[plantation better under new master] Chief Guantánamo Prosecutor Quits Under Protest b/c Military is No Longer Permitted to Use Statements Obtained by Torture Under Biden Administration

From [DPIC] After clashing with Biden administration officials over the propriety of using statements obtained through torture from Guantánamo detainees, Army Brigadier General Mark S. Martins (pictured), the chief prosecutor in the Guantánamo Military Commission trials, will retire from the military on September 30, 2021. Martins, who had served as the commissions’ chief prosecutor throughout the Obama and Trump administrations, abruptly submitted papers on July 7 providing notice of his early retirement. Gen. Martins had recently sought and obtained an extension of his Guantánamo assignment until January 1, 2023. 

Citing “senior government officials with knowledge of the disputes,” the New York Times reported on July 9 that Martins had “repeatedly butt[ed] heads with Biden administration lawyers over positions his office had taken on the applicable international law and the Convention Against Torture at the Guantánamo court.” The Biden administration opposed the use of statements obtained by torture.

During the Trump administration, Martins had taken the position that the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution did not apply to Guantánamo detainees, a position that raises significant constitutional and human rights issues. The Biden Justice Department has since backed off Martins’ view, though not overtly repudiating it. In briefs filed by civilian lawyers July 9 in the case of Abdulsalam al-Hela — a Yemeni detainee who has been incarcerated at Guantánamo since 2004 without being charged with any offense — the Justice Department said it took no position on the issue.

Martins also filed pretrial pleadings using statements obtained by torture from detainee Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is being capitally prosecuted as the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 U.S. sailors in 2000. Although a military judge ruled that such statements were admissible in pretrial proceedings, under pressure from administration officials, military prosecutors filed a motion on July 16 to remove those statements from the record. 

“Was he asked to resign or did he quit in protest?,” Nashiri’s lead counsel Navy Captain Brian L. Mizer said to The Times. “I don’t know.” But, Mizer added, “[r]emoving the sentences citing evidence obtained by torture, but not [withdrawing] their motion saying the judge is free to use torture pretrial, or the judge’s ruling saying that it is lawful to do so, accomplishes little.”