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Judge in Davis Trial Allows Depositions and Taguba Report
From The Washington PostA U.S. Army judge on Monday accepted a request by attorneys of soldiers accused of abusing detainees to question the militaryâs top commander in Iraq and all his subordinates. The order affectively compels Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. general in Iraq, and Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, the second-ranking commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and their subordinates to participate in a deposition with defense attorneys and Army prosecutors unless they invoke their rights against self-incrimination. The judge, Col. James Pohl, rejected defense requests for memos between justice department attorneys, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials regarding the use of interrogation tactics. ... A defense attorney for Davis, Paul Bergrin, said he wanted court members to see Abu Ghraib for themselves, the Reuters news agency reported. "We want the court members to smell the fecal matter and the urine that service members who worked inside that prison and who are accused in this case had to live with," he said. The judge denied defense requests to change the location of the courts martial and legal proceedings but said he would reconsider his decision if defense attorneys could prove at a later date that their clients could not get a fair trial in Iraq. Pohl granted a request by Bergrin to declassify all of an Army investigative report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba. The 6,000-page report ... Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-06-21 |
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