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Home Front: WoT
Qahtani calls US God's foe
2006-04-26
Companion to the other article on Qahtani below.
A Saudi charged with being part of an al Qaeda bomb-making cell branded the United States an enemy of God and rejected its right to try him in a military tribunal Tuesday. Jabran Said bin al Qahtani, an electrical engineer captured at an al Qaeda safe house in Pakistan in March 2002, appeared for a pretrial hearing near the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, wearing the beige prison garb given to detainees classed as "compliant."

But when questioned by the hearing's presiding officer, Navy Capt. Daniel O'Toole, Qahtani said he wanted no part of the tribunal and refused to accept the military defense lawyer assigned to his case. "I don't want an attorney. I don't want a court," said Qahtani, a father of two in his late 20s, with bushy dark hair and a shaggy beard.

"A nation that is an enemy of God is not a leader and cannot be a leader," added the detainee, who spoke through a court translator. "You judge me and you sentence me the way you want, if this is God's will."
Hokay.
Qahtani, who at times fidgeted in his seat next to the defense lawyer, Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles, said he would prefer to be killed than cooperate. He warned the court that perhaps "God would provide me with rescue, and then you will regret everything."

After a recess, Qahtani did not reappear in court. His lawyer said Qahtani decided to boycott the proceedings because he denied the legitimacy of the tribunals and would not return unless physically forced to attend.

Broyles then challenged O'Toole's right to hear the case, saying the presiding officer had shown himself an advocate of the prosecution in earlier rulings, including orders that have kept Qahtani from seeing evidence against him. "Those acts were acts inappropriate to an impartial officer," the defense lawyer told a visibly riled O'Toole, who later ruled himself fit to preside.
Not being a lawyer, I can't hazard a guess on how it will play for the defense to attack and mock the tribunal leader.
Qahtani is one of three detainees who face tribunal hearings this week. His alleged co-conspirators are Sufyian Barhoumi, an Algerian citizen, and another Saudi named Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi. All three who face proceedings this week were captured by Pakistani forces at a house in Faisalabad. The U.S. military says former al Qaeda operations director Abu Zubaydah gave them the job of making hand-held remote-control bomb detonators of a kind later used against U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Qahtani's attorney has said he intends to challenge evidence against his client, which he believes was obtained through torture and cannot be used under a formal Defense Department directive issued last month.
No evidence of that, but it will make the NYT.
Rejection of the tribunal system is emerging as a common tactic among detainees. Barhoumi, who is charged with training Qahtani and Sharbi on electronic detonators, could also boycott his hearing Wednesday, his military attorney said.
Hokay, boycott and be damned in your absence.
Posted by:Dan Darling

#1  Shoot him three times in the face with a 12-gauge shotgun loaded with #4 shot and throw him in the ocean. If he survives, it's God's will. If he doesn't, then it's God's will.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2006-04-26 20:24  

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