In recent weeks, Colonel Morris Davis has added his voice to those of numerous human rights advocates decrying the system of show trials created by the Military Commissions Act of 2006, a law that the survivors of torture at TASSC International have renamed the "Torture Law." Davis is an unlikely candidate to voice such opinions as, until recently, he was the chief prosecutor of military commissions and one of the system's most vocal defenders. Were it not for his recent change of heart he would probably be remembered as a torture apologist and the first prosecutor in modern history to try a child soldier for war crimes.

We came to know Davis through his interviews with the media where he regularly defended the Torture Law and attacked the credibility of survivors. He dismissed claims of torture in Guantanamo as al Qaeda propaganda. (The FBI disagrees.) On the 10^th anniversary of the UN Day in Support of Torture Victims and Survivors, June 26, 2007, Davis published an op-ed in the New York Times defending Guantanamo and the system of Military Commissions.

In addition to publishing his defense of Guantanamo and the Torture Law on the UN Day in Support of Torture Victims and Survivors – an insult to survivors everywhere – Davis mocked those of us who questioned the legitimacy of Military Commissions. According to Davis, we were saying that "if a defendant does not get a trial that looks like Martha Stewart's and ends like O. J. Simpson's, then military commissions are flawed."

He has since learned from experience what the survivors who demand the repeal of the Torture Law could easily see, and retired in anger. He explains his reasons for retiring by saying that he felt he "was being pressured to do something less than full, fair and open." Today Davis's statements sound similar to how ours sounded then. Davis recently said that he "think[s] it's a disgrace to call it a military commission, it's a political commission" designed to produce a predetermined result.

Coming from the former chief prosecutor of military commissions, who spent the final months of his career attacking anyone who would question the justice of the military commissions system, Davis's remarks are devastating to the little credibility that military commissions have left.

Subjects: Guantanamo | Military Commissions | Prosecuting Children