The Talking Dog has an interview with Joshua Dratel, defence lawyer for David Hicks, an Australian citizen held at Guantanamo Bay. The interview had some interesting nuggets in it:
Talking Dog: Any reason why Mr. Lindh was charged with a crime, whereas, for example, Yasir Hamdi, also a citizen, or Hicks, were denoted “enemy combatants” and not charged, while Zaccarias Moussaoui WAS charged? Has any of this ever been explained?
Joshua Dratel: It seems that the only “overt distinction” is that by original design, citizens are not eligible for the military commissions. Of course, they never made a distinction there in the case of Moussaoui– his case seemed to be the product of a debate betweeh the Departments of Justice and Defense as to which should prosecute him, and at that time, the criminal justice people prevailed. They have not, apparently, prevailed since.
In addition to Jose Padilla, as citizen unlawful combatants, a man named Al-Mari is still being detained in a brig in South Carolina; he’s represented by Larry Lusberg of the Gibbons firm in New Jersey. That case is completely off the radar.
[…]
Talking Dog: Can you briefly summarize what you in particular find unfair about the military commission process at Guantanimo?
Joshua Dratel: Basically, there are no rules. The Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs court-martials — that’s been thrown out. No standards at all. Total arbitrariness. No efforts at anything resembling fairness. Let’s start with evidence and proof. People don’t know this, of course. The government’s “proof” consists entirely of interrogators reading from reports of their interrogations– without any basis to challenge the underlying accounts of witnesses, such as the witnesses themselves (who have frequently been shipped out of Guantanamo) or their interpreters, or the conditions under which the statements were taken, which were frequently, to put it politely, “coercive.” Just statements from the detainees themselves– regardless of whether obtained from abuse, or coercion, even rising to torture. In the commissions, you simply can’t challenge them– you don’t have access to the witnesses.