Head of Guantanamo trials resigns.

William Haynes is the architect of these military trials. He was not supposed to reveal that they are designed so as to ensure convictions. If anyone ever had the slightest faith in these trials this event should disabuse them of that. Of course



Head of Guantanamo trials resigns

By Steven Edwards
Canwest News Service
Monday, February 25, 2008
NEW YORK - The Pentagon official overseeing the planned military trials of Canadian Omar Khadr and other terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba resigned Monday - just days after a published report alleged he'd insisted there be no acquittals.
As General Counsel at the U.S. defence department, William J. Haynes was a leading architect of the military commission system U.S. President George. W. Bush ordered established in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.
But his alleged backroom insistence the commission produce only convictions provoked a rush of commentary - much of charging it proved the trials will be a sham.
"I am sorry to see Jim leave the Pentagon," U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in Washington. "I have valued his legal advice and enjoyed working with him. Jim held this important post longer than anyone in history and he did so during one of America's most trying periods."
Haynes' alleged comments appeared in an interview Nation magazine conducted with Col. Morris Davis, who resigned last October as the commission's chief prosecutor, citing political interference.
"I said to (Haynes) that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process," Davis was quoted as saying about an August 2005 meeting the two men had.
"At which point, his eyes got wide and he said, 'Wait a minute, we can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? . . . We've got to have convictions.'"
The Pentagon has disputed Davis's recollection of the conversation, and denied there is any connection between the Nation article and Haynes' resignation, which takes effect next month.
"Mr. Haynes discussed his interest in returning to the private sector with the Secretary of Defence some months ago," said spokeswoman Cynthia O. Smith. "Mr. Haynes was recently presented with an excellent opportunity and he and his family decided to take (it)."
Haynes' departure makes little difference for Khadr's prospects before the commission, his U.S. military lawyer, Navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, told Canwest News Service.
"Whether or not Mr. Haynes is managing the commission, it is still the process he helped to create," Kuebler said.
"Consistent with his comments, it is designed to produce convictions of the presumptively guilty."
Kuebler spoke from Ottawa where, earlier in the day, he had joined opposition MPs in calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to intervene on behalf of Khadr.
"The Guantanamo Bay military commission process does not provide a fair trial. It is a political process," he said.
A military judge will rule soon on Kuebler's recent bid to have the charges against Khadr - who was 15 when U.S. forces seized him on an Afghan battlefield - dropped on grounds the commission isn't designed to try child soldiers.
"All (other) children taken to Guantanamo were ultimately released to be reintegrated back into the societies of their home countries - including a 14-year-old Afghani boy who was responsible for the death of a U.S. serviceman," Kuebler said.
Kuebler argued the United States has held onto Khadr on suspicion he has "intelligence value." Khadr's father, Ahmed Said Khadr, had been an al-Qaida operative close to Osama bin Laden before being killed in a U.S. air raid.
But Pentagon spokesman J.D. Gordon said the litany of charges against Khadr warrant his detention and eventual trial as an adult. He is accused in a grenade attack that left a U.S. serviceman dead.
"Omar Khadr is charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and spying, all in violation of the Military Commissions Act," he said.
"Canadian law and U.S. law both provide that a person of Khadr's age alleged to have committed such offences can be tried as an adult . . . If Khadr is found guilty, however, age may be relevant at sentencing."
Barring a successful motion to dismiss, Khadr is scheduled to go on trial in May.
© Canwest News Service 2008