JURIST - Paper Chase: Navy lawyer to be court-martialed for leaking Guantanamo names

[JURIST] A staff attorney with the US Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps [official website] who was accused in August 2006 of leaking detainee names [JURIST report] while stationed at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] was ordered Monday to face court-martial on charges of leaking secret national defense information to a person outside the government. The complaint against Lt. Cmdr. Matthew M. Diaz does not specify what information was included in the leak, but prior allegations indicate that names and information related to Guantanamo detainees were printed and transmitted to an outside person between December 2004 and March 2005. AP has since forced the Department of Defense to release detainee lists [JURIST report] through Freedom of Information Act requests.

Diaz's Article 32 hearing [JAG backgrounder] was postponed [JURIST report] in October. His case was cited [Senate RPC briefing paper, PDF] in the Congressional debate over new US military commissions [JURIST news archive] that followed the Supreme Court's June ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld as a cautionary tale suggesting that classified information might not even be safe in the hands of cleared military defense counsel who could turn out to be "ideological attorneys." If convicted, Diaz faces more than 36 years in prison. No trial date has been set. AP has more.

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