Court Slaps Government Over Use Of Torture Evidence

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/04/21/court-slaps-government-over-use-of-torture-evidence

Court Slaps Government Over Use Of Torture Evidence
By: bmaz Wednesday April 21, 2010 9:33 pm

You might not know it from the asleep at the wheel major media, but the Bush/Cheney war on terror foundation has taken some serious hits recently, from news of the murder of Gul Rahman at the Salt Pit, to the selective prosecution of David Passaro, to the finding by Judge Walker that the wiretapping was illegal, to widely acclaimed terror pros Steve Kappes and Phil Mudd both suddenly bailing from their high ranking intelligence jobs. You can add to the list a hard slap down by a Federal Court of the government’s continued use of bogus evidence obtained by brutal torture to try to justify continued detention of detainees at Guantanamo.

On Wednesday, Judge Henry H. Kennedy of the DC District Court issued his written opinion in the Habeas Petition by Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman, and it is a testament of what it looks like when a legitimate court encounters the unconscionable torture and innuendo evidence the US Government, under both the Bush and Obama Administrations, has been relying on to hold the detainees at Gitmo.

Uthman had been captured in the Afganistan/Pakistan border region (allegedly in the general area of Tora Bora, although that was never established) with a large group of others all rounded up en masse. Uthman claims he was a teacher innocently traveling, the DOJ asserted he was a key bodyguard for bin Laden. The evidence proffered against Uthman came almost exclusively from two other detainees, Sharqwi Abdu Ali AI-Hajj and Sanad Yislam Ali Al Kazimi, who both assert they fabricated the statements in response to severe torture.

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The DOJ shamelessly attempted all types of circuitous and bootstrapped argument to try to buck up the tortured proof they were passing and the court properly called them on it at every turn. The decision is only twenty pages long and is a quick read; it is worth it to see just how many layers of unsupported and flimsy innuendo the government, through those beacons of ethical virtue at the Obama DOJ, will ply a court with and maintain a presumably straight face. It is stunning.

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Also critical to keep in mind is the fact that the burden of proof in a Habeas proceeding is only a civil one of “preponderance of the evidence”; commonly accepted to mean anything at all more than 50%, i.e. anything that makes the asserted proposition more likely than not. It is the lowest possible burden of proof. Judge Kennedy couldn’t find the government was even close to the mark on the lowest possible scale in a civil case. Just think what this says about the ability of the government to meet any criminal burden of proof such as “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman has been being held by the US government in brutal captivity at Gitmo since January of 2002 – over eight years – based on evidence that would not be sufficient to convict him of a parking ticket. And then remember that, as one of the far less than 200 detainees remaining at Guantanamo, Uthman is supposed to be one of the worst of the worst and that the government has a solid case on. Thanks to the Bush and Obama Administrations, this is who we are now as a country. Any more questions as to why Lindsay Graham and the Obama Administration are fighting for military commissions?

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"Torture is a republicon family value."

- xVP Dickie 'Five Military Deferments' Cheney (R)

The finest thing he ever did in his entire miserable life was to tell Pat Leahy to go fuck himself. That was the very acme of his existence, a pitifully juvenile and low point for any self-respecting human being.

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