The former
chief prosecutor
for Guantánamo's military commissions has disclosed that the trials
have been rigged to prevent the possibility of acquittal.
Indeed, the current head of the Guantanamo tribunal that will
prosecute the defendants -- who is actually in charge of both
prosecuting
and defending
the suspects -- told the former chief prosecutor:
"Wait
a minute, we can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these
guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We
can't have acquittals, we've got to have convictions."
The head of the tribunal also said that -- even if the defendants
are somehow acquitted
--
they
may not be released from Guantanamo.
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No wonder the
American Bar Association, "which the Pentagon had said would
help arrange such representation, has
refused to participate because it objects to the trial procedures."
And no wonder the defense attorneys who have agreed to represent
the defendants say
that the process is completely unfair. See also this
interview.
The 9/11 prosecutions were
never supposed to be about truth or justice anyway.
The only two things the trials
will be good for are: (1) making a spectacle for
public consumption, like all good kangaroo court show trials
do; and (2) suppressing information the suspects wish to express
which is inconvenient for the government prosecutors.