Former Gitmo Prosecutor Ordered Not To Testify

By Cernig

Yeah, and Dubya is sooo ignorant of the frantic administration scurrying to keep evidence of torture safely in the closet.

TPMmuckraker:

When Col. Morris Davis stepped down as the Pentagon's chief war crimes prosecutor in October, the reason given seemed to be a somewhat bureaucratic one. He stepped down, it was reported, "in a dispute over whether Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, legal advisor to the administrator overseeing the trials, has the power to supervise aspects of the prosecution."

But in an op-ed in today's Los Angeles Times, Davis is crystal clear. "I felt that the system had become deeply politicized and that I could no longer do my job effectively or responsibly," he writes.

It's a taste of what he would have said had he been allowed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning, during its hearing on the rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees. But Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) announced at the beginning of the hearing that the committee had invited Davis to testify, but that "the Defense Department has ordered him not to appear."

..."We assured the administration that Colonel Davis would not be asked about open and pending cases," Feinstein said. "But we were told simply that Colonel Davis was active duty military, and because he was active duty military, they could issue an order he had to follow."

In Davis' op-ed, he gives as reasons for his resignation: control of the military commissions at Gitmo by political appointees, a rigged trial system and being over-ruled on the inadmissability of evidence obtained by torture.