Boston Globe: Factual errors cited in cases against detainees

[Eugene]

Factual errors cited in cases against detainees

Lawyers demand new trial system at Guantanamo

By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | July 14, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The US military's accusations against detainees at Guantanamo Bay contain
factual errors and some easily disproved assertions, according to declassified records,
raising questions about whether the US military has thoroughly investigated its cases
against the roughly 400 inmates.

For instance, one detainee is accused of belonging to an Al Qaeda cell "circa 1998,"
according to the summary of evidence prepared for his hearing. But Pentagon records show
the detainee was born in 1986, making him 11 or 12 in 1998.

In another case, a detainee stands accused of attending a terrorist training camp in July
2001. But copies of pay stubs show he was a chef in London at the time.

Defense lawyers say the cases underscore the need for new judicial procedures at Guantanamo,
as the Bush administration grapples with a Supreme Court ruling that struck down the system
of military trials at the base.

<snip>

Full article: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/07/14/factual_errors_cited_in_cases_against_detainees
(Boston Globe - free reistration may be required)

[Kutjara]

1. I guess BushCo never thought they'd ever have...

...to make cases against these people, so they didn't bother going to the trouble of fabricating plausible evidence.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Absolutely shameful. How do they do it?

From the article:

One of the most visible errors became public in 2004, when three British detainees who had been accused of appearing in an Al Qaeda video in Afghanistan were released after the British government proved that they were in London at the time.

Defense lawyers say such errors are more widespread.
(snip)

In another case, military interrogators made significant translation mistakes when they first interrogated Mohamed el Gharani , one of Guantanamo's youngest detainees, according to his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith .

Gharani, whose name the US military spells ``Qarani," was only 14 when he was arrested in Pakistan in October 2001. He was later interrogated using a translator from Yemen who spoke a different dialect of Arabic than was spoken in his native Saudi Arabia, according to Gharani's lawyer.

``The word `zalata' in Yemen means money, but in his Saudi Arabian dialect, it means tomato," said Smith. ``They asked him, `When you went to Pakistan, where did you get your zalata?' and he tells them all these different shops where you could buy tomatoes in Karachi. They write them all down, thinking that this 14-year-old kid is a big financier who was able to get money from all these different places."
(snip)

I'm sure they remembered to torture this kid, too. Christ.