JURIST - Paper Chase: Controversial Guantanamo legal advisor reassigned

[JURIST] The Pentagon on Friday announced [news release] that US Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann [official profile; JURIST news archive], the controversial legal advisor to the US military commissions at Guantanamo and supervisor of the Office of Military Commissions-Prosecution (OMC-P), has been reassigned to the newly-created position of director of operations of the Office of Military Commissions. As director of operations, Hartmann will be responsible for the initiation, review, staffing, coordination and execution of all planning and development matters relating to military commissions. Deputy legal advisor Michael Champan will become the new legal advisor to the military commissions. AP has more.

Earlier this year military judges presiding over the military commission [JURIST news archive] trials of Guantanamo detainees Omar Khadr and Mohammed Jawad [JURIST reports] barred Hartmann from taking any part in the trials of those detainees on grounds that he was unduly biased towards the prosecution. US Army Gen. Gregory Zanetti [official profile], deputy commander at Guantanamo Bay, testified in August [JURIST report] that Hartmann routinely bullied his counterparts and was inappropriately aggressive in seeking indictments against detainees. In May, Hartman was disqualified [JURIST report] from participating in the military commission trial of detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan [DOD materials; JURIST news archive].

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