MIAMI — The Pentagon official in charge of war crimes proceedings at Guantanamo Bay has resigned after coming under fire for trying to force military judges to relocate to the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.
A Pentagon statement Wednesday announced the resignation of Vaughn Ary.
The retired Marine major general held the post of convening authority for military commissions and was charged with managing war crimes proceedings that have been hampered by repeated legal and logistical delays.
Ary sought a Pentagon rule requiring military judges to relocate to Guantanamo to focus exclusively on three pending cases. But lawyers for the accused challenged the change as an improper attempt to speed up litigation and forced it to be reversed.
Navy lawyer Paul Ooostburg Sanz was named as an interim replacement for Ary.
While in the Marine Corps, Ary served as staff judge advocate to then-Commandant Gen. James Amos. In 2013, an inspector general complaint was filed alleging that Amos and his legal advisers manipulated the military justice process to ensure the Marine snipers who filmed themselves urinating on an enemy corpse while deployed to Afghanistan were punished harshly. Amos and his staff were cleared of any wrongdoing following a Pentagon investigation.