.
The Justice Department responded in federal court documents Friday, saying Abraham's affidavit "reflects a fundamental misunderstanding" of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals. Government attorneys said Abraham did not back up his "innuendo" that the process was slanted.
Abraham said he was not allowed to review information from other agencies, but the Justice Department said that's not part of the process. The tribunal is set up to review the best relevant information provided by intelligence agencies after broad searches, not to conduct its own hunt through reams of documents, the government said.
The military held Combatant Status Review Tribunals for 558 detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2004 and 2005, with handcuffed detainees appearing before panels made up of three officers. Detainees had a military "personal representative" instead of defense attorneys, and all but 38 were determined to be "enemy combatants."
The fact that 38 detainees were released shows the process was impartial, the Justice Department wrote. "In the middle of a war," government attorneys wrote, more than 200 Defense Department officials spent months providing an unprecedented review of foreigners being held at Guantanamo Bay.
Abraham, the government wrote, has "lost sight of what the CSRT process is all about."
Latest Stories in this Section
No comments:
Post a Comment