Mohammed Jawad was only 16 years old when he was captured in Afghanistan and sent to Guantanamo Bay. That was in December 2002. This is now:
"Jawad told the judge that years of harsh prison lighting had given him a permanent headache that made him unable to listen further, then removed his translation earphones and laid his head on the table in front of him...Jawad stands accused of throwing a grenade at US soliders:
The military lawyer who had been appointed to represent Jawad, Army Col. James Michael Sawyers, said the injured soldiers told investigators they did not see who threw the grenade; an Afghan policeman identified Jawad as the culprit and turned him over to U.S. forces.Obviously a great system they have going over there. I don't suppose Musharraf and Karzai are into plea bargains the way Howard suddenly was before the last election. So it looks like Jawad is f***ed.
Jawad is not accused of having links to al Qaeda. Sawyers said he was born in Pakistan refugee camp to Afghan parents who fled the war against the Soviets in the 1980s, had only a seventh-grade religious education.
"The Western concepts of justice and court I think are just completely foreign to him," Sawyers said.
Sawyers, a military reservist on his fourth activation, was dismissed as Jawad's lawyer because his tour of duty ends next week. That leaves the Guantanamo defense team scrambling to find another military lawyer for him and for another Afghan prisoner charged on Wednesday."
