Ex-prosecutor says Guantanamo is "stain on America"

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay are a "stain on America" that risk convicting innocent people because judicial standards are so low, a former senior prosecutor at the prison said on Tuesday.

Darrel Vandeveld, a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who left his post at the base in Cuba earlier this year on ethical grounds, told the BBC that it was impossible to guarantee fair trials there.

"I thought that the military commissions were part of a grand tradition in accordance with the highest of American values," he said. "Now I see them as having defiled the U.S. Constitution and I see them as a stain on America.

"There should have been a procedure in place so that we could ensure due process and fair trials for these defendants. There was no such process."

A Pentagon spokesman said it disputed the prosecutor's claims, telling the BBC: "The military commission process provides full and fair trials to accused unlawful enemy combatants who are charged with a variety of war crimes."

In September, the Guantanamo military commissions chief prosecutor Colonel Lawrence Morris said Vandeveld had asked to quit the prosecution team for personal reasons, adding that "there were no grounds for his ethical qualms."

Morris said Vandeveld left because he was "disappointed" his superiors didn't follow his recommendations in the case of Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan accused of attempted murder.

However, in his BBC interview, Vandeveld said he had stumbled across testimony from Jawad in which he claimed to have been tortured. The prosecutor said he found the evidence while working in a colleague's office and was concerned it had not been forwarded to Jawad's defense team.

"Under the rules, that absolutely had to have been turned over to the defense immediately," Vandeveld told the BBC. "We haven't given him all the evidence to which he is entitled, we haven't complied with the rules.

Vandeveld said he had initially supported the tribunals at Guantanamo, set up in January 2002 to hold terrorism suspects captured after the September 11 attacks on the United States by al Qaeda militants.

At one point he said he was the lead prosecutor for one third of all pending cases, although he soon grew concerned at the handling of evidence at Guantanamo.

"I went from being a true believer to one who felt truly deceived," he said. "Everything was in disarray, everything was contained in boxes that were not organized.

"I was convinced at that point that it was impossible to guarantee that they would get a fair trial," he added. "I was also concerned about the use of hearsay and then also what we would call double-hearsay.

"That would never be admissible in a United States court and of course coerced testimony would never be admissible. The evidence was in a state of chaos."

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths; Editing by Richard Balmforth)