Guantanamo courts chief to testify about role in pace of hearings
By Lacey Johnson FORT MEADE, Md. (Reuters) - A military commander overseeing tribunals for al Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will testify on Wednesday about allegations he tried to use his influence to rush the proceedings forward. The allegations arose on Monday during a pretrial hearing for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi charged with orchestrating the 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. The attack killed 17 sailors. Defense attorneys accused the prosecution of exercising “unlawful influence” to bring their client’s case to a conclusion more rapidly, potentially sacrificing justice. Judge Air Force Colonel Vance Spath responded by ordering the top Pentagon official overseeing the war court, retired Marine Corps Major General Vaughn Ary, to testify about a prosecution memo citing high costs associated with the slow pace of proceedings at Guantanamo Bay. Ary is also accused of lobbying for a relocation order issued last month by Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work. The order requires military judges to live near the naval base in Cuba to shorten the distance needed to travel for hearings there. Defense attorney Navy Commander Brian Mizer said the relocation order and concerns about costs showed the military was seeking to “accelerate this litigation.” In a memo obtained by the Miami Herald, Ary said the tribunals he oversaw met for just 34 days in 2014, at a cost of $78 million. At that rate, the expense of proceedings was running $7,647 a minute, or $2.2 million a day, he wrote. “My concern is the impression that goes out to the public that trial judges don’t want to move these cases forward,” Spath said on Tuesday. He said pretrial hearings slated for the next two weeks had fallen behind schedule because of the unlawful influence allegations. Nashiri’s attorneys requested that Ary’s legal advisers also be called to testify, but Spath said he would not rule until he heard Ary’s testimony on Wednesday. Prosecutors have opposed compelling the testimony of military commanders and their legal advisors as witnesses. The hearing was monitored via closed-circuit television at Fort Meade, Maryland. (Reporting by Lacey Johnson; Editing by Ian Simpson and Peter Cooney)
