Peter E. Brownback III is a retired military officer and lawyer.
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He was appointed in 2004 by
general
A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of highest military ranks, high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry.
In some usages the term "general officer" refers t ...
John D. Altenburg
John D. Altenburg Jr. (born June 10, 1944) is a lawyer for the U.S. Army and a retired major general. In December 2003, as a
Presiding Officer on the
Guantanamo military commissions
ThGuantanamo military commissionswere established by President George W. Bush – through a Military Order – on November 13, 2001, to try certain non-citizen terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison. To date, there have been a total of e ...
. The
Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
reported: "...that Brownback and Altenburg have known each other since 1977, that Brownback's wife worked for Altenburg, and that Altenburg hosted Brownback's retirement party in 1999."
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Brownback is also a combat veteran who served two tours in Vietnam, the first as part of the 173rd Brigade and later as a member of the US Special Forces. He was the honour graduate of his special forces course that he completed in 1972.
Defense attorneys challenged the bias of five of the six presiding officers at the Guantanamo military tribunal, including Brownback.
[
] Altenburg removed three officers but retained Brownback. He was the only officer appointed to the first commission who had any legal training.
Dismissed charges against Omar Khadr
In the Summer of 2006 the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
overturned the then current version of the Guantanamo military commission on
constitutional grounds.
[ The Supreme Court had ruled that, under the separation of powers, the Bush Presidency lacked the constitutional authority to institute military commissions. The Supreme Court however, did rule that the ]United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
did have the constitutional authority to legislate such military commissions.
In the fall of 2006 the Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, which authorized military commissions similar to those the Supreme Court overturned, to try "unlawful enemy combatant
An unlawful combatant, illegal combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a person who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war and therefore is claimed not to be protected by the Geneva Conventions.
The Internati ...
s".[ Brownback and Captain Keith J. Allred, ruled that, since Khadr and ]Salim Ahmed Hamdan
Salim Ahmed Hamdan () (born February 25, 1968) is a Yemeni man, captured during the invasion of Afghanistan, declared by the United States government to be an illegal enemy combatant and held as a detainee at Guantanamo Bay from 2002 to November ...
's Combatant Status Review Tribunal
The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were esta ...
s had not determined that they were "unlawful enemy combatants", but merely "enemy combatant
Enemy combatant is a person who, either lawfully or unlawfully, engages in hostilities for the other side in an armed conflict. Usually enemy combatants are members of the armed forces of the state with which another state is at war. In the case ...
s", the commissions lacked jurisdiction to try them.[
] On June 4, 2007, in a move the ''BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
'' described as a "stunning blow" to the Bush Presidency's detainee policy, Brownback dismissed all charges against
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, determine whether they broke any of the laws of war that would result in stripping them of the protections of
status.