Word: guant
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...military tribunals of terror suspects at Guantánamo suffered a serious legal setback this week - this time, not at the hands of any civilian judges but by the ruling of one of the military's own jurists. Navy Judge Captain Keith Allred, hearing the first U.S. military commission trial since World War II, tossed out statements by Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, because he believes they were obtained under "highly coercive" conditions. That doesn't bode well for future tribunals in cases where U.S. interrogators used even harsher techniques - such as the waterboarding used on confessed...
...Four and a half years later, Hamdan is still on Guantánamo, but Swift's prediction has proved correct. Hamdan is certainly famous. Not only was this Yemeni man, a former driver for Osama bin Laden with a fourth-grade education, at the center of what is perhaps the Supreme Court's most important decision on presidential power ever, he is now the first defendant in America's first war-crimes trials since World War II. Hamdan, in his late 30s, stands accused of providing material support for terrorism and conspiracy. If convicted, he could face life in prison...
...Hamdan was flown to Guantánamo Bay, where he became detainee No. 149. Soon after, he met Soufan, the FBI's foremost expert on al-Qaeda, who interrogated Hamdan repeatedly until December 2003, when President Bush chose him from among thousands of detainees in U.S. custody to be the first Arab defendant in the military tribunals...
...including testifying at the military commissions of other detainees. Together with a young constitutional law professor named Neal Katyal, Swift built a defense that delayed Hamdan's military tribunal for years as it gradually made its way through the courts. His lawyers' perseverance meant little to Hamdan. Officials at Guantánamo have characterized Hamdan as a problematic prisoner, a rabble-rouser who turns every order into a negotiation and incites his fellow inmates to acts of defiance. For this reason, he has spent much of his time in conditions tantamount to solitary confinement. Hamdan has blamed Swift for failing...
...shell of a man. He has deteriorated mentally to the point where he can no longer meaningfully assist in his own criminal defense. He is suicidal, hears voices inside his head and talks to himself. And yet his trial, which is taking place in a small courtroom at Guantánamo Bay, will still influence the future of the tribunal system. Under the rules of the tribunal, Hamdan faces a jury of military officers who will decide his innocence or guilt. Whether their decision is perceived as fair will go a long way toward determining if the military tribunals that...