Ex-Terrorism Prosecutor Flags Flaws at Tribunal

Like many human rights observers, Anthony Barkow has harsh words about the government's treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. But Barkow offers a unique perspective: He's the only observer who successfully prosecuted terrorist sympathizers in his former life as an assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan.

President-elect Barack Obama has vowed to close the prison on the U.S. Navy base in Cuba, but no decision has been made about how and where to try the detainees. Barkow said the federal courts can handle most national security issues but did not want to take a position on where the prosecutions should occur.

"Federal prosecutors would like doing cases like this — and they can do them, too," he said in a recent interview after returning from observing military tribunals at Guantanamo for a week.

He acknowledged that the tribunals are more protective of classified information, interrogation techniques and U.S. relationships with foreign governments than are U.S. district courts. But, he insisted, "certainly, all of these things could be done in federal court."

Barkow was a federal prosecutor for 12 years, much of that time under the Bush administration.

He left the office in May, soon after arguing the appeal of three defendants convicted in 2005 of letting Egyptian Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman communicate with his followers from the U.S. prison cell where he is serving a life sentence. Abdel-Rahman was convicted in 1995 in a plot to blow up five New York City landmarks.

Today, the 39-year-old Barkow is executive director of the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law at New York University School of Law, a think tank dedicated to the promotion of good government practices in criminal matters.

He lived at Guantanamo for a week in September, returning to his tent at night to write a blog about his observations for the group Human Rights First. One of the things that surprised him most was the lack of openness.

Court observers, including himself, the media and representatives of human rights groups, sat behind a glass partition during the most sensitive proceedings, listening to testimony with a 40-second or so tape delay.