DOJ Responds to Claim That Witnesses in Jawad Case Were Paid by U.S.

In my last post on the “eyewitness evidence” the government claims it has against Mohammed Jawad, the Afghan who just won his habeas corpus case, I noted that military defense lawyer Eric Montalvo said that in his investigation of the Jawad case, he learned that the government’s witnesses “have all received some sort of U.S. government compensation, from shoes and a trip to the United States to $400 for cooperation, which is a princely sum in Afghanistan.”

I asked the Justice Department if it could verify the claim that the witnesses were paid with gifts or cash from the U.S. government. Dean Boyd, spokesman for the Justice Department’s National Security Division, wrote back with this response:

Jawad has not been charged with any crime in federal court. To begin speculating in public about possible evidence or witnesses in such a case is inappropriate and not an exercise the government will engage in.