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The Defense Department issued a statement Thursday saying the case is not stalled. "Prosecutors in the Office of Military Commissions are actively investigating the case against Mr. al-Nashiri and are developing charges against him," the statement said.
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Perhaps they weren't quite ready to go to trial - maybe they had new evidence they needed to develop, or maybe they had evidence they either needed to further develop or redevelop because of how it was obtained, or maybe the reformed system of military commissions wasn't quite ready...or whatever.
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When have American politicians and statesmen not played politics with national security?
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Might not be just about the current administration - was this particular case a 2004 and 2008 election year political issue, too? Seems to me as if this one could turn into a real
'tar baby' kind of case. From June 2008:
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Captured in November 2002, Nashiri was held in secret custody by the CIA before his transfer to Guantanamo Bay in September 2006. It is unclear whether he and his lawyers will be able to question the CIA interrogators who conducted his harsh questioning and whether information elicited by that treatment will be admissible in the untested military commissions.
"The evidentiary issues will be resolved in the courtroom," he said. "The judge will make a final decision as to the validity of any piece of evidence."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...063000807.html
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And then there is this:
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Example Set by First Military Tribunal Case Has U.S. Wary
After working for a year to redeem the international reputation of military commissions, Obama administration officials are alarmed by the first case to go to trial under revamped rules: the prosecution of a former child soldier whom an American interrogator implicitly threatened with gang rape.
The defendant, Omar Khadr, was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan and accused of throwing a grenade that killed an American soldier. Senior officials say his trial is undermining their broader effort to showcase reforms that they say have made military commissions fair and just.
“Optically, this has been a terrible case to begin the commissions with,” said Matthew Waxman, who was the Pentagon’s top detainee affairs official during the Bush administration. “There is a great deal of international skepticism and hostility toward military commissions, and this is a very tough case with which to push back against that skepticism and hostility.”
Senior officials at the White House, the Justice Department and the Pentagon have agreed privately that it would be better to reach a plea bargain in the Khadr case so that a less problematic one would be the inaugural trial, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former officials. But the administration has not pushed to do so because officials fear, for legal and political reasons, that it would be seen as improper interference.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/28/us/28gitmo.html
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The wheels of Justice and so forth...but delay doesn't mean can't or won't.
And so it goes...
Richard
