it sort of depends on your definition of the word trial. >Sounds to me like they are saying that these people will get trials though >the military justice system.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2006/10/14/2025168-cp.html Khadr's lawyer under U.S. military gag order By BETH GORHAM WASHINGTON (CP) - The U.S. military lawyer who represents Canadian Omar Khadr says he's been ordered not to speak to the media after his accusations of ongoing abuse at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba. "I'm not allowed to speak to anyone concerning the military commissions," Lt.-Col. Colby Vokey said in a telephone interview Saturday. Asked who issued the gag order, Vokey said: "I can't even tell you that." Vokey filed a military complaint about abuse last week. He attached a sworn statement from his paralegal, Sgt. Heather Cerveny, that said she talked to several Guantanamo guards who bragged about beating detainees. Muneer Ahmad, a criminal defence lawyer who also works on Khadr's case, said Vokey and Cerveny were ordered Friday by the U.S. marines not to speak to media organizations. A marines spokeswoman said Saturday she'd have to look into the matter before commenting. She later said the chief defence counsel of the Marine Corps, Col. Carol Joyce, directed Volkey not to communicate with the media on this case pending her review of the facts. "This is necessary to ensure all actions of counsel are in compliance with regulations establishing professional standards for military attorneys," said 1st Lt. Blanca Binstock. "This is a really troubling development," said Ahmad. "I think it really compromises his ability to represent his client. He needs to talk about it in order to do his job." Vokey could be facing jail for dereliction of duty if he doesn't obey the order, said Ahmad, adding he will likely talk next week with the ethics committee of the California state licensing board to determine his options. "At every turn, it's a kind of information control," said Ahmad. "It's revealing of the structural flaw in the system." Cerveny visited Guantanamo last month and said she spent an hour with some guards at the military club. "From the whole conversation, I understood that striking detainees was a common practice," she wrote in her complaint. "Everyone in the group laughed at the others' stories of beating detainees." They stopped talking about it, she said, when they found out she worked on Khadr's legal team. Her allegations, said Ahmad, are consistent with Khadr's descriptions of abuse. "Here is strong evidence supporting the claim of Col. Vokey's client of ongoing abuse at Guantanamo," said Richard Wilson at American University's law college. "By ordering him to be quiet, the military is preventing Col. Vokey from fulfilling his ethical obligations as a lawyer," said Wilson, who's also on Khadr's legal team. Khadr, 20, has been in U.S. custody since he was picked up in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old. He's charged with murdering an American medic in a July 2002 firefight. He has told his lawyers he's been beaten, held for long periods in stress positions and locked up in solitary confinement for months at a time. The U.S. Southern Command based in Miami launched an investigation Friday into the abuse allegations. "I don't know if there's reason to have confidence in that or not," said Ahmad. President George W. Bush is expected to sign a new bill next week on the special military commission system for detainees in the war on terror held at the U.S. base in Cuba. "This is more than a coincidence," said Ahmad. "Sgt. Cerveny's sworn statement reveals exactly what is wrong with the new law. It permits the abuse of detainees to continue, it immunizes wrongdoers and it strips the courts of the power to ever hear complaints of such abuse. "The president wants us to believe there never was abuse at Guantanamo and that there isn't abuse now. Sgt. Cerveny's statement shows that just isn't true." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Introducing the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update. 80 pages of hard-hitting, up-to-date ColdFusion information by your peers, delivered to your door four times a year. http://www.fusionauthority.com/quarterly Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:217503 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
