Army defense attorney Capt. Michael Waddington says the trial at Fort Bliss, Texas, became like something out of the movie A Few Good Men.

"I never thought I would be in a situation like that," he said. "This was 10 times worse."

Capt. Waddington, a 31-year-old Judge Advocate General's Corps lawyer stationed at Fort Gordon, was sent to Texas last year to defend Sgt. Alan Driver, one of 11 reservists from the Cincinnati-based 377 MP Company charged with abusing prisoners at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

The case stemmed from an investigation launched after two detainees - one a reputed Taliban commander known as Habibullah - died within days of each other in 2002.

Sgt. Driver faced a court-martial and as much as three years in prison for allegedly kneeing Habibullah and throwing a shackled and handcuffed prisoner, former al-Qaida operative Omar al-Farouq, against a wall.

At Fort Bliss, Capt. Waddington said, he found himself outmanned and outgunned by an Army prosecution team out to make an international statement, in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, that the U.S. government won't tolerate mistreatment of prisoners, no matter who they are. Along with five prosecuting attorneys, the team had its own administrative staff, investigators looking into his client's background and about 30 witnesses lined up to testify against him, Capt. Waddington said.

"A lot of us were scratching our heads, like, who are these guys?" he said.

Just as Tom Cruise's movie character struggled with the decision to put Jack Nicholson's Col. Jessep on the stand, Capt. Waddington made a similar tough call in asking for a new Article 32 hearing after a captain told him he had seen the investigating officer - the equivalent of a judge in a civilian trial - eating with a prosecutor at a Fort Bliss restaurant.

He also dropped a bombshell by publicly revealing that Mr. al-Farouq, once one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants and a witness against Sgt. Driver, had escaped from U.S. custody. Capt. Waddington called him to the stand, and the government, unable to produce him, had to admit he had escaped.

A week before trial, the defense team received a massive computer file through discovery. Combing through it, Capt. Waddington found that Mr. al-Farouq had been moved out of the jail before the time Sgt. Driver was accused of throwing him against a wall.

On Feb. 23, a military jury of three enlisted soldiers and five officers took less than 15 minutes to reach a verdict of acquittal.

Sgt. Driver - who admits he kneed Habibullah in the thigh, but in self-defense - said his attorney showed the jury how ridiculous the charges were.

"By the way he structured the case, he was able to keep everybody's attention on what the case was about, and that was these assaults," Sgt. Driver said.

In 2002, Mr. bin Laden was believed to be in the Afghan mountains. Trial testimony showed that guards at Bagram were under pressure to soften up detainees for interrogators. At the same time, a presidential directive said the Geneva Convention did not apply to al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, but that they should be treated humanely.

Sgt. Driver was done with his tour and back in Ohio with his family by the time he was charged in 2005. A former police officer, he has four children, one of whom suffers from cerebral palsy. He was placed back on active duty for the trial.

Capt. Waddington said he took some heat for his handling of the case, including threats of being charged with security violations. He said he believes it will be hard for him to get promoted now, and he has resigned from the Army, with plans to join his wife's law practice in Augusta.

"I said, 'You know what, if I'm gonna go down, I'm gonna go down fighting," he said. "My duty is to my client. I can't be worrying about my career."

Associated Press reports were used in this article.

Reach Johnny Edwards at (706) 823-3225 or johnny.edwards@augustachronicle.com.