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| Iraq | ||
| US Plans Case Against AP Photographer | ||
| 2007-11-19 | ||
| H/T Drudge Remember this guy? He was the one that took those pics of the big bomb in Baghdad a few years ago, and AP got an award for it! I remember there was lots of talk about camera angles, etc. (At least I think this is the same guy! May be an assumption of mine. Was quite a dust-up when it happened. Lots of "denying" by the AP The U.S. military plans to seek a criminal case in an Iraqi court against an award-winning Associated Press photographer but is refusing to disclose what evidence or accusations would be presented. An AP attorney on Monday strongly protested the decision, calling the U.S. military plans a "sham of due process." The journalist, Bilal Hussein, has already been imprisoned without charges for more than 19 months. A public affairs officer notified the AP on Sunday that the military intends to submit a written complaint against Hussein that would bring the case into the Iraqi justice system as early as Nov. 29. Under Iraqi codes, an investigative magistrate will decide whether there are grounds to try Hussein, 36, who was seized in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on April 12, 2006. Dave Tomlin, associate general counsel for the AP, said the defense for Hussein is being forced to work "totally in the dark." The military has not yet defined the specific charges against Hussein. Previously, the military has pointed to a range of suspicions that attempt to link him to insurgent activity. The AP rejects all the allegations and contends it has been blocked by the military from mounting a wide-ranging defense for Hussein, who was part of the AP's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo team in 2005.
The AP says various accusations have been floated unofficially against Hussein and then apparently been withdrawn with little explanation. Tomlin said the AP has faced chronic difficulties in meeting Hussein at the Camp Cropper detention facility in Baghdad and its own intensive investigations of the case—conducted by a former federal prosecutor, Paul Gardephe—have found no support for allegations that he was anything other than a working journalist in a war zone. "While we are hopeful that there could be some resolution to Bilal Hussein's long detention, we have grave concerns that his rights under the law continue to be ignored and even abused," said AP President and CEO Tom Curley. "The steps the U.S. military is now taking continue to deny Bilal his right to due process and, in turn, may deny him a chance at a fair trial. The treatment of Bilal represents a miscarriage of the very justice and rule of law that the United States is claiming to help Iraq achieve. At this point, we believe the correct recourse is the immediate release of Bilal." Calls for his freedom have been backed by groups such as the Committee to Protect Journalists. Tomlin said it remains unclear what accusations, evidence and possible witnesses will be presented by military prosecutors in Baghdad. "They are telling us nothing ... We are operating totally in the dark," said Tomlin, who added that the military's unfair handling of the case is "playing with a man's future and maybe his life." Although it's unclear what specific allegations may be presented against Hussein, convictions linked to aiding militants in Iraq could bring the death penalty, said Tomlin. U.S. military officials in Iraq did not immediately respond to AP questions about what precise accusations are planned against Hussein. Previously, the military has outlined a host of possible lines of investigation, including claims that Hussein offered to provide false identification to a sniper seeking to evade U.S.-led forces and that Hussein took photographs that were synchronized with insurgent blasts. The AP inquiry found no support for either of those claims.
Gardephe, now a New York-based attorney, said the AP has offered evidence to counter the allegations so far raised by the military. But, he noted, that it's possible the military could introduce new charges at the hearing that could include classified material. "This makes it impossible to put together a defense," said Gardephe, who is leading the defense team and plans to arrive in Baghdad next week. "At the moment, it looks like we can do little more than show up ... and try to put together a defense during the proceedings." One option, he said, is to contend that the Pentagon's handling of Hussein violated Iraqi legal tenets brought in by Washington after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Among the possible challenges: AP claims that Hussein was interrogated at Camp Cropper this year without legal counsel. Hussein is one of the highest-profile Iraqi journalists in U.S. custody. In April 2006—just days before Hussein was detained—an Iraqi cameraman working for CBS News was acquitted of insurgent activity. Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein was held for about a year after being detained while filming the aftermath of a bombing in the northern city of Mosul. Tomlin, however, said that freedom for Bilal Hussein, who is not related to the cameraman working for CBS, isn't guaranteed even if the judge rejects the eventual U.S. charges. The military can indefinitely hold suspects considered security risks in Iraq. "Even if he comes out the other side with an acquittal—as we certainly hope and trust that he will—there is not guarantee that he won't go right back into detention as a security risk." | ||
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #8 There is at least one element of AP's (and other media agency's) public approach to this and similar cases that is dishonest - characteristically dishonest, which only serves to confirm doubts about their good faith and sense of responsibility. That is the usually implicit assertion (here made explicit by one of their lawyers) that "due process" in this situation bears any resemblance to a normal US civilian criminal court. My impression is that the US has struggled a bit in Iraq in its attempt to bring as much "due process" as possible to what is clearly a war, an emergency situation, not a normal peace-time situation. Among other things, the attempt to involve the regular Iraqi judiciary has been complicated by that institution's devastation during the Ba'athist dark ages, not to mention the extreme levels of violence and intimidation in many areas. You've probably all heard the stories of clearly guilty "insurgents" being sprung by Iraqi magistrates or judges to the amazement and anger of Coalition troops who risked their behinds to capture the SOBs. As I recall the suspect in question here was literally detained in the presence of very important bad guys - if nothing else an extremely damning bit of prima facie evidence of illegal activities. When I think about it the public behavior of several news agencies WRT detained journalists, or journalists killed or wounded by Coalition fire during combat, sort of encapsulate the intellectual dishonesty that underlies much of their "coverage": while the Coalition struggles to achieve its security objectives (and bring services and opportunity for renewal to Iraqis), while battling an utterly barbaric enemy, allied with a sometimes weak and evolving Iraqi security force, the press relies on dubious or worse locals out of neccessity but then applies peace-time standards to incidents that arise from the conflict. In other words, they're having it many different ways at once, and sometimes they switch back and forth. On a tangentially related matter, I heard somewhere that TIME had apologized for some aspect of its involvement in the Haditha case. I've been wondering about the senior public affairs officer I know who was an early contact on this, and how he feels about the court martial process (so far) not just finding no guilty Marines but in most cases producing scathing rejections of the charges at the Article 32 stage. |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2007-11-19 22:33 |
| #7 Likely the information came during the course of questioning. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2007-11-19 21:59 |
| #6 No, Nimble. Since most of the former Anbar insurgents have amnesty now, there is no deal to be made. The amnesty doesn't apply to agents of the foreign media, though, since they don't admit to supporting terrorists in the first place. |
| Posted by: Angique Gonque2974 2007-11-19 21:54 |
| #5 Do they get a better deal that way? |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2007-11-19 21:22 |
| #4 LGF is on the case. Since Bilal is from Fallujah, I'm guessing that some of his former terrorist friends are among the insurgents who have come over to the allies, and they have provided the goods on him. |
| Posted by: Angique Gonque2974 2007-11-19 20:51 |
| #3 put him in a basket and dip in Tigris for 10 minutes I was always enamored of the old Roman method where—before being thrown from a high river bridge—convicted felons were first bound and then tied inside of a large sack along with a dog, a cat and a full grown rooster. It must have made for a rather strenuous last few minutes. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-11-19 20:48 |
| #2 I would suggest a variant of medieval trial--put him in a basket and dip in Tigris for 10 minutes. If he does not drown, he's guilty. |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2007-11-19 18:53 |
| #1 Bilal Hussein had an uncanny knack for showing up just before seemingly random attacks. WHERE IS BILAL HUSSEIN? And Associated Press and the Bilal Hussein case The military said Hussein was captured with two insurgents, including Hamid Hamad Motib, an alleged leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. “He has close relationships with persons known to be responsible for kidnappings, smuggling, improvised explosive device (IED) attacks and other attacks on coalition forces,” according to a May 7 e-mail from U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Jack Gardner, who oversees all coalition detainees in Iraq. “The information available establishes that he has relationships with insurgents and is afforded access to insurgent activities outside the normal scope afforded to journalists conducting legitimate activities,” Gardner wrote to AP International Editor John Daniszewski. And this: The military said bomb-making materials were found in the apartment where Hussein was captured but it never detailed what those materials were. The military said he tested positive for traces of explosives. Get the rope. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-11-19 17:58 |