Defense chief charged in Cole case

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - The case judge in the USS Cole case found Marine Brig. Gen. John Baker, who is in charge of the military court’s defense teams, guilty of contempt for refusing to follow orders. The general was sentenced Nov. 1 to 21 days confinement and fined $1,000. Air Force judge Col. Vance Spath declared "null and void" Baker’s decision to release three Pentagon-paid civilian defense attorneys, in the case against defendant Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, and order the trio to appear before him or via video feed next week. At issue was Baker's authority to excuse the civilian lawyers because of a secret ethics conflict involving attorney-client privilege. Baker had refused a day earlier to testify in front of Spath or return the three lawyers to the case. Baker attempted to protest that the war court had no jurisdiction over U.S. citizens (lawyers or himself). The judge refused to allow Baker to speak. Spath ruled that the chief defense counsel was out of order to invoke a privilege in refusing to testify about both the decision to release and the absence of the three attorneys, who all refused to return to ‘Gitmo’ this week. Spath declared, it was a judge's domain to weigh and review privilege. Without it, he said, there would be "havoc in any system of justice." (Source: Miami Herald 11/01/17) Central Mississippi Note: One of the 17 sailors killed in the attack on USS Cole was Ensign Andrew Triplett, 31, of Macon, Miss. Two senior enlisted personnel with ties to Naval Hospital Pensacola, Fla., were also aboard the ship: Now-retired master chiefs James Parlier and Eric Kafka.