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Court-martial begins for Navy Gitmo lawyer

NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. — The general court-martial of Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Diaz began here Monday in what’s expected to be a five-day proceeding over allegations that he sent “secret” information about government detainees to a civil rights lawyer.

Diaz was working as an individual augmentee on the staff of Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in January 2005, when he allegedly sent 550 names of detainees in a Valentine’s Day card to civil rights lawyer Barbara Olshansky.

In the government’s opening statements, prosecutor Lt. James Hoffman accused Diaz of providing information that was clearly labeled classified from an intelligence database on detainees to Olshansky, who, at the time, was trying to learn detainee identities as part of a legal case brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Hoffman said Diaz acted according to his “own unknown personal agenda.” He sent the information on the last day of his six-month IA deployment.

Defense attorney Lt. Justin Henderson argued in his opening statement that the information was not labeled classified, and that Diaz had not intended to harm the U.S.

Diaz faced a “real moral dilemma” and a “crisis of conscience” at the time, Henderson said.

Today, Diaz faces a potential jail sentence of 24 years on four charges: failure to obey a lawful general regulation, conduct unbecoming an officer and two charges under Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, involving obtaining, possessing and communicating classified information.

Olshansky, who appeared as a government witness, said the 39 pages of names were not marked as classified information. “There was nothing indicating it came from the government,” she said.

She immediately turned over the information to the federal judge in her ongoing habeas corpus case on behalf of Gitmo detainees. From there, the information was provided to the FBI, and a government investigation into the source of the list commenced.