WINFIELD, W.Va. — Putnam County Prosecutor Mark Sorsaia says he’s frustrated by what he has seen at the United States terror detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Sorsaia has visited the facility three times in the past year as an official observer. He said the most recent visit was the most telling.
“The political correctness is off the scale,” said Sorsaia. “I see things happening down there that wouldn’t happen in a federal or state court here.”
Sorsaia said proceedings are regularly interrupted for the “prayer break.” The scheduled time is to enable the Muslim prisoners to engage in their daily prayer rituals. Prisoners are also allowed to wear their Islamic garb. Sorsaia said he was willing to accept such exceptions as court courtesy, but said failure to hold court during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan went too far.
The Putnam County prosecutor added he was very frustrated with a motion by attorneys for accused terror detainees seeking to prohibit female guard from touching them as part of their religious believes.
“You’ve got to touch somebody to put handcuffs on them and 20 percent of the guards down there are females. It just irritated me,” Sorsaia told MetroNews.
A judge entered a temporary order granting the motion in November and since then female guards have been disallowed from touching prisoners. A hearing on the motion lasted three days while Sorsaia was there last week.
“We’re violating the Constitutional rights of our female soldiers. We’re discriminating against the doing their jobs as soldiers because they’re women,” he said. “Then it becomes real goofy when one attorney spouts off he thinks women should cover their head when they’re around Al Quada members and I’m thinking, who’s winning this war?”
Sorsaia said he now understood why the victims of the 9/11 families were frustrated about the progress of the litigation. He claimed rhetoric out of Washington and the Obama administration’s public comments about Guantanamo has not been productive in getting the litigation completed and in some cases undermined it.
“The administration is constantly talking about closing Guantanamo, but I never hear any word about supporting the litigation,” Sorsaia said. “It’s not good for morale, the litigation is bogged down, and the clocks running. Time is on the side of the detainees.”
U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) recently drew headlines with his comments about the situation at Guantanamo during a hearing on Capitol Hill.
“In my opinion the only problem with Guantanamo Bay is there are too many empty beds and cells there right now. We should be sending more terrorists there for further interrogation to keep this country safe.” Cotton told Brian McKeon, the Deputy Undersecretary for Defense Policy. “As far as I’m concerned, every last one of them can rot in Hell, but as long as they don’t do that they can rot in Guantanamo Bay.”
Sorsaia said he agreed with Cotton, but was even more angered at the comments of McKeon and the policies instituted by the Department of Defense.
“I’m in favor of the military commissions and I’m in favor of Gitmo, but I’m frustrated with how it’s being managed by this administration,” Sorsaia said.
“We need to keep it open, pursue these cases, and prosecute them. They ought to be doing a better job and I don’t really know who’s fault it is, but after hearing from that guy’s testimony, I was able to connect the dots. It appears it’s the Department of Defense.”