Jason Rhyne, Raw Story
A former Marine Corps prosecutor was set to testify before Congress on Thursday that harsh interrogation techniques had tainted his case against an alleged Al Quaeda terrorist — until a last minute email from the Pentagon told him not to.
Lt. Col. Stuart Crouch, a former lawyer with the Marines now working as a military judge, was prepared to tell a House Judiciary subcommittee about his refusal to prosecute suspected terrorist Mohamedou Slahi in 2004 after reportedly discovering that severe measures had been used to extract incriminating statements from the Guantanamo Bay detainee. Crouch considers the methods used by interrogators to be torture, according to the Wall Street Journal who first reported the story.
Crouch told the Journal that he had previously told superiors about the scheduled appearance and received no objection. But on Wednesday he received an email informing him that the Pentagon’s general counsel had determined that “as a sitting judge and former prosecutor, it is improper for you to testify about matters still pending in the military court system, and you are not to appear before the Committee to testify tomorrow.”
(Original Article)