Are There Nervous Nellies in the Padilla Case?

[struggle4progress]

Posting Date: February 19, 2007
Jacob Hornberger’s Commentary

... Ever since Padilla’s lawyers raised torture allegations, Justice Department prosecutors have done everything to prevent evidence of what was done to Padilla by the Pentagon under the tightest wraps. They have even said that they would voluntarily suppress any statements that Padilla made during his military captivity, meaning that they could not be used in his trial. When was the last time you saw a federal prosecutor doing that? ...

Ask yourself two questions:

1. If a Pentagon military tribunal were in charge of Padilla’s case, rather than an independent federal judge, what are the chances that the military judge would have ordered the federal officials to testify? Answer: None — he would have ordered that what was done to Padilla had to remain secret in order to preserve “national security.” While there are certainly federal judges who bend over backwards to please the Justice Department, there are also independent ones, such as Cooke,

2. Who are the Justice Department and Pentagon trying to keep from learning what they did to Padilla? Certainly not the government and not Padilla. Both of them know exactly what was done to him. The government is trying to keep the American people from learning how an American is treated when taken into custody as an “enemy combatant” in the “war on terror” and denied right to counsel and due process of law. No wonder the Pentagon and the CIA set up its torture facilities in Guantanamo and elsewhere precisely to avoid federal court interference ...

http://www.swnewsherald.com/online_content/2007/02/021907ov_hor_padilla.php