Colonel Morris Davis, the Chief Prosecutor in Guantanamo has an Op-Ed in todays NY Times. In it he addresses some of the criticism of Guantanamo. In short, he reaffirms how the reality of Guantanamo is a far cry from what critics claim Guantanamo is. (Full Disclosure, I have served as a consultant to Colonel Davis, providing legal research support). In the piece Colonel Davis:
- Details how Camp X-Ray photos still find their way into the papers five years after the temporary detention facility closed. A point I have detailed with photos here. He also details the quality of the facilities, and how they rival those in many U.S. prisons.
- Addresses the criticism of the military commission process and discusses the judicial guarantees provided by the military commisisons.
- Directly challenges the repeated assertion that the accused can be excluded from his trial in a “secret proceeding” and be convicted on “secret evidence.”
- Addressing evidence obtained by coercion and hearsay evidence he admits that the challenge is determining what constitutes coercion and how much coercion is too much. He takes responsibility for the final decision on the evidence. Importantly, Colonel Davis has publicly commented and has reaffirmed to me that he would not allow evidence derived from torture– and the MCA would not permit it.
- Takes on the critics regarding the admission of hearsay, highlighting that hearsay is present in “United Nations-sanctioned war crimes tribunals, including the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The Nuremberg trials also did not limit hearsay evidence.”
