All In The Timing

by dday

I’m sure the military judge, in consultation with the Defense Department, threw his Khadr dart at the calendar to come up with this date:

Canadian Omar Khadr was told by a military judge Thursday at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that his trial on war crimes charges will begin on Oct. 8.

The judge, Col. Patrick Parrish, said the date for trial by the controversial military commissions process can be changed for legal reasons if necessary.

Khadr, 21, faces up to life in prison if convicted on charges of killing a U.S. army medic with a grenade during a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002. He was 15 years old at the time.

Parrish was presiding over Khadr’s pre-trial hearing for the first time.

The Toronto-born detainee’s military lawyer, Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, has accused the Pentagon of making last month’s surprise change in judges to speed the process of getting his client to trial.

The last judge, Col. Peter Brownback, who had been on the case from the outset, was more concerned with following legal procedure, and leery of many aspects of the prosecution case, Kuebler has alleged.

Kuebler said Parrish has been described in an internet posting as “rocket docket” and has been parachuted in to get his client to trial before President George W. Bush leaves the White House early next year, something his predecessor, Brownback, was in no hurry to do.

Could somebody get me the significance of October 8, please? I mean other than the fact that it’s a few weeks before the Presidential election. I’m not SO cynical to suggest that a high-profile trial of a Terrorist would fall at that time on purpose.

It has to be numerology or something.

.