SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A second Army officer who sat on the "enemy combatant" tribunals at Guantanamo has stepped forward to criticize the panels, saying in court papers released Friday the proceedings favored the government and commanders reversed some decisions.
The criticism, in an affidavit filed by attorneys for a Sudanese detainee, echo some charges made in June by Army Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, the first insider to publicly fault the proceedings.
At issue are the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, which the military held for 558 detainees at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in 2004 and 2005, with handcuffed detainees appearing before panels made up of three officers.
Detainees had a military "personal representative" instead of a defense attorney, and all but 38 were determined to be "enemy combatants" who could be held indefinitely without charges.
In the new affidavit, an Army officer whose name is redacted from a version provided to The Associated Press, says panels relied on insufficient evidence.
He also said in six cases the panels unanimously declared the detainee was not an enemy combatant - but commanders ordered new hearings and the finding was reversed without sufficient new evidence.
"This declaration shows beyond any doubt that the CSRT process is deeply flawed, fundamentally unfair, and ultimately just a sham," said Wells Dixon, an attorney for the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents dozens of Guantanamo detainees and provided a copy of the affidavit to the AP.
A Pentagon spokesman had no immediate comment on the affidavit, but military officials have consistently defended the tribunals and said they assured greater protections for people captured in wartime than have ever been provided.
Separately, the Pentagon announced Friday that the chief military prosecutor, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, has asked to be reassigned - a move that comes as the U.S. prepares to file charges and hold tribunals for about 80 men held at Guantanamo.
The military did not disclose areason for the prosecutor's decision. "We'd like to thank him for his service in the position while he held it," said spokesman Cynthia Smith.
The affidavit was filed in Washington by Steven Wax and William Teesdale, attorneys from the Federal Public Defender in Portland, Ore., on behalf of Adel Hassan Hamad, who was captured in Pakistan in 2002. He was accused in his tribunal of working for a nongovernmental organization that provided financial and logistical support to jihadists and of being associated with al-Qaida.
A later panel, an Administrative Review Board, found that Hamad could be released but he remains at Guantanamo, along with about 330 other men.
In previously filed court documents, his attorneys said Hamad, a father of four, worked in a charity hospital and has no involvement with terrorism and was not an enemy combatant.
The lawyers noted in those earlier court filings that military records showed an Army major who sat on the detainee's tribunal panel called Hamad's detention "unconscionable" and not based on sufficient evidence.
The Army major appears to be the same one who provided the new affidavit about the tribunals though Wax declined to comment on the affidavit or the officer.
The lawyers say in the affidavit they obtained permission from U.S. military authorities to interview an officer who sat on their client's proceeding. They also agreed not to release his name without his permission.
The officer is an Army reservist who has also worked as a criminal prosecutor as a civilian. He said he participated in 49 of the tribunal panels and that "training was minimal" and "the process was not well defined."
In his panels, the only witnesses who testified on behalf of detainees were other prisoners at the camp. There was no exculpatory evidence presented separately, as required by the rules, but some times it emerged accidentally because contradictory evidence would be presented.
He said there was "acrimony" at a meeting in which commanders discussed why some panels, considering the same evidence, would come to different findings on the Uighurs, members of a Muslim minority in China who want an independent homeland.
The officer said he suggested that inconsistent results were "good for the system ... and would show that the system was working correctly."
Front Section, Pages 4 on 10/07/2007