General barred from Gitmo tribunals

WASHINGTON, May 10 (UPI) -- A military judge conducting a war crimes tribunal for Guantanamo prisoners has barred a general who set up the tribunals, The New York Times reported Saturday.

The judge, U.S. Navy Capt. Keith Allred, has moved to bar Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann of the Air Force Reserve from taking part in the military tribunals of six Guantanamo Bay detainees allegedly connected to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the newspaper said.

Allred disqualified Hartmann from the military's prosecution team because, as one of the founders of the system set up to try so-called enemy combatants held at Guantanamo, he lacked "required neutrality and objectivity."

Critics of the military commission system say Allred's decision would help develop further challenges to the system, which they say was designed specifically to win convictions, the newspaper reported.