As President Obama prepared to order the Department of Defense’s Military Commission to withdraw charges against terrorist suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri on Friday afternoon, the convening authority for the Commission, Susan Crawford, withdrew the charges on her own Thursday night.
The charges were withdrawn without prejudice, meaning they later can be reinstated in a military commission or pursued in a civilian court. Al-Nashiri will remain in custody.
The original plan was for the announcement not to be made until after President Obama meets with the families of victims of terrorist attacks on 9/11 and on the U.S.S. Cole Friday afternoon, where he will assure them that this step was not done to be lenient towards al-Nashiri.
It’ll be interesting to see if he will still meet with the survivors.
I guess I don’t understand why he remains in custody if all charges have been dropped.
Until they bring him here from GitMO, and then the lawyers will go running to the closest federal court for a Writ of Habeas Corpus. Then they'll let him go, or blow the whole operation by bringing the evidence into open court.
What a thuggish, slimey thing to do. It was CLEARLY said todayd that zero would meet tomorrow with the 9/11 and USS Cole families FIRST!!!
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February 07, 2007
Seasoned Judge Tapped to Head Detainee Trials
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has designated an experienced former U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces Judge, Susan J. Crawford, to the position of convening authority for military commissions.
A veteran lawyer of 30 years, Crawford served as a member of the court of appeals bench from 1991-2006 and also served as general counsel of the Army, special counsel to the secretary of defense, and inspector general of the Department of Defense.
Crawford has agreed to accept the appointment and expects to take office immediately. A noted expert on military law, the depth and breadth of her experiences as a lawyer and judge over three decades was taken into consideration for this appointment.
The position of convening authority was created by Congress in the Military Commissions Act of 2006. The convening authority is responsible for overseeing many aspects of the military commission process and for supervising the Office of Military Commissions.
Among other things, the convening authority reviews and approves charges against persons determined to be alien unlawful enemy combatants, as defined in the Military Commissions Act of 2006, appoints military commissions members, and reviews military commissions’ verdicts and sentences.
Her biography is available at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/d20070207crawford.pdf.
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TIME TO LET SUSAN CRAWFORD WHAT AMERICA THINKS!!! She’s obviously a Clinton appointee (1991).
Pentagon Switchboard
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Question: Would Gates had to have approved ?
God bless and protect our brave military!
Of course not. The U.S. will make sure to put him on double secret probation.
Did Susan Crawford sandbag Obama?
In other words, Crawford pulled the rug out from under Obama. Good for her.
It’s looking like the Bill Gertz story linked on Powerline yesterday was true.