US Lawyers Ask Afghan Court to Help Gitmo Inmate

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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/05/25/world/AP-AS-Afghan-Guantanamo.html

U.S. military lawyers asked Afghanistan's highest court Monday to demand the release of a Guantanamo prisoner they say was only about 12 years old -- not 18, as the military maintains -- when he was sent to the detention center in Cuba.

Mohammed Jawad's lawyers say they are enlisting Afghan courts because President Barack Obama's decision to close Guantanamo and reconsider how detainees should be tried has indefinitely stalled their case in the United States.

''We were in a winning posture in the trial, so to now come along and change the rules in the middle of the game, who knows what's going to happen,'' said Marine Maj. Eric Montalvo, a Pentagon-appointed lawyer who deposited the petition at Afghanistan's Supreme Court on behalf of Jawad.

While attorneys for many other detainees say the Guantanamo trials offered little chance of acquittal, a judge in the Jawad case had dismissed key confessions and the chief prosecutor resigned after arguing unsuccessfully for a plea deal that would release the Afghan after a brief period of rehabilitation.