Guantanamo judge scolds detainee for dressing badly

Another excerpt from the kangaroo court.

Apparently, the judge was unimpressed that a man who had been held without charge and without access to the outside world for 5 years arrived at the hearing in his prison uniform:

GUANTANAMO Bay detainee David Hicks fronted a US military commission hearing earlier this year in a shapeless prison shirt and baggy trousers, his hair long and unkempt.

His style did not impress the presiding judge, US Marine Colonel Ralph Kohlmann.

Colonel Kohlmann indicated that Hicks, who stood accused of supporting terrorism and attempted murder, would be better off in a suit and tie, or casual smart attire. It matters what you wear to a terrorism trial, apparently.

From the Kangaroo Court: if at first you don't succeed...

From the court that brought you a plea bargain so secret, the prosecutors didn't even know about it, comes an even more ingenious legal theory. If a tribunal accidentally finds the accused not guilty, just try again.

If Pentagon officials disagree with the result of a hearing, they order a second one, or even a third, until they approve of the finding.

Detainees’ lawyers say the issue of the repeated hearings offers the starkest proof that the Pentagon set up a system of military tribunals not to find the truth about the detainees but to ratify its own conclusion that the military had seized the right people.

Another aspect to the case in the appeals court that has caused public debate involves the government’s request that the court tighten restrictions on lawyers for the detainees. One proposal would have limited the number of visits the lawyers could make to Guantánamo, a request that the Justice Department withdrew Friday.

As set up by the Pentagon, the tribunals do not permit detainees to have lawyers at the hearings or to see much of the evidence against them.

Oddly, Paul Wolfowitz, famous for helping to plan the Iraq war and for the current World Bank scandal, was involved in this decision too.

h/t ThinkProgress

Guantanamo tribunal continues to be run like a Kangaroo Court

The credibility of the military tribunal system set up at Guantanamo Bay has sunk so low that they're now offering reduced sentences as a reward for promises of silence.

David Hicks will be out of jail on New Year's Eve after an extraordinary plea bargain that meant whatever jail term he was given, he would serve only nine months.

He won the shorter term in a pre-sentence deal that appears to ensure his silence until after the Australian federal election.

After more than five years in custody in Guantanamo Bay, he will be back in Australia before the end of May to serve the balance of his term.

He will remain in jail until after the election, due by the end of this year.

In return [for his reduced sentence], he made concessions, including agreeing not to talk to the media for a year. He also promised not to allege mistreatment in US custody, despite earlier claims that he was abused.

The ban on talking to the media appears to have been suggested by the Australian Government, as it would be unconstitutional in the US.

"It is clearly a political fix arranged between Mr Howard and the Bush administration to shut up Hicks until after the election in November," Senator Brown said.

h/t Shaun Mullen