The Pentagon urged interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to destroy handwritten notes in case they were called to testify about potentially harsh treatment of detainees, a military defence lawyer said.
The lawyer for Toronto-born Omar Khadr, Lieut Cdr William Kuebler, said the instructions were included in an operations manual shown to him by prosecutors and suggest the US deliberately thwarted evidence that could help terror suspects defend themselves at trial.
The case against Khadr, who was captured in Afghanistan when he was 15, is on track to be one of the first war crimes trials. He faces war-crimes charges including murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a US Special Forces soldier in 2002.
Lieut Cdr Kuebler said the apparent destruction of evidence prevents him from challenging the reliability of any alleged confessions. He said he will use the document to seek a dismissal of charges against Khadr.
A Pentagon spokesman said he was reviewing the matter.
The “standard operating procedures” manual that contained the purported instruction was made available to Lt Com Kuebler last week as part of a pretrial review of potential evidence, the Navy lawyer said.
The document could support challenges by other detainees to suppress confessions at Guantanamo, where the US military says it plans to prosecute as many as 80 of roughly 270 detainees before the first US war-crimes tribunals since World War II.
PA