James L. Pohl

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James L. Pohl is an American military judge best known for his position on the Guantanamo trials .

Life

In 1974 Pohl received a Bachelor of Science from the University of California, Los Angeles , and four years later a Juris Doctor from Pepperdine University School . From 1981 to 1982 James Pohl was a US Army Defense Attorney at Fort Knox . From 1982 to 1984 he was Senior Trial Counsel there . He then worked for the US Army in Korea for a year. From 1985 to 1988 Pohl worked in Texas. In 1988 he received a Master of Laws in Military Law from The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School . In 1988 Pohl went to Bad Kreuznach as the person responsible for civil law . After that he was stationed in Schweinfurt as the officer in charge at the legal center there. From 1990 he worked again in the USA in Virginia for the US Army Legal Services Agency . In 1994, James Pohl became legal advisor to the Department of the Army Headquarters (HQDA). From 1995 to 1996 Pohl studied at Command and General Staff College in Kansas. In 1996 he became a member of the US Army Regional Defense Council at Fort Leavenworth , Kansas. Pohl worked as a defense disciplinary attorney from 1998 to 2000. From 2000 to 2002 he was a military judge in the 2nd Judicial District of the US Army in Fort Stewart , Georgia . Two years later he became the presiding judge of the 5th judicial district of the US Army in Heidelberg .

In 2004 and 2005, he publicly stated that what was going on in Abu Ghuraib Prison was criminal. He was also a judge in the Abu Ghuraib torture scandal . He negotiated the lawsuits against Charles Graner and Lynndie England . On December 15, 2008, James Pohl succeeded Ralph Kohlmann as presiding judge of the military commission for the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base . In January 2009, James Pohl contradicted the new President Barack Obama's order to suspend the trial of prisoners in Guantanamo for 120 days. Pohl wants to continue the proceedings against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri , the mastermind behind the attack on the USS Cole , as planned.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b c The Miami Herald, Biography - Department of Defense (PDF; 501 kB), accessed on Jan. 29, 2009 ( WebCite ( Memento from June 19, 2008 on WebCite ))
  2. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung, allegations of torture against US soldiers - judge threatens to discontinue proceedings , Aug. 24, 2004  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.sueddeutsche.de  
  3. ↑ The Miami Herald, Army colonel named chief judge , December 15, 2008  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.miamiherald.com  
  4. ↑ tagesschau.de, Proceedings against Guantánamo inmates - military judge ignores Obama's order , Jan. 29, 2009 ( Memento from January 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) ( WebCite ( Memento from January 29, 2009 on WebCite ))
personal data
SURNAME Pohl, James L.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American military judge
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century