Posts by Nick Fiske

DOJ Preparing to Charge Six Blackwater Guards in Nisour Square Massacre
Posted by Nick Fiske, Jurist Legal News and Research on August 19, 2008 at 8:46 AM.

The U.S. Justice Department has sent so-called target letters to six Blackwater Worldwide guards involved in the September 16 killings of 17 Iraqi civilians, the Washington Post reported Sunday. Sources told the Post that the letters, which provide an opportunity for the recipients to contest grand jury evidence, indicate the Justice Department will likely seek indictments against at least some of the guards under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA). Indictments against the Blackwater employees under the MEJA would mark the first time that State Department contractors were prosecuted under the Act, which allows criminal charges to be filed against contractors working for the Department of Defense. The sources explained that a final decision on whether to indict the men may not be made until October. The Washington Post has more.

The Blackwater incident caused domestic outrage in Iraq and has prompted legal controversy in the US. In November, the New York Times and the Washington Post reported that an FBI investigation into the incident concluded that the shootings were unjustified and last month Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari announced that private security contractors operating in Iraq may be stripped of their immunity from prosecution under a U.S.-Iraqi agreement currently in negotiations. Advocacy group Human Rights First issued a report in January asserting that existing federal law is sufficient to prosecute private contractors using excessive violence in their overseas capacities, and that the U.S. government is to blame for failing to "develop a clear policy with respect to the accountability of private contractors for crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan." The report says that the MEJA could be extended to State Department contractors, but that the U.S. has failed to do so.

Guantánamo Defense Lawyers: Statements Obtained by Torture Should Be Barred
Posted by Nick Fiske, Jurist Legal News and Research on April 6, 2008 at 10:00 AM.

Lawyers for Guantánamo Bay detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan on Friday asked a military tribunal to bar the use of statements made by Hamdan that were allegedly obtained through the use of torture and requested that the court declare that Hamdan has been subjected to abusive interrogation techniques. Hamdan contends that he was subjected to prolonged periods of isolation and beatings at the hands of U.S. interrogators and that any statements he has made while in custody are unreliable. The motion argues that the use of these statements would violate the U.S. Constitution, international law and the 2006 Military Commissions Act, which allows evidence obtained through coercion to be introduced if it is reliable, but excludes the use of statements obtained through torture. A spokesman for the Pentagon denied the allegations and said that detainees are treated humanely.

Hamdan has been in U.S. custody since 2001 when he was captured in Afghanistan and accused of working as Osama Bin Laden's driver. In 2006 he successfully challenged President George W. Bush's military commission system when the Supreme Court ruled that the commission system as initially constituted violated U.S. and international law. Congress subsequently passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, but Hamdan and a number of other Guantánamo detainees have argued that the current law still violates their rights. Last month, a military judge affirmed a prior ruling that Hamdan's lawyers may send written questions to Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other alleged high-level al Qaeda detainees to facilitate the discovery of evidence on the issue of whether Hamdan was an al Qaeda agent who conspired in the USS Cole or September 11 attacks. The New York Times has more.

Iraqi Court Overturns Conviction of U.S. Citizen Facing Death Penalty
Posted by Nick Fiske, Jurist Legal News and Research on March 2, 2008 at 8:45 PM.

An Iraqi appeals court on Friday overturned the conviction and death sentence of Mohammad Munaf, a U.S. citizen and former translator charged with orchestrating the kidnapping of three Romanian journalists held for 55 days in Iraq in 2005. Munaf's lawyer said that the charges were dismissed after the court could not determine the role that Munaf and several other defendants played in the kidnappings from the evidence contained within the record. Following his conviction in 2006, Munaf sought to prevent U.S. forces from handing him over to Iraqi custody and he is now part of an ongoing Supreme Court case that will decide whether U.S. citizens held by U.S. forces in Iraq can challenge their detention and block their transfer. It was not immediately clear whether the Iraq court's decision would affect the Supreme Court case.

Munaf has argued that the Iraqi trial violated his due process protections as a U.S. citizen because he was not confronted with the evidence brought against him, and he was prevented from presenting his own exculpatory evidence. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in April that it lacked authority to interfere with the Iraqi court case, however, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case in December. AP has more.

Gitmo Ex-Prosecutor to Testify for Defense in Military Trial
Posted by Nick Fiske, Jurist Legal News and Research on February 22, 2008 at 11:33 AM.

Former Guantanamo Bay chief military prosecutor Col. Morris Davis told the AP Thursday that he has agreed to appear as a defense witness in the military commission trial of Guantanamo detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan. In October 2007, Davis resigned from his position at Guantanamo Bay, saying that politics were interfering with the prosecutions process. In a Wednesday interview with The Nation, Morris alleged that Pentagon general counsel William Haynes told him that none of the detainees could be acquitted, implying that the tribunal process may be rigged. Hamdan's lawyers plan to argue at a preliminary hearing in April that this alleged political interference violates the rules governing war crimes trials established by the 2006 Military Commissions Act. AP has more.

In October 2007, Davis told the New York Times that he was pressured to use classified evidence against defendants in closed war crimes trials for detainees. Also in October, Davis said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that Guantanamo prosecutions were becoming politicized. Davis said that recently approved rules governing prosecutions at Guantanamo Bay result in the chief prosecutor reporting [PDF memo text] via the Legal Advisor to the Convening Authority to the Pentagon general counsel [PDF memo text], a presidential appointee. Davis said he filed an internal complaint about this structure, but the complaint was rejected.