Comments on: Uncertainty Surrounds Fate Of Young Afghan Detainee http://pubrecord.org/torture/3049/uncertainty-surrounds-young-afghan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=uncertainty-surrounds-young-afghan Intrepid New Journalism Wed, 23 May 2012 23:20:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: lowwall http://pubrecord.org/torture/3049/uncertainty-surrounds-young-afghan/comment-page-1/#comment-138 lowwall Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:23:59 +0000 http://pubrecord.org/?p=3049#comment-138 "While Jawad confessed that he had committed the crime, he told U.S. officials that he did so only because his captors had tortured him." This greatly understates what really happened: the judge in the military tribunal heard all the prosecution's arguments and ruled that all of Jawad's "confessions" were obtained through torture and were inadmissible. Since the prosecutors had no evidence except for the confessions, this would have been the end of the case so they appealed the military judge's ruling. Through various twists and turns this is how it ended up in front of Judge Huvelle. She also found the confessions were inadmissible, but gave the government additional time to come up with some real evidence and stated she was ready to try this case on its merits. Despite having had over 6 years to investigate this matter, prosecutors still had no evidence which is why they did not oppose the judge's order to release Jawad. We can only hope that now this is out of the hands of the faith-based military prosecutors (as opposed to evidence-based, remember that the original military prosecutor in this case quit because he did not believe that Jawad was guilty), the grown-ups in the DOJ will take an unbiased look at the case and send this kid home without any further delays. “While Jawad confessed that he had committed the crime, he told U.S. officials that he did so only because his captors had tortured him.” This greatly understates what really happened: the judge in the military tribunal heard all the prosecution’s arguments and ruled that all of Jawad’s “confessions” were obtained through torture and were inadmissible. Since the prosecutors had no evidence except for the confessions, this would have been the end of the case so they appealed the military judge’s ruling. Through various twists and turns this is how it ended up in front of Judge Huvelle. She also found the confessions were inadmissible, but gave the government additional time to come up with some real evidence and stated she was ready to try this case on its merits. Despite having had over 6 years to investigate this matter, prosecutors still had no evidence which is why they did not oppose the judge’s order to release Jawad.

We can only hope that now this is out of the hands of the faith-based military prosecutors (as opposed to evidence-based, remember that the original military prosecutor in this case quit because he did not believe that Jawad was guilty), the grown-ups in the DOJ will take an unbiased look at the case and send this kid home without any further delays.

]]>