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In Iraq, 'a Prison Full of Innocent Men'
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He looked directly at Saleh. "We've read your file, and it indicates you were involved in firing on coalition forces," he said.
Saleh shook his head. "I haven't done anything like that."
"I want to make sure you understand," said 1st Lt. Javier Escobar, another member of the panel. "We are not a court. We're concerned about what happened then. But we're more concerned about what happened now. So it would be good if you take steps admitting the truth."
But Saleh, who was captured in Baghdad in August 2007, denied he had done anything wrong. When he left the room, Le Moyne said: "He could benefit from more evaluation. I don't think he's a member of an international terrorist group; I think he's a stupid kid." Although Saleh qualified for amnesty under an Iraqi law passed earlier this year, the panel voted to hold him for six more months of detention.
"The unique thing here is that whether or not they are guilty is not the question," said Le Moyne, 45, a former criminal defense attorney from North Carolina. "It's not any standard I learned in law school. You have to erase all that from your mind."
Escobar said that particularly last year, during the buildup of U.S. troops, many Iraqis were rounded up and detained because they happened to be near an explosion or attack. He said it's often nearly impossible to tell whether someone is really guilty.
"Less than a quarter of the cases are slam-dunks," Escobar said. "Most of the time we are dealing with gray areas. You just pray we are doing the right thing."
Correspondents Joshua Partlow and Ernesto Londoño in Baghdad contributed to this report.
