Guantanamo/Detainees
Former Gitmo Chief Prosecutor to Testify in Driver’s Hearing Today
Posted Apr 28, 2008, 11:25 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Col. Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, is expected to testify for the defense in a hearing that begins today.
Lawyers for Salim Hamdan, the former driver for Osama bin Laden, asked Davis to testify because of his charges that the prosecution was being influenced by political considerations, the Wall Street Journal reports (sub. req.). The lawyers want the charges against their client thrown out, Reuters reports.
Davis quit his post last year after complaining that Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann should not be directing the prosecution while also providing advice to the administrator of the military commissions. Davis also told the newspaper that Hartmann had overruled his decision to bar evidence obtained by waterboarding.
The New York Times reported on Davis’ expected testimony in February.
The Wall Street Journal story reveals that Davis paid his college tuition by working as a bail bondsman and that he originally volunteered in 2001 to serve as chief defense counsel for the Guantanamo tribunals. "Everybody was so mad at that point, that I wanted to make sure this wasn't just gonna be a line 'em up and shoot them kinda process," he told the newspaper.
He didn’t get the job, and wasn’t appointed chief prosecutor until 2005. By then several Air Force prosecutors had resigned from the Guantanamo effort because they thought the process was unfair and prisoner-abuse complaints weren’t being addressed.
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