By Cernig
A military lawyer assigned as a defending counsel in the Gitmo trails has made a sworn affadavit that he saw documentation instructing interrogators to destroy their notes to stop them potentially being used to highlight the mistreatment of detainees.
William Kuebler, a lieutenant commander who is defending Omar Khadr, a Canadian national facing trial for alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, said the classified instructions were included in an operations manual he was allowed to see by prosecutors last week.
The apparently wilful and officially sanctioned destruction of notes meant he would be unable to challenge supposed confessions given by Khadr, Kuebler said yesterday.
He told reporters the instruction was contained within a US military manual of standard operating procedures, or SOPs, for interrogators that was shown to him during a pre-trial review of possible evidence.
"The mission has legal and political issues that may lead to interrogators being called to testify � Keeping the number of documents with interrogation information to a minimum can minimise certain legal issues," the document was cited as saying in an affidavit signed by Kuebler.
The navy lawyer now plans to seek a dismissal of charges against 21-year-old Khadr, who was detained in Afghanistan aged 15.
Khadr, who faces a series of charges including murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a US special forces soldier in 2002, is set to be one of the first Guant�mo detainees to face a war crimes trial.
Kuebler said the way the interrogations were carried out was central to Khadr's case because prosecutors were relying largely on testimony obtained from him at Guant�mo, and earlier at Bagram air base in Afghanistan.
"If handwritten notes were destroyed in accordance with the SOP, the government intentionally deprived Omar's lawyers of key evidence with which to challenge the reliability of his statements," Kuebler said.
Yet more evidence of this administration's contempt for the rule of law.
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