CBS News: A Gitmo Prosecutor's Act of Conscience

Darrel Vandeveld Helped Secure Release of Prisoner Who Confessed Under Torture; Now He's a Pariah

Aug. 22, 2009

(CBS) One of the youngest detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison is expected to be returned this weekend to Afghanistan where he was arrested seven years ago for allegedly throwing a grenade at American soldiers.

Mohammed Jawad's break came when a U.S. military lawyer made a choice - to follow his conscience, as CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan reports.

Reserve Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld could not keep silent. As he put it, "Silence in the face of evil is collaboration with evil."

Vandeveld was a military prosecutor at Guantanamo - until he decided to speak against the corruption of justice he found there.

"Our fighting men and women who've been putting themselves in harms - They're not fighting for rigged, kangaroo trials," Vandeveld said.

That is exactly the kind of trial Col. Vandeveld says they were getting at Guantanamo. And he should know. He was the lead prosecutor in seven cases.

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He received a poor evaluation report, which effectively ends his military career.

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Is Vandeveld one of the truly "good guys" or just a guy who wants to be on the "winning side" now that the 'winds have changed'?

My guess is the latter. :shrug:

Meanwhile, his seven 'clients' have been imprisoned..... YEARS they will "never get back".......

(and I'm not convinced there really is a "winning side" -- at least not yet).