Speaking of the law
December 28th, 2007, 7:17 am · Post a Comment · posted by fsherman
After my last post, here’s a less cheery legal story.
Some of you may be familiar with the case of Bilal Hussein, an Associated Press photographer who was seized by the military and held for 19 months without charges, but lots of assertions Hussein had ties to insurgents.
Finally, recently, charges were filed and Hussein will go on trial in an Iraqi court.
Writing at Harper’s, Scott Horton interviews a Pentagon source (anonymous, I should note) who says that the U.S. military is stacking the deck to ensure a conviction: Assigning a team of five American attorneys to the prosecution (even though they have no authority to prosecute in an Iraqi court); telling the judge to prevent Hussein’s lawyer from participating in the trial; refusing to allow the attorney access to his client; and presenting witnesses’ testimony by long-distance camera to prevent cross-examination. And barring the media from the trial to keep all of this under wraps.
Unsurprisingly, the judge said before any evidence had been presented that he favored conviction.
Funny, I could have sworn we said we wanted to introduce the rule of law into Iraq …
