The fact that so many of the men still held at Guantanamo have been tortured by our government should make all of us ashamed... but alas. It seems the Judge in the USS Cole case doesn't really believe that this particular defendant/prisoner lacks competency because he answers "yes" when asked if he understands what is going on... but anyway.
....the judge has ordered a competency exam, called a 706 Sanity Board, for the defendant, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The judge ordered a military medical panel that includes an Army psychiatrist to evaluate the prisoner and report back by Oct. 16, the day before the court travels to Guantanamo for panel selection, which is scheduled to begin on Oct. 19.
Defense lawyers brought a forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Terry Kupers, to Guantanamo last month to evaluate al-Nashiri, who has been in U.S. custody since 2002, with the first four years spent in solitary confinement in CIA prisons. The previous judge in the case found al-Nashiri’s torture and abuse disqualified the use of his confessions to federal agents.
His lawyers have now gone further, arguing he is not competent to stand trial based on the expert opinion of Dr. Kupers, a civilian who spent eight hours with al-Nashiri in August and reviewed earlier medical reports. Dr. Kupers concluded that the prisoner has a traumatic brain injury, neurocognitive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and a major depressive disorder. Those last two findings were consistent with the conclusion of a military medical board that examined al-Nashiri by court order in 2013. Al-Nashiri’s attorneys have now filed an opinion by Dr. Kupers concluding that al-Nashiri “lacks capacity to stand trial because he is unable to understand the nature of the proceedings or to conduct or cooperate intelligently in the defense of the case.”
On Sept. 16 the judge, Army Col. Matthew Fitzgerald, disagreed in a ruling that cited “the weight of the evidence reflecting on the accused’s capacity, which spans a period of decades, indicates that he possesses the capacity to stand trial.” In the same ruling, however, he ordered “out of an abundance of caution” that a doctor conduct an inquiry on al-Nashiri’s capacity to stand trial.
read the rest here.
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