|
Attorney calls bennet trial in afghanistan sham { September 24 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.times-standard.com/Stories/0,1413,127~2896~2423990,00.htmlhttp://www.times-standard.com/Stories/0,1413,127~2896~2423990,00.html
Attorney calls Bennett trial in Afghanistan a 'sham'
Friday, September 24, 2004 - Andrew Bird
The Times-Standard
FORTUNA -- A respected New York attorney said the trial at which Fortuna native son Brent Bennett was convicted in Afghanistan was a "sham," "surreal" and "bizarre."
An interview with Robert Fogelnest broadcast Thursday on the radio program "Democracy Now" revealed what the trial was like and provided a glimpse of the horrid prison conditions Bennett is enduring now.
Bennett, 28, a 1994 graduate of Fortuna High School, was convicted earlier this month in Kabul, the Afghani capital, along with two other men: Jonathan "Jack" Idema and Edward Caraballo.
Idema, described in various press reports as a renegade former Green Beret turned terrorist hunter who was out to capture Osama bin Laden, and Bennett, a former soldier who was Idema's right-hand-man, were sentenced to 10 years each in an Afghan prison. Caraballo, a journalist with four Emmy Awards to his credit, got eight years.
All three were convicted of running a private prison in Kabul, where they allegedly tortured Afghan citizens whom they suspected of being al-Qaida terrorists, and for allegedly entering Afghanistan illegally.
Fogelnest, who went to Afghanistan early this year on a fellowship to teach defense attorneys, ended up as Caraballo's lawyer at the Kabul trial held earlier this month.
Fogelnest was the featured interview on a "Democracy Now" broadcast about the Idema case, hosted by Amy Goodman and New York Daily News reporter Juan Gonzalez, which aired locally on KHSU and KMUD on Thursday morning.
"If it weren't so serious, if these men were not currently confined in an 8-by-6 cell that's filthy, sleeping on the floor with six other men, many of whom are al-Qaida terrorists themselves and if their lives weren't in danger, this would be hysterically funny. But it's not, it's very serious," Fogelnest said on the program, describing what he witnessed in the Kabul courtroom and at Pulcharkhi prison.
After the trial, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement: "The Afghan government held the trial in accordance with Afghan law. Their decision was handed down by an Afghan court after a full trial had been conducted."
"With all due respect to Mr. Boucher," Fogelnest said on "Democracy Now," "Let me be candid, he doesn't know what he's talking about. I saw the trial. They didn't follow their own law, which requires that witnesses be sworn, which requires that witnesses be confronted and many other procedural defects."
Fogelnest said he was not able talk to a single witness, nor present his own to back up the defense claim that Idema and Bennett were working for the U.S. government.
"There was not a single witness sworn, except Jack Idema," Fogelnest said.
The Afghans didn't want to swear-in Idema because he wasn't Muslim, but Idema insisted, Fogelnest said.
When Idema did take his oath on the Koran, "the crowd erupted in the courtroom, saying 'Allah Achbar,' on the assumption they had seen a conversion to Islam," Fogelnest said. "It was surreal and bizarre. Witnesses would stand up and scream out their accusations. They were never put on a witness stand. They were certainly never confronted and questioned by the defense.
"The court in Afghanistan, if you can call it that, was prepared to accept a press report of U.S. officials denying any sort of connection with Idema," Fogelnest said. "This was false. We had videotapes of him on the phone with (Undersecretary of Defense William) Boykin's office."
Fogelnest, well-known in New York legal circles, said he went to Afghanistan on a fellowship from the International Legal Foundation "on a pro-bono basis, my contribution to the war in terror as it were, to train Afghan lawyers in the skills of defending people."
Fogelnest said he learned the new Afghan constitution, in existence since January this year, and studied the country's new criminal code.
"The United States government knows that there is not a functioning legal system in Afghanistan," Fogelnest said in conclusion. "They certainly have a responsibility to take these three men out of this sham conviction under this farce of what the Afghans would characterize as a trial."
Ellen Judd, Bennett's grandmother, who has been the family's spokeswoman, could not be reached Thursday.
|
|
