Ex-military prosecutor backs Guantanamo legal challenge

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Ex-military prosecutor backs Guantanamo legal challenge
2 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A former US military prosecutor Tuesday backed a legal petition by a human rights group challenging the detention of Mohammed Jawad, held for more than six years at Guantanamo Bay.

US Army Lieutenant Colonel Darrel Vandeveld, who was the lead prosecutor on the military commission trying Jawad, said in a declaration there was "no credible evidence or legal basis" to justify Jawad's detention or prosecution.

"There is, however, reliable evidence that he was badly mistreated by US authorities both in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo," said the declaration, which Vandeveld filed in a Washington court in support of a habeas corpus petition by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

snip~
Together with Canadian Omar Khadr, the last westerner to be held at the Guantanamo Bay military camp in Cuba, Jawad is one of two prisoners being prosecuted by the US for acts allegedly committed when they were juveniles.



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