Another Guantánamo military officer condemns prisoner tribunals

According to an October 27 report in the British Independent newspaper, the officer’s criticism emerged when lawyers investigating the case of a Sudanese hospital administrator uncovered a sworn statement from the military panel member. One of the lawyers, William Teesdale, told the Independent that the evidence overwhelmingly suggested that Adel Hamad, who has been held by the US for five years, had no ties with Al Qaeda. “Mr. Hamad is an innocent man, and he is not the only one in Guantánamo.”

The officer, the paper said, “was so frightened of retaliation from the military that they would not allow their name to be used in the statement, nor to reveal whether the person was a man or a woman.”

The Associated Press reported on October 5 that the whistleblower, an Army major, said that in six cases panel members unanimously declared detainees were not enemy combatants, only to have superior officers order new hearings in which the findings were reversed.

According to the Independent, “The major also described ‘acrimony’ during a ‘heated conference’ call from Admiral McGarragh, who reports to the Secretary of the US Navy, when the panel refused to describe several Uighur detainees as enemy combatants.”

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