Just another instance of "administration" evasion and obfuscation.
Not to worry though. No punishment expected.
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Jun 8, 9:32 PM EDT

"Lawyer: Gitmo interrogators told to trash notes "

By MICHAEL MELIA
Associated Press Writer

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- The Pentagon urged interrogators at
Guantanamo Bay to destroy handwritten notes in case they were called
to testify about potentially harsh treatment of detainees, a military
defense lawyer said Sunday.

The lawyer for Toronto-born Omar Khadr, Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler,
said the instructions were included in an operations manual shown to
him by prosecutors and suggest the U.S. deliberately thwarted evidence
that could help terror suspects defend themselves at trial.

Kuebler said the apparent destruction of evidence prevents him from
challenging the reliability of any alleged confessions. He said he
will use the document to seek a dismissal of charges against Khadr.

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said he was reviewing
the matter Sunday evening.

The "standard operating procedures" manual that contained the
purported instructions was made available to Kuebler last week as part
of a pretrial review of potential evidence, the Navy lawyer said.

"The mission has legal and political issues that may lead to
interrogators being called to testify, keeping the number of documents
with interrogation information to a minimum can minimize certain legal
issues," the document is quoted as saying in an affidavit signed by
Kuebler.

The document could support challenges by other detainees to suppress
confessions at Guantanamo, where the U.S. military says it plans to
prosecute as many as 80 of roughly 270 detainees before the first U.S.
war-crimes tribunals since World War II.

The case against Khadr, who was captured in Afghanistan when he was
15, is on track to be one of the first to trial. He faces war-crimes
charges including murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed
a U.S. Special Forces soldier during a 2002 firefight.

Kuebler said the nature of the interrogations is particularly relevant
in Khadr's case because prosecutors are relying on evidence
"extracted" from him at Bagram air base in Afghanistan and at
Guantanamo.

"If handwritten notes were destroyed in accordance with the SOP, the
government intentionally deprived Omar's lawyers of key evidence with
which to challenge the reliability of his statements," Kuebler said in
an e-mail to reporters.

The operations manual, which dates to January 2003, was attached to a
2005 report on an investigation into detainee abuse allegations at
Guantanamo, Kuebler said. A summary of the findings was released at
the time, but the defense lawyer said the section including the manual
has not been made available publicly.

The so-called Schmidt-Furlow report documented degrading treatment,
including one instance of a top terror suspect forced to dance with
another man and behave like a dog. But investigators stopped short of
saying torture occurred.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GUANTANAMO_INTERROGATIONS?SITE=AP&SECTION...