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Department of Justice Reverses Course, Rejects Use of Evidence Obtained by Torture in Guantánamo Death Penalty Case [1]
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Date: 2023-10
In what one analyst described as “an important step to restore the rule of law,” the U.S. Department of Justice has pledged not to use statements obtained by torture in its Guantánamo Military Commissions prosecution of Abd Al-Rahim Hussein Al-Nashiri. Al-Nashiri is accused of masterminding the Al Qaeda suicide bombing of the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors in October 2000. The U.S. government is seeking the death penalty against him.
In a brief filed January 31, 2022, the Department of Justice said, “The government recognizes that torture is abhorrent and unlawful, and unequivocally adheres to humane treatment standards for all detainees. … [T]he government will not seek admission, at any stage of the proceedings, of any of petitioner’s statements while he was in CIA custody.”
That promise “should be unremarkable,” former National Security Council and U.S. State Department legal adviser Tess Bridgeman wrote in a February 1, 2022 commentary in Just Security, given U.S. human rights obligations under the U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. However, it represented a dramatic departure from pleadings filed by former military commissions chief prosecutor Brig. Gen. Mark S. Martins, in which U.S. authorities claimed that the federal Military Commissions Act permitted the consideration in pretrial proceedings of evidence obtained by torture.
Al-Nashiri’s lawyers filed a petition in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit In October 2021 seeking to bar prosecutors from presenting “torture-derived evidence” in any proceedings in his case. Human rights experts called the U.S. government’s response to the motion “a ‘moment of truth’ for the Biden Administration on torture.”
Although the Department of Justice’s filing does not prevent future administrations from attempting to use evidence obtained through torture in other military commission cases, prosecutors told the court that they had reviewed prior ex parte submissions in the case and discovered a prior order “predicated on evidence admitted in violation of” the prohibition against torture. The government said it would “move promptly to correct” that error.
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[1] Url:
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/department-of-justice-reverses-course-rejects-use-of-evidence-obtained-by-torture-in-guant%C3%A1namo-death-penalty-case
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