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A The federal court of appeal on Wednesday overturned judicial decisions handed down for several years in a terrorism case in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which focused on the deadly bombing of the United States. Cole in 2000.
A huge setback for an affair that has already suffered significant delays, the US Court of Appeals circuit DC has issued orders made by Air Force Colonel Vance Spath – the judge who supervised for years the procedures of the military commissions against the alleged Al Qaeda. MP Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri – must be expelled.
The panel of three judges cited the undisclosed conflicts of interest of Spath over the years, during which he had held an immigration judge position with the Department of Justice while concealing that fact from the defense. Therefore, every decision on his part since he's applied for the job is now canceled. The judges of the Court of Appeal stated that Spath's actions gave an "appearance of disqualifying bias".
Al-Nashiri, 54, is the suspected brain of the bombing against the United States. Cole in the Gulf of Aden in Yemen on October 12, 2000, which killed 17 US sailors and injured 39 others. Al-Nashiri, a Saudi citizen, was captured by US forces in 2002, interrogated for four years in the CIA's "black sites" around the world. It has been held since 2006 at Guantanamo Bay.
"We do not take lightly the crimes that Al-Nashiri is accused of committing. On the contrary, the seriousness of these alleged offenses and the gravity of the sentence they may entail make the need for an irreproachable arbitrator all the more important, "said Judge David Tatel, writing to the 39, unanimity for the appeal panel of the court of appeal.
In making this decision, Tatel stressed that "the government is seeking to impose the ultimate sentence on Al-Nashiri".
Spath has chaired the al-Nashiri case since July 2014 and applied on November 19, 2015 to the Immigration Control Office of the Department of Justice. He never revealed this fact to the defense even though his actions could be seen as part of a job interview. The Court of Appeal pointed out that Spath had made his role of judge in the al-Nashiri proceedings an important part of his candidacy, and that he was declaring to the Department of Justice that he had been "Hand-picked by Senior Air Force Lawyer, Trial Judge". "For" the military commission procedures for the alleged brain of "Cole's bombing". "Spath's candidacy has only been revealed through an application under the Freedom of Information Act.
Spath saw himself offer an immigration judge position for the Department of Justice, but had complications due to the timing of his retirement from the army. It was during this period that he engaged in a violent dispute with Al Nashiri's defense lawyers who wanted to withdraw.
In the summer of 2017, Al-Nashiri's legal defense team consisted of four lawyers. Richard Kammen was a very experienced defense lawyer in many cases in the capital. Mary Spears and Rosa Eliades, who have been involved in this case since 2015, were civilian employees of the Ministry of Defense. And Navy Lieutenant Alaric Piette, charged with defending al-Nashiri a few months earlier. All reported to Brig. General John Baker, senior defense attorney of the Organization for the Defense of Military Commissions.
The defense team expressed concern over the "confidentiality of Guantanamo meeting spaces", exacerbated by the discovery of a hidden microphone (described by the Department of Defense as a "non-functional" conventional microphone). Spath rejected the requests of the defense team. Searching for answers, after which Kammen, Spears and Eliades asked Baker to leave the case, which he did, leaving only Piette, who had extremely limited experience in capital punishment cases.
Spath spent the end of 2017 and early 2018 fighting to force Eliades and Spears to take over the business.
As Tatel says, "the two secondary intrigues of Spath's story" – the candidacy for a post and the battle with defense lawyers – "reached their conclusion the week of February 12, 2018." On Monday this week, Spath ordered Eliades and Spears to appear by videoconference the next day. On Tuesday, Eliades and Spears said they would not do it and Spath responded by ordering the draft attachments to have both of them stop. On Thursday, he said that he would "think about it overnight." But, as Tatel said, "he was pondering a different important decision on Thursday night," when a human resources specialist from the Executive Bureau of the Immigration Review gave go-ahead to Spath dates, saying that he could start with them on July 8, 2018. He said that he would come back this weekend and that he would call Tuesday.
Spath "indefinitely" put an end to the prosecution of the military commission against al-Nashiri the next morning.
Tatel also explained how the Military Commission Review Court played a role in Spath's alleged cover-up. The Military Commission Review Court responded to requests for information from al-Nashiri's lawyers by "calling reports" unsubstantiated claims "and arguing that[d]The motion for defense gives no reason to believe that the former presiding military judge applied for a position [Justice Department] or even contacted the [Justice Department] concerning employment. "
But, as Tatel pointed out, "less than a week later, however, a photograph of the Associated Press showed that Spath was standing next to the Attorney General. [Jeff] Sittings at a welcome ceremony for new immigration judges. "
Tatel has overturned all the decisions rendered by the Military Commission Revision Court.
"Criminal justice is a shared responsibility," Tatel said in the decision. "Yet, with the exception of Al-Nashiri's defense lawyer, all elements of the system of military commissions – from the prosecution team to the Department of Justice in through the CMCR and the judge himself – have failed that responsibility. "
What will happen next in the al-Nashiri case is unclear, but it is a huge setback for prosecutors.
The Al-Nashiri case is not the only terrorism case to be tried in Guantanamo Bay. Other al-Qaeda members, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, are also being held there.
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