October 22, 2004 - 3:15 AM

Pentagon dumps Guantanamo terrorism trial officers

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon has dumped three members of a military tribunal that will hear the trials of
Guantanamo prisoners but kept the presiding officer despite challenges to his impartiality, officials say.

The move marks the latest controversy in the tribunals, authorised by President George W. Bush following the 2001
attacks on America but criticised by human rights groups and some military lawyers as fundamentally unfair to
defendants.

Instead of holding trials before a five-member panel of military officers with one alternate, trials will proceed with just
three panel members for David Hicks of Australia and Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen, said Major Michael Shavers,
a Pentagon spokesman.

Hearings in those cases will be held as scheduled on November 1 at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the
Pentagon said.

These trials before a panel of officers, formally called a military commission, are the first such proceedings since
World War Two. Hamdan is accused of serving as a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden. Hicks is accused of
fighting for al Qaeda.

John Altenburg, the retired Army major general overseeing the trial process, declined in a 28-page decision to oust
the presiding officer, Army Colonel Peter Brownback.

Military defence lawyers appointed by the Pentagon as well as prosecutors had raised questions about Brownback's
impartiality due to his close friendship with Altenburg.

Altenburg removed from the panel Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Toomey, Army Lieutenant Colonel Curt
Cooper, and Marine Corps Colonel R. Thomas Bright, after defence lawyers challenged their impartiality.

Toomey had served as an intelligence officer involved in capturing suspects in Afghanistan, where most of the
hundreds of prisoners held at Guantanamo were caught. Cooper admitted calling Guantanamo prisoners "terrorists."
Bright previously had put together lists of prisoners to be sent to Guantanamo.

Altenburg will appoint additional panel members to hear the trials of Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi of Sudan and
Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al Bahlul of Yemen, the Pentagon said.

"This change shows that the system is flexible," Shavers said. "We believe at the end of the day, the process will
afford each of the accused a full and fair trial."

'KANGAROO COURT'

Pretrial hearings in August were marked by translation problems, apparent confusion over the rules, and
Brownback's decision to silence al Bahlul as he was telling the panel, "I am from al Qaeda and the relationship
between me and September 11... ."

"It's been a kangaroo court from start to finish, and merely substituting out some problematic panel members doesn't
change that basic fact," said Jumana Musa, an Amnesty International official who observed those hearings.

Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, Hamdan's military lawyer, said Pentagon officials continued to make up the
rules as they go along.

Swift noted with a three-member panel rather than five, prosecutors now need only two rather than four panel
members to get the two-thirds necessary to convict.

"They made it easier for themselves," Swift said.