Transcripts
Remarks to... Washington, DC May 29, 2007
11:00 A.M. EDT
MODERATOR: I want to welcome everyone to the Foreign Press Center here in Washington as well as those of you participating in Toronto to this on-the-record briefing we're doing with John Bellinger who is the Legal Adviser to the State Department. He's here today to talk about the Omar Khadr trial in Guantanamo Bay, will make a brief statement and then we'll have an opportunity for questions both in Toronto as well as here in Washington. So without further ado, Mr. Bellinger.
MR. BELLINGER: Great, thank you. Welcome to you all in Toronto, nice to be with you and you all who are here. I've got a particularly short opening statement and then just happy to take questions. So we'll be very informal as -- and I've read a number of the press pieces that you've done so I think I have a sense of the issues that you're interested in.
As you know, Omar Khadr will be arraigned next Monday -- is scheduled to be arraigned next Monday, June 4th, before a judge of the military commission in Guantanamo. Just to relate the -- how we got to where we are and then what will happen next. Charges under the new Military Commission Act and rules were sworn against him by a prosecutor on April 4th of this year. You'll recall there were five charges brought against him, murder in particular for killing of a U.S. Special Forces soldier, attempting murder for converting explosives and planting landmines, conspiracy to commit murder, attack civilians, attack civilians objects, material support for terrorism basically by providing himself for training in al-Qaida training camps and spying, conducting surveillance against U.S. forces. Those charges were reviewed and then approved by the convening officer Susan Crawford on April 24th, which triggered the time clock of 60 days before he needed to be arraigned. So if -- under the schedule he will be arraigned on June 4th. He will appear at this point -- this is pretty much like a normal either federal court or military court arraignment. It's not the full military commission. Simply the presiding officer, the military judge will be there to read the charges against him, take his plea, confirm who his counsel are and then to set a motions schedule. So it's expected to be really quite short. There would not be normally motions at this arrangement.
The next thing that we would then expect to have happen would be motions where the defense would bring various objections that they may have about the jurisdiction of the court or anything else that they may have. There is a normal expected period of these sorts of motions so it's hard to tell how long that would be at this point and probably at the time of the arraignment a trial date would not be set. It will take some time to get through whatever motions there are, assuming that there are any for a trial date to be set.
As I understand it, the arraignment will be open for the press at Guantanamo to be able to see. You'll have to confirm that with the Office of the Military Commission. And I should preface a good deal of this by saying the details of this, of course, are really subject to the control of the Defense Department. So I will -- on a number of your specific questions, may have to refer you over to the Defense Department. But that's the general schedule.
So with that, I'm just going to stop and since the news here really is the schedule for the arraignment next week, actually I will -- the reason I keep saying it's scheduled for, just to be clear, his civilian lawyers have appealed his finding of being an enemy combatant by the CSRT, the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, which was held in 2004, have appealed that as they have a right to do under the Military Commissions Act to the D.C. Circuit. And as I understand it, as part of that, they have also asked for a stay of the military commissions. So if the D.C. Circuit were to intervene and grant that stay then it is possible that the arraignment would not take place next Monday, June 4th. So with that we'll take your questions.
MODERATOR: Okay, very good. Toronto, do you want to start with the first question?
QUESTION: Okay. Michelle Shephard with the Toronto Star. In terms of his representation, we understand that he has refused to meet with his American attorneys both military and civilian, and he wants to be represented by a Canadian. What are the rules governing foreign attorney consultants and what will happen in that event if that's what it is said before the presiding officer?