JAG CENTRAL

From the NY Times, Judge Rejects Detainees' Request ("A federal judge has sided with the Justice Department in one of the many lawsuits brought on behalf of prisoners asking the courts to prohibit any sudden transfers of detainees from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to other countries. The judge, Reggie B. Walton of Federal District Court, ruled that there was no need for a prohibition, saying that he accepted assertions by government lawyers in a case involving a handful of detainees that there were no plans for sudden transfers. Several judges have ordered the government to notify the lawyers of other detainees before transfers occur. The lawyers say their clients could face torture if sent to other countries.").

Army SPC Ian Boudreau, a journalist at Ft. Knox, KY, runs a blog called A Healthy Alternative to Work, where he often posts stories he is working on as well as other ruminations. Here, he links to a story he wrote for the Ft. Knox Turret covering the trial of SFC David Price, a senior Drill Sergeant convicted of horrible abuse of his subordinates:

A Fort Knox drill sergeant was convicted of multiple specifications of maltreatment of subordinates and one charge of obstruction of justice by a special court-martial held Monday on post at Pike Hall.

Sgt.1st Class David Price, formerly the senior drill sergeant of Company E, 1st Battalion, 81st Armor Regiment, 1st Armor Training Brigade, pleaded guilty to charges of making a trainee drink water until he vomited, then making the Soldier swallow his own vomit; maltreating a Soldier by striking him on the head with a rolled-up newspaper; and dragging a Soldier down a hallway by his ankles. The offenses, which are considered violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 92, occurred between Feb. 3 - 8 in the Company E barracks and day room.

Price was additionally found guilty of obstruction of justice, punishable under UCMJ Article 134, by the court martial, presided over by Lt. Col. Richard Anderson, the military judge for the court-martial. Anderson sentenced Price to a reduction in grade from E-7 to E-6, but Price will not serve any jail time.

Mainstream media often gets the facts wrong in court martial trials, and command media often waters the story down so much as not to be of use. However, this account is great. SPC Boudreau paints a great picture, witness by witness, of how the trial unfolded. What I really enjoyed was the insight into how drill sergeants in the unit believed that "training tools" were being taken away by the command, such as the prohibition of physical training as corrective action (i.e. dropping for push-ups when recruits screw up).

From the NY Times, Bosnian Serb Turns Himself In ("Vujadin Popovic, a Bosnian Serb army colonel accused of taking part in the killing more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys in Bosnia in 1995, flew to the Netherlands and handed himself over to the international tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He is the 13th Serb war crimes suspect to surrender to the court since October. Serbia's recent co-operation with the tribunal has earned approval from European Union officials, and they recommended this week that the bloc start talks with the country on an agreement that could eventually lead to membership.").

From the Washington Post, Army Sergeant's Diary Admitted at Trial.

Seven members of the House Armed Services Committee sent a formal letter ten days ago to the Chairman of the committee, Duncan Hunter (R) of California. The letter asks him to call hearings on the state of Congress's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy forbidding openly homosexual conduct from servicemembers. Note that all seven signatories of the letter are Democrats. According to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (an advocacy group for gay and lesbian servicemembers), 73 lawmakers, including 3 Republicans, are willing to vote for the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, a bill introduced a month ago that would repeal the ban on open homosexual conduct during service. No word from the Chairman's office on whether or not he will hold hearings.

SGT Hasan Akbar (News 14 Carolina)

From the AP (via News 14 Carolina), word that the military judge has ordered that SGT Hasan Akbar's diary be admitted:

A sergeant on trial for a grenade attack at an Army camp in the Kuwait desert days before the Iraq invasion wrote in his diary before he was deployed about killing fellow soldiers.

An FBI agent read four passages from Sergeant Hasan Akbar's computer diary Thursday.

Akbar wrote about making the choice to kill Iraqis, whom he called his Muslim brothers, or "my battle buddies."

He said in one passage that if the Army left him at Fort Campbell and didn't try to humiliate him, he wouldn't do anything.

But the passage ended by saying that if he was sent to Iraq, he would "try to kill as many of them as possible."

Akbar is charged with two counts of first degree murder and is eligible for a death sentence.

Prosecutors said the diary entries show he planned to kill soldiers and that his actions warrant a death sentence.

NOTE: Notice the picture above and the lack of a tie with SGT Akbar's Class A Uniform. Most likely, he had to forego wearing it because of a suicide watch or to prevent him from hurting others. Last week, he tried to overpower guards in the courtroom.

From the NY Times, Guantánamo Detainee's Suit Says Prison Guards Beat Him ("A lawsuit filed in federal court on Wednesday says guards at the Guantánamo Bay detention center beat a detainee frequently, leaving him with visible scars and partial facial paralysis. The suit, filed on behalf of Mustafa Ait Idir, an Algerian, is based on accounts that he gave his American lawyer on a recent visit to Guantánamo, in Cuba. Mr. Idir's lawyers said he told them that sometime in the spring of 2004 he was forcibly removed from his cell and that while he was shackled and lying on the ground, a guard jumped on his head. As a result, the suit said, Mr. Idir apparently suffered a stroke and has one side of his face paralyzed.").

From the Washington Post, Guantanamo Detainee Suing U.S. to Get Video of Alleged Torture.

From the AP (via USA Today):

Lawyers for six Bosnian detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp sued the U.S. government Wednesday, leveling new allegations of abuse and torture by U.S. forces there.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Boston, asks a judge to force the Department of Justice and Department of Defense to release information that would allegedly prove the torture of prisoners by American forces at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.

Lawyers for the six men — all Algerians with Bosnian citizenship — allege that repeated requests to release the information under the Freedom of Information Act have been ignored by the federal government.

Kenneth Anderson from the Law of War and Just War Theory Blog has this post on why the International Committee of the Red Cross is no longer a credible authority on the Law of War; it has bought into Euro-Decadence:

The essential problem here is not fundamentally the ICRC. It is that the debate and conversation over the rules of war has lost its element of reciprocity - those who propose to set the rules are no longer those who fight. The European states write many memos and hold many meetings on what the rules of war should be - but all they really mean by this is that they write many memos on how the US should behave. The ICRC participates in this charade by elevating mere statements, memos, resolutions, diplomatic statements, decisions of tribunals over actual state practice by states that fight wars while making serious efforts to obey the rules - i.e., the United States. The Western European states, Britain excepted, are really, in this matter of negotiating the rules of war, less like states than NGOs. They are free to propose any extravagant set of rules they feel like, knowing that it will never impede their military activities, because they have none. The United States, on the other hand, must continue to do what states traditionally have had to do in the rules of war - balance humanitarian requirements with military necessity. If you have no military necessities, you are not so much a state in these matters as an NGO; it costs you and your people nothing to impose rules on everyone else. The ICRC has bought into this model, and this will eventually bring - is bringing - an erosion of the legitimacy of the rules of war themselves.

From the AP (via Dateline Alabama):

An Army sergeant had grenades and 26 rounds of rifle ammunition on him when he was taken into custody after a middle-of-the-night attack at a camp in the desert of Kuwait, court-martial witnesses said Wednesday.

Sgt. Hasan Akbar, 33, of the 101st Airborne Division was found with three grenades stuffed in a bag designed to hold his gas mask and with 26 rounds in the 30-round magazine of his M-4 rifle, witnesses told jurors.

The jury also heard a stipulation, or agreement between the prosecution and defense, that the bullet that killed one victim came from a rifle bearing Akbar's fingerprints.
....
Agent Shawn Burke of the Army Criminal Investigation Division testified that he found three unexploded grenades in the bag - two incendiary grenades that emit intense heat and one fragmentation grenade that blows shrapnel on explosion. The bag is called a promask carrier by soldiers, short for protective mask carrier.

"Is there a name on this promask carrier?" asked Lt. Col. Michael Mulligan, the chief prosecutor.

"Yes sir. The name is Akbar," Burke said.

The 15 officers and senior sergeants serving as Akbar's jury heard testimony that four grenade safety pins were found near the three tents that were attacked, as were three shell casings.

They also heard lawyers stipulate that Akbar's fingerprints were on the M-4 rifle that fired the bullet that killed Seifert. Akbar's fingerprints also were on a generator that was shut off before the attack, darkening the area outside the tents.

Both sides also stipulated that a grenade fragment removed from Seifert's hand was from an M-67 grenade like that used in the attack. And they agreed that bullet fragments removed from Seifert's back came from a bullet fired by Akbar's weapon.
....
After testimony wrapped up Wednesday, prosecutors told the military judge overseeing the case, Col. Stephen Henley, they plan to introduce two passages from Akbar's diary they contend show he planned the attack. Prosecutors must prove premeditation for jurors to be able to consider a death sentence.

Defense lawyers asked Henley to require prosecutors to introduce three other diary sections at the same time. The judge told both sides to prepare briefs and be ready to argue the point before testimony resumes Thursday.

Two shameless blawg plugs today. The first needs no introduction to those in the blawg know. Blawg Review is a weekly round-up of the best of blawgs, often referred to as a "Carnival of the Blawgs." Every week, a different blawg hosts the Blawg Review; go to the Blawg Review site to see which site is hosting this week. I'm proud to note that JAG Central will be hosting the week of November 14, 2005.

The second is PerpWalk, a collection of mostly UNC Law students and would-be students. However, they have graciously invited my friend and former UCLA Law Review cellmate Matt Brown of Ichiblog to pen a few entries. Welcome back to blogging, Matt!

From the Washington Post, Interrogator Says U.S. Approved Handling of Detainee Who Died ("The dispute over the Bush administration's treatment of military detainees is playing out in a North Carolina courtroom, where a CIA contractor has asserted that his rough interrogation in 2003 of an Afghan who subsequently died was indirectly authorized by deliberations in Washington at the highest ranks of the Bush administration. A lawyer for David A. Passaro, the sole CIA worker to be indicted publicly as the result of a detainee's death in the war on terrorism, stated in court documents unsealed yesterday that he wishes to call the legal counsel to Vice President Cheney, two former senior Justice Department officials, former CIA director George J. Tenet and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales as witnesses in his defense.").

From News 14 Carolina:

Almost a dozen eyewitness accounts marked the second day of testimony in the court martial of Sergeant Hasan Akbar.
....
One officer said that Akbar admitted to him that he threw grenades into tents where soldiers were preparing for bed.
....
A number of witnesses testified to seeing Akbar on guard duty the day of the attack. Among the things Akbar watched over was a supply of hand grenades.

Master Sergeant Rodlon Stevenson testified to seeing Akbar shoot Army Captain Christopher Seifert in the back. Seifert was an intelligence officer with the 1st Brigade Combat team from the 101st Airborne Division. Seifert later died.
....
Many said on the stand that Akbar is a strange person, someone they say spent a lot of time walking back and forth, and would sometimes fall asleep on the job.

Throughout the testimony, Sergeant Akbar sat quietly. He is often seen writing on a piece of paper. And on some occasions he is seen smiling during testimony.

...when a United States Senator uses the word on television. Sen. Bill Nelson (D), Florida, appeared on this episode of MSNBC's Hardball, talking about his opposition to the John Bolton nomination to be Ambassador to the U.N.:

And this is just not who we want to send into the United Nations, when the United States ought to be reaching out to the rest of the world, instead of dissing them.

Fo' shizzle my nizzle.

SGT Hasan Akbar, after first day of testimony (AP via NY Times)

From the New York Times, Trial Opens for Sergeant Accused of Killing 2 Officers ("His mental condition is a central issue. His lawyers do not dispute that Sergeant Akbar, a member of an engineer battalion at Camp Pennsylvania in the Kuwaiti desert, ambushed three tents as their occupants got ready for bed on the night of March 23, 2003. But, the lawyers say, he was too mentally disturbed to have planned the attack, which also injured 14 people. Anticipating that defense argument, prosecutors promised to provide a "unique look into Sergeant Akbar's mind" through testimony and evidence, including his diary. "When he deployed, he was going to kill these soldiers," said Capt. John Benson, a member of the prosecution team."); Sergeant Guilty of Mistreating Recruits ("An Army drill sergeant who admitted to striking a recruit, dragging another by his ankles and forcing a third to swallow his own vomit was found guilty of maltreatment and obstructing justice, but will not face jail time, a military judge ruled. The drill instructor, Sgt. First Class David Price, 36, will have his rank reduced by a grade to staff sergeant, the military judge, Lt. Col. Richard Anderson, ruled after a court-martial at Fort Knox. Sergeant Price had faced up to a year in prison and a discharge for bad conduct. Three other drill sergeants under his command are charged in the incidents and face court-martial in May and June. A captain has also been charged with dereliction of duty for allegedly failing to stop the abuse.").

Army SGT Hasan Akbar listens to opening arguments in his murder trial (AP)

Breaking news on opening arguments in the trial of alleged "fragging" double murderer Army SGT Hasan Akbar (from the AP via ABCNews.com):

An Army sergeant on trial for an attack that killed two officers in Kuwait suffered from mental illness for years and could not have planned it, defense lawyers told a military jury during opening statements Monday.

Defense lawyer Maj. Dan Brookhart acknowledged Sgt. Hasan Akbar committed the March 2003 grenade and firearm attack, but said he was not capable of the premeditation required for his client to be eligible for the death penalty. He said his client's mental illness was triggered by his stepfather's sexual abuse of his sister.

A military prosecutor responded by telling the jury that evidence would show Akbar planned the attack, including his diaries and the disappearance of grenades from a truck Akbar had been assigned to guard.

Even by military standards, the opening arguments went rather quickly. Already, the first two witnesses have testified:

Air Force Capt. Mark Wisher, who lived in the same tent as Stone, testified that he heard someone at the entrance to the tent yell that there was an attack. Seconds later, "I heard something hit the wooden floor of our tent and then bounce. I've seen movies, Hollywood movies, and grenades sounded like that."

Wisher said he was blown through the air by the blast and both he and Stone were left covered in blood. Wisher was wounded on the right side of his body and suffered a collapsed lung, lacerated liver and punctured diaphragm.

He described Stone yelling for help as blood spurted from a neck wound. Despite his wounds, Wisher cradled Stone's head and said Stone looked up at him as his breathing became labored.

Lt. Col. Ken Romaine, the first officer to be attacked, said he was shot as he left his tent to see what was happening. The camp, normally well lit, was in darkness, he said.

"As I turned, I was shot," he said. "All I saw was a flash. I'd been shot through the hand. The bullet went through both hands and deflected down my left thigh."

From USA Today: Akbar Court Martial Begins ("The court martial of Sgt. Hasan Akbar opens today at Fort Bragg, N.C., on charges that he launched the March 2003 grenade attack that killed two officers at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait during the early days of the Iraq invasion. Akbar, 33, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder. He is the first soldier to stand trial for killing another soldier in wartime since the Vietnam era. Army Capt. Christopher Seifert, 27, and Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone, 40, died in the attack; 14 soldiers were injured. Akbar could get the death penalty.").

...that's the only way I can explain how I missed this article, Military Commissions, Then and Now, in Thursday's Wall Street Journal. It provides a terrific historical parallel between the commissions trying Japanese war criminals and today's military commissions:


Japanese Lt. Kei Yuri on Trial in 1946 (WSJ.com)

At U.S. military commissions convened at Yokohama, Japan, in the late 1940s, U.S. Army officers carefully reviewed the level of due process the enemy had afforded American prisoners, and harshly punished them for falling short of what the U.S. decided was required.

That history may now come back to haunt the Bush administration, as advocates for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, argue that, like Japan in World War II, the U.S. today is punishing prisoners without affording them sufficient due process.

UPDATE: Phil Carter at Intel Dump writes this lengthy post about this series of WSJ articles:

I suppose there is a final irony in all of this, which I alluded two in last week's Slate column on lawfare. As a nation, we have now committed ourselves to the spread of freedom and democracy throughout the world. Establishing the rule of law, and building democratic institutions, come part and parcel with this charter to spread freedom. We cannot embrace such things on the one hand, as we are in Iraq, while flouting the rule of law on the other, as we are in Gitmo. The world sees our inconsistency, and criticizes our policies as a naked, unprincipled grab for power. It's not enough to talk the freedom talk; you must also walk the freedom walk. And that means adhering to the rule of law in all contexts, such as treating captured enemy fighters according to established U.S. and international law. There is no evidence that giving these men a proper trial would somehow hurt national security; all the evidence suggests our political and moral standing would be enhanced if we treated these men according to the law. So why haven't we done so?

From the NY Times, Australia Uneasy About U.S. Detainee Case:

The Australian government, which has been one of the strongest supporters of the Bush administration's policy on the detention and prosecution of people suspected of being members of Al Qaeda, is growing uneasy with the handling of the case of one its citizens who has languished in the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay for more than three years.

In late March, the Australian ambassador to Washington went to the White House and Pentagon to express concerns about the status of David Hicks, 29, who has been at Guantánamo since January 2002, Australian and American officials said.

"We are very frustrated," a senior Australian official said. "The process is taking much longer than people might reasonably have expected."

"We don't want this guy in limbo forever," he added.

NOTE: For a long time, Mr. Hicks' detailed military attorney was Marine Major Michael Mori. I wrote this post about him, THIS MARINE HAS BALLS, on my old blog, which up to now has had the highest traffic of any post on any of my blogs. It's worth reading again.

In other NYT news, To Escape Trial, Hutu Rwandans Flee to Burundi ("Nearly 400 Hutu Rwandans have fled their country for Burundi in the past week in an effort to escape trials on charges stemming from the 1994 genocide, officials said Saturday.").