By Charles Aldinger2 hours, 38 minutes ago

Complaints by two former military prosecutors about the fairness of trials for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba were dismissed by Pentagon investigators, a senior defense official said on Monday, but he left open the possibility of changing trial procedures.

The official was responding to reports in The New York Times which said the two Air Force officers had charged last year that the trial system was designed to improve the chance of convicting detainees.

“That matter was thoroughly vetted (investigated) and it is closed,” Defense Department spokesman Lawrence Di Rita told reporters.

“The (Defense Department’s) inspector general concluded that it was much ado about nothing, that the individuals that had made the allegations couldn’t substantiate their allegations. And everybody moved on,” Di Rita said.

The spokesman declined to go into details about the complaints. Citing e-mails obtained by the newspaper, the Times said the former prosecutors complained in March of 2004 that the system also would deprive defendants of evidence that could help prove their innocence.

About 510 foreign terrorism suspects from 40 countries — most of them captured in the U.S. offensive in Afghanistan — are held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Many have been held for more than three years and only four have been charged, including Australian David Hicks.

The trials of the first four defendants began in Guantanamo last August but were halted in November by a U.S. federal judge’s ruling that they violated military law and U.S. obligations to comply with the Geneva Conventions.

A federal appeals court recently reversed that lower court order, and the Pentagon is preparing the resume the trials.

Di Rita told reporters in response to questions that, although the former prosecutors’ complaints had been dismissed, the Pentagon might make changes in the trial process.

“We may have refinements that we would like to consider and, in fact, there has been a lot of thinking about that as we gear up for the commissions. There is a lot of work going on to make sure that we are comfortable where we are,” he said.

The Times did not say how it obtained the electronic messages, which were sent separately and written at a time when the Bush administration was eager to have the trials be viewed as fair.

The newspaper said Air Force Capt. John Carr said in his message that the chief prosecutor told subordinates that members of the commission to try the first four Guantanamo defendants would be “handpicked” to ensure convictions.

Carr’s message, addressed to then-chief prosecutor Col. Frederick Borch, also said evidence that one of the detainees has been brutalized had been lost or withheld, the newspaper said.

Air Force Maj. Robert Preston said in an e-mail to a colleague that he could not in good conscience write a legal motion saying the proceedings would be “full and fair” when he knew they would not.

Carr and Preston left the prosecution teams within weeks of their e-mail messages but are still on active duty, the Times said.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp. carried a similar account of the officers’ allegations.

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