Gitmo judge removed from Canadian’s case

By MICHAEL MELIA

May 29, 2008 – 8:29 PM (ET)

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All right reserved. Â© 2008 IAC Search & Media. All rights reserved.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – A U.S. military judge at Guantanamo Bay who once acknowledged facing Pentagon criticism over one of his rulings was dismissed Thursday from the case of a Canadian detainee, a defense lawyer said.Army Col. Peter Brownback had presided over the tribunal’s proceedings against Toronto-born Omar Khadr since last year.The chief judge for the Guantanamo tribunals, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, dismissed Brownback and appointed a new judge for Khadr’s case without explanation, defense lawyer Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler said.In November, Brownback said in court that Defense Department officials “didn’t like” a ruling that dismissed the charges over a lack of jurisdiction. That decision was overturned on appeal. Khadr’s case has been on track to be one of the first to trial at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba. Khadr, the son of an alleged al-Qaida financier, was captured in Afghanistan at age 15 and accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces soldier. Military prosecutors have been pressing Brownback to set a trial date, but he has repeatedly directed them first to satisfy defense requests for access to potential evidence. At a hearing earlier this month, he threatened to suspend the proceedings altogether unless the detention center provided records of Khadr’s confinement. Kuebler said he believes the U.S. military is anxious for the trial to start before political pressure leads Canada to demand Khadr’s repatriation. A spokesman for the Pentagon office in charge of the tribunals did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080530/D90VKM500.html

Army Judge Is Replaced for Trial of Detainee

By WILLIAM GLABERSON

May 31, 2008

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

The chief judge at GuantÃ¡namo replaced the military judge in one of the most closely watched war crimes cases on Thursday, creating a new controversy in the military commission system and the potential for new delays. The decision to replace the judge, Col. Peter E. Brownback III, came without explanation from the chief military judge, Col. Ralph H. Kohlmann. Judge Brownback has been presiding over pretrial proceedings in the prosecution of Omar Ahmed Khadr, a 21-year-old Canadian charged with the killing of an American serviceman in Afghanistan. Pentagon spokesmen said Judge Brownback, a retired Army judge who was recalled to hear GuantÃ¡namo cases in 2004, would return to retirement as a result of “a mutual decision” between the judge and the Army. But defense lawyers and critics of GuantÃ¡namo said there had been no warning of the change and suggested that he had been removed because of a recent ruling that was a rebuke to prosecutors. During a proceeding on May 8, Judge Brownback expressed irritation that military prosecutors had failed to turn over records of Mr. Khadr’s incarceration to defense lawyers. He threatened to stop pretrial proceedings if the records were not supplied by May 22. They met that deadline. At the time, Judge Brownback said he had been “badgered and beaten and bruised” by the chief military prosecutor in the case, Maj. Jeffrey D. Groharing, to move the case toward a trial quickly. Mr. Khadr’s military defense lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler, on Friday called the replacement of the judge “very odd.” “The judge who was frustrating the government’s forward progress in the Khadr case,” Commander Kuebler said, “is suddenly gone.” A trial had been expected as soon as this summer. Major Groharing said on Friday that the prosecution had always acted ethically and “didn’t have anything to do with a new judge being assigned to this case.” Some of Judge Brownback’s rulings had been setbacks for Mr. Khadr, including a decision in April that rejected a central argument of the defense that Mr. Khadr, who was 15 when he was first detained, should not be prosecuted but granted protection as a child soldier. Jennifer Daskal, an observer for Human Rights Watch at GuantÃ¡namo, said the change of judges suggested “political meddling” in the process. In a terse e-mail message to a court clerk, Judge Kohlmann simply appointed a new judge, Col. Patrick Parrish. There are no listed telephone numbers for the chambers of GuantÃ¡namo judges and a spokesman for the Office of Military Commissions at the Pentagon, Capt. AndrÃ© Kok, said he could provide no way of reaching Judge Brownback.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/31/washington/31gitmo.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

