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From Chief Prosecutor To Critic at Guantanamo

Now, this ought to give all those sceptics more than food for thought! Especially in relation to David Hicks and all that his "case" entailed.

The one-time Chief Prosecutor at Gitmo has gone across to the other side - and in the process slammed the process of which he played such an integral part, in a leading role, at one time.

The Washington Post reports:

"The Defense Department's former chief prosecutor for terrorism cases appeared Monday at the controversial U.S. detention facility here to argue on behalf of a terrorism suspect that the military justice system has been corrupted by politics and inappropriate influence from senior Pentagon officials."

And:

"Davis said he wants to wait until the cases -- and the military commissions system -- have a more solid legal footing. He also said that Defense Department general counsel William J. Haynes II, who announced his retirement in February, once bristled at the suggestion that some defendants could be acquitted, an outcome that Davis said would give the process added legitimacy.

"He said, 'We can't have acquittals,' " Davis said under questioning from Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, the military counsel who represents Hamdan. " 'We've been holding these guys for years. How can we explain acquittals? We have to have convictions.' "

And even more:

"But he said that top military officials went around him when he was chief prosecutor, for example, to negotiate plea agreements, and that politicians forced him to press charges against Australian David Hicks even though he would have rather gone after other suspects first. When Hicks struck a secret plea deal that brought his release, Davis said he was not a party to it."

In Australia The Age reports this latest revelation this way:

"Any doubt that David Hicks was charged with war crimes for purely political reasons has been removed, his father and his lawyer say.

The former chief prosecutor of the US military commissions at Guantanamo Bay said overnight he would not have pursued Hicks because the case against the Australian was not serious enough."

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