Charged Before A Military Commission
Zahir was charged with conspiracy, aiding the enemy and attacking civilians in connection with the grenade attack that wounded Canadian reporter Kathleen Kenna. Kenna wrote an op-ed about her feelings about Abdul Zahir's trial on December 27, 2009. She wrote that she and her companions weren't interested in retribution. She wrote that she hopes Abdul Zahir has a truly fair trial. She wrote that she and her companions couldn't identify their attackers.
Abdul Zahir was transferred to Guantanamo on October 28, 2002, and remains there today.
The first hearing in Zaher's case was held on April 5, 2006. Although the rules for Military Commissions required the suspect to be given a copy of the charges against them in a language they could read, Zahir had not been given a translation. Officials could not explain why the hearing had been convened without hiring a Farsi translator, so Zahir could understand what was going on.
According to Jamil Dakwar, the director of the ACLU's Human Rights Program, an observer at Zahir's April 5th hearing, the military commission system "...is a deficient system rife with legal and procedural problems..." Dakwar noted that Zahir's hearing was the first when the Presiding Officer wore a black robe, like a civilian judge. He noted that the charge "conspiracy to commit war crimes" was not a crime recognized under any international law.
Zahir's second hearing was held on May 17, 2006. It was convened because Zahir sole defense attorney, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Bogar, had filed a motion questioning whether the Presiding Officer Colonel Robert Chester should recuse himself due to inherent bias. Bogar dropped his motion, telling reporters later he was satisfied with the answers he received from Chester and the jury members.
Read more about this topic: Abdul Zahir (Guantanamo Bay Detainee 753)
Famous quotes containing the words charged, military and/or commission:
“The last alternatives they face
Of face, without the life to save,
Being from all salvation weaned
A stag charged both at heel and head:
Who would come back is turned a fiend
Instructed by the fiery dead.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“Nothing changes my twenty-six years in the military. I continue to love it and everything it stands for and everything I was able to accomplish in it. To put up a wall against the military because of one regulation would be doing the same thing that the regulation does in terms of negating people.”
—Margarethe Cammermeyer (b. 1942)
“The Church seems to totter to its fall, almost all life extinct. On this occasion, any complaisance would be criminal which told you, whose hope and commission it is to preach the faith of Christ, that the faith of Christ is preached.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)