{"id":9885,"date":"2007-02-09T14:48:15","date_gmt":"2007-02-09T19:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9885.html"},"modified":"2007-02-09T14:48:15","modified_gmt":"2007-02-09T19:48:15","slug":"a-gitmo-cover-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/a-gitmo-cover-up\/","title":{"rendered":"A Gitmo cover-up?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In October, Heather Cerveny, a Marine Corps sergeant, went public<\/a> with allegations into prisoner abuse she learned of at Guantanamo Bay. Cerveny spent a week at the base in late September as a legal aide to a military lawyer, and heard directly from several Navy prison guards about harsh, and frequently arbitrary, physical abuse.<\/p>\n

U.S. Southern Command launched an investigation and concluded that “insufficient evidence exists to substantiate the paralegal’s allegations.” SouthCom’s probe, however, appeared to have been rather thin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

…Lieutenant Colonel Colby Vokey, the superior officer to the Marine sergeant who filed the allegations, called the investigation “outrageous.” “I am aware that the investigators interviewed only the suspects and some witnesses but did not interview any detainees or potential victims,” he told ABC News. “Failure to interview those who may have been subjected to abuse is indicative of an incomplete investigation.” <\/p>\n

As first reported on “The Blotter” on ABCNews.com, Heather Cerveny, 23, a Marine Corps sergeant, who spent a week on the base last September working as a legal aide to Lt. Col. Vokey, said she was “shocked” to hear several guards from different parts of the base openly speak of mistreating prisoners.<\/p>\n

One said, “I took the detainee by the head and smashed his head into the cell door,” she told ABC News in October after filing a sworn affidavit with the Pentagon Inspector General. Another “was telling his buddy, ‘Yeah, this one detainee, you know, really pissed me off, irritated me. So I just, you know, punched him in the face.'”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cerveny’s account was apparently corroborated by a civilian employee on the base, but SouthCom talked to 20 military officials, all of whom denied having been a part of, or a witness to, prisoner abuse.<\/p>\n

Worse, a SouthCom investigator wants to go after Cerveny<\/em> for coming forward with her accusations in the first place.
\n<\/p>\n

Amongst the recommendations issued by the investigating officer but ultimately rejected by the SouthCom commander following the investigation was “that disciplinary or other action be taken against Sergeant Cerveny,” which Lt. Col Vokey says is the most “outrageous part of the investigation.”<\/p>\n

“The interview of her [Sgt. Cerveny] was ridiculous and oppressive,” he said. “The investigating officers, a colonel and a captain, walked straight into her office with the intent to accuse her of a crime before she even opened her mouth. The colonel already had the form in his hand to read her her rights and accuse her, before the interview started.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It sets a great precedent, doesn’t it? As Vokey put it, “This was outrageous and sends a dangerous message to all our service members: you’d better not report anything that goes on at Guantanamo Bay, or you’ll be threatened or charged with a crime.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In October, Heather Cerveny, a Marine Corps sergeant, went public with allegations into prisoner abuse she learned of at Guantanamo Bay. Cerveny spent a week at the base in late September as a legal aide to a military lawyer, and heard directly from several Navy prison guards about harsh, and frequently arbitrary, physical abuse. U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9885\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}