JURIST - Paper Chase: Federal court suppresses Guantanamo detainee 'torture' statements

[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] on Friday ordered the suppression [order, PDF] of all out-of-court statements made by Guantanamo detainee Mohammed Jawad [ACLU materials; JURIST news archive] that may have been elicited through torture. Last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] chose not to oppose [response, PDF; JURIST report] a motion to suppress [text, PDF] the statements filed by Jawad's lawyers. The court also denied the DOJ's request to have a hearing on the merits of their case against Jawad postponed past August 5, finding that granting the delay would violate the 2008 ruling in Boumediene v. Bush [text, PDF], which requires prompt habeas corpus hearings for the detainees. The DOJ has until July 24 to file their factual and legal basis for holding Jawad, without the benefit of the suppressed statements.

Jawad's case has been controversial due to repeated delays in the proceedings. In May, Jawad's military lawyers asked the Supreme Court of Afghanistan to demand his release [JURIST report] from Guantanamo. The petition for his release was because the planned closure [JURIST news archive] of the facility allegedly delayed the case in the US. In April, a federal judge ruled [JURIST report] that Jawad's habeas petition should not be delayed. Jawad has been charged [charge sheet, PDF; JURIST report] with attempted murder and intentionally causing serious bodily injury for his alleged role in a December 2002 grenade attack in Kabul that injured two US soldiers and an Afghan translator. In May 2008, Jawad moved [JURIST report] to have all charges against him dismissed on the basis of the abuse he claimed to have suffered.