Judge Tosses Torture-marred Confession

[unhappycamper]

Judge Tosses Torture-marred Confession
November 21, 2008
Associated Press

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A U.S. military judge has blocked Pentagon prosecutors from using a Guantanamo prisoner's statements to U.S. authorities as trial evidence, saying they were tainted by an earlier confession tortured out of the suspect by Afghan officials.

Mohammed Jawad's confession to U.S. authorities in Afghanistan following his capture in 2002 was the last incriminating statement available to prosecutors for the Afghan's war-crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay, his military defense attorney, Air Force Maj. David Frakt, said Nov. 20.

The Nov. 19 dismissal of Jawad's confession in U.S. custody decimates the government's case against the Afghan prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, according to the former prosecutor, who quit several weeks ago in a dispute over the handling of the case.

"It's not the death knell of the case - it buries the case," said Darrel Vandeveld, a lieutenant colonel in the Army reserves. "The commissions at this point are utterly lifeless."

Jawad, now about 23, is scheduled to face trial Jan. 5 on charges that he threw a grenade that wounded two American Soldiers and their Afghan interpreter. He was 16 or 17 at the time of the 2002 attack in Kabul.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/judge-tosses-torture-marred-confession.html?col=1186032310810