GUANTANAMO BAY — What started as a pretrial hearing to consider the use of female guards for alleged senior al-Qaida member Abd al Hadi al Iraqi quickly derailed and saw the defense demanding and winning more time.
Hadi al Iraqi has been a detainee at Guantanamo Bay since April, 2007. On Oct. 16, 2014, an emergency defense motion was filed by the defense to cease contact between female guards and Hadi al Iraqi at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
Hadi al Iraqi said because of his Muslim religious beliefs, he preferred that female guards not secure or remove his shackles when he is escorted to meet with his defense team, or when he goes to the courtroom.
As of now, detention camp leaders have been acting on an interim order from the judge, Navy Capt. J. Kirk Waits, to suspend physical contact between female guards and Hadi al Iraqi until the motion regarding female guards is discussed in court. Female soldiers are still able to escort Hadi al Iraqi to and from meetings, as long as there is no element of physical contact
At some point during the three-day pretrial proceedings, Waits was expected to rule on whether the detainee center would acquiesce to Hadi al Iraqi’s request for the remainder of his time at Guantanamo.
However, Marine Lt. Col. Tom Jasper, one of Hadi al Iraqi’s defense attorneys, claimed Tuesday the defense team wasn’t given access to important evidence such as names of witnesses and video recordings.
“Sounds like impeding contact of witnesses,” Jasper said in court, after outlining the process his team took to request relevant evidence almost a month in advance — and the lack of evidence provided to defense lawyers until the night before the pretrial hearings were set to begin.
Jasper explained that the prosecution had the opportunity to view relevant video content weeks before the motion was supposed to be discussed. The defense on the other hand, only watched the video depicting contact between Hadi al Iraqi and female guards two hours prior to court Tuesday morning.
Jasper and his defense team also cited a lack of identification of witnesses, and thus, an inability to contact the witnesses and set up meetings to prepare a defense.
In a typical case, Jasper said, he gets the witnesses phone numbers, calls them, introduces himself and gets to know them through questioning.
“We need more time,” Jasper said. We were “not given proper access or proper preparation time to defend Hadi al Iraqi.”
Army Lt. Col. David Long, a member of the prosecution, conceded that arguing a case on Guantanamo Bay “has been a learning process,” and, “there are logistics challenges.”
“All witnesses are operating in a highly classified environment,” Long said. The prosecution has a duty, “to safeguard information,” and take the proper steps to identify witnesses to the defense, even if it takes longer, he continued.
Hadi al Iraqi is charged with commanding al-Qaida insurgency efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, directing his fighters to kill all coalition soldiers with which they came in contact, and conspiring with Osama bin Laden. Throughout the proceedings, he was seen smiling and taking notes.
In the end, Waits, the judge in the proceeding, decided to postpone discussion on the motion to end contact between Hadi al Iraqi and female guards until the next scheduled pretrial hearings in late January.
“We would have litigated it this week if the prosecution had given the defense access to the evidence in a timely manner,” Waits said.
On behalf of the defense, Waits put it quite simply, “people need to get to the facts.”