Torture-based evidence NOT allowed at GITMO Tribunal

This appears to be another ray of sunshine in a Dark Age: Gitmo judge: No 'coercive' questioning evidence.

This is regarding the trial of Salim Hamdan, alleged to be a driver for Osama bin Laden.

The judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, said the prosecution cannot use a series of interrogations at the Bagram air base and Panshir, Afghanistan, because of the "highly coercive environments and conditions under which they were made."

At Bagram, Hamdan says he was kept in isolation 24 hours a day with his hands and feet restrained, and armed soldiers prompted him to talk by kneeing him in the back. He says his captors at Panshir repeatedly tied him up, put a bag over his head and knocked him to the ground.

There's little reason to doubt that the brief description of his "mishandling" is rife with pertinent omissions.

We already know how much torture is employed at GITMO so what the Judge is saying, in effect, is torture-based "testimony" (forced confessions and torture-derived gibberish) are not going to be admissible as evidence. This was probably the solitary basis the "Military Tribunal" was supposed to function on. A complete mockery of real Constitutional "justice".

Why they insist on torturing these people and running them through a transparently rigged process to get pre-determined convictions, is something of a mystery to me. Why not just kill them? Nobody can stop them and it's proven they - the US Militray acting on instructions that came directly from the Oval Office - have tortured uncounted numbers of people to death.

So they FINALLY get their tribunal thing off the ground and the first thing that happens is a Judge - and some liberal activist Judge: a NAVY Judge - throws out torture-based evidence.

The impact:

Prosecutors are considering whether to appeal the judge's ruling — a development that could halt the trial of Salim Hamdan that began earlier Monday after years of delays and legal setbacks.

"We need to evaluate ... to what extent it has an impact on our ability to fully portray his criminality in this case, but also what it might set out for future cases," said Army Col. Lawrence Morris, the tribunals' chief prosecutor.

So, as I suggested, ALL their cases are intended to be tried upon torture-based evidence and that has been tossed out.

Perhaps this can hasten the closing of America's best known concentration camp.