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Document a Day: A Repentant Prosecutor

Larry Siems,
The Torture Report
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June 16, 2010

Another ringing denunciation from the inside 鈥 this one a declaration by a Guant谩namo military prosecutor recounting his dawning awareness of the physical and due process abuses those he was assigned to prosecute had endured.

Learning that one of those whose cases he was to try, an Afghan youth named Mohammad Jawad, had attempted to kill himself 鈥渂y banging his head repeatedly against one of his cell walls,鈥 Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld discovered records that showed Jawad had been moved from cell to cell 112 times in two weeks as part of a 鈥渟leep deprivation program popularly referred to as the 鈥榝requent flyer' program.鈥 鈥淚 lack the words to express the heartsickness I experienced when I came to understand the pointless, purely gratuitous mistreatment of Mr. Jawad by my fellow soldiers,鈥 Vandeveld states.

Deciding that he 鈥渃ould no longer ethically prosecute Mr. Jawad, or, in good conscience, serve as a prosecutor鈥 for the Office of Military Commissions, Vandeveld 鈥 referring to himself as Jawad's 鈥渇ormer prosecutor and now-repentant persecutor鈥濃 resigned and submitted this devastating affidavit in support of Jawad's habeas corpus petition.

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