Exasperated military judge halts USS Cole bombing case

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Exasperated military judge halts USS Cole bombing case

By Missy Ryan February 16 at 7:58 PM

A military judge indefinitely halted a death-penalty case Friday linked to the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, dealing a significant blow to the already troubled military court system for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay.

The decision by Air Force Col. Vance Spath, who voiced exasperation at what he characterized as repeated defiance of his authority by defense attorneys, is a striking illustration of the deep-rooted problems plaguing the judicial process set up in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

More than 16 years later, trials for 9/11 suspects are still stuck in pretrial proceedings, and conclusions remain years away. Of the more than 700 inmates held at the military prison in Cuba since 2002, only a handful have been successfully tried. About half the remaining 41 prisoners are expected to be held indefinitely without charge.

“This is another wake-up call, and a dramatic one, because the issues go again to the fundamental legitimacy of the commissions,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s national security project.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/exasperated-military-judge-halts-uss-cole-bombing-case/2018/02/16/6c91114a-1345-11e8-8ea1-c1d91fcec3fe_story.html

[Fred Sanders]

1. "Held indefinitely without charge". America?? What a joke GutBay makes of American justice.

[underpants]

2. For 41 prisoners

Total Guantanamo Bay Prison Facility Costs

Cost of Guantanamo prison facility up to the end of 2015: $5.687 billion
Cost for 2015: $445 million
Not included in above costs:
Cost of camp headquarters, built in 2004: $13.5 million
Cost of Camp 7 (for “high-value” detainees): Classified
Cost of Justice Department, FBI, and CIA involvement in detention operations: Unknown
2014 Costs

Money appropriated by Congress for un-built fiber-optic cable: $31 million
U.S. Army costs for operations and maintenance, including contract intelligence analysts, librarians and linguists: $61.5 million
U.S. Navy costs for detainee operations security: $46.5 million
Money paid to Naval Base Guantanamo: $67.4 million
Military Commissions complex, including security, translation, flights from DC: $121.8 million
Review boards for Guantanamo detainees not cleared for release: $15.1 million
Guantanamo Prison Compared to U.S. Federal Prison

Annual cost per detainee at Guantanamo: More than $10 million
Annual cost per prisoner at federal Supermax prison (Florence, CO): $78,000
Annual cost per prisoner at federal maximum security prison: $34,046
Annual cost savings of moving detainees to U.S. prison according to Defense Department plan to close Guantanamo: $65-85 million
https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/resource/cost-guantanamo