Susan Crawford

Susan J. Crawford is the convening authority for military trials under the Military Commissions Act, appointed by Robert M. Gates, U.S. Secretary of Defense, in February 2007. She directs the military commission process and Office of Military Commissions. This includes deciding whether to charge persons as unlawful combatants pursuant the Military Commissions Act of 2006, appointing members of the commissions, and reviewing commission verdicts and sentences.

Legal career

She retired, in 2007, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the U.S. Armed Forces, during which she had been Chief Judge for five years. Prior to going onto the bench in 1991, Crawford had been general counsel of the United States Army, special counsel to the Secretary of Defense, and Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Crawford had been an Assistant State's Attorney for Garrett County, Maryland. She holds a law degree (1977) from the New England School of Law at Boston, and an undergraduate degree in history from Bucknell University.

Ruling on al-Qahtani

In January 2009, before the end of the administration, a retired judge and the convening authority that decides whether prisoners are to be sent to trial, determined

We tortured Mohammed al-Qahtani...His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution. The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent. . . . You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act done to an individual. This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. It was abusive and uncalled for. And coercive. Clearly coercive. It was that medical impact that pushed me over the edge [to call it torture]