Judge Bars Pentagon Official from Guantanamo Trial

A military judge in the trial of Osama bin Laden’s driver has barred the Pentagon official who oversees the military commissions at Guantanamo from participating in the case.

Capt. Keith Allred ruled that the official, Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, was too closely aligned with the prosecution, the New York Times reported on Saturday. The Times calls the ruling “a new blow to the Bush administration’s troubled military commission system.” The Wall Street Journal quotes defense lawyers who say the ruling could apply to every prosecution at Guantanamo and the issue is sure to resurface in other trials, including the prosecutions of detainees accused in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Defense lawyers for the driver, Salim Hamdan, had contended Hartmann had a conflict of interest because of his dual role supervising prosecutors and providing legal advice to the commissions administrator. Bolstering that contention, the former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo, Col. Morris Davis, had testified in Hamdan’s case that Hartmann had micromanaged prosecutors and sought to hurry along high-profile cases for their “strategic political value.”

The Penatagon is considering asking Allred to reconsider his ruling, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told the Wall Street Journal.