http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/65608.html
Judge: U.S. hid witness's mental illness in Guantanamo cases
By Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department improperly withheld important psychiatric records of a government witness who was used in a "significant" number of Guantanamo cases, a federal judge has concluded.
The government censored parts of the records, but enough has been made public that it's clear that the witness, a fellow detainee, was being treated weekly for a serious psychological problem and was questioned about whether he had any suicidal thoughts. The witness provided information in the government's case for detaining Aymen Saeed Batarfi, a Yemeni doctor who the government announced last week it would no longer seek to detain.
In a little-noticed ruling last week, Judge Emmet Sullivan found that the witness's testimony in other cases could be challenged as unreliable.
During a hearing last week, Sullivan castigated the government for not turning over the medical records and ordered department lawyers to explain why he shouldn't cite them for contempt of court.
"To hide relevant and exculpatory evidence from counsel and from the court under any circumstances, particularly here where there is no other means to discover this information and where the stakes are so very high . . . is fundamentally unjust, outrageous and will not be tolerated," Sullivan said, according to a transcript of the hearing.
"How can this court have any confidence whatsoever in the United States government to comply with its obligations and to be truthful to the court?"
He also criticized the government for deciding at the last minute to drop the case against Batarfi, who's been held at Guantanamo for seven years, and questioned its motives for doing so. He suggested that the government didn't genuinely intend to seek a country that would take Batarfi.
"I'm not going to let this case drag on, or any of the other cases on my calendar, indefinitely while the government embarks on what it calls its diplomatic process, because I have seen in the past that that diplomatic process can indeed span months and years, and I have some serious concerns as to whether it's yet and still another ploy . . . to continue with his deprivation of his fair day in court."
Sullivan threatened to have government attorneys return to court in 14 days to report on the progress of freeing Batarfi "and every 14 days thereafter."
"I'm not going to continue to tolerate indefinite delay on the part of the United States government," Sullivan said. "I mean this Guantanamo issue is a travesty . . . a horror story . . . and I'm not going to buy into an extended indefinite delay of this man's stay at Guantanamo."
It's unclear what information the witness, who wasn't named, provided against Batarfi or the other detainees. The Justice Department decided last week to release Batarfi, signaling that it no longer had sufficient evidence that he was an enemy combatant although he was held for seven years.
Sullivan ordered the Justice Department to notify other judges of the psychiatric records so they could assess whether the government's failure to reveal the extent of the witness's mental problems have bearing on other detainee cases.
Court records appear to indicate that the witness had an antisocial personality disorder. In a legal brief, Batarfi's lawyers point out the diagnosis could mean the person is prone to lying and lacks regard for the difference between right and wrong.
"Given the nature of the medical records about this particular detainee it is difficult to conceive how the government might offer him as a credible witness," said Batarfi's lawyer, Bill Murphy, who said he couldn't reveal information about the witness because of a court order.
Justice Department lawyers say the medical records were released inadvertently to Batarfi's lawyers and argue that they'd already released documents that raised similar questions about the witness's reliability, as required under evidence sharing rules.
"Indeed, (the government's) prior disclosure of information undermining the credibility of the detainee-witness was much more explicit and likely to be far more helpful to the petitioner's case than the medical record at issue" said Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd in response to questions about the matter.
Sullivan, however, was skeptical of the government's explanation and warned that "someone's going to pay a price" for not disclosing the information.
"The sanction is going to be high," he said. "I'll tell you quite frankly if I have to start incarcerating people to get my point across I'm going to start at the top."
Coincidently, Sullivan presided over the corruption trial of former Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens and was similarly critical of the Justice Department's handling of evidence in that case. Attorney General Eric Holder recently asked the judge to dismiss the indictment against Stevens after concluding prosecutors withheld important evidence from the defense in the case.
The discovery of the records in Batarfi's case raises larger questions about the quality of the government's Guantanamo witnesses and whether the government has fulfilled legal requirements to provide the detainees' lawyers with evidence that could clear their clients.
According to court records in a separate case, an unidentified government witness who was believed to have psychiatric and substance abuse problems provided information to the government about 40 other detainees.
And earlier this year, news reports revealed that the government relied on testimony by detainee Yasim Muhammed Basardah for evidence in dozens of cases although his reliability was questioned by military officials. Last week, a federal judge ordered him released, although the government is unlikely to free him anytime soon because it says he can't be sent back to his native country, Yemen.
Batarfi, the doctor, is also unlikely to be released because of similar problems. There are nearly 100 Yemenis among the 240 or so Guantanamo captives, in part, because Bush administration officials never succeeded in negotiating a repatriation agreement for those who'd been earlier approved for release.
MORE FROM MCCLATCHY
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Traces of explosives in 9/11 dust, scientists say
Traces of explosives in 9/11 dust, scientists say
By Elaine Jarvik
Deseret News
Published: Monday, April 6, 2009 10:43 p.m. MDT
Tiny red and gray chips found in the dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center contain highly explosive materials — proof, according to a former BYU professor, that 9/11 is still a sinister mystery.
Physicist Steven E. Jones, who retired from Brigham Young University in 2006 after the school recoiled from the controversy surrounding his 9/11 theories, is one of nine authors on a paper published last week in the online, peer-reviewed Open Chemical Physics Journal. Also listed as authors are BYU physics professor Jeffrey Farrer and a professor of nanochemistry at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
For several years, Jones has theorized that pre-positioned explosives, not fires from jet fuel, caused the rapid, symmetrical collapse of the two World Trade Center buildings, plus the collapse of a third building, WTC-7.
The newest research, according to the journal authors, shows that dust from the collapsing towers contained a "nano-thermite" material that is highly explosive. Although the article draws no conclusions about the source and purpose of the explosives, Jones has previously supported a theory that the collapse of the WTC towers was part of a government conspiracy to ignore warnings about the 9/11 terrorists so that the attack would propel America to wage war against Afghanistan and Iraq.
Story continues below
The next step, Jones said in a phone interview on Monday, is for someone to investigate "who made the stuff and why it was there."
A layer of dust lay over parts of Manhattan immediately following the collapse of the towers, and it was samples of this dust that Jones and fellow researchers requested in a 2006 paper, hoping to determine "the whole truth of the events of that day." They eventually tested four samples they received from New Yorkers.
One sample was from a man who had swept up a handful of dust on the Brooklyn Bridge, where he was walking when the second tower fell. As the journal authors note, "It was, therefore, definitely not contaminated by the steel-cutting or clean-up operations at Ground Zero, which began later. Furthermore, it is not mixed with dust from WTC-7, which fell hours later."
Another man collected dust in his apartment, about five blocks from the World Trade Center, on the morning of Sept. 12. There was a layer about an inch thick on a stack of folded laundry near an open window.
Red/gray chips, averaging in size between .2 and 3 mm, were found in all four dust samples. The chips were then analyzed using scanning electron microscopy and other high-tech tools.
The red layer of the chips, according to the researchers, contains a "highly energetic" form of thermite. While normal thermite (a mixture of finely granulated aluminum and an oxide of metal) can be incendiary, "super thermite" is explosive. He says there is no benign explanation for the thermite in the WTC dust.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705295677/Traces-of-explosives-in-911-dust-scientists-say.html?pg=1
Page:< Previous12Jones made headlines in 2005 when he argued that the rapid and symmetrical fall of the World Trade Center looked like the result of pre-positioned explosives. He argued that fires alone wouldn't have been hot enough to crumble the buildings; and that even if struck by planes, the towers should have been strong enough to support the weight of the tops as they crumbled — unless they were leveled by explosives.
Essentially forced to retire, Jones says he is now paying for research out of his own pocket. He likens himself to Galileo and Newton, who stood by their consciences. "I would like to think I could stand up for the truth," he says.
The dust study vindicates his earlier theories, Jones says, but he has mixed feelings about the implications. "As a young student said to me a while back: 'It's exciting from a scientific point of view, because things are now making sense. But I feel sad for my country.' "
E-MAIL: jarvik@desnews.com
By Elaine Jarvik
Deseret News
Published: Monday, April 6, 2009 10:43 p.m. MDT
Tiny red and gray chips found in the dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center contain highly explosive materials — proof, according to a former BYU professor, that 9/11 is still a sinister mystery.
Physicist Steven E. Jones, who retired from Brigham Young University in 2006 after the school recoiled from the controversy surrounding his 9/11 theories, is one of nine authors on a paper published last week in the online, peer-reviewed Open Chemical Physics Journal. Also listed as authors are BYU physics professor Jeffrey Farrer and a professor of nanochemistry at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
For several years, Jones has theorized that pre-positioned explosives, not fires from jet fuel, caused the rapid, symmetrical collapse of the two World Trade Center buildings, plus the collapse of a third building, WTC-7.
The newest research, according to the journal authors, shows that dust from the collapsing towers contained a "nano-thermite" material that is highly explosive. Although the article draws no conclusions about the source and purpose of the explosives, Jones has previously supported a theory that the collapse of the WTC towers was part of a government conspiracy to ignore warnings about the 9/11 terrorists so that the attack would propel America to wage war against Afghanistan and Iraq.
Story continues below
The next step, Jones said in a phone interview on Monday, is for someone to investigate "who made the stuff and why it was there."
A layer of dust lay over parts of Manhattan immediately following the collapse of the towers, and it was samples of this dust that Jones and fellow researchers requested in a 2006 paper, hoping to determine "the whole truth of the events of that day." They eventually tested four samples they received from New Yorkers.
One sample was from a man who had swept up a handful of dust on the Brooklyn Bridge, where he was walking when the second tower fell. As the journal authors note, "It was, therefore, definitely not contaminated by the steel-cutting or clean-up operations at Ground Zero, which began later. Furthermore, it is not mixed with dust from WTC-7, which fell hours later."
Another man collected dust in his apartment, about five blocks from the World Trade Center, on the morning of Sept. 12. There was a layer about an inch thick on a stack of folded laundry near an open window.
Red/gray chips, averaging in size between .2 and 3 mm, were found in all four dust samples. The chips were then analyzed using scanning electron microscopy and other high-tech tools.
The red layer of the chips, according to the researchers, contains a "highly energetic" form of thermite. While normal thermite (a mixture of finely granulated aluminum and an oxide of metal) can be incendiary, "super thermite" is explosive. He says there is no benign explanation for the thermite in the WTC dust.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705295677/Traces-of-explosives-in-911-dust-scientists-say.html?pg=1
Page:< Previous12Jones made headlines in 2005 when he argued that the rapid and symmetrical fall of the World Trade Center looked like the result of pre-positioned explosives. He argued that fires alone wouldn't have been hot enough to crumble the buildings; and that even if struck by planes, the towers should have been strong enough to support the weight of the tops as they crumbled — unless they were leveled by explosives.
Essentially forced to retire, Jones says he is now paying for research out of his own pocket. He likens himself to Galileo and Newton, who stood by their consciences. "I would like to think I could stand up for the truth," he says.
The dust study vindicates his earlier theories, Jones says, but he has mixed feelings about the implications. "As a young student said to me a while back: 'It's exciting from a scientific point of view, because things are now making sense. But I feel sad for my country.' "
E-MAIL: jarvik@desnews.com
Monday, March 16, 2009
majority of witness's no planers
http://nomoregames.net/index.php?page=911&subpage1=original_no_planers
@ bxl astoria honeypot - group smeared
http://www.prisonplanet.com/group-smeared-as-terror-cell-by-feds-runs-soup-kitchens.html
Patriot or crackpot? Seattle man's mission to prosecute Bush
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2008865622_bobalexander16m.html
Killtown: Why They Didn't Use Planes To Hit The WTC
http://killtown.blogspot.com/2007/05/why-they-didnt-use-planes-to-hit-wtc.html
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