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accuracy

25-08-2007, 11:01 AM

Bush to CIA: 'Leave No Marks'

With no sign of torture on a prisoner, then it didn't happen, right?

by Nat Hentoff
August 21st, 2007

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0734,hentoff,77589,2.html

On July 20, George W. Bush issued an executive order authorizing the CIA to use "enhanced" techniques (as the president likes to call them) in its terror interrogation program—including in the CIA's secret prisons, known internationally as "black sites."
CIA director Michael Hayden assures us that "now our mission and authorities [to conduct that mission] are clearly defined." Adds national intelligence director Michael McConnell: "We now have a clear legal basis" for the CIA's crucial national-security responsibilities.

The new Bush directive claims to forbid torture and cruel and inhuman treatment, as required by the Supreme Court's 2006 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision and the Geneva Conventions. However, under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, only the president can interpret the meaning of the Geneva Conventions.

And under his executive order, Bush refuses to list the specific techniques that the CIA can use. All are still classified.

Therefore, "given [this administration's] record," says Jennifer Daskal, the U.S. program advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, where she focuses on counterterrorism policy, "there is absolutely no reason to take the Bush administration's word on trust." For example, Bush has repeatedly insisted that, "We do not torture," despite, as I and others have documented, a mountain range of evidence to the contrary. (See Jane Mayer's "The Black Sites: A rare look into the CIA's secret interrogation programs," The New Yorker, August 13.)

Why are these special powers of extreme persuasion—exclusively permitted for the CIA—classified? Because, says McConnell, we don't want future inmates of the "black sites" to figure out how to resist these "enhanced" techniques for extracting information.

But McConnell also doesn't want the tenderhearted among us to fear that the world will regard our nation as monstrous for permitting the use of these methods. When Associated Press reporter Ben Feller asked him whether the American people would be upset if the enemy used these secret interrogation methods on American citizens, McConnell answered:

"I would not want a U.S. citizen to go through the process. But it is not torture, and there would be no permanent damage to that citizen."

In other words, so long as no marks are left on a CIA prisoner, interrogators are left to their time-tested cruelties. However, Elaine Massimino, the Washington director of Human Rights First, makes a very pertinent point: "Administration lawyers may try to convince [CIA] interrogators that the secret interrogation techniques authorized by the president are lawful because they cause no 'permanent damage.' But interrogators shouldn't buy it."

She goes on to list certain long-practiced (and subsequently leaked) interrogation techniques that, despite all evidence to the contrary, the CIA and the president have continually insisted are not torture, or that could not be considered cruel and inhuman. There is every reason to believe that the new presidential executive order includes their use.

Accordingly, Massimino emphasizes: "Stress positions, prolonged isolation, sensory bombardment, mock-drowning, and other such abuses can cause serious physical and mental pain. They need not inflict permanent damage in order to violate the law and potentially result in very serious criminal sanctions." Sanctions, that is, that could be directed at administration officials all the way up the chain of command.

If an inmate gets out of a CIA secret prison—and some have—to get into one of our courts and claim that he or she has been tortured or otherwise treated inhumanely in violation of U.S. and international laws, that person's lawyer can cite the United Nations' "Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment," issued on August 9, 1999:

"The absence of physical evidence should not be construed to suggest that torture did not occur, since such acts of violence against persons frequently leave no marks or permanent scars" (emphasis added).

Moreover, many American military lawyers—the Judge Advocate Generals—have told Congress and the president's palace guard that the "enhanced" techniques described by Massimino—and surely included in Bush's July 20 executive order—are illegal both here and by international standards. Because these military lawyers are driven by an integrity lacking elsewhere in the administration, they were not consulted in the writing of the president's executive order unleashing the CIA.

I try to avoid hyperbole in reporting on this administration's utter contempt for the Constitution's separation of powers—let alone our vaunted "American values"—but what the president and his lawyers are doing in this executive order cries out for investigation, using their full subpoena powers, by the Senate and House Armed Services, Intelligence, and Judiciary committees.

Now that the Democrats are in control of Congress, what the hell are they waiting for? And where are the alarmed voices of the Democratic presidential candidates?

Next week, I'll be looking at Leave No Marks: Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and the Risk of Criminality , a startling, fully documented agenda for these essential congressional investigations, which was released last month by Human Rights First in conjunction with Physicians for Human Rights (go to humanrightsfirst.org and physiciansforhumanrights.org).

As of this writing, there has been hardly any penetrating press coverage of the charges in this report. For example, "Officials and interrogators who authorize and participate . . . in the CIA's so-called interrogation techniques . . . face a substantial risk of criminal liability under the provisions prohibiting 'torture' and 'cruel or inhuman treatment' in the U.S. War Crimes Act, as amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and under the Torture Convention Implementation Act of 1994."

In other words, it's not only the actual CIA interrogators in these "black sites" who may themselves wind up in the dock. The Leave No Marks report adds:

"Officials who authorize these techniques . . . are at significant risk: namely, that in future trials involving the War Crimes Act and other legal prohibitions described in this report, courts will be presented with credible and compelling evidence of harm—provided by medical and psychological experts skilled in the documentation of physical and psychological consequences of torture and ill treatment, in accordance with internationally accepted protocols."

However, underlying the question of whether these horrific crimes (made in the USA) will ever be prosecuted in our courts is a basic problem: How many Americans will give a damn about demanding such justice?

Copyright © 2007 Village Voice

accuracy

28-08-2007, 01:18 PM

White House defends US terror tribunals

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer
Fri Aug 24,

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070824/ap_on_go_ot/terror_appeals_court;_ylt=AqKxut9CMuLttfYaXILRKeYN J_wE

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration told a newly formed appeals court Friday that discrepancies between the nation's new terrorism law and the way it is being carried out should not stall one of the Pentagon's first terror trials.

In a borrowed courtroom just steps from the White House, government attorneys urged the newly formed U.S. Court of Military Commission Review to look beyond the letter of the law when deciding whether the military botched its terrorism tribunals at Guantanamo Bay.

The case hinges on a single word: "unlawful."

Before terror suspects can be prosecuted before military commissions, the law requires they be deemed "unlawful enemy combatants." But Guantanamo Bay tribunals have simply been calling them "enemy combatants."

Lawyers for suspected al-Qaida terrorist Omar Khadr argue that's a fatal flaw in the government's case, which charges Khadr with killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan.

A military judge dismissed Khadr's case in June, saying the Canadian citizen could not face a military commission. Lawful combatants are afforded prisoner-of-war status and other rights under international law.

If the three-judge appeals court upholds that ruling, the Pentagon might have to redo tribunals for dozens of detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. The Bush administration is planning to bring him and other "high value" detainees before military commissions, special courts set up for terror suspects.

In court Friday, the argument sometimes seemed a debate on the rhetoric of terrorism itself. Words such as "enemy combatant" and "al-Qaida fighter" carry one meaning when used in political speeches and commentary, but when used by Congress to make laws those words have meanings all their own.

At its heart, the Pentagon's argument is simple: al-Qaida combatants are, by definition, unlawful. Just because the Guantanamo Bay tribunals didn't use the wording required by Congress, they are still unlawful.

To get there, however, retired Col. Francis Gilligan, the government's lead lawyer, had to get a little creative. He said the judges should also consider a presidential directive and a Pentagon memo, not just the law.

"When you set up a new system, we're not all familiar with it" and details have to be fine-tuned, he said.

Navy Capt. John W. Rolph, the presiding appellate judge in the case, was not immediately persuaded as he tried to decipher "this new creature" that Congress created. He pressed Gilligan to look again at Bush's directive, which stated that all Taliban members — not all al-Qaida members — are unlawful.

"Without expressly stating that members of al-Qaida are unlawful enemy combatants, why do we care about a presidential memo?" Rolph said.

Army Col. Paul P. Holden Jr., another judge, followed up on that point. A key defense at trial could be that Khadr is a lawful combatant and is immune from murder charges. Has the government stripped that entire defense, Holden asked, based solely on a presidential memo?

Air Force Col. David Francis, the third judges, offered one possible solution. Even if the Guantanamo Bay tribunals didn't declare Khadr unlawful, perhaps the military commission judge could do that on his own before trial.

The judges in the case are all lawyers and served as judges in traditional military courts.

Khadr's attorneys say Congress and the Bush administration created this confusion by hastily crafting a legal system and patching it up to pass constitutional muster. If terror suspects were tried in civilian or traditional military courts, they say, the road would be clear.

Wearing robes instead of their military uniforms, the three judges peppered both sides with questions but offered no hint about how they would rule. A ruling is expected within a month.

The judges seemed to reject Khadr's argument that the court itself was improperly formed. When Khadr's case was dismissed in June, the appeals court did not exist, forcing the Pentagon to quickly create it and appoint judges. Though defense attorneys criticized that process, judges did not appear troubled.

Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, one of Khadr's attorneys, urged the court to declare itself invalid and "restore the credibility of the U.S. and the perception of its commitment to the rule of law."

Speaking outside of court, military officials acknowledged wrinkles in the new system but said they would soon be ironed out so the trials could begin.

"This shows this is a robust process," said Col. Morris D. Davis, the Pentagon's chief military commissions prosecutor. "This isn't a kangaroo court."

accuracy

28-08-2007, 01:24 PM

Military Says It Can Repair Guantánamo Trial Defects

By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: August 25, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/25/us/nationalspecial3/25gitmo.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 — In an effort to revive the war crimes trials at Guantánamo, military prosecutors argued on Friday in a special appeals court that defects in their cases identified by two military judges in June could be repaired and that the prosecutions could proceed.

“We’re attempting to start the trials,” said a military prosecutor, Francis Gilligan, a retired Army colonel. “We’ve sort of had a judicial stall.”

The entire system at Guantánamo was halted in June when the two military judges ruled that terrorism detainees there had not been properly declared unlawful enemy combatants. The judges said that was a requirement of the 2006 law that set up the system to try detainees.

The standstill has been a frustration for Bush administration officials who have struggled to establish a functioning war crimes system. It has also been a boon to critics who have described the legal system at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as a patchwork of invented procedures intended to strip detainees of fundamental rights.

“This is about the credibility of the United States and the perception around the world of our commitment to the rule of law,” a military defense lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler, told reporters after the hearing. “This is a lawless process.”

The arguments were to a panel of three military appeals court judges in a borrowed courtroom half a block from the White House. It was the first session of the United States Court of Military Commission Review, a tribunal established to consider appeals from Guantánamo.

At the hearing, defense lawyers challenged the legitimacy of the appeals court itself, arguing that it was improperly constituted because its members were appointed not by the defense secretary, as the law calls for, but by a deputy secretary.

The proceeding was an appeal by the prosecution of the ruling by a Guantánamo trial judge who dismissed war crimes charges against a detainee, Omar Ahmed Khadr, 20, a Canadian from a family with deep ties to Al Qaeda. Mr. Khadr was charged with murdering an American soldier in a firefight in Afghanistan, providing material support for terrorism and other crimes.

The trial judge, Col. Peter E. Brownback III of the Army, noted in his ruling on June 4 that the 2006 law said that only detainees who had been declared unlawful enemy combatants could be tried for war crimes by the Guantánamo military commissions.

Colonel Brownback ruled that a prior military hearing, a combatant status review tribunal, had determined only that Mr. Khadr was an enemy combatant and made no finding about whether he was a lawful or unlawful combatant.

The judge wrote later that the distinction was “not mere semantics,” as some at the Pentagon have said. He also ruled that he did not have the power to declare Mr. Khadr an unlawful combatant to give himself jurisdiction over the war crimes case.

That analysis, which a second military judge agreed with the same day in another case, has stopped all the war crimes cases because none of more than 550 status review hearings at Guantánamo have determined that detainees were “unlawful” enemy combatants.

The international law of war defines unlawful combatants as fighters who, for example, do not wear military uniforms and conceal their weapons. Lawful combatants like fighters for established national armies have greater legal protections.

In his argument for the prosecution on Friday, Mr. Gilligan said that the appeals court could read the status review tribunals as declaring that Mr. Khadr was an unlawful combatant, in part because Al Qaeda does not follow the rules of war.

But even if the appeals judges rejected that approach, he said, the prosecution should be permitted to present proof to a trial judge that Mr. Khadr was in fact an unlawful combatant and could therefore be prosecuted before a military commission.

In their questions, at least two appeals judges expressed skepticism of the prosecution’s contention that the holding of prior status reviews could be read as having declared detainees unlawful combatants. All three appeals judges suggested that they were considering whether the trial judges could decide whether detainees were unlawful combatants and therefore eligible for prosecution by military panels.

In that event, Mr. Gilligan said, “the trials will go forward.”

accuracy

29-08-2007, 10:55 AM

Jury Gets Last Abu Ghraib Court-Martial

Monday August 27, 2007

By DAVID DISHNEAU
Associated Press Writer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6879621,00.html

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) - Jurors began deliberations Monday at the court-martial of the only U.S. military officer charged in the Abu Ghraib detainee abuse scandal, after the defense accused a witness of lying on the stand to deflect blame away from himself.

Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, 51, never appeared in the inflammatory photos of U.S. soldiers with naked and abused detainees at Abu Ghraib, but he was the highest ranking officer at the Iraq prison at the time and was accused of fostering the abuse.

If convicted on all four counts against him, he could be sentenced to 8 years in prison. The jury deliberated for about 4 hours Monday afternoon before recessing for the day.

During closing arguments, Jordan's lawyer took aim at one of the government's top witnesses, saying that Maj. Donald Reese falsely testified that Jordan condoned prisoner nudity as an interrogation technique. Reese commanded the 372 Military Police Company in Iraq.

``Maj. Reese is not telling the truth,'' defense attorney Maj. Kris Poppe said, citing contradictory testimony by others. ``To deflect blame is a time-honored tradition, and that's what he did.''

Reese's testimony Tuesday was among the government's strongest evidence supporting the charge that Jordan, of Fredericksburg, Va., willfully failed to train, supervise and ensure that soldiers under his control followed interrogation rules. Reese was reprimanded for his leadership failure at Abu Ghraib; he has since been promoted to major.

Earlier Monday, a prosecutor said in the government's closing that Jordan is not being court-martialed for what he did during his brief assignment as director of the Abu Ghraib interrogation center - but for what he didn't do.

``It's about what he divorced himself from doing,'' Lt. Col. John P. Tracy told the panel of nine colonels and one brigadier general. ``He didn't train. He didn't supervise.''

Tracy reminded the panel repeatedly that Jordan was the senior officer at Abu Ghraib in September and October 2003, when witnesses said they saw detainees naked and handcuffed in their cells. Tracy also said Jordan was the senior officer inside a prison cellblock on Nov. 24, 2003, during at least part of an episode that ended with a dog being brought in to intimidate a detainee during questioning.

The defense contended that Jordan had no obligation ``to train, supervise and ensure compliance by soldiers under his control'' in following interrogation rules requiring humane treatment of prisoners.

Jordan's attorneys extracted testimony from witness after witness that his two-month stint as director of the prison's interrogation center placed him outside the chain of command of both the military intelligence soldiers who interrogated detainees and the military police who guarded them.

The most serious charge Jordan faces is disobeying an order not to discuss an Abu Ghraib investigation with others, an offense punishable by up to five years in prison.

Jordan also is charged with failing to obey a regulation by ordering dogs to be used for interrogations without higher approval, punishable by up to two years; cruelty and maltreatment for allegedly subjecting detainees to forced nudity and intimidation by dogs, punishable by up to one year; and dereliction of a duty to properly train and supervise soldiers in interrogation rules, punishable by up to six months.

Overall, 11 enlisted soldiers have been convicted in the case.

accuracy

30-08-2007, 02:10 PM

Army officer acquitted of most Abu Ghraib charges

Jury finds colonel guilty of disobeying order but not abuse.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/media/photo/2007-08/32186559.jpg
Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan leaves the military court at Fort Meade after a jury convicted him of disobeying an order. (Sun photo by Steve Ruark / August 28, 2007)

By David Wood | Sun reporter
August 29, 2007
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/world/iraq/bal-te.jordan29aug29,0,5079814.story

In the final criminal prosecution for the abuse of Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison, an Army officer was acquitted yesterday of all charges directly related to the prison abuse.

After a four-day court-martial at Fort Meade, a jury of nine Army colonels and a brigadier general convicted Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, 51, of a single technical violation for disobeying a general's order not to discuss the case as it mushroomed into an international scandal in spring 2004.

Although that charge carries a potential prison sentence of five years, the prosecution recommended that the Army Reserve officer be reprimanded and fined one month's salary, about $7,400. He is expected to be sentenced today.
Of all the officers implicated in the Abu Ghraib scandal, the Army chose to prosecute only Jordan, who was the senior officer present at the prison but who was not formally in command of any soldiers.

No other prosecutions related to Abu Ghraib are pending in either military or civilian courts.

The Abu Ghraib scandal, fueled by photographs of sexual humiliation and physical abuse of Iraqi detainees, ignited a worldwide uproar barely a year after the Iraq war began.

The haunting images of hooded inmates chained naked and kneeling are still used by al-Qaida and other Islamist groups as powerful evidence of what they allege is a Western war against Islam.

"After today, I hope the wounds of Abu Ghraib will start to heal," Jordan, his voice choked with tears, told the jury yesterday after the verdict.

In the 12 criminal prosecutions of military personnel for abuse, critics said, the accountability of more senior military authorities, including commanders in Iraq and senior officers and Pentagon officials in Washington, went largely unexamined.

"There's been very little accounting at any level," said Diane Marie Amann, a visiting professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley and an expert on military jurisprudence.

"There were officers at higher rank implicated in the events at Abu Ghraib, and many of them were never subjected to any kind of proceeding within the military justice system," she said. "Civilian officials have not been held to any accountability, and that's very troubling."

Abu Ghraib is ending "with a whimper," said Victor M. Hansen, a retired military lawyer who was deeply involved in the Army's investigations of abuses at the prison.

"We ought to have a standard with which to evaluate the conduct of commanders - and we don't," he said. The Uniform Code of Military Justice does not encompass the doctrine of "command responsibility," he said, which U.S. military prosecutors used in war crime trials after World War II.

"We don't have a way to prosecute officers as fully as we should," said Hansen, an associate professor at the New England School of Law in Boston. Prosecutions such as the Jordan court-martial "don't get to the main point: Who is responsible?"

Most senior officers in command when the detainee abuses took place have been allowed to quietly retire or have received administrative punishment.

Eleven enlisted soldiers have been convicted of criminal abuses at Abu Ghraib. The most senior, former Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. of the 372nd Military Police Company from Western Maryland, received the longest sentence so far, 10 years.

Two officers, Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski, a military police commander, and Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of a military intelligence brigade, were relieved of command and reprimanded for their roles at the prison. Karpinski was reduced in rank to colonel, and Pappas was fined $8,000.

The International Red Cross found "serious violations of international law" in the abuses at Abu Ghraib, but no one has been prosecuted under international law.

Jordan's court-martial, attended by a dwindling handful of journalists and soldiers, turned on narrow legal points. Eight of the original 12 charges against him were dismissed on technicalities before the jurors were seated.

"This case is not a referendum on Abu Ghraib," Capt. Samuel Spitzberg, a member of Jordan's defense team, repeatedly told the jury.

Jordan was acquitted of charges that included dereliction of duty, subjecting detainees to forced nudity and intimidation with military dogs, and failing to secure permission to allow U.S. soldiers to use aggressive interrogation techniques.

But the jury found him guilty of having e-mailed Abu Ghraib witnesses after being told by a senior Army investigator, Maj. Gen. George Fay, not to discuss the case with anyone. Jordan's defense counsel had argued that Jordan was merely trying to assist the investigation. The jury decided otherwise.

Jordan, a former enlisted soldier, rose to become an officer in intelligence and later civil affairs. In that capacity he volunteered for Iraq, but he was sent to oversee the fast-growing U.S. interrogation center at Abu Ghraib even though he had no experience in interrogations or police operations. He did not command either the military police or the military intelligence troops at the prison.

Throughout 3 1/2 days of testimony, Jordan sat motionless at the defense table, a photograph of his three children propped against a plastic cup.

He did not testify. He had said previously that he felt he was being made a scapegoat for abuses committed and condoned by others.

In a brief and emotional statement after the verdict, Jordan said he was proud to be a member of the Army and was "shocked and sad" when he saw the Abu Ghraib photographs.

"It did not represent the United States soldiers I know and love," he said. "I deeply, deeply regret the pain this has caused for my loved ones."

Much of the trial pivoted on whether Jordan was technically in charge of military police and interrogators at the prison. Prosecutors asserted that even though Jordan was not in the official chain of command, he was the senior officer at the prison and should be held accountable for what was occurring there.

A prison notorious for torture and executions under Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib had been looted and heavily damaged after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. By that summer, the prison compound, in the violent Sunni triangle, was taking regular mortar and rocket fire from insurgents.

At the compound, U.S. soldiers were living in filthy conditions and sleeping in tents with no protection against blast fragments, officers testified during Jordan's trial. In one attack, shortly after Jordan arrived in August 2003, two soldiers were killed and the colonel suffered a shrapnel wound to the chest.

That fall, as the insurgency strengthened and U.S. casualties in Iraq rose, there was increased pressure from the U.S. command to find and punish those responsible as well as growing demands that interrogators produce "actionable" leads. The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, issued new guidelines that allowed more aggressive interrogation techniques under certain conditions.

But as Abu Ghraib's detainee population soared toward 7,000, there was a severe shortage of military police at the prison. The Pentagon had underestimated the number of detainees, and several military police units that had been prepared to deploy to Iraq were instead told to go home, an internal Army report said, leaving the prison badly undermanned.

During this period, detainees were sexually humiliated, stripped, beaten, chained and deprived of sleep. According to a subsequent investigation by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, what took place were "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses ... systematic and illegal abuse."

The case against Jordan wasn't what he had done, but what he had "divorced himself from doing," argued the chief prosecutor, Lt. Col. John P. Tracy.

"His mission was to supervise human intelligence collecting. He failed to do that," Tracy said, adding that Jordan "contributed to" a loose environment in which the abuses took place.

But the defense argued successfully that the military police and interrogators at Abu Ghraib each had their own chain of command responsible for training and supervising their work.

The abuses took place "at night and behind closed doors," in a cell block controlled by military police, argued Maj. Kris Poppe, the lead defense counsel.

"The images of Abu Ghraib are burned into our memories," Poppe said. "It is tempting to say that some officers must bear fundamental responsibility ... but not this officer."

accuracy

02-09-2007, 11:32 AM

Justice Department Lawyers Refuse Detainee Cases

Some lawyers in the civil appeals division object to the government's policies on Guantánamo Bay

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/national/2007/08/30/justice-department-lawyers-refuse-detainee-cases.html

By Emma Schwartz
Posted August 30, 2007

The government's legal arguments justifying the detention of hundreds of people at the Guantánamo Bay naval base have been repudiated three times by the U.S. Supreme Court. But it's not just outsiders who take issue with the U.S. Justice Department strategy: Up to one fourth of the department's own civil appellate staff has recently opted out of handling the government's cases against detainee appeals, two sources familiar with the matter tell U.S. News.

These conscientious objectors—their exact number is not known—have decided not to take part in the government's litigation against the detainees because of disagreements with the legal approach, these sources say. They would not elaborate on the specific reasons for the objections, but critics have long objected to the government's failure to formally charge detainees and have pushed for closing Guantánamo because of allegations of torture and inhumane conditions. Defense lawyers also contend that the government has stymied their cases by withholding documents and curbing client access.

The quiet rebellion has emerged in recent months among the approximately 56 attorneys in the appellate section of the Justice Department's civil division following a court ruling in February that placed the defense of the approximately 130 remaining Guantánamo cases under the responsibility of the appellate lawyers. More than 300 men captured shortly after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 are still being held at Guantánamo over alleged ties to terrorists, although all but a handful have never been formally charged with crimes.

Though the objectors have created some tension among the appellate staff, it's unclear that their opposition has hampered the government's efforts—especially because the court ruling will be reviewed by the Supreme Court this term. But the staff attorneys' objections highlight how dissension has grown even within the department's own ranks.

Justice Department spokesperson Charles Miller declined comment.

The Justice Department has no formal policy allowing attorneys to opt out of certain cases, unlike some law firms that make clear they won't penalize associates who, for instance, choose not to defend tobacco companies. But, informally, attorneys have rejected certain types of cases.

Most famously, in 1982, then Deputy Solicitor General Lawrence Wallace signed off on a brief in Bob Jones University v. United States but in a footnote noted his opposition to the department's position. The argument went against an Internal Revenue Service policy that denied tax-exempt status to institutions that discriminated by race.

The government's treatment of the Guantánamo detainees has a troubled legal history. The Justice Department initially denied the detainees any legal rights, arguing that the federal courts had no jurisdiction over foreigners captured overseas and held on the base in Cuba. But in 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal courts had the obligation to hear petitions challenging the detainees' detention because Guantánamo Bay is controlled by the U.S. military.

In an effort to block a flood of litigation, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act in December 2005, barring cases challenging detainees' detention—habeas corpus petitions—from the federal courts. But in 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that the law did not apply to cases that had already been filed. That left a slew of petitions in the federal courts. The ruling also threw out the White House's newly created military commission system because it did not comply with the Geneva Conventions.

Congress tried to stanch the litigation once again in October 2006 with the Military Commissions Act, which banned all habeas petitions by Guantánamo detainees. But it allowed them to file more narrow challenges of their status as enemy combatants—only in the more conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The detainees tried to challenge the law, but in February a divided three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit ruled against them, effectively moving all detainee litigation into the D.C. Circuit and into the hands of the civil appellate lawyers.

Although the Supreme Court is planning to address the ruling this year, the Justice Department has recently been on the defense in the D.C. Circuit. A different unanimous three-judge panel held in July that the government must turn over more information for the court's review of the detainees' new challenges, a ruling that the Justice Department has continued to contest.

accuracy

02-09-2007, 01:01 PM

Torture In Israeli Prisons

By Rev. Ted Pike
8-29-7

Today, more than 8,000 Palestinians are locked in Israel's prisons, most without due process. For the majority, their crime is resisting a nation that violently stole 90 percent of their parents' and grandparents' land and possessions and expelled them to wretched detention camps in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. (See, <http://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/mideaststrifeexplanation.html>The Simple Explanation for Mid-East Strife) These sons and grandsons were imprisoned for crimes ranging from stone-throwing at Israeli tanks to violent terrorist activity. As prisoners, they have virtually no rights. Many are held without charge or trial. They can be legally tortured without restraint.
Since at least 1967, the government of Israel has vehemently denied that it uses torture, and Israel signed the 1987 Landau Agreement banning most forms of torture. 1 But in 1995 a secret government report (not released until 2000) admitted Israel does torture. 2 In 1999 Israel's Supreme Court ruled that torture can be employed as a "necessity" in exceptional cases when officers have reason to believe they can prevent a crime. This has created a loophole, exempting interrogators/torturers from punishment as long as they claim they tortured in the national interest. 3

Since every Palestinian prisoner may be viewed as possessing information valuable to preventing terrorist attacks, virtually all have been tortured. The Palestine Monitor (<http://www.palestinemonitor.org/>www.palestinemonitor.org) reports that since 1987 the Israeli Security Agency has tortured at least 850 Palestinians a year during interrogations. Since the Supreme Court ruling in 1999, according to the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselm, 85 percent of Palestinian prisoners are still subjected to torture. The Monitor asserts that during the first Intifada (1987-1993), Israeli security "interrogated approximately 23,000 Palestinians." The Public Committee Against Torture (PCAT) estimates that almost all suffered some torture during interrogation. 4

The Palestine Monitor says that methods of interrogation and torture frequently used by Israeli security service include:

Tying up detainees in painful positions for hours or days.
Containment in tiny cramped spaces (for days, prisoners have been stuffed in boxes about 2 feet square and 5 feet high, often with spiked floors).
Prolonged beatings.
Enclosing the detainee's head in a sack (often soaked with urine and feces).
Violent "shaking" (Physicians for Human Rights says this has caused brain damage, even death). 5
Bending body in extremely painful positions.
Prolonged exposure to extreme cold or heat.
Sexual, verbal, and psychological abuse.
Threats against the individual's life or family members' lives.
Playing extremely loud music.
Choking and pulling out hair (prisoners have been forced to swallow hair).
Intentional tightening of handcuffs (According to Amnesty International, the handcuffs used by the Israeli Security forces are in themselves a form of torture, "the plastic handcuffs tighten on the detainee's wrist, causing intense pain; former detainees describe their wrists becoming blue as a result of their tightening and adult men screaming with pain as they begged to be taken off."
Putting head of prisoner in toilet bowl. 6

Some prisoners are guilty of terrorist acts, including attempted suicide bombings. As victims of injustice, they have also committed injustice. Yet international law forbids torturing prisoners, military or civilian, even to obtain vital information. The Old Testament, ostensibly respected by Israel's government, also gives no sanction to torture, even of Israel's bitterest enemies. The implicit message of the Old Testament is that torture is barbaric, unthinkable among God's chosen people. 7

Israelis Criticize Torture

For five months in 1977, the London Sunday Times investigative team worked inside the West Bank, Gaza, and surrounding areas to investigate evidence of torture. The team recorded 110,000 words of testimony and found proof of torture "'through the ten years of Israeli occupation since 1967'." 8

The Times presented the cases of 44 tortured Palestinians. Some of these cases are included in three chapters of the Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem, p. 593-672. 9 They confirm that the following forms of torture have existed in Israel's prison system since 1967.

Prisoners were:

hung by their wrists for long periods.
beaten extensively, over periods of days and months.
struck in the genitals, and testicles twisted, squeezed, and crushed; testicles compressed around an iron ball placed between them.
sexually abused - sometimes through "anal assaults," including homosexual rape and pushing of bottles up rectums.
attacked by dogs.
beaten on soles of feet.
hosed with icy water, forced to sit in blazing sun for hours.
penetrated in the penis with a ballpoint pen; metal rods up urethra, rupturing it.
exposed, blindfolded, to the wrath of a raging public, pelted with rocks and bottles at Israeli football games.
forced to drink urine and allow soldiers to urinate in their mouth.
forced to grasp barbed wire and endure electric shock, having electrodes attached to various parts of the body and enduring shocks so powerful they lift the victim off the ground; forced to stand in electrically charged water.
hung in crucified position for up to four days in the scorching sun.
hung by feet and used as punching bags for boxers.
forced to sit for up to a week with hands over head.
forced to "run the gauntlet" of beatings by 8 to 10 soldiers.
laid on the floor and jumped on by guards.
dragged by rope around neck.
beaten and tortured in front of family members, commanded to rape their daughters.
crushed under bulldozers.
blindfolded and hung from helicopter.

In addition, they had:

their teeth torn out with pliers; false teeth were smashed.
shards of glass pushed deeply into nostrils.
a tube pushed up nose with salt water forced into stomach; batons were jammed in mouth, rupturing throat.
ribs, bones, and teeth deliberately broken.

Red Cross Describes Torture

In Prisoners of Israel, Israeli civil libertarians Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone confirm:

the pattern of torture repeated by the Sunday Times is similar to that found in the hundreds of testimonies published by Israeli lawyers, Felicia Langer and Lea Tsemel, by Palestinian lawyer Walid Fahoum, as the accounts we have heard from former prisoners.

this pattern is documented in the West Bank as early as 1968, one year after the occupation began. Although the International Red Cross does not make public declarations, it had prepared in 1968 a finding of torture. Its "Report on the Nablus Prison" concludes:

"A number of detainees have undergone torture during interrogation by the military police. According to the evidence, the torture took the following forms:

1. Suspension of the detainees by the hands and the simultaneous traction of his other members for hours at a time until he loses consciousness.
2. Burns with cigarette stubs.
3. Blows with rods on the genitals.
4. Tying up and blindfolding for days.
5. Bites by dogs.
6. Electric shocks at the temples, the mouth, the chest and testicles." 10

A report by Amnesty International of August 9, 1982 estimated the number of detainees in the large prison camp of Ansar at 10,000. According to the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, the total number of prisoners amounted to approximately 15,000, including children and elderly persons"

As a result, the Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem tells us "there are many thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese who are disabled as a result of long years of imprisonment and torture." (p. 599)

Women Don't Escape Torture

After 1967, the number of women incarcerated and tortured grew dramatically.

One such prisoner, Rasmiya Odeh, says: "The first time they stripped me and threw me on the floor, the room was full of men -- civilians and soldiers. They laughed at my nakedness and kicked me, beat me with sticks, punched me all over, especially on the breasts; my body was covered with bruises. Then they got a wooden stick, not a smooth one, and pushed it into me to break the hymen. They brought my father and fiancé to see me. I lost consciousness

One time, an interrogator, Abu-Hani, sat me on a chair and sat himself opposite. He put his legs on the chair on either side of me and boxed me on the ears until I couldn't hear anymore and brought in my father and told him to strip and make love to me. "She isn't your daughter, she's your wife, go on, sleep with her." My father screamed and they beat him till he lost consciousness. Blood was pouring from my mouth and nose and I couldn't hear anymore. They dragged him unconscious from the room. Another time, they stripped me and took me to a room where men were suspended from the ceiling. They handcuffed me to the hooks in the ceiling -- it was a pulley system which could be raised and lowered- and then chained my feet to the ground, wide apart, and raised me so only the tips of my toes touched the ground. They said they had been going to rape me, but I was too dirty for them and they would instead get some prisoners who hadn't seen a woman for a long time." 11

The Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem says, "The tortures recounted in this chapter [such as the above] have been duplicated en masse on thousands of Palestinian women detainees of all ages." (p. 671)

Isn't it significant that a number of Israeli torture experts instructed US interrogators at the US military base of Abu Ghraib in Iraq several years ago? They taught American soldiers the same torture techniques used in Israeli prisons. 12 It is also chilling that the Bush administration, allowing "coercion" torture of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo, uses virtually the same evasive language as Israel. Bill Quigley, professor of law at Loyola University in New Orleans, says 44 detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan have died in U.S. captivity, having been hooded, strangled, gagged, or beaten with blunt objects. 13

All civil liberties/humanitarian groups that monitor Israeli torture indicate that the Israeli government at every level, from the premier and Shin Bet (equivalent to our FBI) down to the military police, colludes with torture. As a result, Ha'aretz says, "It is no surprise that no Shin Bet interrogators have been found guilty of torturing a suspect" 14

Why Should We Care?

In Nazi Germany, Hitler's SS tortured people "inferior" to the "master race." Similarly, Israel's torture of Palestinians is fueled by Talmudic teachings which assert that Gentiles are inferior to the "chosen race" Jews. (See, <http://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/talmudscalpel.html>The Talmud: Scalpel that Bleeds the Mideast)

Should torture in Israeli prisons concern us as Americans? What about the millions of evangelical Christians who staunchly support Israel?

The Bible says someday Christians will also be incarcerated in Israeli prisons. Describing the events of the last days before His second coming, Christ said, "They will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons" (Luke 21:12) During this future worldwide Jewish persecution of Christians, the same penal hellholes that now muffle the screams of thousands of tortured Palestinians will also cage Christians.

Why would Israel imprison Christians?

For anti-Christian Jewish activists, there is no greater criminal in history than Jesus Christ. Such Jews believe that, by vilifying the Pharisees (modern Judaism's greatest guiding lights), Jesus began an evil trend of suspicion toward Judaism, a movement that New Testament writers and later church fathers magnified through "anti-Semitic" depiction of Jews as "Christ killers." Many Jews believe that anti-Semitism comes from Christianity; they believe the New Testament "blood charge" that Jews had Christ crucified spawned nearly 2000 years of living hell for the Jewish people, culminating in the Holocaust. (See, <http://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/ntantisemitic.html>ADL's Foxman: New Testament is Anti-Semitic)

When Sarah Silverman in her film Jesus is Magic said, "I hope the Jews did kill Christ. I'd f---ing do it again in a second," she expressed a historic Jewish point of view: If Jesus had been smothered in His cradle, a world of Jewish suffering would have been avoided. Activist Jews of ADL/B'nai B'rith consider the accusation that the Jews had Christ murdered so evil they have included it as one of the 14 criteria of anti-Semitism published by their Office of Global Anti-Semitism in the US State Department. (See, <http://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/gestapobeingcreated.html>Global Hate Crimes Gestapo Being Created) Such "anti-Semitism" is now a hate crime punishable by the B'nai B'rith hate laws in Canada with huge fines and even prison. 15

Already, Jewish activists in high places can deport and imprison those who offend them. At the insistence of B'nai B'rith International, historians and Holocaust reductionists Ernst Zundel and Germar Rudolph were extradited from Canada and America and imprisoned in Germany for violating Germany's B'nai B'rith-inspired "anti-hate" laws.

The Knesset can now demand from any nation extradition of those who publicly question the accuracy of the six-million figure of the Holocaust. 16 If nations accept this request and deport citizens to Israel, such victims may be tried there for "crimes against the Jewish people" and sent to Israeli prisons where they may be tortured alongside Palestinians.

The Knesset is also deliberating legislation that would make it a federal crime for visiting evangelicals, and even resident Jewish Christians, to witness publicly for Christ in Israel. 17 Penalty: a year in an Israeli prison, again possibly facing the same tortures meted to Palestinians. In the book of Acts, Christians who publicly witnessed for Christ in the streets of Jerusalem faced imprisonment and possible flogging (torture). The same is becoming true today.

Ultimately, Christians may be "delivered" from the nations to Israel for the "crime" of supporting those who caused the Holocaust -- Jesus and the New Testament writers.

Time for Christians to Suffer

Today, few evangelical Christians have sympathy for Arab suffering. "Israel first" evangelicals view Palestinians as Satanically driven opponents to God's chosen people, Israel. They consider Israel the apple of His eye, blessed and intimately guided from above, especially in military victories. One pastor frankly told me God is really interested only in the Jews. "He's pretty much written off the whole Arab world." Reflecting this mentality, most evangelicals pledge themselves to unconditionally support Israel.

Yet when Christ's words are fulfilled and the church suffers imprisonment and torture at the hands of Jewish leaders, a few believers will suffer with a clear conscience. They did not assist, but resisted, the rise of the anti-Christ system that now oppresses them. They had compassion on its first victims, the Palestinians, as would the gentle Jesus.

Most imprisoned evangelicals will not have this consolation. They will remember how they and their fathers blindly encouraged the ascent of the Great Harlot, Israel, and stopped their ears from hearing the cries of her victims.

The Palestinians have suffered without mercy or justice from most evangelicals for at least 60 years. Someday it will be the turn of evangelicals to scream from undreamed of tortures in Israeli prisons and also be unheard by a hostile and indifferent world.

Endnotes:

1. In his 50-page report, the UN special investigator on torture, Nigel Rodley said Israel told him, "that its law forbade all forms of torture or maltreatment and it was in full conformity with the 1987 Convention Against Torture which it has ratified." Yet, he goes on to relate how his investigations confirmed that practices amounting to torture, such as sleep deprivation, hooding, and violent shaking, were going on at the same time. Reuters, March 23, 1997, "UN Investigator Says Israel Tortures Palestinians."

2. "Israel Admits Torture," <http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/>www.news.bbc.co.uk, Feb. 9, 2000.

3. Human Rights Watch, <http://www.hrw.org/>www.hrw.org, "Memorandum: Israel's Second Periodic Report to the Committee Against Torture," May 1998.

4. <http://www.palestinemonitor.org/>www.palestinemonitor.org, Fact Sheet of Torture of Palestinians, Aug. 17, 2007. The Monitor says, "According to Amnesty International, since 2001, Israeli authorities '.have actually continued and intensified implementation of a policy of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and collective punishment against Palestinians'"

5. "Israel and the Occupied Territories: Shaking as a Form of Torture. Death in Custody of Abdal Al-Samad Harizat. A Medicological Report by Physicians for Human Rights, October 1995,"
http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/documents/reports/israel-and-the-occupied.pdf.

6. <http://www.palestinemonitor.org/>www.palestinemonitor.org, Fact Sheet of Torture of Palestinians, Aug. 17, 2007.

7. The altruism of the Old Testament toward one's vanquished enemies is revealed in II Kings 6:22: "Would you kill those you have taken captive? Set bread and water before them that they may eat and drink and return." As a result of Israel's kindness to a captured invading foe, "marauding bands of Arameans did not come again into the land of Israel."

8. Schoenman and Shone, Prisoners of Israel, Santa Barbara, CA, Veritas Press, 1984, p.13.

9. Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem, Intercontinental Books, Nov. 1991. Edited by Christian Palestinian lawyer and diplomat Dr. Issa Nakhleh, this 2-volume work is available at most university libraries.

10. Prisoners of Israel, p. 594.

11. Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem, p. 646.

12. Columnist Wayne Madsen writes, "According to a political appointee within the Bush administration and U.S. intelligence sources, the interrogators at Abu Ghraib included a number of Arabic-speaking Israelis who also helped U.S. interrogators develop the 'R21' (resistance to interrogation) techniques. Many of the torture methods were developed by the Israelis over many years of interrogating Arab prisoners in the occupied West Bank and in Israel itself." <http://www.counterpunch.org/>www.counterpunch.org, "The Israeli Torture Template: Rape, Feces and Urine," August 17, 2007.

13. "Priests Expose Secret Cycle of U.S. Torture," Brenda Norrell, <http://www.counterpunch.org/>www.counterpunch.org, Aug. 13, 2007.

14. <http://www.haaretz.com/>www.haaretz.com, "Torture in Israel Has Again Become Routine," Aug. 18, 2003. The Palestine Committee against Torture concludes, ".not a single GSS interrogator has been brought to trial since 1994," PCAP, Sept. 2004, cited by the Palestinian Monitor.

15. I asked a friend in Toronto what would happen if he publicly stated that the Jews had Christ killed. "Ted," he replied, "I'd be playing with fire. The police might come and arrest me."

16. On June 20, 2004 the Jerusalem Post reported that Israel's Knesset empowered the State of Israel to criminalize anyone in the world who publicly reduces the six-million figure. The government is now authorized to request extradition to Israel of such alleged "hate criminals" from any nation. Israel can also seize, prosecute, and imprison them should they set foot in Israel.

17. Since 1977, Israel's anti-missionary law has decreed 5 years in prison for any non-Jew who attempts to convert a Jew from his religion, making use of a material enticement (tract, cup of coffee, etc.). This law has not been strictly enforced out of fear of losing evangelical favor and tourist dollars. Israeli law also requires a 6-month prison term for anyone, Gentile or Jew, encouraging conversion of a Jewish minor. This spring, the Shas party (equal in votes to Likud) proposed that attempts to convert a Jew of any age in Israel should be punished by 1 year in prison. "Shas Seeks Harsher Penalties for Missionaries," Mar. 14, 2007,
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3376215,00.html.

accuracy

04-09-2007, 01:49 PM

In Padilla interrogation, no checks or balances

Oversight of the executive branch regarding treatment of terror detainees remains inadequate, say legal analysts.

By Warren Richey | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the September 4, 2007 edition
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0904/p02s01-usju.html

When admitted 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed complained in a Guantánamo Bay hearing earlier this year that he'd been tortured by US interrogators, the presiding military officer assured him the charges would be investigated.

Two US senators who watched the hearing later praised the officer's action. "Allegations of prisoner mistreatment must be taken seriously and properly investigated," Sens. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina and Carl Levin (D) of Michigan said in a joint statement. "To do otherwise would reflect poorly on our nation."

In contrast, when alleged Al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla, a US citizen, claimed in 2006 that he had been tortured, no similar effort was undertaken.

No senators called for an investigation or a hearing. No one promised a Defense Department inspector general inquiry or a Justice Department probe. The federal judge then presiding over Mr. Padilla's criminal case in Miami refused to permit further inquiry into the torture allegation, and instead ordered Padilla's lawyers not to raise the issue during trial.

The difference between Mr. Mohammed's experience and Padilla's experience highlights a near total lack of independent oversight involving the secret military detention and interrogation of a US citizen on American soil.

It is unlikely anyone outside a select group of military officials knows the full story of exactly what was done, or wasn't done, to Padilla in the name of national security.

But instead of aggressively examining the torture allegation, the Bush administration has fought hard to keep Padilla's treatment in military custody veiled in secrecy.

"The treatment of Padilla ranks as one of the most serious abuses after 9/11," says Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School in Washington. "This is a case that would have shocked the Framers. This is precisely what many of the drafters of the Constitution had in mind when they tried to create a system of checks and balances."

Human rights activists, too, are alarmed by what they see as the continuing lack of oversight and accountability. "What happened to [Padilla] in military custody will be seen by history as one of the more shameful acts this country has taken against one of its own citizens," says Hina Shamsi, deputy director of the Law and Security Program at Human Rights First.

Padilla was held without charge in military custody at the US Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C., for more than 3-1/2 years. He was allegedly subjected to prolonged isolation, sensory deprivation, and stress positions, among other harsh interrogation tactics. Mental-health experts who have examined Padilla say the coercive techniques left him with severe psychological damage that may be permanent. Their observations are detailed in three reports filed in Padilla's criminal case.

Allegations deemed not credible

Defense Department officials say they believe Padilla is faking his psychological conditions. No similar detailed psychological examinations, however, have been conducted by the government.

Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, says suggestions that Padilla is a different person after his years in military custody are not evidence of illegal abuse. Simply being held in a federal prison can change an inmate's personality, but that doesn't mean prison officials tortured him, Commander Gordon says. "I bet I would be different," he says.

In terms of oversight, Gordon says, Defense Department personnel stand ready to fully investigate any credible allegations of torture or other illegal conduct at the brig. "Credible allegations of illegal conduct are taken seriously," he says. "In this case we don't believe that to have occurred."

In Mr. Mohammed's case, his allegations were referred to the inspector general of the Central Intelligence Agency, which will neither confirm nor deny the existence of such a probe.

Even if an oversight investigation verified some or all of Padilla's claims, it is unlikely that he would find himself a free man anytime soon. Padilla was convicted in a terror conspiracy trial in Miami on Aug. 16. He is set to be sentenced in December and faces up to life in prison.

Apart from the criminal case, a separate group of lawyers has filed a civil lawsuit in South Carolina seeking a judicial ruling declaring the US government's treatment of Padilla in the brig illegal and unconstitutional.

Justice Department lawyers are expected to ask that Padilla's suit be thrown out of court because the litigation would likely reveal state secrets about Padilla's interrogation, legal analysts say. Such a move would again prevent public scrutiny of the torture allegations, these analysts say.

"If they invoke the state secrets privilege, that is the ultimate trump card," says Douglas Kmiec, a professor at Pepperdine University Law School in Malibu, Calif. So far, every time the government has invoked the state secrets privilege in recent years, the case has been thrown out of court, he says.

Civil libertarians and human rights experts say oversight and accountability are important because Padilla's treatment by the military could happen to others.

"This is a dangerous precedent," says Douglas Johnson, executive director of the Minneapolis-based Center for Victims of Torture. "Padilla may well deserve to be put away for the rest of his life, but some key principles of American law and culture were violated, and that means that other people could also be in danger of their rights being violated."

The Center for Victims of Torture seeks to provide a healing environment for those who have faced physical and psychological torture overseas. Dr. Johnson says patients at the center have faced many of the same techniques allegedly used against Padilla.

"Isolation has been a consistent methodology of repressive regimes [overseas]," he says. "It is very, very frightening that our government has chosen to use this methodology."

Padilla's claims are different than those of most people who say they've been tortured. More substantive than merely a verbal accusation, the three psychological reports and Padilla's degraded mental condition represent direct evidence of abuse, say experts in the treatment of torture victims.

"There is a valid and objective way to evaluate all this," says Scott Allen of Physicians for Human Rights and author of a recent PHR/Human Rights First report, "Leave No Mark," that discusses how US interrogators may face criminal liability in the future.

PHR experts are assembling psychological reports and conducting exams similar to those done in the Padilla case, he says. They are gathering evidence from at least seven former detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the US detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The report calls on the executive branch to stop using harsh interrogation tactics and to release all government documents related to such tactics. In addition, it asks Congress to exercise its oversight role and ban these interrogation methods.

Congress's oversight record

Two years ago, Democrats in Congress championed a proposal to establish a 9/11-type independent commission to investigate allegations of detainee interrogation abuses. The measure was sponsored by Senator Levin, who complained that the Republican-controlled Congress had failed to aggressively carry out its oversight responsibilities.

Republican opponents of the Levin amendment said the Defense Department had already conducted 12 major investigations into detainee treatment, and Congress had conducted 30 open hearings and 40 closed hearings.

Levin countered that the investigations and hearings had been selective and that large areas – including the legality of certain interrogation techniques – had never been investigated.

"These issues are not going to go away. They can't be swept under the rug," Levin said during the floor debate. "With each passing day, we have new revelations of detainee abuses."

The Levin amendment was defeated in a largely party-line vote in November 2005. The tally: 43 to 55.

A year later, Democrats took control of both houses of Congress. So far, the Democratic leadership has yet to undertake any significant public oversight – such as hearings, investigations, or legislation – on the issue of detainee interrogation.

Political analysts say civil liberties in the war on terror is not a winning issue for Democrats seeking to win the White House in 2008 and to expand their majorities in both houses of Congress.

The result: The conditions of Padilla's interrogation and confinement may remain shrouded in secrecy.

"The Framers believed they had created an independent judiciary and Congress that would check this kind of abuse by the executive [branch]," Professor Turley says.

"In the absence of judicial review, it is possible for Congress to seek legislative guarantees to prevent a repeat of this abuse," he says. "But Democrats appear terrified that they will be accused of supporting a terrorist."

www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2007 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.

accuracy

09-09-2007, 01:40 PM

16 Saudis freed from Guantanamo Bay detention camp

06-09-2007
http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/Saudi%20Arabia/216594

Sixteen Saudis returned home on Thursday after the United States freed them from a prison camp at Guantanamo Bay where foreign "terrorism" suspects are held. The Saudi state news agency SPA said Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz "voiced his relief and appreciation for the cooperation shown by the authorities in the United States, hoping this leads to the return of the remaining Saudis."

http://manager.albawaba.com/img/new_sys/mediabank/15044_mb_file_8434a.jpg

The U.S. authorities are cutting the numbers of people detained at Guantanamo Bay, but SPA did not say how many Saudis remain there. It should be noted that detainees at Guantanamo are being held without charge or trial.

During May 2006, fifteen other Saudis returned home after being released from the United States military detention camp.

© 2007 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)

accuracy

09-09-2007, 01:50 PM

Abu Ghraib Officer's Sentence: Reprimand

By DAVID DISHNEAU – Aug 29, 2007
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iYm1LyoiuPfN8SGxkjTorEPW85dg

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) — A military jury recommended a reprimand Wednesday for the only officer court-martialed in the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal, sparing him any prison time for disobeying an order to keep silent about the abuse investigation.

The jury had acquitted Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan a day earlier of all three charges directly related to the mistreatment of detainees at the U.S.-run prison in Iraq.

Those acquittals absolved Jordan, 51, of responsibility for the actions of 11 lower-ranking soldiers who have already been convicted for their roles at Abu Ghraib. The allegations surfaced after the release of photographs showing U.S. soldiers grinning alongside naked detainees held in humiliating positions at the prison.

Jordan was convicted of a single charge: disobeying a general's order not to discuss the abuse investigation. The defense conceded that Jordan e-mailed a number of soldiers about the investigation after meeting with Maj. Gen. George Fay in spring 2004.

"We believe that for Col. Jordan, the vindication arises out of the 'not guilty' findings on the Abu Ghraib abuse charges, and we view that as very much a victory," said Maj. Kris Poppe, his attorney. Jordan could have been sentenced to up to five years in prison, though prosecutors had recommended a reprimand and a fine of one month's pay, about $7,400.

The reprimand was the lightest sentence the jury could have recommended. Whether it will become part of Jordan's permanent service record is up to the court-martial convening authority, Maj. Gen. Richard J. Rowe, commander of the Military District of Washington. He will make the final sentencing decision after reviewing a written summary of the trial.

Poppe said Jordan would remain on active duty with the Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Belvoir, Va., through February, then consider retiring from a military career spanning 28 years.

Jordan, a reservist from Fredericksburg, Va., never appeared in any of the inflammatory photos, but as director of the prison's interrogation center and the highest ranking officer there at the time, he had been accused of fostering a climate conducive to abuse.

The prosecution had suggested that it wasn't about what Jordan did at Abu Ghraib, but what he didn't do.

The nine colonels and one brigadier general who made up the jury, however, found him not guilty of the three abuse-related charges: cruelty and maltreatment for subjecting detainees to forced nudity and intimidation by dogs; dereliction of a duty to properly train and supervise soldiers in humane interrogation rules; and failing to obey a lawful general order by ordering dogs used for interrogations without higher approval.

Those acquittals suggested that criminality went no higher than former Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick, a military police reservist from Buckingham, Va., who is serving an eight-year sentence. A number of officers senior to Jordan were reprimanded administratively — but not convicted of crimes — for their roles at Abu Ghraib.

Hina Shamsi, deputy director of New York-based Human Rights First, said an "accountability gap" remains between the convicted soldiers and high-ranking military and government officials who sanctioned harsh interrogation techniques.

"None of the cases brought to date has given the systemic accounting the nation needs of what happened, why and how far up the chain of command responsibility lies," Shamsi said. "It cries out for the kind of oversight and investigations that Congress can do."

John Sifton, senior counterterrorism researcher with Washington-based Human Rights Watch, called Jordan's prosecution "amateurish and half-baked" and said the military lacked the will to get to the bottom of the abuse.

Jordan told the jury during his sentencing hearing Tuesday that he took sole responsibility for his actions. He indicated that he had misunderstood Fay's command and failed to seek clarification. The prosecution described one e-mail at trial in which Jordan asked Staff Sgt. James Beachner, an Army interrogator, if Beachner ever saw Jordan abuse detainees and whether Beachner knew of any detainee abuse by soldiers under Jordan's control.

Jordan said he had been living and working under a cloud since the investigation began 3 1/2 years ago.

"When I first saw photographs of the horrible abuses at Abu Ghraib, I was shocked and I was saddened," he said. "After today, I hope the wounds of Abu Ghraib can start to heal."

Jordan was the last of 12 defendants to go to trial. Of the 11 enlisted soldiers convicted of crimes, the longest sentence, 10 years, was given to former Cpl. Charles Graner Jr., of Uniontown, Pa., in January 2005. Lynndie England, the most recognizable face from the Abu Ghraib photos, was sentenced to three years.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

accuracy

10-09-2007, 02:03 PM

Group: Tunisia Breaks Guantanamo Pledge

By JENNY BARCHFIELD –
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h1Hy73ZszUfQoq0CnH_yW6DSofkA

PARIS (AP) — Tunisian authorities have broken a pledge not to mistreat two former detainees at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay who were sent home nearly three months ago, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.

In a statement, the group cited lawyers for Abdullah bin Omar and Lotfi Lagha as saying the two men were held in solitary confinement and mistreated — despite assurances by the Tunisian government to the United States that the two would not be harmed.

The Tunisian government denied the allegations, saying in a statement: "The rights of prison inmates are protected by law and no forms of cruel or inhumane treatment are tolerated."

The government said bin Omar and Lagha "have both enjoyed all their rights as part of due process of law," and said neither had been held in solitary confinement.

Tunisia is regularly criticized for human rights abuses, including torture, by national and international organizations. Ten Tunisians remain in Guantanamo.

The U.S.-based group urged Washington to give Guantanamo detainees facing transfers to their home countries a chance to contest the move before a federal court if they fear mistreatment or torture.

Returned to Tunisia on June 18, bin Omar and Lagha were immediately taken into custody. Both had been held without charges at the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay for about five years, the statement said.

Bin Omar, convicted in absentia in Tunisia in 1995 on charges that he belonged to a foreign terrorist group, is now awaiting a retrial. The statement did not provide details about bin Omar's arrest.

Associated Press reporter Bouazza Ben Bouazza contributed to this report from Tunis, Tunisia.

accuracy

15-09-2007, 09:30 AM

Guantanamo detainees tell of abuses

By ANDREW O. SELSKY, Associated Press Writer
Tue Sep 11,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070911/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/inside_guantanamo

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Detainees flinging body waste at guards. Guards interrupting detainees at prayer. Interrogators withholding medicine. Hostility and tension between inmates and their keepers at the Guantanamo Bay prison are evident in transcripts obtained by The Associated Press.

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070909/capt.nyol70209092125.guantanamo_nyol702.jpg
A detainee shields his face as he peers out through the so-called 'bean hole' which is used to pass food and other items into cells, within the detention compound at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba, in this Dec. 4, 2006 file

These rare detainee accounts of life inside the razor wire at the remote U.S. military base in Cuba emerged during Administrative Review Board hearings aimed at deciding whether prisoners suspected of links with the Taliban or al-Qaida should continue to be held or be sent away from Guantanamo.

The Pentagon gave the AP transcripts of hearings held last year in a trailer at Guantanamo after the news agency sought the material under the Freedom of Information Act.

Amid the tensions, the transcripts also show a few relaxed encounters between detainees and their guards and interrogators.

The military has said Guantanamo is relatively calm compared to last year. But a report released by the detention center last month shows mass disturbances are up sharply over 2006 and forced removal of prisoners from cells and assaults with bodily fluids are on pace to match or exceed last year's total.

The transcripts, obtained by the AP on Friday, illustrate the friction.

A Yemeni detainee, Mohammed Ali Em al-Zarnuki, warned his panel of three U.S. military officers that inmates would attempt suicide unless guards stop interrupting prayers, moving detainees during prayer time and whistling and creating other distractions.

Four detainees have committed suicide at Guantanamo — three last year and one on May 30. Several other detainees have tried to kill themselves, including by overdosing on hoarded medicine.

"I want you to be aware of it because I don't want you to face a big problem," al-Zarnuki said. "The problem happened before. The detainees took medication before because of this. So if you do not put a stop to this, it is going to be worse than before."

The hearing's presiding officer assured the detainee he would pass the complaint on, but added: "We do not make the camp rules and we have nothing to do with the camp rules."

Commanders at Guantanamo had no comment Tuesday on the allegations. Guards have been trained to be sensitive about religious matters at Guantanamo, where wailing calls to prayer blare from loudspeakers while traffic cones are placed next to cells during prayer time, reminding guards not to interrupt.

In determining whether a detainee should remain at Guantanamo, the Administrative Review Boards consider whether he poses a security threat or has intelligence value. But detainees told the panels that lying to interrogators is common, calling into question the validity of the intelligence interrogators extract.

Some prisoners said their enemies inside the prison have lied to gain favor with interrogators or settle old scores.

One detainee bluntly informed his panel that he lies to interrogators and that others do as well.

"Why do you feel you have the right to lie to the interrogators?" a surprised panel member asked the detainee, Abdennour Sameur, an Algerian who was a resident of Britain.

"I was lying so that I can get my medical (treatment)," Sameur said. "Every interrogation that I have gone to I had to lie, because that was the only way I could get medical attention. ... They were giving me some kind of medical pills, but the interrogators stopped it. Every time they get a new interrogator the interrogator stops it."

Responding to questions from AP, military officers denied that detainees were deprived of medicine.

A Guantanamo spokesman, Army Lt. Col. Edward Bush, said no officials at Guantanamo had ever heard of a detainee being prevented from taking medicine.

Navy Capt. Bruce Menele, commander of the Joint Medical Group at Guantanamo, said that "interrogators have no authority over medical personnel administering medicine, or over any other aspect of detainee medical care."

"I would be highly disturbed and feel obligated to take significant actions if I discovered that this had ever occurred," Menele added.

Asked whether prayers are being interrupted and whether interrogators have withheld medicine, Bush said he was checking with appropriate commands at the base.

A letter signed by physicians and published Friday in the British medical journal Lancet compared the role of doctors at Guantanamo to the South African doctors involved in the case of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, who was beaten and tortured to death in 1977 in police custody.

The letter, signed by some 260 people from 16 countries — most of them doctors — accused the U.S. medical establishment of turning a blind eye to the role of military doctors at Guantanamo.

It did not allege doctors were involved in withholding any medicine from detainees, but took serious issue with the involvement of medical personnel in force-feeding hunger strikers at Guantanamo.

The detainees' accounts also described a few lighter moments in the prison, set on an arid bluff overlooking the Caribbean Sea.

"There was a time when the guards opened my cell by mistake and I joked with them by asking 'Can I help you?'" said Abdul Aziz Alsuwedy. "They laughed and apologized. The same guard thanked me later for not causing any problems."

Alsuwedy, whose account was contained in a statement sent to his Administrative Review Board, did not say whether the guards belonged to the Immediate Reaction Force that carries out forced cell extractions and suppresses disturbances.

Another detainee described how interrogators said he resembled Cuba Gooding Jr., and later brought him photos of the star because the detainee had never heard of the actor.

Several detainees said some guards and interrogators treat them with respect, while others do not.

"Who treats me good, I treat them good," said Sameur, the Algerian detainee. "Who treats me like a dog, I give them the same treatment."

Sameur then described what he did to guards he doesn't get along with: "I threw feces and I have spit on them."

accuracy

15-09-2007, 09:37 AM

Guantanamo Military Base

Check out the slideshow!

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070914/capt.nyol94909142322.guantanamo_contraband_underwe ar_nyol949.jpg

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/wl/071803guantanamo;_ylt=AgYgG9UkDlu2cqPnDfRBMpzlWMcF&auto=yes

accuracy

17-09-2007, 02:12 PM

Briton jailed in Iraq for terrorism claims he was tortured

· Barber denies part in Shia cult Soldiers of Heaven
· FO says it is unable to give full consular support

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2170814,00.html

Vikram Dodd
Monday September 17, 2007
The Guardian

A British barber who has been convicted in Iraq of being a terrorist has told the Guardian that he was repeatedly tortured.
Mohammed Hussein, from Birmingham, was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment by an Iraqi court late last month.

He says he suffered beatings and that the torture he suffered included attempts to pull his fingernails out.

The 29-year-old was among hundreds detained in late January accused of being part of an Iraqi Shia cult called the Soldiers of Heaven.

Iraqi government forces supported by US airpower killed more than 250 people after a battle outside Najaf. The Iraqi government says the cult was planning to assassinate Shia religious leaders, but critics accuse the government of a massacre and cover-up.

Mr Hussein says he went to Iraq to care for his mother, who was ill. He denies any terrorist involvement or support for the cult. The attack by Iraqi forces also killed his mother and sister.

Speaking from his prison cell in Iraq, Mr Hussein told the Guardian: "I'm very bad, it's miserable.

"I'm nothing to do with Bin Laden or any terrorist group. I don't believe in any fight. They said I was one of the fighters. They beat me badly for days and days.

"They tried to take my nails out, they pulled my nails. For the first two weeks I had full punishment."

He added: "Another group came, they tortured me even more. They told me to say I'm a spy sent by the British, [they said] you gave money, you support [the insurgents]. They twisted both my arms. They are worse than Saddam, they do the same and even worse. They want me to say things that are not true."

He was detained with his wife, Ebtihal Hussein, and his two-year-old son. Mrs Hussein says she was threatened with torture and detained for two months.

Speaking for the first time she said: "They beat up a woman in front of me, her legs were blue, she had to go to hospital. They hanged her from the ceiling and beat her.

"I thought they would beat me up just like the woman.

"They said they would take my son from me. They wanted me to say things against my husband. They called us terrorists.

"They hit my husband. They hung him by his arms, his arms hurt, he has been left with a deformity."

She said British diplomatic officials had done nothing to help them.

One possible explanation for the zeal of the Iraqi authorities in pursuing Mr Hussein is that his brother-in-law is a leader of an insurgent group opposed to Iraq's government. However, Mrs Hussein said her husband had very little contact with his brother-in-law.

The Foreign Office in London said Mr Hussein is a dual British and Iraqi national, which means they cannot provide him with full consular support.

They say they have asked the Red Crescent, the Islamic version of the Red Cross, to check on Mr Hussein, but the organisation has so far been unable to do so because of the hazardous security conditions.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said they had asked the Iraqi authorities for details of the case, but were still awaiting a response: "As he is a dual national, in his second country of nationality, Foreign Office consular staff cannot offer full consular support."

Mr and Mrs Hussein have been supported by the London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission, whose director, Massoud Shadjareh, said: "Mohammed Hussein seems to be just one of many who were picked up in this operation. Most appear to have been denied due process, and it seems clear that there is no accountability and no clear judicial processes in operation in Iraq.

"The British government, knowing these facts, has failed to provide its citizens proper protection or support."

accuracy

17-09-2007, 02:20 PM

Israeli legal experts weigh in supporting Guantanamo detainees

Sunday, September 16, 2007
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/19760.html

With the U.S. Supreme Court set to take up Guantanamo detention policy again when its new term begins next month, the justices have received some unusual advice from a far-flung, friendly corner of the war-torn Middle East.

Israeli lawyers and military law experts have filed a brief that supports detainees in their quest for the right to have their cases heard in American courts. The Israeli lawyers argue that the Bush administration is making a mistake by trying to prevent the suspected terrorists being held at Guantanamo from filing cases in regular civilian or military U.S. courts.

"The issue here is, having been engulfed with terrorist activities from the beginning, from 1948, we learned a good lesson — if you want to remain a democracy you must be willing to let them have their day in court,'' says one of the lawyers, Emanuel Gross, a retired Israeli Army colonel and military judge who now teaches law at Haifa University Law School.

The Israelis' brief was among 19 friend-of-the-court petitions filed in the case of Boumediene v. Bush — which is the third Guantanamo case in four years to be heard by the Supreme Court.

The court had at first refused to hear the case, which challenges two acts passed by Congress in recent years that stripped U.S. District Courts of the authority to consider unlawful detention challenges from detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

But then in June the court reversed itself and said it would take the case — a rare reversal that shocked lawyers on both sides of the dispute. In the two other Guantanamo cases that the Supreme Court has heard, the detainees have won.

Nearly two dozen widely diverse interest groups have filed briefs siding with the prisoners, including former senior U.S. diplomats and military officers, Canadian and European lawmakers and lawyers, the federal public defender in South Florida, even Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

They don't argue that the men are innocent but that they deserve their day in court.

The deadline to submit briefs was Aug. 24. Now the Bush administration and its supporters have until Oct. 9 to provide their briefs. Arguments are set for December.

The briefs are being written at a time of increasing discussion at the White House and in Congress about what to do with the detention and interrogation center at Guantanamo.

Gone from the Bush administration are the two biggest champions of Guantanamo, Donald Rumsfeld, who's been replaced as secretary of defense by Robert Gates, an advocate of closing the prison camp, and Alberto Gonzales, whose last day as attorney general was Friday. As White House counsel, he once declared the Geneva Conventions that set international standards for treatment of war prisoners as "quaint" in a memo that critics argue enabled abusive practices.

The case is named for Lakhdar Boumediene, a 41-year-old Algerian who was working as a relief worker in Sarajevo, Bosnia, when he was sent to Guantanamo in January 2002. He's been on a hunger strike since last Christmas.

U.S. forces spirited Boumediene and five other men from Europe to Turkey to Guantanamo for interrogation — after Bosnian police cleared them of plotting to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo.

None has been charged with a crime.

All six men want to sue the U.S. administration for their freedom, but a federal judge in Washington, D.C., threw out their cases, saying that as Guantanamo captives they were not entitled to file so-called habeas corpus petitions.

The White House argues that indefinite detention of enemy combatants without recourse to civilian court is a war-on-terrorism necessity in a new and dangerous world.

By 2006, after U.S. civil liberties lawyers filed several hundred habeas corpus petitions, the Bush administration and sympathetic lawmakers accused the prisoners and their lawyers of undermining American justice by clogging the federal docket with their cases.

The Pentagon says it now holds about 340 men as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, and has service members review their cases.

But the Israeli lawyers point out that Israel's nearly 60-year-old democracy has faced an almost unrelenting history of terrorism — and still lets dangerous captives individually challenge their detention all the way to Israel's High Court of Justice.

The Israelis boast in their 104-page brief that the Israeli army seized nearly 7,000 "suspected enemy combatants'' in the West Bank in May 2002, swiftly processed and freed more than 5,000 — and gave the remaining 1,600 suspects access to defense counsel and independent courts within weeks.

Ever since the U.S. opened the prison camps at Guantanamo, the Bush administration has rebuffed war-on-terrorism captives' efforts to file a traditional writ asking a federal court judge to review their case.

Many have never seen an attorney, among them the 16 "high-value'' captives, most of whom were held and interrogated for years at secret CIA "black sites.''

In contrast, Gross said, Israel must let a captive see a lawyer within 30 days — or justify an administrative detention that denies a captive rights to a civilian judge every three to six months.

Foreigners file briefs with the Supreme Court on international issues, said New York University law professor Stephen Schulhofer, a member of the Supreme Court Bar who filed the brief for the Israelis.

But he said the number of briefs filed in the Boumediene case was "probably unprecedented.'' He said the filings showed the "level of interest from all over the world" and was recognition "that what the United States does to foreign nationals it captures is something that resonates around the world.''

� McClatchy Newspapers 2007

accuracy

21-09-2007, 08:29 AM

UT law students defending terrorism suspects at Guantánamo

Security, human rights clinic concerns some conservatives

Sunday, September 16, 2007
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/091707dntexutlaw.318160e.html

By KAREN BROOKS / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – When someone asks law student Shane Sanders why he hates freedom, they're usually only half serious.

But it's a ribbing he's getting used to, as one of a handful of future lawyers at the University of Texas at Austin who's earning school credit for defending the rights of terrorism suspects in Guantánamo Bay.

"Being in this clinic, you have to get used to explaining why you're in it," said Mr. Sanders, 32, a third-year law student from Dallas. "I've never gotten any angry responses from anybody, but people are like, 'Oh, so you think terrorists should go free?' It's half in jest."

"No," say Mr. Sanders and his teachers.

The new National Security and Human Rights Clinic at UT-Austin focuses on what clinic director Kristine Huskey called "the perceived tension between national security and human rights" – what rights do international prisoners have in the war on terrorism, how far should the government go to protect its citizens, and similar issues.

Similar clinics are going on at American University and Duke University, and organizers expect the program to continue to grow as the debate over national security vs. human rights continues.

Campus conservatives say they worry that the class will take a liberal bent, and they disagree that suspected terrorists should have the same rights as American citizens. In liberal Austin, the concern is that the class will take a Bush-bashing angle, said Liz Young, a pre-law government junior and chairman of UT's Young Conservatives of Texas.

"In theory, it's a good thing for UT because these cases are going to be pretty monumental, and that's always a cool thing to have UT in the forefront of law or anything like that," Ms. Young said. "Just as long as it's kept in mind that these are some of the most dangerous men in the world. This shouldn't be about politics."

Instructors say they're trying to find an end for the men they're representing – two Afghans who have been imprisoned since at least 2005 with no formal charges filed.

Students are working toward forcing the system to either charge the men or free them if there's no evidence against them.

"After six years [of the war on terrorism], we're just asking for a day in court," said Elizabeth Hardy, a clinic instructor who graduated from the UT School of Law in May and took part in the clinic last semester.

In the clinic, about 20 students are doing pro bono work representing the two detainees, and doing research for other cases being handled by lawyers and organizations across the country.

This summer, clinic students worked on a brief for the U.S. Supreme Court in the cases of Al Odah vs. U.S. and Boumediene vs. Bush. The Boumediene case is considered to be a defining case in the question of whether the U.S. military can hold foreign prisoners without revealing evidence or bringing formal charges.

Students are also trying to track down and get an update on an Afghan security guard who was arrested for carrying a weapon – apparently his nightstick – then freed a couple years later for lack of evidence and presumably sent back to Afghanistan.

This isn't the first time that university classes have delved into the controversial. Law students across the nation are involved in campus Innocence Projects, dedicated to using DNA testing to free wrongfully convicted death row inmates.

Cutting-edge and roundly criticized when they began 15 years ago, such projects are now credited with raising awareness of the importance of DNA testing in capital murder cases.

Like its death-penalty predecessor, students in the new clinic at UT will get the chance to do groundbreaking legal work on the edge of American justice. Mr. Sanders said that's what drew him to the class.

"A lot of issues that we're dealing with are some of the most important legal issues going on in the United States today," he said.

© 2007, The Dallas Morning News, Inc.

accuracy

21-09-2007, 09:45 AM

GOP Blocks Bid on Rights Of Detainees

By Jonathan Weisman

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 20, 2007; Page A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/19/AR2007091900873.html?hpid=topnews

A Republican filibuster in the Senate yesterday shot down a bipartisan effort to restore the right of terrorism suspects to contest in federal courts their detention and treatment, underscoring the Democratic-led Congress's difficulty with terrorism issues.

The 56 to 43 vote fell short of the 60 needed to cut off debate and move to a final vote on the amendment to the Senate's annual defense policy bill. But the measure did garner the support of six Republicans, a small victory for its supporters. A similar proposal drew 48 "yea" votes last September.

The detainee rights amendment was an effort to reverse a provision in last year's Military Commissions Act that suspended the writ of habeas corpus for terrorism suspects at the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other offshore prisons.

The Supreme Court had previously ruled that such detainees did have the right to appeal their detention in federal court, but the court invited Congress to weigh in on the issue. At the urging of the Bush administration, the Republican-controlled Congress last year voted to sharply limit detainee access to the courts. Since then, the high court has agreed to hear in its upcoming term another legal challenge concerning the habeas corpus rights of detainees at Guantanamo.

The authors of last year's bill said that advocates of such rights would open the federal courts to endless lawsuits from the nation's worst enemies. "To start that process would be an absolute disaster for this country," said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), an Air Force Reserve lawyer who was instrumental in crafting the provision in question in last year's bill.

But advocates of the rights, led by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and the panel's ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), argued that Congress should right last year's historic wrong.

The Senate's action "calls into question the United States' historic role of defender of human rights in the world," Leahy said. "It accomplishes what opponents could never accomplish on the battlefield, whittling away our own liberties."

© Copyright 1996-2007 The Washington Post Company

accuracy

22-09-2007, 11:44 AM

Norway rejects Guantanamo probe of Aker Kvaerner

Thu Sep 20, 2007
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKL2086557220070920

OSLO, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Norwegian prosecutors on Thursday rejected calls from human rights activists for an investigation of engineering group Aker Kvaerner's (AKVER.OL: Quote, Profile, Research) activities at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the company said.

The Norwegian section of Amnesty International had alleged the company may have contributed to human-rights abuses by supplying services to the base, and asked law-enforcement officials in January to conduct an investigation.

The base in eastern Cuba is the site of a U.S. military prison where terrorism suspects have been held for years without trial after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

The group's Kvaerner Process Services unit carried out construction and maintenance work, including plumbing, for the U.S. military at Guantanamo from the early 1990s to 2005.

Aker Kvaerner said the contract ended in autumn 2005, and the Kvaerner unit involved no longer exists. The company has repeatedly rejected all allegations by Amnesty International.

"Aker Kvaerner is content that the public prosecutors have once again decided that there will be no investigation," Aker Kvaerner Chief Executive Martinus Brandal said in a statement.

The case was dropped earlier by the Oslo police and Oslo prosecutors, said the company, which is a large Norwegian supplier of engineering services to the oil and gas industry and other sectors.

Amnesty had asked prosecutors to look into the matter after a law firm found in an assessment for Amnesty that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were mistreated in a way that is against Norwegian law.

Rights groups and some governments, including U.S. allies, have called on the United States to shut the Guantanamo prison.

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.

accuracy

22-09-2007, 11:46 AM

Dion repeats call for decision on Guantanamo Canadian

The Canadian Press
September 19, 2007

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070919.wdionkhadr0919/BNStory/National/home

TORONTO — Federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion is repeating his call for a Canadian man being held in a U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay to be tried, if not in a U.S. court then in a Canadian one.

Mr. Dion met Wednesday with U.S. military lawyers representing Omar Khadr, 21, and later spoke at a hotel in downtown Toronto.

Mr. Khadr is accused of murdering a U.S. officer in Afghanistan in a 2002 firefight at an alleged al Qaeda compound when he was 15.

A military judge dismissed the case against Mr. Khadr in June, saying he had no legal jurisdiction to try him.

The U.S. administration wants Mr. Khadr to face a military tribunal immediately despite the fact that he has not been declared an “unlawful” enemy combatant as required by Congress.

High-profile politicians, human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Mr. Khadr's lawyers have called on Canada to speak out on his treatment by the United States.

© Copyright 2007 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc.

accuracy

25-09-2007, 01:48 PM

Closing Guantanamo lockup looks increasingly unlikely

As the 2008 elections approach, many in the GOP are seizing on the detention unit as a get-tough issue.
By Noam N. Levey
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 24, 2007
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/latimesC13.html

WASHINGTON — A lightning rod for international criticism, the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, not long ago appeared headed for closure. President Bush and his top advisors said they wanted to shutter the controversial lockup.

But the latest attempt to shut it down is facing collapse: The detention facility has been embraced by many Republicans as a potent political symbol in their quest to seize the terrorism issue ahead of next year's elections.

GOP presidential candidates have jockeyed to demonstrate their support for the prison. One candidate has called for doubling its use. Another praised the menu and health plan offered to detainees.

The Senate Republican leader has accused Democrats of wanting to move terrorists "into American communities."

And the president, who last year told German television that he "would like to end Guantanamo," is now threatening to veto any move to "micromanage the detention of enemy combatants."

"It's a Republican litmus test this year," complained Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, one of the few GOP lawmakers calling for the swift closure of Guantanamo.

"The Republican Party has won two elections on the issue of fear and terrorism," Hagel said. "[It's] going to try again."

Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) still hope to attach a measure to the 2008 defense policy bill that would compel the administration to develop a plan for relocating the roughly 340 detainees at Guantanamo.

The measure would force the facility to be closed within a year and would prohibit the transfer of detainees to detention centers outside the United States.

Despite months of lobbying and criticism of the prison at home and abroad, Feinstein and Harkin are struggling to attract any substantial Republican support. Said a frustrated Harkin: "This should have been a slam-dunk."

Earlier this year, it looked as if it could be.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in March reinforced Bush's stated goal of shuttering Guantanamo.

"He is clear to us all the time," Rice told reporters. "He would like to see it closed. We all would."

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates also expressed a desire to close the facility. He argued that international objections to the prison undermined the credibility of any trials conducted there.

And in June, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that if it were up to him, he would "get rid of Guantanamo." He called the facility a "major, major problem" for the United States internationally.

Feinstein and other congressional Democrats have repeatedly echoed that argument. "I don't think there is any issue that has galvanized hatred in other countries like Guantanamo," Feinstein said recently.

Although in recent years the administration has slowly reduced the number of detainees held at Guantanamo, the facility continues to be a focus for human rights groups and many of America's European allies, which routinely condemn the prison.

As Feinstein and other Democrats have pressed their case, leading Republican politicians have made Guantanamo into something of a rallying cry, akin to the party's traditional tough-on-crime message.

At the GOP presidential debate in South Carolina in May, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney called for doubling the size of Guantanamo and continuing the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" on detainees.

"I want them in Guantanamo, where they don't get the access to lawyers they get when they're on our soil," Romney said.

In September, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani won applause at a GOP presidential debate in New Hampshire when he derided calls to close Guantanamo. He compared those urging such a move to judges who "would release criminals into the street."

At the same debate, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), the former chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, mocked the suggestion that detainees were being mistreated at Guantanamo.

"Those guys get taxpayer-paid-for prayer rugs," Hunter said. "They have prayer five times a day. They've all gained weight. The last time I looked at the menu, they had honey-glazed chicken and rice pilaf on Friday."

On Capitol Hill, Republicans have argued that moving detainees to military brigs or maximum-security prisons in America, as Feinstein and Harkin have called for, could increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack in the United States.

"They would be magnets," said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a leading opponent of granting detainees additional access to federal courts. Graham last year helped craft a system of military tribunals to try terrorism detainees, whose legal status has complicated debate about the future of Guantanamo. His plan is now being reviewed by the courts. He said last week that consideration of the issue should be delayed until that review was complete.

"I think in a year from now, we'll understand the legal rules of the road in terms of how to detain and try these people," Graham said. "I'd like to know what the law is before we begin to move people all around."

Like the GOP presidential candidates, other Republican lawmakers have seen the debate as a political opportunity.

In July, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) introduced a nonbinding measure expressing opposition to releasing Guantanamo detainees "into American society" or transferring them "into facilities in American communities and neighborhoods."

McConnell said on the floor of the Senate: "Six years ago, no one would have thought about deliberately bringing terrorists into American communities, but some of our friends on the other side of the aisle feel differently." He warned that under the Feinstein-Harkin proposal, detainees would be moved "into facilities in cities and small towns in places such as California and Illinois and Kentucky."

McConnell's measure passed 94-3.

Feinstein and Harkin expressed hope last week that they would be able to bring their Guantanamo provision up for a vote soon. But chances appear slim that it will get the Republican support needed to break an almost certain filibuster.

When Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) pushed a measure last week to give detainees at Guantanamo and other U.S. facilities habeas corpus rights to challenge their detentions in federal court, they were able to muster only six GOP votes.

Forty-two Republicans voted against it, and the proposal fell four votes short of the 60-vote supermajority needed in order for debate to go forward.

Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times

accuracy

25-09-2007, 01:57 PM

Court Advances Military Trials for Detainees

By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: September 25, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/washington/25gitmo.html?ei=5090&en=833caaccd352ee89&ex=1348372800&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1190721124-kVhRBmjbnCJQPY/roQYDeg

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 — A special military appeals court, overturning a lower court ruling, on Monday removed a legal hurdle that has derailed war crime trials for detainees at Guantanámo Bay, Cuba.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/09/25/us/25gitmo.190.jpg
An Army guard in a corridor of cells in Camp Five, a facility at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba this month

The ruling allows military prosecutors to address a legal flaw that had ground the prosecutions to a halt. The decision, by a three-judge panel of a newly formed military appeals court, was an important victory for the government in its protracted efforts to begin prosecuting some of the 340 detainees at Guantánamo.

The legal flaw involved a requirement by Congress that before the detainees could be tried in military tribunals, they had to be formally declared “alien unlawful enemy combatants.” The problem for prosecutors was that while the detainees had been found by a military panel to be enemy combatants, they had not been specifically found to be unlawful.

Under the ruling, prosecutors will be able to present new evidence to the war crimes trial judge hearing a case to support their contention that a detainee was an unlawful combatant. Until now, only one case has been resolved, that of an Australian citizen who accepted a plea deal in March.

The legal flaw was cited in June by a military judge, Col. Peter E. Brownback III, in a ruling dismissing charges against a detainee.

The question of the detainees’ formal status has stalled the entire war crimes system and frustrated administration officials.

The three appeals judges said yesterday that Judge Brownback had “abused his discretion in deciding this critical jurisdictional matter without first fully considering” the government’s evidence. The appeals court sent the case back to Judge Brownback for further consideration.

A Pentagon spokesman, Cmdr. Jeffrey D. Gordon said last night that military officials were pleased by the ruling. “We welcome the court’s decision,” Commander Gordon said. “We will proceed in the most expeditious manner to get the military commission cases to trial.”

Lawyers said there was legal uncertainly about whether the defense could appeal Monday’s ruling, which came in the case of Omar Ahmed Khadr, a Canadian detainee who was charged with killing an American soldier in a firefight and other crimes.

Dennis Edney, Mr. Khadr’s Canadian lawyer, said the defense was considering whether to appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. If there is an appeal, it could delay the resumption of Guantánamo cases yet again.

Mr. Edney said he was disappointed by the military panel’s ruling but not surprised. “Omar Khadr still faces a process that is tainted, and designed to make a finding of guilt,” he said.

But some military officials expressed relief that the hearing process appeared to be “back on track” as one put it.

The chief prosecutor, Col. Morris D. Davis of the Air Force, said that after the ruling in Mr. Khadr’s case prosecutors would consider filing new charges against other detainees.

“We’ve got other cases that are ready,” Colonel Davis said. “I think very shortly we’ll be moving forward with some other cases.” Colonel Davis has said as many as 80 detainees may eventually face war crimes charges,

On the same day in June that Judge Brownback dismissed Mr. Khadr’s case, a second military judge made a similar ruling in the case of a Yemeni detainee, Salim Ahmed Hamdan. Mr. Hamdan’s appeal of an earlier effort to prosecute him led to a Supreme Court decision in which the justices struck down the administration’s first system for war-crimes trials.

Prosecutors asked the military judge in Mr. Hamdan’s case, Capt. Keith Allred of the Navy, to reconsider, but he has not yet issued a reconsidered ruling.

The military appeals court said in its ruling yesterday that Judge Brownback was wrong in concluding that he did not have the authority to decide whether a detainee was an “unlawful” enemy combatant, which would give his court the power to hear a war-crimes case.

The court said the trial judge could hear the government’s evidence that a detainee was an unlawful combatant. An unlawful combatant, for example, could be a fighter who does not wear a uniform and conceals his weapons.

In Mr. Khadr’s case, prosecutors said their evidence included a videotape of Mr. Khadr, 15 at the time, preparing explosives for use against American forces.

In the ruling Monday, the military appeals judges, the United States Court of Military Commission Review, agreed that the law written by Congress did say that finding by a military panel that a detainee was an “unlawful” enemy combatant was a prerequisite for prosecution. But the judges said Congress intended the Guantánamo courts to apply usual procedures of military courts.

“This would include the common procedures used before general courts-martial permitting military judges to hear evidence and decide factual and legal matters concerning the court’s own jurisdiction over the accused appearing before it,” the appeals judges wrote.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

accuracy

27-09-2007, 12:57 PM

Guantanamo detainee loses appeal

A Guantanamo Bay detainee accused of links to al-Qaeda will face a military commission after an appeal court overturned a judge's ruling.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/43007000/jpg/_43007743_omar_ap_203b.jpg

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/43007000/jpg/_43007743_omar_ap_203b.jpg
Canadian Omar Khadr was accused of killing a US soldier in 2002

A US military appeals court ruled that Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, is an "unlawful enemy combatant" and can be tried on terror charges.

The ruling reverses an earlier one by a military judge, who dismissed the charges on a technicality in June.

Mr Khadr was only 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan five years ago.

Under a new system of military justice approved by the US Congress last year, detainees facing trial must be designated "unlawful enemy combatants".

But when they were assessed on entering Guantanamo Bay they were officially described only as "enemy combatants".

Administration victory

The absence of the word "unlawful" meant that detainee would have to be treated as a prisoner of war and be protected by international law.

It gave the new military tribunals no jurisdiction, according to the military judges who heard Mr Khadr's case.

Now, in its first ruling, the Court of Military Commission Review, the body created to hear appeals arising from this issue, has ruled that a military court set up by the US government is the right venue in which to try Mr Khadr.

Critics have questioned the legality of the military appeal court, which was quickly set up and staffed after the Bush administration appealed against the judge's ruling.

But the BBC's Rajesh Mirchandani, in Washington, says the ruling represents a victory for the Bush administration in a long battle over how to prosecute the detainees.

Mr Khadr, now 20, is accused of killing a US soldier during a battle at a suspected al-Qaeda base in 2002.

accuracy

29-09-2007, 12:10 PM

Gates: Administration split on Guantanamo

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/gates-administration-split-on-guantanamo-2007-09-27.html

By Roxana Tiron
September 27, 2007

Despite signaling that he wants to see the controversial military prison at Guantanamo Bay shuttered, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that he has been unable to reach agreement within the executive branch on how to proceed with the closure.

In response to questions by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) during a Senate hearing, Gates said that disagreement is focused on where the United States should send the prisoners and what kind of legislation would be required to guarantee the rights of the most dangerous prisoners while protecting Americans.

The Pentagon earlier this year diverted funds to build a so-called “expeditionary legal complex” at Guantanamo Bay.
“The building that is currently occurring is not consistent with the idea of closing the detention center,” said Harkin.
“My intent remains the same,” Gates responded to Harkin, adding that he ran into several obstacles put up by lawyers within the executive branch.

Gates said that he asked his subordinates at the Pentagon to examine the issues and put together a proposal that could serve as a “basis for discussion” with the State Department and the Department of Justice.

Democrats have pressed for months and have taken legislative steps to close the prison, which was opened in 2002 to house terrorism suspects captured during military operations.

Earlier this year, Vice President Dick Cheney and the Justice Department argued that moving combatant suspects considered “unlawful” to the United States would give them undeserved legal rights.

accuracy

29-09-2007, 12:28 PM

'High value' suspects can request lawyers at Gitmo

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/09/high-value-susp.html

Fourteen "high value" terrorism suspects being held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have been formally offered the right to request lawyers, The Washington Post reports.

The move could allow them to challenge their status as enemy combatants in a U.S. court.

U.S. officials have argued in court papers against granting lawyers access to the detainees without special security rules. Defense officials, who confirmed the move to the Post, gave detainees legal request forms in late August. Defense and intelligence officials tell the Post the move is not a shift in policy.

"It was the intent … all along that they would have a right to counsel," a senior intelligence official tells the Post anonymously because details of the detention program are classified.

The Associated Press has confirmed this report.

accuracy

29-09-2007, 12:47 PM

Chaplain speaks against Guantanamo Bay

http://media.www.bsudailynews.com/media/storage/paper849/news/2007/09/28/News/Chaplain.Speaks.Against.Guantanamo.Bay-2998721.shtml

James "Yusuf" Yee, a former U.S. Army Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay Detainment Camp in Cuba, said he hopes that after hearing his story, people are inspired to protect civil rights in the United States.

Yee, a third-generation Asian-American and Muslim convert, said he was wrongly accused of espionage and kept in solitary confinement for 76 days. He spoke to approximately 100 Ball State University students, faculty and Muncie community members at 6 p.m. on Thursday in Teachers College Room 102.

Yee said he hopes his audience will work to "redirect the country."

"Bring [the country] back to one that is really going to preserve the precious freedoms that we enjoy today and not allow our government to trample over them under the guise of national security," he said.

In his speech, Yee said he heard Guantanamo Bay detainees' stories of cruel treatment. The detainees were tortured in manners that were sacrilegious for Muslims, he said.

Yee said guards forced detainees to pray on pentagrams and accept Satan as their god.

Muslim Student Association, said Yee's visit was sponsored by the Muslim Student Association, the Asian-American Student Association, the Ball State Center for Peace and Conflict Studies and the Islamic Center of Muncie.

"I think at an academic institution it's always good to hear different views and different points of perspective, especially the war going on right now in Iraq," Saijad said.

accuracy

02-10-2007, 02:30 PM

U.S. frees 8 more Gitmo detainees

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-gitmo_01oct01,1,4764827.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

Pentagon continues to thin population at prison camp in Cuba
By Carol Rosenberg | McClatchy/Tribune newspapers
October 1, 2007

MIAMI - The Defense Department said Sunday it had released eight more Guantanamo Bay captives -- six Afghans, a Libyan and a Yemeni -- in what appears to be a continuing campaign to thin the population at the U.S.-run prison camp in southeast Cuba.

Although a Pentagon media statement did not name the men or describe the reason for their detentions, it suggested they all were long-held Guantanamo detainees who had been subjected to military review panels set up in 2004.

A Yemeni newspaper, The Observer, reported over the weekend that a Guantanamo captive named Ali Mohamed Nasser had been repatriated.

The newspaper said he was the fifth Yemeni detainee returned home from the remote U.S. Navy base.

It was not clear whether that count included a captive who was found hanging in his open-air cell in June 2006 and whose death is still under investigation by the Navy's Criminal Investigative Service.

Yemen has the largest number of nationals at Guantanamo -- close to 100 men among the estimated 330 captives.

The Pentagon statement, issued Sunday morning, did not say when the transfer operation occurred.

But the single airstrip serving the Navy base was until just over a week ago closed to large-body aircraft for a two-week repaving operation.

After the airstrip reopened, the Pentagon announced it had released a Mauritanian captive who was identified in his homeland as Mohamed Lemine Ould Sidi Mohamed, 26.

The Defense Department statement said each captive was repatriated under "processes put in place to assess each individual and make a determination about their detention while hostilities are ongoing -- an unprecedented step in the history of warfare."

But a Pentagon spokesman characterized them as still dangerous in remarks reported by The Associated Press.

"All detainees at Guantanamo are considered a threat to the United States," Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon told the news

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

accuracy

02-10-2007, 02:55 PM

Gates admits rift over Guantánamo

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a5a852f0-704d-11dc-a6d1-0000779fd2ac.html

By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington

Published: October 1 2007 19:51 | Last updated: October 2 2007 00:54

Robert Gates, US defence secretary, recently did something that Bush administration cabinet officials rarely do. He aired an inter-agency dispute in public by conceding that he had yet to overcome opposition to closing the controversial US prison at Guantánamo Bay.

When Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, asked Mr Gates – who in March advocated closing Guantánamo – why the Pentagon had not presented Congress with a plan to close the Cuba-based detention facility, the defence secretary was candid.

“I would say that I was unable to achieve agreement within the executive branch on how to proceed in this respect,” Mr Gates responded. “Quite frankly, I’ve run into some obstacles from a variety of lawyers and I’m still trying to get past that.”

Some officials were surprised that Mr Gates would “show so much leg” in public. It was widely assumed that he was referring to justice department attorneys and David Addington, chief of staff to vice-president Dick Cheney, who opposes closing Guantánamo.

The debate over Guantánamo has intensified since Mr Gates replaced Donald Rumsfeld as defence secretary in December. Along with Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, Mr Gates believes closing the prison would help repair some of the damage it has done to the US image around the world.

But he faces opposition from some quarters as officials battle over the options that Stephen Hadley, national security adviser, is preparing for George W. Bush, who himself in June 2006 expressed a desire to close Guantánamo.

The Pentagon plans to bring 80 of the 330 detainees at Guantánamo before military commissions, but legal challenges have hampered the trials from proceeding. While 70 detainees have been slated for release, the Pentagon has had difficulty repatriating them, sometimes because of concern they would be tortured in their home countries and at other times because the home countries will not accept them.

One of the biggest challenges is posed by detainees who are considered too dangerous for release, but where there is insufficient evidence for trial.

Most experts assume that the only way the US could close Guantánamo in the near future was by transferring many of the detainees to the US, a process fraught with political and legal issues.

In addition to deciding whether the detainees would be held, Mr Gates said the issues included what kind of legislation would be required to give the most dangerous detainees “better protection to their rights but, at the same time, protected the rest of us against them”.

Advocates of transferring prisoners to the US believe Congress would have to pass some kind of administrative detention legislation to have a chance of satisfying the Supreme Court, which later this year hears a third challenge to the legality of Guantánamo Bay detentions.

In an argument that reflects some of the opposition Mr Gates faces, David Rivkin, an attorney at the law firm of Baker Hostetler, argues that bringing detainees to US soil would open the door for them to receive all the rights US citizens enjoy under the US constitution.

A previous effort to bring some of the Muslim Chinese Uighurs held at Guantánamo into the US failed following concerns that it would violate US law. More broadly, however, the relocation of Guantánamo to US soil would face political obstacles. Some US officials are concerned that lawmakers who support closing the prison would be less supportive if it came to accepting detainees in their districts.

While the administration continues to consider its options, it is trying to reduce the population at Guantánamo by repatriating as many detainees as possible. US officials hope that European Union countries that have criticised the facility will do more to help.

“European governments privately acknowledge that there are many dangerous individuals in Guantánamo who they don’t want to see walking free,” said one senior US official.

“They also understand the legal and practical difficulties involved in prosecuting these individuals or returning them to their home countries. But virtually none of them will say this publicly, and instead [they] continue to call for closure of Guantánamo or full criminal trials of anyone who is held.”

Jennifer Daskal, Washington advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, says that, while the US has created the problem, the international community “could go a long way towards helping Washington by coupling its calls for closure of Guantánamo with concrete actions like a willingness to accept some of the Uighurs or other detainees who cannot be returned to their home countries but are cleared for release”.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

accuracy

04-10-2007, 12:46 PM

Files Raise Questions on Gitmo Decisions

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/03/AR2007100300127.html

By ANDREW O. SELSKY
The Associated Press
Wednesday, October 3, 2007; 11:01 AM

-- Two dozen prisoners were cleared for transfer from Guantanamo Bay last year even though U.S. military panels found they still posed a threat to the United States and its allies.

Dozens more were cleared even though they didn't show up for their hearings. One Saudi arrested in Afghanistan was approved for release after offering a peculiar account that he had gone to the Taliban-controlled country to lose weight.

Pentagon documents obtained by The Associated Press show seemingly inconsistent decisions to release men declared by the Bush administration to be among America's most-hardened enemies. Coupled with accusations that some detainees have been held for years on little evidence, the decisions raise questions about whether they were arbitrary.

Human rights groups contend the documents show the military panels, known as Administrative Review Boards, often are overridden by political expediency at Guantanamo, where about 340 men are still held.

"What it says on your passport is more important than what it says in your ARB," said Ben Wizner, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, noting that European citizens at Guantanamo were among the first to get out amid intense lobbying by their countries. "It's all about diplomatic pressure."

The Pentagon created the Administrative Review Board process in 2004 as the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was filling up with men captured around the world in the war on terrorist groups. It said the boards would "help ensure no one is detained any longer than is warranted, and that no one is released who remains a threat to our nation's security."

The boards hold sessions in an air-conditioned trailer, hearing testimony from shackled detainees and making recommendations on whether to transfer, release or continue to hold the men. The final decisions are made by Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, who is not bound by the recommendations, but who officials say usually follows them.

The Pentagon, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from AP, released transcripts and memos last month from last year's hearings.

Based on those sessions, England ordered 273 inmates kept at Guantanamo and 55 transferred to authorities in other nations. He didn't order any outright releases, but most detainees transferred from Guantanamo have been freed soon after arriving home.

The heavily censored documents indicate testimony before the panels often had little effect on the outcome. Of the 55 detainees cleared for transfer to their homelands or countries of residence, only 14 participated in their hearings. And 24 found to still pose a threat were ordered transferred by England anyway.

Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a military spokesman, said "a great majority of detainees who left Guantanamo have been a threat," but added that many factors are considered in deciding their fate.

"There are mitigating factors that the deputy secretary of defense can take into account in deciding whether to approve a transfer of a detainee," Gordon said by phone from the Pentagon.

U.S. officials say those include whether the receiving country can confiscate the detainee's passport and monitor or detain him.

The military has kept secret much of the case files, so there is no way for the public to judge the quality of the evidence against each detainee. But defense attorneys say that while classified evidence is often used to justify holding a detainee, it rarely comes into play in decisions to let people go from Guantanamo.

Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, an Army reservist who served as a liaison between Guantanamo tribunals and intelligence agencies, criticized the process used to decide which detainees are sent home.

"The decisions are not orderly nor analytic and only rational if you accept the premise that they are made for political and not legal reasons," Abraham said in an e-mail to AP.

One of the men who was transferred was Mohammad Akhtiar, an Afghan who told the panel he had worked for the U.S.-allied Karzai government in Afghanistan and that he was steadfastly opposed to the Taliban. He listed several senior Afghan officials, including the minister for refugees and repatriation, who he said could vouch for him.

In December, Akhtiar was flown to Afghanistan and immediately released, said his U.S. lawyer, Dicky Grigg. Grigg considered it a happy ending, saying: "I believed that Mohammed Akhtiar was not a terrorist."

But some of the Administrative Review Board results were murkier.

Abdul Rahman Mohammed Hussein Khowlan, a Saudi, said he went to Afghanistan to lose weight and to find the Prophet Muhammad's clothing _ even though the founder of Islam had never been in that country.

A board member asked Khowlan to explain the search, but the detainee, who allegedly was carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle when he was captured, responded: "There's nothing to add."

England ordered Khowlan sent home to Saudi Arabia, whose government is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East.

During the Administrative Review Board hearings, the transcripts show, military officers painstakingly questioned detainees to gauge the truth of their accounts. The panel's recommendations are censored from the Pentagon memos, however, meaning only England's final decisions are publicly known. But the military said those decisions differed from the panels' recommendations only occasionally.

Human rights groups say the documents bolster their suspicions the review board hearings are window dressing and that the panels aren't really the mechanism for determining who gets out of Guantanamo

"The findings suggest the transfer and release determinations were made independently based on security risks, relations with other countries and other factors that are independent of the ARB process, and that the ARB process may be for show," said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel for Human Rights Watch.

Lawyers said lobbying by detainees' home countries is a major factor in release decisions. Of the 55 men slated for transfer last year, 30 were from Saudi Arabia, which has a reintegration program that provides former detainees with guidance from psychiatrists, clerics and sociologists.

Wizner, the ACLU attorney, said he did not feel dangerous men were being released from Guantanamo, but rather that the Pentagon was labeling them as threats to avoid accusations it had imprisoned innocent men.

One lawyer said the U.S. even sent away two detainees who "failed" their hearings. England determined last year that both Isa al-Murbati and Jumah al-Dossari should continue to be held, but both got out of Guantanamo this summer, said their New York attorney, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan.

Navy Capt. Lana Hampton, a military spokeswoman, said England on occasion "may change his decision, based on the receipt of additional information or for other reasons," even without another hearing.

Colangelo-Bryan said al-Murbati was released upon arrival in his native Bahrain, an island state in the Persian Gulf that is home to the U.S. 5th Fleet. Al-Dossari, who holds dual Bahraini-Saudi citizenship, is in the Saudi reintegration program and will be home soon, the lawyer said.

"If a government is on good terms with the United States and presses for a detainee's release, the release will happen regardless of the ARB findings," Colangelo-Bryan said. "I believe that is what happened with Isa and Jumah."

© Copyright 1996-2007 The Washington Post Company

accuracy

06-10-2007, 11:38 AM

Bush defends US interrogation methods

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071005/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_terrorism;_ylt=AhQ8RbmzXDKEbToh5RlE8KyyFz4D
By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer
Fri Oct 5,

WASHINGTON - President Bush defended his administration's methods of detaining and questioning terrorism suspects on Friday, saying both are successful and lawful.

"When we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we're going to detain them, and you bet we're going to question them," he said during a hastily called Oval Office appearance. "The American people expect us to find out information, actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That's our job."

Bush volunteered his thoughts on a report on two secret 2005 memos that authorized extreme interrogation tactics against terror suspects. "This government does not torture people," the president said.

Meanwhile, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., demanded a copy of a third Justice Department memo justifying military interrogations of terror suspects held outside the United States.

In a letter to Attorney General-nominee Michael Mukasey, Levin wrote that two years ago he requested — and was denied — the March 14, 2003, legal opinion. Levin asked if Mukasey would agree to release the opinion if the Senate confirms him as attorney general, and cited what he described as a history of the Justice Department stonewalling Congress.

"Such failures and the repeated refusal of DoJ to provide Congress with such documents has prevented the Congress from fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities to conduct oversight," Levin wrote.

The White House said Mukasey has not been cleared to read the classified documents Levin requested.

The two Justice Department legal opinions from 2005 were disclosed in Thursday's editions of The New York Times, which reported that the first opinion authorized the use of painful methods, such as head slaps, freezing temperatures and simulated drownings known as waterboarding, in combination.

That secret opinion came months after a December 2004 opinion in which the Justice Department publicly declared torture "abhorrent" and the administration seemed to back away from claiming authority for such practices, and after the withdrawal of a 2002 classified Justice opinion that had allowed certain aggressive interrogation practices so long as they stopped short of producing pain equivalent to experiencing organ failure or death.

The second Justice opinion was issued later in 2005, just as Congress was working on an anti-torture bill. The opinion declared that none of the CIA's interrogation practices would violate provisions in the legislation banning "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of detainees, The Times said, citing interviews with unnamed current and former officials.

Though both memos remain in effect, the White House insisted they represented no change from the 2004 policy.

"We stick to U.S. law and international obligations," Bush said, without taking questions after a brief picture-taking session.

Speaking emphatically, the president noted that "highly trained professionals" conduct any questioning. "And by the way," he said, "we have gotten information from these high-value detainees that have helped protect you."

"The American people expect their government to take action to protect them from further attack," Bush said. "And that's exactly what this government is doing. And that's exactly what we'll continue to do."

He also said the techniques used by the United States "have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of the United States Congress" — an indirect slap at the torrent of criticism that has flowed from the Democratic-controlled Congress since the disclosure of the memos.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said those briefed on Capitol Hill "are satisfied that the policy of the United States and the practices do not constitute torture." She refused to define, however, what would be considered torture, or off-limits, in interrogations.

"I just fundamentally disagree that that would be a good thing for national security," she said. "I think the American people recognize that there are needs that the federal government has to keep certain information private in order to help their national security. ... We cannot provide more information about techniques. It's not appropriate."

CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden issued a memo to agency employees Friday that said the CIA has not withheld information from Congress and the legal opinion has not "opened the door" to harsher interrogation techniques than the law allows.

But House and Senate Democrats disagree that there is sufficient clarity on the matter, and are demanding to see the memos.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-WVa., said in a statement Friday he is "tired of these games."

"They can't say that Congress has been fully briefed while refusing to turn over key documents used to justify the legality of the program," Rockefeller said.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., promised a congressional inquiry.

Another White House spokesman, meanwhile, criticized the leak of such information to the news media and questioned the motivations of those who do so.

"It's troubling," White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said Friday. "I've had the awful responsibility to have to work with The New York Times and other news organizations on stories that involve the release of classified information. And I can tell you that every time I've dealt with any of these stories, I have felt that we have chipped away at the safety and security of America with the publication of this kind of information."

The CIA has interrogated fewer than 100 "hardened" terrorists and has used "special methods of questioning" on a third of them, according to Hayden.

accuracy

06-10-2007, 11:42 AM

Freed BBC reporter writes to Guantanamo detainee

http://www.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSN04370727

Thu Oct 4, 2007

NEW YORK, Oct 4 (Reuters) - A BBC reporter kidnapped and held for months in the Gaza Strip has written to an Al Jazeera television cameraman detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to express his support, a journalism watchdog said on Thursday.

In a letter to Guantanamo detainee Sami al-Hajj, a copy of which was released by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in New York, Alan Johnston thanked al-Hajj for his appeal to the Gaza kidnappers to release him earlier this year.

Johnston disappeared on March 12 while driving his car in the Gaza Strip and was held for nearly four months. Al-Hajj made a public appeal to the Gaza kidnappers in March, saying: "While the United States has kidnapped me and held me for years on end, this is not a lesson that Muslims should copy."

Al-Hajj has been held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo for more than five years on suspicion of having links to Islamic militant groups. He has been accused of making videos of Osama bin Laden though U.S. authorities have not brought any official charges.

"In the light of my own experience of incarceration I am aware of how hard it must be for you and your family to endure your detention, and I very much hope that your case might be resolved soon," Johnston wrote in the letter.

"I understand that after some five years in Guantanamo you are calling to be allowed to answer any allegations that are being made against you. And of course I would always support any prisoner's right to a fair trial."

The CPJ said al-Hajj's lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, had called the accusations baseless and reported that U.S. interrogators focused almost exclusively on obtaining intelligence on Qatar-based Al Jazeera and its staff.

It quoted his lawyer as saying al-Haj had staged a hunger strike and was in declining physical and mental health, having lost nearly 40 pounds (18 kg).

There are about 340 detainees at Guantanamo. The first prisoners arrived nearly six years ago after the United States began what U.S. President George W. Bush called a war on terrorism in response to the Sept. 11 attacks by bin Laden's al Qaeda network in 2001.

accuracy

06-10-2007, 11:47 AM

Civil liberties: detention without trial

The stuff of nightmares

http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9909351

Oct 4th 2007

Judges and parliamentarians are restraining the zeal of governments who want a free hand to fight terror. The third in our series
HAULED before a military tribunal at the American naval base in Guantánamo Bay, the detainee, picked up in Afghanistan, asked why he was being held. For associating with a member of al-Qaeda, he was told. Give me his name, the detainee demanded. The tribunal's president said he didn't know it. Nor did any of the tribunal's other members. “How can I respond to this?” the detainee cried before being taken back to his cell to continue his detention, perhaps for the rest of his life.

This Kafkaesque story was related this summer by Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, in support of a bill he and Patrick Leahy, the committee's Democratic chairman, were co-sponsoring to restore habeas corpus rights to Guantánamo's detainees. Most have been held for nearly six years without charge, without access to a lawyer or any indication of when, if ever, they might be released. The Pentagon has said they could be held for the duration of the (open-ended) “global war on terror”.

Guantánamo has become a byword for the Bush administration's gung-ho reaction to the terror attacks of September 2001. In Britain, too, the government has sought new powers to tackle Islamist terrorism, even if these seemed to offend ancient liberties. But the story is not over yet. It could turn into a tale not of liberties being frayed, but of democracy's underlying strength. For, in both America and Britain, the doctrine of the balance of powers has passed a test. The executive branch made a grab for more authority; but courts and legislators have tried hard to push back.

Freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, coupled with the right to challenge it in an independent court—known as habeas corpus in common-law countries like Britain and America—are among the civilised world's most sacred and ancient liberties, going back to medieval times. But these days, there is more talk of pre-emption and “preventive detention”, even in democracies. “You can't allow somebody to commit the crime before you detain them,” said Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, when asked about America's secret “renditions” programme for suspected terrorists.

What the public safety requires

Under the American constitution, habeas corpus may not be suspended except when “in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it”. And only very rarely has it been suspended. Abraham Lincoln did so during the civil war, but was rebuked by the courts. And the internment of 120,000 people of Japanese descent, two-thirds of them American citizens, in the second world war, was lawful but is now viewed as a shameful misdeed.

Britain likewise suspended habeas corpus in the second world war to allow it to detain around 1,000 suspected fascists. All were released after three years. During the “troubles” in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s, nearly 2,000 suspected extremists were interned. But the practice was scrapped in 1975, as it was clearly fuelling support for terrorism—just as Guantánamo is doing now.

George Bush chose the American naval base in Cuba as the detention centre for those picked up in his war on terror because officials believed—falsely as it turned out—Guantánamo was beyond the reach of domestic and international law. If the detainees had been held on American soil, they could have claimed the same rights as ordinary American citizens, including a right to due process, to apply for asylum and to sue the American government for any alleged wrongs.

From the outset, the 775 or so men and boys (some as young as 13) sent by Mr Bush to Guantánamo were branded as guilty. Donald Rumsfeld, the former defence secretary, described them as “hard-core, well-trained terrorists” who, if released, would simply “return to the fight and continue to kill innocent men, women and children”. The Pentagon says that all were “caught in the battlefield”. But many were given to the Americans by Afghan bounty-seekers; others were seized as far away as Bosnia and Zambia.

Mr Bush claims that, under international law, parties to an armed conflict may hold enemy combatants “for the duration of active hostilities”. This is correct. Nor is “unlawful enemy combatant” a term he invented. In the Geneva Conventions, it describes a foe who is not a member of official armed forces or an organised resistance movement, does not carry arms openly, wears no uniform or other distinctive sign, and refuses to heed the laws of war. As such, he fails to qualify for the rights of a prisoner of war. But, contrary to what the administration first claimed, he is entitled to some protections, including humane treatment and, if charged, to a fair trial by a “regularly constituted court”.

But is America's war on terror a real war in the legal sense? If not, then the detainees should be treated as ordinary criminal suspects. This is the path that most European countries have chosen. Even if it could be deemed a real war, it is clearly unlike an ordinary state conflict: it has neither a definable end nor even an identifiable enemy with whom to sue for peace. It could last for decades.

Meanwhile, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of detainees are apparently to be left to rot in their cages—if not in Guantánamo, which Mr Bush says he wants to close—then somewhere else. America has also engaged in so-called “extraordinary rendition”—the abduction of suspected terrorists to face not justice, but harsh interrogation, perhaps torture, in a third country. Up to 100 nameless “high-value” suspects are believed to have been seized by CIA agents and then transferred to secret jails, some never to resurface. Around 15 have recently been transferred to Guantánamo, where they may or may not face trial. But most of the 330-odd detainees remaining at the camp may never be charged or tried. The Pentagon says it hopes eventually to put up to 80 detainees on trial for war crimes by special military commissions. Even if acquitted, they may still be held as enemy combatants for the rest of the “war”.

In Britain, all renditions have been outlawed since a Court of Appeal ruling in 1999 overturned the conviction of an Irish Republican, Peter Mullen, who had been spirited back to Britain from Zimbabwe. His abduction was described by the court as a “blatant and extremely serious failure to adhere to the rule of law”.

Britain has eroded liberties in other ways. Immediately after the September 11th attacks, the government brought in a law allowing it to hold indefinitely and without charge any foreigner deemed a national security risk—on the simple say-so of the home secretary. To do this, it had to opt out of parts of the European Convention on Human Rights, as is permitted “in time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation”. None of the 45 other signatories has deemed such a step necessary.

Belmarsh prison in London, where most terror suspects were held, was dubbed “Britain's Guantánamo”—a bit unfairly. Britain never claimed to be in the midst of a war or to be holding “unlawful enemy combatants” with no legal rights. Its foreign detainees, totalling no more than 18, always had access to a lawyer and could challenge their detention before an independent tribunal, though they were not allowed to see classified evidence against them. The government said they were not being held indefinitely, just awaiting deportation. But as they could not be sent to their own countries (because they might be tortured), and no other state wanted them, the effect was the same.

The law lords say no
In December 2004 the House of Lords, Britain's highest court, judged this system to be incompatible with the European Convention. For Lord Scott, one of the law lords involved, indefinite detention on undisclosed grounds was “the stuff of nightmares”, reminiscent of a Stalinist regime. The law was duly scrapped. But it was replaced by new powers allowing the home secretary (not a judge) to impose an indefinitely renewable “control order”—including electronic tagging, a ban on phone and internet use, and strict curfews amounting at times to virtual house arrest—on any suspected terrorist, British or foreign.

The new system seems as riddled with problems as the old, and almost as unfair. In its latest report on control orders, in September, the Home Office said three of the 14 people subject to the regime had absconded. Several people have had their orders quashed by judges who again found the measures incompatible with the European Convention. The government has appealed to the House of Lords, which is expected to pronounce later this month.

In the final months of Tony Blair's government, ministers said they were prepared to “take the nuclear option” and opt out of the convention again if the law lords' ruling went against them. That threat has not been repeated by the new prime minister, Gordon Brown. But he may yet try similar moves. He has already announced plans for a new anti-terrorist law—Britain's fifth since 2000. Among his proposals is an extension of the maximum time a suspected terrorist can be held without charge from 28 days, already the longest in the West, to 56 days. Most democracies allow no more than three days. France permits four; Greece six.

But no leader of a Western democracy has obtained a completely free hand in detaining people. America has seen a tug of war between the government and the courts, with many rounds. In June 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that habeas corpus remained available to everyone detained on American soil, unless explicitly suspended. The case involved Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen being held as an unlawful enemy combatant on a naval brig in Virginia. Two years later, in a case involving a Guantánamo detainee, Salim Hamdan, the Supreme Court said the basic protections afforded to all wartime detainees under the Geneva Conventions applied to everyone, even to unlawful enemy combatants outside America.

The court also ruled that Mr Bush had exceeded his authority in setting up, without congressional approval, special military commissions to try some of the Guantánamo detainees. In response, the president pushed through the 2006 Military Commissions Act giving him just such authority. That law also stripped Guantánamo detainees of any vestige of habeas corpus rights, with retroactive effect. This seemed to dash the hopes of hundreds of Guantánamo detainees with challenges pending before American civilian courts. In April, that view appeared to be confirmed when the Supreme Court turned down, without comment, a habeas corpus petition from the above-mentioned Mr Hamdan. But in June it relented, agreeing to hear an almost identical case from another Guantánamo detainee. Many hope the Supreme Court will seize this opportunity to give a view on whether Mr Bush's “war on terror” is a real war.

The legislators strike back
Congress, too, is beginning to show its teeth, particularly now it is under Democratic control. Although Senator Specter's bipartisan bill to restore habeas corpus rights to Guantánamo detainees fell to a Republican filibuster on September 19th, it got the support of 56 senators, including four Republicans. Other bills pending before Congress seek the total closure of Guantánamo with the transfer of the detainees either to their home countries, if they do not present too big a threat and if those countries are willing to take them; or to a military prison in America.

In Britain, too, Parliament has baulked at some of the government's demands. In 2005, when Mr Blair sought to push through a bill raising the time a suspected terrorist could be detained from 14 to 90 days, his backbenchers revolted, eventually settling on the compromise of 28 days, with regular judicial oversight. Some British officials have been looking with envy at civil-law countries like France, where the criminal-justice system allows detention for months, even years, after a suspect has been formally “placed under investigation”, but not yet charged. Police can also continue to interrogate suspects during that time.

But most legal commentators believe that if the French model were copied in this area, an unbearable blow would be dealt to England's common-law system. And despite the fears of civil libertarians, there are still judges and legislators who think that system worth preserving.

accuracy

09-10-2007, 11:51 AM

War-Crimes Prosecutor Quits in Pentagon Clash

By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: October 6, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/06/us/nationalspecial3/06gitmo.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

In the latest disruption of the Bush administration’s plan to try detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for war crimes, the chief military prosecutor on the project stepped down yesterday after a dispute with a Pentagon official.

It was not clear what effect the departure would have on the problem-plagued effort to charge and try detainees.

The prosecutor, Col. Morris D. Davis of the Air Force, was to leave his position immediately, a Defense Department spokeswoman said. But the spokeswoman, Cynthia O. Smith, said officials were working to minimize interruption in the work of the prosecution office, which includes military lawyers supplemented by civilian federal prosecutors.

“The department is taking measures to ensure a prompt and orderly transition to another chief prosecutor without interrupting the key mission of prosecuting war crimes via military commissions,” Ms. Smith said.

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Colonel Davis would resign.

The Pentagon’s system of prosecuting suspects has been beset by practical problems and legal disputes that have reached the Supreme Court. As a result, more than five years after the first terror suspects arrived at Guantánamo Bay, only one detainee’s war-crimes case has been completed, and that was through a plea agreement.

Prosecutors have said they might eventually file charges against as many as 80 of the 330 detainees being held at Guantánamo. Those include so-called high value detainees, 14 men the administration has said include dangerous terrorists who had previously been held in secret C.I.A. prisons.

Officials have said the prosecutors are working on charges against some of those men, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has said he was the mastermind of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Colonel Davis, a career military lawyer, had been in a bitter dispute with Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, who was appointed this summer to a top post in the Pentagon Office of Military Commissions, which supervises the war crimes trial system.

General Hartmann, an Air Force reserve officer who worked as a corporate lawyer until recently, was appointed this summer as the legal adviser to Susan J. Crawford, a former military appeals judge who is the convening authority, a military official who has extensive powers under the military commission law passed by Congress in 2006.

Among other powers, under the law, the convening authority can approve or reject war-crimes charges, make plea deals with detainees and reduce sentences.

People involved in the prosecutions, who spoke on condition of anonymity, have said that General Hartmann challenged Colonel Davis’s authority in August and pressed the prosecutors who worked for Colonel Davis to produce new charges against detainees quickly.

They said he also pushed the prosecutors to frame cases with bold terrorism accusations that would draw public attention to the military commission process, which has been one of the central legal strategies of the Bush administration. In some cases the prosecutors are expected to seek the death penalty.

Through a spokeswoman, General Hartmann declined comment yesterday.

Colonel Davis filed a complaint against General Hartmann with Pentagon officials this fall saying that the general had exceeded his authority and created a conflict of interest by asserting control over the prosecutor’s office. Colonel Davis said it would be improper for General Hartmann to assess the adequacy of cases filed by prosecutors if the general had been involved in the decision to file those cases.

In a statement last week, Colonel Davis said the issue posed a threat to the integrity of the war-crimes process. “For the greater good, Brigadier General Hartmann and I should both resign and walk away or higher authority should relieve us of our duties,” the statement said.

A military official said yesterday that Pentagon officials had sided with General Hartmann in the dispute.

Yesterday, Colonel Davis said he could not discuss the developments. “I’m under direct orders,” he said, “not to comment with the media about the reasons for my resignation or military commissions.”

Gregory S. McNeal, an assistant professor at the Dickinson School of Law at Pennsylvania State University, said the effort to begin war-crimes trials would probably continue. But Mr. McNeal, who has been a consultant to the military prosecutors, said the questions Colonel Davis raised would be exploited by defense lawyers.

“The last thing the prosecution needs is officials influencing the prosecutions,” he said.

Critics of the administration have argued that the effort to design a military commission system for foreign terror suspects is intended to circumvent the legal protections that detainees would receive if they were charged in civilian courts. Some of those critics said yesterday that the dispute underscored their concerns.

“This is further evidence that the military commission process is completely unraveling,” said J. Wells Dixon, a detainees’ lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York.

“That is endemic,” Mr. Dixon added, “to any system that is made up as you go along.”

accuracy

09-10-2007, 11:53 AM

http://www.allhatnocattle.net/10807dayy.jpg

accuracy

09-10-2007, 11:58 AM

Saudi Guantanamo returnees get Eid gift

2 days ago
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gxyX-NrAzfPIUfbMow44hu7tGgeA

RIYADH (AFP) — Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz has given 2,700 dollars each to 55 Saudis who were formerly held at the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The ex-Guantanamo inmates who are still being held in Saudi Arabia received 10,000 riyals (nearly 2,700 dollars) each on the minister's orders after being released from jail on Tuesday to spend the upcoming Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr with their families, Okaz said.

They will return to jail after the Eid pending the completion of judicial procedures against them.

The 55 are among 93 Saudi ex-Guantanamo detainees repatriated by US authorities. The rest have since been released from Saudi prisons.

Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the current Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, will start on October 12 or 13 depending on the sighting of a new moon.

Okaz said that Assistant Interior Minister Prince Mohammad bin Nayef, the minister's son, has also offered to cover the wedding expenses of any former Saudi inmate of Guantanamo wishing to marry, including furniture for a new home.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia, which has been battling suspected Al-Qaeda militants since 2003, often helps former suspects financially in a bid to reintegrate them in society and encourage them to shun violence.

Thirty-seven Saudis remain incarcerated at the notorious prison camp in Cuba, which the United States set up after the September 11, 2001 attacks to hold prisoners rounded up in Afghanistan and elsewhere as part of its global anti-terror campaign.

Some 330 detainees of an original 800 are still being held without charge in Guantanamo.

accuracy

09-10-2007, 12:03 PM

Editorial: Bush continues to act like he alone can define torture

Mercury News Editorial
Article Launched: 10/08/2007
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_7116343?nclick_check=1

The Imperial President has acted again in defiance of Congress and international norms.

The New York Times reported that the Bush administration has secretly approved physically and psychologically aggressive forms of CIA interrogation. They appear to violate the Geneva Conventions and the express federal ban on torture that Congress passed and Bush signed.

The physical and psychological tactics include head slapping, simulated drowning known as water boarding and subjecting suspects to frigid temperatures. They've also been denied sleep for days and nights and have been manacled in painful positions for long periods. The Times reported that the Department of Justice sanctioned these methods in classified memos in 2005, shortly after the president's yes-man, Alberto Gonzales, shifted from the role of White House counsel to attorney general.

The White House has refused so far to turn over the memos to the House and Senate judiciary committees, who were unaware of them until the news article. Congressional leaders should insist on their release and press the designated successor to Gonzales, former Judge Michael Mukasey, for his definition of torture during Senate confirmation hearings this fall.

The administration has taken the view that it could ignore courts and Congress in fighting the war on terror and create secret CIA prisons and conduct domestic surveillance on suspected terrorists. The next attorney general must renounce that position.

On Friday, Bush denied authorizing torture and said the interrogation techniques had been disclosed to "appropriate members of Congress," including the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. But the committee chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., joined in demanding the legal opinions and guidelines of interrogation methods.

Bush insisted that interrogations of terrorists, like suspected Sept. 11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, saved American lives. No doubt he is right. Bush's spokesman said that the president has "done everything within the corners of the law" to prevent another attack.

However, those "corners" and the law's boundaries must be clearly defined and consistently enforced to provide clarity to interrogators and to preserve the nation's moral standing. America cannot preach human rights abroad while violating them at home. The administration will put captive diplomats and soldiers at risk if it condones torture at home. Also, a number of experts have said that techniques other than torture provide more accurate and useful information.

Shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, the administration took the position, advocated by Boalt Hall law Professor John Yoo, then in the Office of Legal Counsel, that only those interrogation techniques that produced intense pain like that of organ failure or even death were illegal. That extreme opinion set off a firestorm of criticism when it was leaked. The administration later retreated and took the position that torture was "abhorrent." But it's been vague about the specifics. In 2005, in signing an amendment passed by Congress banning "cruel, inhumane or degrading" treatment of prisoners, Bush issued a statement that he would assert his constitutional right as commander in chief to ignore it whenever he chose.

The 2005 memos confirm suspicions that Bush believes presidential power is limited only by what he can't get away with.

accuracy

14-10-2007, 09:52 AM

Tunisia Says It Does Not Allow Torture

By BOUAZZA BEN BOUAZZA – 2 days ago

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisia said Thursday it does not allow torture and criticized a U.S. judge for blocking the transfer of a Guantanamo prisoner on grounds that he could face mistreatment in his home country.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler granted a preliminary injunction halting the transfer of Mohammed Abdul Rahman from the prison camp, according to a ruling unsealed Tuesday. Rahman was convicted in absentia in his native Tunisia and sentenced to 20 years in prison there.

In her unprecedented ruling, Kessler said Rahman was likely to face "devastating and irreparable harm" if transferred.

Tunisian officials denied the country engages in torture, saying it "does not tolerate any degrading treatment of its citizens."

"Torture and maltreatment are reprehensible practices in Tunisia (and) are therefore considered serious infractions punishable by criminal penalties," the Tunisian government said in a statement Thursday.

It also lashed out at Kessler, saying "foreign judicial officials should show more prudence and avoid relaying allegations that lack any foundation."

U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England cleared Rahman for transfer after a military panel heard his case in 2005. Rahman, who has a heart condition, was captured in Pakistan and allegedly handed over for a bounty.

Tunisia is regularly criticized for human rights abuses, including torture, by national and international organizations. Ten Tunisians remain in Guantanamo.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ig0eb-2JV-qdIC9JXdW4uITHJVEQD8S7CNUO0

accuracy

14-10-2007, 09:54 AM

U.S. Reviews Gitmo Combatant Hearings

By MICHAEL MELIA – 2 days ago

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hmfPDoYObZii0IsIj0uTkfQvJRAwD8S7F5U00

i GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — The U.S. military is reviewing its decision to classify hundreds of Guantanamo Bay inmates as "enemy combatants," a step that could lead to new hearings for men who have spent years behind bars in indefinite detention.

Navy Capt. Theodore Fessel Jr., the lead officer at Guantanamo for the Defense Department agency that oversees the panels, said authorities have begun seeking new or previously overlooked evidence that may warrant new hearings after the process came under fire.

"With all the outside eyes looking in at the process, it's forcing us to say, 'OK, did we take everything into consideration when we did the Combatant Status Review Tribunals?'" Fessel told journalists Wednesday at the naval base in southeast Cuba.

Critics called it an overdue acknowledgment that the so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals are unfairly geared toward labeling detainees the enemy, even when they pose little danger. Simply redoing the tribunals won't fix the problem, they said, because the system still allows coerced evidence and denies detainees legal representation.

Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, an insider who has become one of the most prominent critics of the tribunal process, said Thursday that the development shows the system is fatally flawed.

"Ultimately, conducting new CSRTs — even discussing the possibility — repudiates every prior assertion that the original CSRTs were valid acts," Abraham told The Associated Press in an e-mail Thursday. "They are, in essence, both a hypocritical act as well as an act of moral cowardice."

Abraham, an Army reservist who was a liaison between Guantanamo tribunals and intelligence agencies and served on a combatant review panel, made headlines this summer when he told Congress and the Supreme Court that tribunal members felt pressured to find against detainees.

Last week, an Army major who sat on 49 tribunals also publicly criticized the panels, saying in an affidavit that they favored the government. Both men said that in cases where the panels declared a detainee was not an enemy combatant, commanders reconvened panels to hear more evidence, and sometimes reversed the findings without sufficient new evidence.

The military and the Bush administration have consistently defended the tribunals, established in 2004 to legitimize the detention of men they described as among the world's worst terrorists.

The military held Combatant Status Review Tribunals for 558 detainees in 2004 and 2005. Detainees were handcuffed and provided with a military "personal representative" instead of a defense attorney as they appeared in a trailer before three-officer panels. All but 38 were determined to be "enemy combatants," a classification the Bush administration has used to mean they can be held indefinitely without many of the rights afforded to conventional prisoners of war.

"The CSRTs were NOT fair," Abraham wrote in his e-mail to the AP. "They were specifically designed to reach a result and, in the few instances where a contrary result was reached, pressure was exerted to change the decision, a new tribunal was selected" or the decision was disregarded.

By reviewing the cases, Fessel said the military is recognizing that some detainees may no longer pose a threat. Citing a hypothetical example, he said a detainee who belonged to a Taliban faction that has stopped fighting may no longer be a security risk.

"It's an acknowledgment that if there is new evidence or a new thing to take into bearing, in the spirit of being an open and fair process, we have to take that into consideration," said Fessel, of the Pentagon's Office of Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.

He said he did not know how many of the roughly 330 detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay on suspicion of links to terrorism, al-Qaida or the Taliban might face new hearings.

Once detainees are deemed enemy combatants, they face review boards once a year that assess whether they still pose a threat or have intelligence value, and recommend whether they should be transferred, released or continue to be detained. Assistant Secretary of Defense Gordon England determined after last year's hearings that 328 men should continue to be detained and 55 should be transferred.

The commander of the detention center, Navy Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby, said Wednesday that its population will likely continue to shrink until slightly more than 200 detainees remain — "the real hard-core people that are very unrepentant, committed jihadists."

But critics said the system will remain unfair as long as the evidence is kept secret.

"Enough is enough — the military has had nearly six years to formulate, adapt and fix the proceedings at Guantanamo," said Gitanjali Gutierrez of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, whose many attempts to challenge the detentions have been blocked by the Bush administration.

Separately, the military filed an attempted murder charge against a Guantanamo detainee who allegedly threw a hand grenade into a vehicle carrying two American soldiers and an interpreter in Afghanistan in 2002, according to documents released Thursday. Mohammed Jawad has denied the accusation.

s

(This version CORRECTS that a single murder charge, not multiple charges, was filed against detainee Mohammed Jawad.)

accuracy

14-10-2007, 11:17 AM

Growing Old in Gitmo

http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=22013

12/10/2007
Two years ago the U.S. military recommended Mohamed Mohamed Hassan Odaini for release from Guantanamo prison. So why is he still there?

By Tori Marlan
http://www.cageprisoners.com/art_images/20071012015905.jpg

The first meeting between Marc Falkoff and Mohamed Mohamed Hassan Odaini occurred in a retrofitted storage container, with Odaini’s legs shackled and chained to a bolt in the floor. It was November 2004. Falkoff, who now teaches law at Northern Illinois University, says he was immediately struck by how young the 21-year-old prisoner from Taiz, Yemen, looked—skinny with elfin features and scraggly facial hair—and by how open he seemed: after almost two and a half years at Guantanamo and countless interrogations, he seemed neither wary nor mistrustful of yet another American asking him questions. “He had been waiting for a lawyer,” Falkoff says.

Like the other 550 or so prisoners there at the time, Odaini was considered an enemy combatant. Like most of them, he was being held without charge and had never seen, let alone been given the opportunity to refute, evidence the Bush administration claimed was the justification for his detention.

Falkoff told Odaini that was about to change. The previous June the Supreme Court had ruled that Guantanamo prisoners could challenge their detention in federal court. He showed Odaini the “next friend” authorization his brother Bashir had signed, setting in motion the legal proceedings on his behalf, and the petitions that Falkoff and his colleagues at Covington & Burling had filed in Washington, D.C., seeking habeas corpus hearings—hearings to test the legality of their restraint—for him and 12 other Yemeni detainees. “He’s a bright kid,” Falkoff recalls. “He understood the legal concepts.”

The U.S. government claimed Odaini was linked to Al Qaeda, but Odaini told Falkoff that wasn’t true. In early 2002, he said, he was studying Islamic law at Salafi University in Faisalabad, Pakistan. One night in March he had dinner at a house where other Yemeni students lived. Odaini said he didn’t know the others well and had never been there before that night. But he accepted an invitation to stay over, and early in the morning Pakistani police raided the house. They turned over Odaini and 14 others to U.S. authorities.

On subsequent visits to Guantanamo, Falkoff gave Odaini updates on the habeas petitions. The Bush administration was fighting to get them dismissed, and prisoners weren’t likely to get their day in court anytime soon.

But in June 2005 he was able to bring Odaini a rare bit of good news: after three years of being held virtually incommunicado by the U.S. military, Odaini finally had been deemed suitable for release. Falkoff told him it was possible that he’d be home with his family in a matter of months.

More than two years later, Odaini remains in U.S. custody, and according to Falkoff he hasn’t been interrogated since early 2006. Now 24, Odaini has spent more than five years—more than a fifth of his life—locked up at Guantanamo.

“For all he knows,” says Falkoff, “he could be there for the rest of his life.”

A. JacksonIn January 2002, as the first images of bound men in orange jumpsuits were transmitted around the world, U.S. officials characterized the Guantanamo detainees as people to fear. Labeled enemy combatants and denied the basic protections of the Geneva Conventions, they were, secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld famously declared, the “worst of the worst.” General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained why they’d been chained to their seats and made to wear blackout goggles and earmuffs during the 20-or-so-hour flight from Afghanistan: “These are people that would gnaw through hydraulic lines in the back of a C-17 to bring it down.”

But U.S. officials had reason early on to question such claims. The New Yorker recently reported that in the summer of 2002 (when Odaini arrived), a CIA analyst who visited the naval prison estimated that more than half of the prisoners didn’t belong there. In October 2004 the deputy commander of Guantanamo told the Financial Times, “Most of these guys weren’t fighting. They were running.”

A government spokesman at Guantanamo still claims the detainees “were captured while fighting for Al Qaeda or the Taliban,” but when the Seton Hall University Law School compiled a report last year on 517 Guantanamo detainees, using the Department of Defense’s own data, it discovered that the U.S. government considered only 8 percent of them Al Qaeda fighters. The report found that 55 percent of the detainees were “not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition allies” and that 86 percent had been turned over to the U.S. by Pakistanis or members of the Northern Alliance at a time the U.S. was advertising large financial rewards for turning in Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. (“Get wealth and power beyond your dreams,” a leaflet circulated in Afghanistan read.)

To date, the U.S. has held more than 700 prisoners at Guantanamo. They’ve ranged in age from 13 to 98. Only ten have been charged with crimes; none has been tried. An Australian man pleaded guilty before trial this year to providing material support for terrorism in exchange for an eight-month sentence in a prison back home.

Nearly six years after Guantanamo opened, a chorus of voices at home and abroad is calling on the Bush administration to shut it down. The voices include the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which issued a report last year condemning the U.S. for the “arbitrary deprivation of the right to personal liberty,” among myriad other violations of international law.

In April 2004, Amnesty International held a two-day conference in Sanaa, Yemen, that brought together human rights activists, lawyers, and the families of Guantanamo prisoners, whose identities the Bush administration had refused to reveal.

Lawyers left the conference with the names of 24 prisoners who’d written to their families for help through the International Committee of the Red Cross. Falkoff and his colleagues at Covington & Burling wound up representing 13 of those men and they now represent 17 prisoners in all. (In 2006 a federal judge forced the Department of Defense to reveal the names of its prisoners.)

Over the last three years, the Covington lawyers have traveled to Yemen several times to talk with the mothers, fathers, wives, children, brothers, and cousins of their clients. The families always ask the same two questions. First they want to know whether their relatives are healthy and mentally fit. “We reassure them to the extent we can, but sometimes they’re in bad shape,” says Falkoff. “Then they want to know when their family members will be released. It’s the same question our clients ask us, and we don’t have an easy answer for it.”

Although the habeas statute entitles prisoners to be freed if they can prove that their detention violates the Constitution, federal law, or U.S. treaties, the way out of Guantanamo so far hasn’t been through the courts. In spite of the best efforts of Falkoff and his colleagues, the Bush administration has managed to keep detainees away from federal judges who might order their release.

Shortly after the Supreme Court ruling giving Guantanamo prisoners the green light to challenge their detentions in U.S. courts, the military implemented its own status review process, and government lawyers began taking steps to get the detainees’ habeas corpus petitions tossed, arguing that the new system provided “all the process the petitioners are due (and then some) in these circumstances.”

The Republican-controlled Congress did what it could to help the Bush administration stave off judicial oversight. After the Supreme Court ruled, it passed the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, stripping Guantanamo prisoners of their access to U.S. courts. When the Supreme Court ruled that the law had no effect on already pending cases, Congress dotted that i by passing the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

The U.S. Constitution prohibits Congress from suspending the writ of habeas corpus except “in cases of rebellion or invasion,” but the Supreme Court has previously ruled that acceptable alternatives may exist. Whether the military has such an alternative in place at Guantanamo and whether Congress unlawfully revoked the detainees’ habeas rights will be sorted out by the Supreme Court this fall.

In the meantime, the habeas corpus petitions Falkoff and his colleagues have filed on behalf of Yemeni detainees are in limbo—and the only way out of Guantanamo is at the discretion of the U.S. government.

“We don’t hold detainees for any longer than necessary,” says Captain Lana Hampton, public affairs officer for the Office of Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants (OARDEC). Hampton says the detainees “are screened at various points from capture to detention” and “their individual cases are reviewed periodically thereafter.”

But the military’s system for reviewing detainees’ cases looks nothing like an American system of justice. In the fall of 2004, the military began holding combat status review tribunals. The stated purpose of the hearings was to determine whether the prisoners had been properly classified as enemy combatants, a term so broad it includes anyone who has indirectly or unwittingly supported forces hostile to the U.S. (A government lawyer conceded to a federal judge during a hearing to dismiss the habeas petitions that “a little old lady in Switzerland” could be detained as an enemy combatant at Guantanamo for writing checks “to what she thinks is a charity that helps orphans in Afghanistan, but really is a front to finance Al Qaeda activities.”)

Odaini’s hearing took place on October 6, more than two years into his detention. Prior to it, the military had notified him of two vague accusations against him: he’d been “captured at the ‘Cresent Mill’ guesthouse in Faisalabad, Pakistan and was identified by a senior al Qaida lieutenant,” and “A senior al Qaida Lieutenant identified [him] in a photo as having possibly seen him in Afghanistan.” Odaini was not told the identity of the lieutenant (or lieutenants). Nor was he told when, where, or under what circumstances the identifications had been made. In essence, says Falkoff, the government’s position was, “‘A person is saying incriminating things about you. What’s your response?’ There’s no way to respond to that.”

Odaini took the Muslim oath and did his best. Addressing his three-member tribunal, which consisted of an army colonel and two navy commanders, he said, “You indicated that I was associated with Al Qaeda. How do you know this? . . . The fact that I went to Pakistan to study during the fight does not make me an Al Qaeda member or associated with Al Qaeda. . . . I was living on campus at the university I was attending. You spoke about the fact that someone saw me and thought I could possibly be a member of or associated with Al Qaeda. I don’t even know anybody. This is the first time I have heard of Al Qaeda, in this prison.”

The military had appointed a “personal representative” to assist Odaini, but according to a government transcript of the hearing that person—a member of the military who by regulation cannot be a lawyer—said little. Under questioning from the tribunal members, Odaini said that he’d been studying the Koran for four months prior to his arrest, that he had no military training, that he saw no weapons in the house he was arrested in, and that he didn’t know whether anyone arrested with him was a member of the Taliban or Al Qaeda. He said he’d spent only a few hours at the house and while there had mingled with other Yemenis. “They were asking me about what was going on in Yemen,” he said.

In his defense, he also brought up the possibility that the government’s source had made a mistake. “Maybe that person looked at me and confused me with someone else.”

A member of the tribunal asked him if he’d ever been to Afghanistan. “I had never gone there until I was taken to the prison by the Americans,” he said.

The military allowed detainees to call witnesses to support their story if they were “reasonably available,” and Odaini requested the testimony of everyone who was arrested with him. The tribunal said 14 witnesses would be “cumulative” and made Odaini pick two. Of them, only one was brought in to testify—the other had refused, Odaini was told.

Odaini was given an opportunity to ask his witness questions. He asked only one: “Do you know if I am a member of Al Qaeda or if I am associated with Al Qaeda?”

The witness responded, “All I know is all the people in the house were students.”

The tribunal members then questioned the witness. Although they later said they found his testimony “consistent” with Odaini’s, they’d found aspects of his own story inconsistent and therefore concluded he wasn’t credible.

Falkoff wonders why, if the witness wasn’t deemed credible, the tribunal didn’t call any of the others Odaini had requested. “That the military could not take the time to talk to a dozen men—all of whom were in cells in Gitmo—to determine whether they had wrongly imprisoned someone is frankly shameful,” he says.

The second part of the hearing happened behind closed doors. According to an unclassified document summarizing the proceedings, the tribunal members reviewed the secret evidence against Odaini. His personal representative declined to say anything in his defense regarding the evidence—and Odaini wasn’t able to do so himself: he wasn’t privy to it.

In the end, the tribunal concluded that Odaini was properly classified as an enemy combatant and was “a part of or supporting Al Qaeda forces”—a decision, it acknowledged, that was based on the evidence Odaini wasn’t allowed to contest.

Falkoff has seen the secret evidence in Odaini’s file. Laws against revealing classified information prohibit him from sharing it with his client, or anyone else, without risking criminal prosecution, but he says he’s certain it wouldn’t hold up in court as legitimate cause to deprive Odaini of his freedom. “I was dumbfounded by how lousy it was,” he says.

Although the military claims its review procedures “are designed to ensure we only hold those who are unlawful enemy combatants and who pose a continuing threat to the United States and its allies,” Falkoff says the combat status review tribunal (CSRT) process seems more intended to justify a determination the military has already made: that the prisoners are enemy combatants.

Of the 572 Guantanamo prisoners who’ve had tribunals, the military concluded that only 38 were not enemy combatants. Army reserve lieutenant colonel Stephen Abraham gave an affidavit in the habeas corpus case that suggests tribunal members feel pressure to rubber-stamp the process. Abraham served on a CSRT panel that found “no factual basis” for concluding a detainee was an enemy combatant. “We were then ordered to reopen the hearing to allow . . . further argument as to why the detainee should be classified as an enemy combatant,” he said. When further argument didn’t sway the tribunal, their higher-ups launched an inquiry into “what went wrong”—a response that Abraham said was “consistent with the few other instances in which a finding of ‘Not an Enemy Combatant’ (NEC) had been reached by CSRT boards.”

The truth can’t readily be teased out at the tribunals, Falkoff says, as they’re stacked against the detainees, who can’t have lawyers present, can’t confront their accusers, and aren’t given a chance to defend themselves against the government’s secret evidence, which is presumed to be accurate. Only when a prisoner has an opportunity to respond to all of the allegations that are leveled against him, he says, can one “begin to make a reasoned evaluation about what really happened and where the truth lies. And this is what a court hearing is supposed to do.”

The U.S. claims that intelligence gathered at Guantanamo has broken up a Southeast Asian terrorist cell being groomed for attacks inside the U.S., thwarted a car and motorcycle bombing at the U.S. consulate in Karachi, and disrupted a plot to fly hijacked planes into Heathrow Airport or the Canary Wharf in London. It says that of the approximately 445 prisoners who’ve been sent home from Guantanamo, at least 30 have “returned to the fight.” But because the military doesn’t “intend to be the world’s jailer,” says Captain Hampton, it evaluates each enemy combatant’s case on an annual basis to see whether anything can be gained from his continued detention. If it’s determined that he is of no intelligence value and poses a low risk to the nation’s security, an administrative review board (ARB) may recommend that he be released or transferred home with conditions, such as restrictions on future travel. Mostly, though, the boards have recommended continued detention—in 71 percent of the 463 cases reviewed the first year and in 83 percent of the 328 cases reviewed the second.

Odaini’s first ARB hearing was held in April 2005. “They started throwing more accusations at him,” says Falkoff, “a flurry of brand-new accusations he’d never heard before.” Odaini did his best to answer them, and then the board members asked what he would do if he were released. “What I learned from studying the Koran,” he said, “I can teach kids.”

A board member asked if he had any skills. “I know how to play soccer,” he said.

Falkoff, who’s read the classified documents in Odaini’s file, says that before the hearing “Mohamed already had been deemed truthful, low risk, and suitable for release on multiple occasions.” He wrote a letter to the board members considering Odaini’s case, pointing out that Odaini had been “repeatedly recommended for release from Guantanamo.” The identity of the person or people who did the recommending isn’t something Falkoff is now at liberty to divulge: that part of his letter has been blacked out by government censors.

Falkoff says neither he nor Odaini was notified of the board’s decision to recommend continued detention.

The following year, Odaini declined to attend his review hearing. According to Falkoff, he’d decided the process was a sham. Other prisoners likely did too—only 66 of the 328 detainees whose cases were reviewed bothered to participate in the second round of ARBs; the first year more than half participated.

Despite Odaini’s absence, his ARB decided last spring to recommend his transfer to Yemen. ARB recommendations aren’t binding, however. They’re free to be ignored by the deputy secretary of defense, Gordon England, who makes the final decision. England signed off on Odaini’s transfer on June 26, 2006.

When England signs off on a recommendation for release or transfer, the prisoner is put on a list of those deemed eligible to leave Guantanamo. But Falkoff says the list is meaningless because a prisoner “doesn’t have a right to be released simply because he’s on that list” and prisoners who aren’t on the list sometimes get released.

In early September, after the U.S. sent a group of 16 Saudi prisoners home, Falkoff contacted attorneys representing eight of them to find out whether any had been cleared for release or transfer by the ARB process. Only one had.

Although some 70 Guantanamo prisoners are currently eligible for release or transfer, about 20 of them are citizens of countries that “won’t take them back,” says a military officer at Guantanamo. “A lot of folks here are kind of in limbo, and the State Department is figuring out what do with them.”

The State Department won’t comment on Odaini’s specific situation, but a department official who requested anonymity says that, in general, the U.S. doesn’t release any detainee unless his citizenship is established and the U.S. is confident that his home country will treat him humanely but has “the capacity and the will to manage the threat posed by his release.”

Mohammed Albasha, spokesperson for the Yemen embassy, says he doesn’t know what the delay is in Odaini’s case. “It was established a long time ago that he was a Yemeni citizen.”

Early negotiations for the release of Yemeni prisoners hit a standstill when the U.S. requested that Yemen sign a document saying the men wouldn’t be tortured upon their return. Yemen officials refused, Albasha says, because of the implication that Yemen would otherwise torture them. (According to the State Department’s 2006 report on Yemen’s human rights practices, the Yemeni government acknowledged that torture and abuse occurred in its prisons but claimed it wasn’t a result of official policy.)

But Albasha says the torture question is an old one. A dozen Yemeni prisoners have since been returned (one albeit in a body bag). Under the agreement Yemen has with the U.S., returning prisoners get screened by Yemen’s judicial system “to make sure they have a clear bill.” Albasha says four of the repatriated prisoners were convicted in a Yemen court of forging documents and all were sentenced to time served at Guantanamo and released to their families. “If someone has no blood on his hands or terrorist affiliations, he’s free to go.”

As for Odaini, “We are ready to take him back. We’re just waiting for them [U.S. officials] to hand him over.”

There are still about 95 Yemeni citizens at Guantanamo—more than from any other country—and Falkoff thinks their government could be doing more to repatriate them. “I don’t know what the holdup is,” he says, “whether the U.S. is making unreasonable demands or Yemen is refusing any kind of demand.” But, he continues, “Yemen is the only country without a significant number of citizens being repatriated.” All of the Europeans and Bahrainis have gone home, he says, as have more than half of the Saudis and Pakistanis.

Falkoff says other countries seem to be able to negotiate successfully with the U.S. for the return of their citizens, but for some reason Yemen hasn’t. “You have to do more than state in public that you demand your men back,” he says. “You have to actually engage in negotiations.” The State Department won’t discuss the details of its dealings with Yemen, but it likely has some concerns about the country’s ability to mitigate the threat of terrorism—or even to keep its convicted terrorists behind bars. Last year 23 prisoners, including some who were involved in the USS Cole bombing and linked to Al Qaeda, were able to break out of a high-security prison.

Falkoff has written editorials for newspapers in Yemen urging readers to put pressure on their leaders to demand the return of their fellow citizens.

Falkoff says most of his clients live in virtual isolation, permitted to leave their cells for only two hours a day. Sometimes they don’t bother to rouse themselves. “Half of the time their rec time is offered after midnight,” Falkoff says. They aren’t allowed to read newspapers, watch TV, or make phone calls. Incoming and outgoing mail is censored; family photos don’t get through.

Falkoff tried to send his clients Arabic-English dictionaries and Dr. Seuss’s ABC—to no avail. About a year after his arrest, Odaini sent a letter to his family through the International Committee of the Red Cross promising not to forget them, no matter how long he might be in Guantanamo. Falkoff says that Odaini no longer writes to his family. “He thinks it’s better for them. He thinks they won’t worry about him.”

Despite the government-issued Korans and the painted arrows on their cell floors pointing toward Mecca, Odaini and other prisoners often complain to Falkoff about religious humiliations. They say guards have mocked them while they’re praying, routinely mistreated the Koran, and taken away their prayer mats, prayer oils, and prayer beads as punishment.

While religion is clearly important to Odaini, Falkoff says it doesn’t seem all-consuming to him. Odaini’s brother Bashir wrote an affidavit for his habeas corpus case saying that when Odaini lived in Yemen he shaved and went to parties on the beach. “He was anything but an extremist when it came to religion,” he wrote.

Odaini likes sports and has asked Falkoff to send him soccer and boxing magazines. Falkoff says he tried but “they were never allowed through.”

Sometimes Falkoff wonders if lawyers such as himself have only brought confusion and disappointment. The habeas corpuscase is moving at a glacial pace. Court victories have given way to court setbacks. The prisoners remind them that in the three years the attorneys have been trying to help nothing has changed. “Basically everything we’ve told them turns out to be wrong,” says Falkoff. The Supreme Court said they could have a hearing in 2004—but they’re still waiting for one. The military was forbidden to look at the prisoners’ privileged correspondence with their attorneys—but then a court ruled it could. “The basic thing we tell them is that the president can’t just do what he wants, the courts are ultimately in charge,” Falkoff says. “Our clients lean over and tell us, ‘You have to understand it’s a big game, there’s nothing you can do about it.’”

Many prisoners seem unwell to him. Falkoff worries that one client who used to be animated is being forcibly drugged. Four or five have gone on hunger strikes. Several refuse to meet with Falkoff anymore. One called him a “mirage in the desert” and said that his hope for relief through the American courts had been extinguished. “He has a six-year-old daughter he’s never seen,” says Falkoff.

Some prisoners have started writing poetry to maintain their sanity and memorialize their suffering, says Falkoff. He recently edited a collection of their work, Poems From Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak.

Odaini is doing better than most prisoners, says Falkoff. The government seems to have lost interest in interrogating him, and he lives in Camp Four, a communal setting with ten detainees to a cell that’s reserved for those the military considers compliant. Camp Four detainees have “freedom of movement from indoors to outdoors throughout the day,” according to Lieutenant Colonel Edward Bush III, of the public affairs office at Guantanamo, and Falkoff says Odaini uses his rec time to kick around a soccer ball and visit a garden, though he’s told Falkoff that detainees are made to use the garden one at a time and only allowed to water the plants, not to sit and enjoy them.

“He’s our one client we don’t have to keep justifying the value of having a lawyer to,” says Falkoff. “He looks around for old men or people who don’t understand what the legal system is all about and he explains to them why they need to have a lawyer, and he’ll write out affidavits, saying there’s this other detainee here and he wants me to enlist a lawyer for him, I’m acting in his best interest as his next friend.” Falkoff says he can easily imagine a different life for Odaini. “He should be living in someone’s home in Connecticut as an exchange student at Yale.”

The last time Falkoff visited Odaini, in May, he brought him another piece of good news: The Pentagon had sent an e-mail to Covington & Burling saying that Odaini had been added to a list of prisoners who were “approved to leave Guantanamo.” Although he’d been cleared for release nearly a year earlier, it was the first official word from the top that Odaini had made it onto the transfer list. Odaini knew better than to get too excited, says Falkoff. “He smiled and shrugged.”

SOURCE: ChicagoReader.com

accuracy

16-10-2007, 12:21 PM

Tent city built for terror trials

Military officials opt for cheaper structures to accommodate Guantanamo actions

By Carol J. Williams
October 14, 2007
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.gitmo14oct14,0,796832.story

http://www.baltimoresun.com/media/photo/2007-10/33215731.jpg
Quonset huts that make up the Expeditionary Legal Complex sit on an old airstrip at Guantanamo Bay. Several dozen terrorism trials are to be held in the temporary complex. (AP photo / October 10, 2007)

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - A complex of canvas Quonset huts arrayed like dominoes has risen on an abandoned airfield here, where just a year ago the Pentagon envisioned a $125 million permanent judicial center in which terrorism suspects would be brought to trial.

The battlefield-style Expeditionary Legal Complex, which can be quickly dismantled once the war-crimes tribunals of the Guantanamo detainees are over, reflects the shrinking mission of the controversial procedures created by the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Authorities plan to prosecute a few dozen of the more than 300 men detained here, and the first trial is scheduled to begin next month.

Proponents of the expeditionary approach to the tribunals insist the $12 million canvas complex will be just as secure and functional as the costlier version.

"It will have everything required to conduct multiple simultaneous, highly classified commission hearings," said Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby, commander of the Joint Task Force in charge of incarcerating and interrogating terrorism suspects. His staff is also overseeing construction of the complex that will provide work space and accommodation for as many as 500 lawyers, courtroom personnel and journalists during the trials.

"The only difference is that it's going to be like camping out. It'll be a little rough," Buzby said.

As a taxpayer, Buzby said, he thought it made little sense to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a legal complex likely to be in use only a year or two. In addition, challenges to the tribunal process are still pending in federal court.

"After the commissions are over, you're not going to have a need for a large legal edifice here. We can just pack it all up," Buzby said of the nearly 100 tents erected on the weed-choked runway. The sole permanent structure, still under construction, will house a top-security courtroom.

After a four-month jurisdictional delay, the first trial before a military commission is set for Nov. 8, when Canadian Omar Khadr will face murder and conspiracy charges in the base's existing facility. But prosecution of 14 "high-value" Guantanamo prisoners, including suspected Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, must wait for the April 1 opening of the expeditionary complex.

The existing makeshift courtroom in the disused airstrip's 1940s-era control tower cannot be made secure enough for the top-secret materials and maximum-security detention needed while prosecuting the reputed al-Qaida kingpins, said Sgt. 1st Class Domini McDonald, the senior paralegal and construction liaison in Guantanamo for the Defense Department's Office of Military Commissions.

Asked whether detainees like Mohammed were likely to face trial soon or remain under prolonged interrogation, Buzby said that the 14 men brought in from secret CIA sites a year ago had already been mined for their intelligence value and that he expected war-crimes indictments "in the not-too-distant future."

But some commissions officials grumble about crude conditions that will confront attorneys and court personnel expected to live and work in tents for the duration of the trials, which could last weeks or months.

"These guys are going to be in trials for 10, 11, 12 hours a day, and they won't have the relaxation they need sleeping on a cot," said McDonald, noting that showers and toilets are in separate tents. "I'm a taxpayer, but I personally think we should have gone with the other idea."

The $125 million complex the Pentagon tried to slip into a supplemental spending bill in December would have provided three courtrooms, an office building and enough hotel rooms, restaurants and parking for as many as 800 people.

Carol J. Williams writes for the Los Angeles Times.

accuracy

18-10-2007, 09:31 AM

Khadr to go on trial at Guantanamo Nov. 8

COLIN FREEZE

October 16, 2007
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071016.WORLDREPORT16-1/TPStory/TPInternational/America/

Omar Khadr, a Canadian held in Guantanamo Bay, is to go to trial on Nov. 8, a date that should end years of legal wrangling over whether a military commission there can hear the case.

Yesterday, a U.S. military judge, Colonel Peter Brownback, quashed the defence's attempts to delay proceedings further, finding that the case of Mr. Khadr, 21, will be the first full legal airing against a detainee in the controversial U.S. prison experiment.

Mr. Khadr was to face trial last June, but the case was dismissed on the first day of hearings as the military commission found it lacked jurisdiction to proceed. That decision has since been overturned, after an appeal from the Pentagon.

Defence lawyers had been seeking to challenge the latest ruling, but were denied yesterday.

Lieutenant-Commander William Kuebler released a statement yesterday complaining that the Pentagon has stacked the proceedings. "They write a rule giving Omar a right to appeal, they tell Omar he has a right to appeal, and when he appeals, they claim he doesn't have a right to appeal - Alice in Wonderland really is the only way to describe it."

© Copyright 2007 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc.

accuracy

20-10-2007, 10:13 AM

Mystery underwear stymies Guantanamo investigators

Thu Oct 18, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSNASUA170120071018

By Jane Sutton

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - The U.S. military has ended an inquiry into who smuggled unauthorized underwear and a bathing suit to two prisoners at Guantanamo Bay without learning the source of the contraband skivvies, an attorney said on Wednesday.

The investigators concluded more vigilance was needed to prevent contraband from entering the camp that holds 330 suspected al Qaeda operatives, said Capt. Pat McCarthy, the military's chief lawyer for the detention operation at Guantanamo.

Media reports of underwear smuggling prompted snickers when it came to light last month and McCarthy admitted, "We laughed too."

But he said it was a serious breach because the Speedo bathing suit and the athletic-style briefs were made of very strong fabric that could enable them to be used as nooses, as could the cord that cinched the waist of the bathing suit.

"(It) sounds funny until a guy is hanging at the end of a Speedo drawstring," McCarthy told journalists visiting the base.

Officials said they were also concerned by the security breaches the incident exposed.

Four prisoners have been found dead and hanging in their cells from makeshift nooses, three in June 2006 and one in May 2007. Guantanamo officials have never said what was used to make the nooses except that the fourth was "a string type of noose." Formal investigations of all four deaths are still pending.

After the first deaths, the prisoners' underwear was switched from briefs with wide elastic bands to boxers made of flimsier fabric that rips under stress.

So camp officials were alarmed when two prisoners represented by lawyers from the same firm were found with the tough, stretchy Under Armour briefs favored by athletes. One also had the bathing suit.

The items were discovered during a recent routine check of the cells.

Investigators questioned everyone who came into contact with the two captives at the isolated, high-security camp on the U.S. base in eastern Cuba. When the guards and medics were cleared, the Office of the Navy Judge Advocate General sent the lawyers a letter in August asking if they had sneaked in the underwear.

The attorneys, Clive Stafford Smith and Zachary Katznelson of the British human rights group Reprieve, sent back a letter denying it and calling the question absurd. They said they had not seen the prisoners for many months.

Stymied, the investigators closed the probe.

"The conclusion is we are unaware of how they got that matter," McCarthy said. "We will continue to be vigilant to try to avoid a repeat of that."

accuracy

20-10-2007, 10:28 AM

US lawmakers apologize in torture case

By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer
Thu Oct 18,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/torture_rendition;_ylt=Ahl4gt1GMeZKnpJ25zBAycUDW7o F

WASHINGTON - Members of Congress apologized Thursday to a Canadian engineer seized by U.S. officials and taken to Syria, where he says he was tortured.

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20071018/capt.9df40ab2080b45ca989ce178bdc38056.canada_u_s__ cda_arar_otth101.jpg
AP Photo: Maher Arar talks with reporters in Ottawa,Canada, Thursday, Oct. 18, 2007 after testifying via video...

Maher Arar said he was ensnared in an "immoral" terrorism-fighting program known as extraordinary rendition.

The 37-year-old appeared before a joint hearing of House subcommittees by video from Ottawa, Canada. He remains on a U.S. government watch list.

"Let me personally give you what our government has not: an apology," said Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., as he opened the hearing. "Let me apologize to you and the Canadian people for our government's role in a mistake."

Arar said he was grateful for the apologies, but hoped the Bush administration would do so, too.

"Let me be clear: I am not a terrorist, I am not a member of al-Qaida or any terror group. I am a father, a husband, and an engineer. I am also a victim of the immoral practice of extraordinary rendition," he said.

Arar said he was thrown in a tiny cell and tortured into falsely confessing that he had trained at a terrorist camp in Afghanistan.

"Life in that cell was hell. I spent 10 months and 10 days in that grave," he said.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., also apologized, but said he would fight any efforts by Democrats to end the practice of extraordinary rendition.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush gave the CIA authority to conduct the operations. They involve grabbing suspected terrorists off street in one country and flying them to their home country or another where they are wanted for a crime or questioning.

"Yes, we should be ashamed" of what happened in the case, Rohrabacher said. "That is no excuse to end a program which has protected the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of American. ... We are at war. Mistakes happen. People die."

Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, was detained by U.S. immigration agents on Sept. 26, 2002, as he stopped over in New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on the way home from a vacation. Days later, he was sent by private jet to Syria where, according to Canadian officials, he was tortured.

After nearly a year in a Syrian prison, he was released without charges and returned to Canada. "This was a kidnapping," said Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.

The Canadian government has apologized to Arar for its role in the case and agreed to pay him almost $10 million in compensation.

The administration has said little about the program, other than that it is an important tool in fighting terrorism.

A Canadian investigation found that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police wrongly labeled Arar an Islamic fundamentalist and passed misleading and inaccurate information to U.S. authorities.

The inquiry determined Arar was tortured, and it cleared him of any terrorist links or suspicions.

Legal experts say the case shows the U.S. has violated a 1998 law specifically prohibiting the government from turning a suspect over to a foreign country when they think the suspect may be tortured. U.S. authorities say they get diplomatic assurances that suspects will not be tortured before turning them over.

accuracy

20-10-2007, 10:34 AM

Family sues for release of Kenyan in Guantanamo

Fri 19 Oct 2007
http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN922297.html

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The family of a Kenyan suspected of involvement in attacks on Israeli interests in the east African country in 2002 sued in Kenya's High Court on Thursday for his release from Guantanamo Bay military prison.

Kenya handed Mohamed Abdul Malik, 37, over to U.S. authorities in March. He is accused of involvement in two attacks in Kenya, for which Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network claimed responsibility.

"His arrest, detention and subsequent rendition to Guantanamo Bay is illegitimate and unlawful ... it is sought that this court does order his immediate production and release," lawyer Ken Nyaundi said in a court application.

Even if successful, the suit is unlikely to lead to Malik's release as the court has no jurisdiction in the United States.

In March, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Malik had been transferred to Guantanamo "due to the significant threat" he represented.

Whitman said Malik had admitted involvement in an attack on a hotel in the resort of Mombasa that killed at least 15 people in November 2002 and an attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner near the Indian Ocean port on the same day.

Africa.reuters.com

accuracy

20-10-2007, 10:40 AM

Fears grow for hunger strike journalist held in Guantanamo

19 October 2007

By Julie Tomlin

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=39128&c=1

Concern for the health of the only journalist held at Guantanamo Bay increased this week after news that his weight has plummeted because of a decision to reduce force-feeding during Ramadan.

Al Jazeera cameraman Sami Al-Haj, who has lost 18kg (40lb) since beginning his hunger strike in January, lost a further 15lb during Ramadan, according to his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith.

He also told Press Gazette this week that the US authorities have now made fresh allegations that Al-Haj is a terrorist.

“They have said that he received terrorist training – and that was training from Al Jazeera in the use of cameras,” said Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve. “Each year they change the allegations against him, and each year they allege something new. But this one is really offensive.”

The human rights lawyer said Al Jazeera chiefs were considering taking legal action after he advised them that they should pursue a claim of defamation against the US government.

“It’s something you journalists should all be concerned about,” he said.

Stafford Smith, who returned from a trip to Guantanamo Bay this week, has to have his notes cleared by the US authorities and could not give specific details about Al-Haj’s physical and mental health.

Stafford Smith said after visiting his client in July that Al-Haj was losing his memory and had become “fixated on his death”.

He said after his most recent visit that Al-Haj, who has been in Guantanamo Bay since June 2002, has lost more weight because of the guards’ decision to force feed him just once a day during Ramadan between 12 September and 3 October “out of respect for his religious belief”.

Al-Haj, a Sudanese national who was detained at the Pakistan border in December 2001 while on his way to work in Afghanistan, made a plea for the release of Alan Johnston during the BBC correspondent’s 113-day captivity in Gaza earlier this year.

Stafford Smith has since made contact with Johnston, who earlier this month wrote an open letter in support of Al-Haj.

Johnston, who was released in July, said he supported Al-Haj’s call to be allowed to answer any allegations that are being made against him.

“And of course, I would always support any prisoner’s right to a fair trial.” Johnston wrote.

accuracy

22-10-2007, 01:59 PM

CIA torture film hopes to shine light on "rendition"

Sun 21 Oct 2007,
http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL21633422.html

By Silvia Aloisi

ROME, Oct 21 (Reuters Life!) - Director Gavin Hood hopes his film "Rendition" about the U.S. practice of deporting suspected terrorists to foreign jails will raise public awareness and help stop abuse of human rights in the name of national security.

"It's easy to talk about arbitrary detentions and enhanced interrogation techniques and all these fancy words in the abstract and then we realise that in fact it's about people," Hood told reporters after a screening at the Rome Film Festival.

"(It's) not just the people to whom it happens but the people who are involved in having to do this and they don't quite know what the rules are ... We don't have the answers but I think we ask people to ask the questions and I hope the film contributes to the debate."

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon, "Rendition" tells the fictional story of an Egyptian-American engineer abducted by U.S. customs at Washington airport, deported to a North African jail and tortured under the eyes of a CIA agent.

Witherspoon plays the man's pregnant wife desperately trying to track him down, while Gyllenhaal is the reluctant CIA agent asked to supervise his brutal interrogation.

The film, which screened at the festival on Sunday and has just been released in the United States, is the latest in a string of Hollywood productions tackling the political and military fallout from the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The theme has made U.S. cinema popular at European festivals this year, even though box office returns have been mixed.

Unlike other directors who have accused the media of not telling the full story about the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, Hood said the press had played a crucial role in bringing the practice of rendition to light.

"One of the ways that this controversy has come to the attention of the public is through the efforts of journalists and through the efforts of lawyers publicising these things," said the South African director, whose previous film "Tsotsi" won an Oscar for best foreign movie last year.

The United States acknowledges it has conducted secret international transfers of terrorist suspects and held them at secret prisons, but denies torturing them or handing them over to countries that torture prisoners.

The U.S. has sought to dismiss legal cases brought by victims on the grounds that they would violate state secrets.

Striving for balance, the film poses the question of whether potentially saving the lives of thousands makes it worth sacrificing one person's rights.

Hood said people should put themselves in the position of CIA officials, like the one played in the film by Meryl Streep, whose job is "to make sure that another 9/11 does not happen".

"We need clear rules not just to protect people like (the man) who is kidnapped but also to give guidance to the people whose job it is to protect the American people," he said.

"If there are no rules then why will they stop pushing the envelope in order to try and protect?"

© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.

accuracy

23-10-2007, 01:38 PM

Claim of Pressure for Closed Guantánamo Trials

By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: October 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/20/us/nationalspecial3/20gitmo.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

The former chief military prosecutor for the planned war-crimes trials of Guantánamo detainees said yesterday that he had been pressured by military officials to rely increasingly on classified evidence, which would require that long trial sessions be held behind closed doors rather than in open proceedings.

“Who ever said we had to have open trials?” the former chief prosecutor said a military official, Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, told him in September.

The former prosecutor, Col. Morris D. Davis, described the dispute in an interview yesterday. Colonel Davis said it was part of an internal disagreement over whether war-crimes trials at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are to be largely public, displaying evidence against terrorism suspects, or largely closed, which could increase criticism of Guantánamo.

Colonel Davis, a career Air Force lawyer, said one of his priorities as chief prosecutor had been to get as much evidence as possible declassified so people around the world could assess the strength of cases against terrorism suspects. But he said two officials told him in September that he was wasting time declassifying evidence and that it was more important to move quickly by filing charges against detainees.

“No matter how perfect the trial is,” Colonel Davis said, “if it’s behind closed doors, it’s going to be viewed as a sham.”

Colonel Davis resigned Oct. 5 after a bitter turf dispute with General Hartmann, who was named legal adviser this summer to Susan J. Crawford, the senior official in the Office of Military Commissions at the Defense Department.

A Pentagon spokesman, Cmdr. Jeffrey D. Gordon, said that the law authorized the use of classified evidence in military commission prosecutions, but that the amount would vary from case to case. “It would be pure speculation,” Commander Gordon added, “to discuss how often classified testimony will be heard, but it is unlikely to be substantial in the majority of cases.”

Government officials have said that revealing the sources of information about detainees and the methods used for its collection would compromise efforts to protect Americans.

A spokeswoman for the Office of Military Commissions, Lt. Catheryne Pully, said General Hartmann and Ms. Crawford were unavailable for comment.

In the interview yesterday, Colonel Davis read from notes he said he made after a telephone conversation with General Hartmann on Sept. 10. He said the general expressed irritation at the slow pace of prosecutions and made the remarks about conducting trials with closed sessions.

Only 4 of the 330 detainees at Guantánamo have been charged under the Military Commissions Act passed by Congress last year. One case ended in a plea bargain. No trial has begun.

Richard Wilson, a law professor at American University who was until recently a defense lawyer in a commission case, said closed proceedings would highlight critics’ concerns about the proceedings. “It would strain credibility for the government to say, ‘Trust us,’” Professor Wilson said.

In August, Colonel Davis filed a formal complaint at the Pentagon claiming that General Hartmann had overstepped his role by asserting control over the prosecution office. This month, Pentagon officials told Colonel Davis that they were backing General Hartmann, and Colonel Davis asked to be reassigned.

In the interview, Colonel Davis said General Hartmann noted twice in September that a legal rule permitted military commission proceedings to be closed when classified evidence was being presented and said, “We’ve got to use it.” He said that on Sept. 21, Ms. Crawford told him she agreed with General Hartmann.

Colonel Davis, who has been assigned to another legal position after two years as the chief military prosecutor for Guantánamo, said he felt it was important to keep trials as open as possible.

He said that while he supported the use of military commissions, “this whole process is under a cloud” because of critics who have asserted that the administration created a legal system for detainees that gives them fewer rights than the country’s civilian justice system. He said the criticism could be mitigated “by keeping it as open and transparent as possible.”

Colonel Davis said he had worked with prosecutors to select evidence that could secure convictions while trying to limit the need to close the Guantánamo trials, which are expected to draw international attention.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

accuracy

24-10-2007, 01:35 PM

DOJ lawyers argue against Khadr appeal to federal court

Monday, October 22, 2007
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/10/doj-lawyers-argue-against-khadr-appeal.php

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/topstoryphoto/frontkhadr.jpg

[JURIST] US Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers argued [motion, PDF] in documents filed with the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit Friday that the court does not have jurisdiction to hear an appeal from the US Court of Military Commission Review (CMCR) [DOD materials] by Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr [JURIST news archive]. The DOJ argued that under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) [S 3930 materials] no civilian court can consider an appeal of a war crimes case until a military court has issued a final judgment on the case. The DOJ also pointed to the MCA's "court-stripping" provision, which prevents federal courts from hearing habeas challenges. Khadr US military lawyer Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler criticized the move [press release, DOC], describing it as "an effort to hit the 'delete' button on language ... which gives the defense a coequal right to seek review of decisions by the Court of Military Commission Review." The Canadian Press has more. SCOTUSblog has additional coverage.

Khadr filed [JURIST report] his appeal with the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit earlier this month, challenging the CMCR decision to send Khadr's case back to a military tribunal. Before that, the CMCR refused to reconsider its September ruling [JURIST reports] that the charges against Khadr could be reinstated, after a military commission judge dropped the charges [JURIST report] in June. Col. Peter Brownback reasoned that the court had no jurisdiction because a Guantanamo Combatant Status Review Tribunal [DOD materials] had found that Khadr was an "enemy combatant," but not an "unlawful enemy combatant" under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 [PDF text]. The appeals court overturned Brownback's decision and directed him to hear evidence concerning, and ultimately decide, Khadr's "unlawful enemy combatant" status. Khadr was detained in Afghanistan in 2002 after allegedly throwing a grenade that killed one US soldier and wounded another while fighting with the Taliban.

stelios

24-10-2007, 02:00 PM

Press TV correspondent in Afghanistan, Fayez Khurshid has said that he was tortured by US forces after his illegal detention.

According to Khurshid, foreign soldiers stopped him on the way home, grabbed him by the collar and asked if he was a member of the IRGC (The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) and worked for the government of Iran.

The Afghan journalist was rendered unconscious by a taser and taken to a US base where the officers in charge of interrogating him, forced him to watch all the reports he had made for Press TV, while "shocking him on an electric chair and beating him on the head".

He was threatened that if he continued to work for Press TV, his family would also suffer the consequences. Fayez repeatedly told his interrogators that he was a freelance journalist with no political ties to any foreign country.

Khurshid was released after an 18 hour detention.

Fayez had said in his latest report that the presence of the American forces in Afghanistan was the main reason for instability in the country and that Afghan authorities were instructed by foreign political forces to prevent the nation from chanting slogans against the US and Israel.

The Press TV correspondent made clear in his interview with the network that it is his duty to broadcast to the world what really goes on in Afghanistan, and the problems the presence of foreign forces has caused for the Afghan nation.

accuracy

26-10-2007, 10:07 AM

ACLU Publishes Book Documenting Accounts of Prisoner Abuse

By A. Kairi
Published Oct 23, 2007
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/424158/aclu_publishes_book_documenting_accounts.html

According to a press release from the American Civil Liberties Union, the civil rights group has published a book entitled, "Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond." The book was written by Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh, two attorneys that work for the American Civil Liberties Union. The book was published Monday by Columbia University Press.

The American Civil Liberties Union claims that the book is a detailed account of United States torture of prisoners being held abroad in places such as Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba. The civil rights group claims that the source of these accounts is from the over 100,000 government documents the group has obtained under the freedom of information act and as a result of legal action. The rights group stresses that legal action is an on-going process, and claims that the Bush administration continues to withhold documents concerning the treatment of prisoners.

The group hopes that the book will do more than simply bring to light abuses occurring at foreign detention facilities. They hope it will help corroborate their claim that the abuse and torture of prisoners is not the result of the actions of a small group of sick individuals as appeared to be the case at Abu Ghraib prison. They feel the accounts will demonstrate their proposed link between the torture of prisoners and the decisions made by senior military and civilian officials.

The books authors write: ""the maltreatment of prisoners resulted in large part from decisions made by senior officials, both military and civilian. These decisions ...were reaffirmed repeatedly, even in the fact of complaints from law enforcement and military personnel that the policies were illegal and ineffective, and even after countless prisoners ...were abused, tortured, or killed in custody."

they went on to write: ""The documents show that senior officials endorsed the abuse of prisoners as a matter of policy - sometimes by tolerating it, sometimes by encouraging it, and sometimes by expressly authorizing it."

The civil rights group has long claimed that the documents they obtained document instances of prisoners being subjected to physical abuse, forced stripping of clothing, freezing cold temperatures, terrorizing from dogs, and tortuously painful stress positions. The documents also reportedly prove that the United States held prisoners as young as twelve years of age.

The group also claims that the book builds on documents detailing prisoner autopsy results that ruled their deaths homicides due to blunt force injury, suffocation and strangulation at the hands of or due to the actions of their captors.

The books authors made these comments regarding the books purpose: "It is imperative that senior officials who authorized, endorsed, or tolerated the abuse and torture of prisoners be held accountable, not only as a matter of elemental justice, but to ensure that the same crimes are not perpetrated again."

accuracy

26-10-2007, 10:23 AM

The Times of India.

PM's daughter exposes torture in US jails

25 Oct 2007
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/PMs_daughter_exposes_torture_in_US_jails/articleshow/2488344.cms

NEW YORK: Amrit Singh, the US-based daughter of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has co-authored a book which gives substantial evidence that torture and abuse of prisoners in US detention centres abroad was widespread and systemic and not confined to Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

Click on below link for photo.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/photo.cms?msid=2488355

The book, Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond, has been co-authored by Amrit Singh, an attorney who works for the American Civil Liberties Union and Jameel Jaffer, also an ACLU attorney.

The book says torture and abuse of prisoners held in US detention centres abroad was not perpetrated by "anomalous sadists", as claimed by the Bush administration.

The book draws on over 100,000 government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, according to an ACLU statement. The book reproduces a few hundred such documents, including interrogation directives, FBI emails, autopsy reports and investigative files.

accuracy

26-10-2007, 10:30 AM

Guantánamo Suicides: So Who's Telling the Truth?

Andy Worthington
Wed Oct 24
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20071025/cm_huffpost/069784

The grim story of the Guantánamo suicides -- the deaths of three men, Ali al-Salami, Mani al-Utaybi and Yasser al-Zahrani in June 2006, and another, Abdul Rahman al-Amri, in May this year -- took another turn last week, when, in the absence of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service's long-awaited report into the deaths, Navy Capt. Patrick McCarthy, the senior lawyer on Guantánamo's management team, declared in an interview that he had personally seen "all four men dead -- each one hanging -- and that the first three men had used sling-style nooses." This is the first time that a representative of the US military has spoken openly about the death of al-Amri, who, McCarthy said, had fashioned "a string type of noose" to kill himself.

The circumstances of the men's deaths have long been contentious. In a press release shortly after the deaths in June 2006 were announced, former detainees, including the nine released British nationals, "poured scorn" on allegations that the deaths were suicides, and claimed that they were "almost certainly accidental killings caused by excessive force" on the part of the guards. A note of caution, however, was provided by British resident Shaker Aamer, who was told by a guard, "They have lost hope in life. They have no hope in their eyes. They are ghosts, and they want to die. No food will keep them alive now. Even with four feeds a day, these men get diarrhea from any protein which goes right through them."

As the NCIS has, inexplicably, yet to conclude its investigation, it's impossible to know at this point what the official conclusion will be. Clearly, the military has stepped back from its initial response, when the prison's commander, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, attracted worldwide condemnation for claiming that the men's deaths were "an act of asymmetric warfare." As was revealed in documents released by the Pentagon earlier this year, however, which described, in minute and numbing detail, the weights of all the detainees in Guantánamo throughout their detention, all three men had been long-term hunger strikers, and two had been force-fed until days before their deaths.

Al-Zahrani was force-fed several times a week from the start of October 2005, and daily from November 14 to January 18, 2006, during which time his weight fluctuated between 87.5 lbs and 98.5 lbs, and al-Utaybi, who weighed just 89 lbs at various times in September and October 2005, was force-fed several times a week from July to September 2005, and daily from December 24 to February 7, 2006. Crucially, his force-feeding began again on May 30, 2006, and continued until the records ended on June 6, just three days before his death.

Even more disturbing is the chronicle of al-Salami's hunger strike. Although his weight loss did not appear as dramatic -- he weighed a healthy 172 lbs on arrival in Guantánamo -- he lost nearly a third of his body weight at the most severe point of his hunger strike, when his weight dropped to 120 lbs. What was particularly disturbing about his weight report, however, was the revelation that he was force-fed daily from January 11, 2006 until, as with al-Utaybi, the records ended on June 6, just three days before his death.

Given this information, it's unsurprising that those who are suspicious of the administration -- and of Capt. McCarthy's supposed frontline recollections -- might conclude, as the former detainees suggested, that it would not have taken much on the part of the authorities to finish off three men who had persistently aroused the wrath of the administration through their lack of cooperation and their hunger strikes, and who were all critically weak at the time of their deaths.

As for al-Amri's death, Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald noted last week that suspicions over the circumstances of his death have been exacerbated by the fact that he died in Camp Five, one of the prison's maximum security blocks. She explained that media tours "emphasize that Camp Five is designed with suicide proofing such as towel hooks that won't bear the weight of a detainee, to prevent him from hanging himself," and that, moreover, "each captive, housed in a single-occupancy cell, is under constant Military Police and electronic monitoring, which means a guard is supposed to look in on him at least every three minutes."

An even more critical approach to al-Amri's death was presented by lawyer Candace Gorman, who reported last week on a visit in July to one of her clients, Abdul Hamid al-Ghizzawi. A Sudanese shopkeeper, who is married to an Afghan woman and has a child that he has not seen for six years, al-Ghizzawi was "visibly shaken" on meeting Gorman, and immediately told her of his "despair" over al-Amri's death. As Gorman described it, "Al-Ghizzawi knew that Amri had been suffering from Hepatitis B and tuberculosis, the same two conditions from which he himself suffers. Like al-Ghizzawi, Amri had not been treated for his illnesses. Al-Ghizzawi, now so sick he can barely walk, told me that Amri, too, had been ill and then, suddenly, he was dead." Al-Ghizzawi's conclusion was that al-Amri had actually died of "medical neglect," although she also noted that al-Ghizzawi "had mentioned that Amri had engaged in hunger strikes in the past but had stopped a long time ago because of his health."

While this was correct, one can only wonder what the effect on al-Amri's health had been of his participation in the mass hunger strike in the fall of 2005, when his weight, which had been 150 lbs when he arrived in Guantánamo in February 2002, dropped at one point to just 88.5 lbs, and he was force-fed, often several times a week, from October 2005 to January 2006. Like the three men who died in June 2006, al-Amri was a non-cooperative detainee, who had refused to take part in any of the sham tribunals and administrative reviews at Guantánamo, and it does not take much imagination to conclude that, with his severe and untreated illnesses, he, like the three men the year before, could actually have died not through medical neglect, but as another "accidental killing caused by excessive force" on the part of the guards.

I do not profess to know the truth of the matter one way or the other, but in revisiting the stories of these men's deaths I hope to have demonstrated that, far from clearing the air, Capt. McCarthy's comments have, ironically, served only to revive Guantánamo's most tragic stories, which, presumably, the rest of the administration hoped had been forgotten. Sixteen months after the first deaths, and four months after the additional death that caused such distress to Abdul Hamid al-Ghizzawi, it is surely time for the investigators of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to deliver their verdict.

accuracy

28-10-2007, 09:39 AM

US asks Holland to take Guantanamo suspects

Friday 26 October 2007
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2007/10/us_asks_holland_to_take_guanta.php

The US foreign affairs department has asked the Netherlands to take over a number of prisoners from its Guantanamo Bay camp on the island of Cuba, the Parool reports on Friday.

The paper says the request was made to Dutch MPs who are on a fact-finding mission at the highly controversial camp.

The request for help applies to prisoners who are being released from the detention camp but cannot return to their country of origin.

Some 800 people have been through Guantanamo Bay since its opening in 2002. The camp currently houses some 400 prisoners, 85 of whom are waiting to be released because the US no longer considers them to be a danger.

The Dutch foreign affairs ministry has told the Parool that it has not received a request from the US to take over prisoners. Until it does, the Dutch position is that the US must look after prisoners on its own territory.

The right-wing Liberal (VVD) and anti-immigration PVV parties both welcome the idea of taking over prisoners from Guantanamo. 'It will be a great day when the Netherlands has such a detention centre of its own,' PVV leader Geert Wilders tells the paper.

The Christian Democrats are less keen on the idea, the paper says.

Officially, the Netherlands considers the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay a contravention of international agreements, a point made by foreign minister Maxime Verhagen when he met US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice in April.

© DutchNews.nl

accuracy

28-10-2007, 11:44 AM

Guantanamo military lawyer breaks ranks to condemn 'unconscionable' detention

By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Published: 27 October 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3101949.ece

http://www.antiwar.com/photos/gitmo-detainees.jpg

An American military lawyer and veteran of dozens of secret Guantanamo tribunals has made a devastating attack on the legal process for determining whether Guantanamo prisoners are "enemy combatants".

The whistleblower, an army major inside the military court system which the United States has established at Guantanamo Bay, has described the detention of one prisoner, a hospital administrator from Sudan, as "unconscionable".

His critique will be the centrepiece of a hearing on 5 December before the US Supreme Court when another attempt is made to shut the prison down. So nervous is the Bush administration of the latest attack – and another Supreme Court ruling against it – that it is preparing a whole new system of military courts to deal with those still imprisoned.

The whistleblower's testimony is the most serious attack to date on the military panels, which were meant to give a fig- leaf of legitimacy to the interrogation and detention policies at Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. The major has taken part in 49 status review panels.

"It's a kangaroo court system and completely corrupt," said Michael Ratner, the president of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, which is co-ordinating investigations and appeals lawsuits against the government by some 1,000 lawyers. "Stalin had show trials, but at Guantanamo they are not even show trials because it all takes place in secret."

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held for 558 detainees at the Guantanamo in 2004 and 2005. All but 38 detainees were determined to be "enemy combatants" who could be held indefinitely without charges. Detainees were not represented by a lawyer and had no access to evidence. The only witnesses they could call were other so-called "enemy combatants".

The army major has said that in the rare circumstances in which it was decided that the detainees were no longer enemy combatants, senior commanders ordered another panel to reverse the decision. The major also described "acrimony" during a "heated conference" call from Admiral McGarragh, who reports to the Secretary of the US Navy, when a the panel refused to describe several Uighur detainees as enemy combatants. Senior military commanders wanted to know why some panels considering the same evidence would come to different findings on the Uighurs, members of a Muslim minority in China.

When the whistleblower suggested over the phone that inconsistent results were "good for the system ... and would show that the system was working correctly", Admiral McGarragh, he said, had no response. The latest criticism emerged when lawyers investigating the case of a Sudanese hospital administrator, Adel Hamad, who has been held for five years, came across a "stunning" sworn statement from a member of the military panel. The officer they interviewed was so frightened of retaliation from the military that they would not allow their name to be used in the statement, nor to reveal whether the person was a man or woman.

Two other military lawyers have also gone public. In June, Army Lt-Col Stephen Abraham, a 26-year veteran in US military intelligence, became the first insider to publicly fault the proceedings. In May last year, Lt-Com Matthew Diaz was sentenced to six months in prison and dismissed from the military after he sent the names of all 551 men at the prison to a human rights group.

William Teesdale, a British-born lawyer investigating Mr Hadad's case, said he was certain of his client's innocence, having tracked down doctors who worked with him at an Afghan hospital. "Mr Hamad is an innocent man, and he is not the only one in Guantanamo."

© 2007 Independent News and Media Limited

accuracy

30-10-2007, 10:30 AM

Doctors, Torture, and the War

Physicians have the power to prevent more prisoner abuses. The first step: educate thyself.

By Dr. J. Wesley Boyd | October 28, 2007

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2007/10/28/doctors_torture_and_the_war/

Various reports have alleged physicians' complicity in the mistreatment of prisoners being held by the United States at Abu Ghraib and at Guantanamo. Physicians are reported to have advised interrogators as to whether particular prisoners were fit enough to survive physical maltreatment, informed interrogators about prisoners' phobias and other psychological vulnerabilities that could be exploited during questioning, failed to report incidents of alleged torture, force-fed prisoners who were on hunger strikes, and altered the death certificates of prisoners who died.

Any or all of these actions by physicians violate the standards of the Geneva Conventions. But do most physicians even know those standards? Do they know that doctors could be drafted into military service? Some of my colleagues at Cambridge Health Alliance and I surveyed medical students on these subjects. The results astounded us.

We thought that if doctors knew about the possibility of their being drafted they might feel more personally invested in this war. (Authorized in 1987, the Health Care Personnel Delivery System established a process by which, if there is a shortage of military physicians, Congress and the President could begin drafting civilian ones quickly.)

An Internet-based survey was sent to about 5,000 students at eight medical schools nationwide, including at least one in Massachusetts. The results are being published in the current issue of the International Journal for Health Services.

Only 3.5 percent of our respondents knew about the physician draft system. If they were to be drafted, 34 percent said they'd use all legal means to avoid service, 7 percent would consider emigration, and almost 14 percent said they'd refuse military induction as an act of civil disobedience.

This was one hypothetical question:

If a prisoner is refusing to answer questions about a recent battle or skirmish in which over 50 US soldiers died, under the Geneva Conventions it is permissible to:

a) Deprive him of food or water for a period not to exceed 24 hours

b) Expose prisoners to physical stresses such as heat, cold, and uncomfortable positions, as long as such exposure causes only minor tissue damage (i.e., medical intervention not required, and full healing takes place within 48 hours)

c) Threaten prisoners with physical violence, so long as such threats are not carried out

d) All of the above

e) None of the above

The answer: None of the above. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer questions may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment.

Given all of the double talk by the White House about torture, it is not surprising that many people might not know that. Only 63 percent of the medical students surveyed did. Given that 94 percent of our respondents reported receiving less than one hour of instruction about military medical ethics, their ignorance can be understood. But medical schools must do better. They need to teach military medical ethics as a core component of their curricula, so students who eventually enter the military - by draft or by choice - know the facts before they enter the frightening and disorienting moral climate of armed combat.

I would also argue that every physician needs to be educated about these matters. The idea of drafting doctors seems far-fetched, but since the start of the Iraq war, the number of US physicians volunteering for service has declined, as has the number of students accepting medical school scholarships in return for military service obligations.

The Latin roots of "doctor" mean "to teach" or "to lead." We physicians need to embrace this role and not stand by in the face of our government's attempt to justify torture. A recent letter to the British medical journal The Lancet from a group of doctors around the world (more than 250 people signed it) equated the silence of the medical establishment about doctors' involvement at Guantanamo to South African physicians who covered up the torture of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko.

If US physicians are educated about military medical ethics - especially the Geneva Conventions - they could lead calls for humane treatment of prisoners, regardless of their legal status. Doing so might begin to heal our country and to restore the United States' position as a moral agent in the world.

Dr. J. Wesley Boyd is a psychiatrist at Cambridge Health Alliance/Harvard Medical School.

© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

accuracy

03-11-2007, 09:20 AM

Jailed Gitmo Journalist Gains Support

By BEN FOX – 1 day ago
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hi_6A3DafNOZ4UkDyHBla-wUVhnAD8SL35UG0

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A campaign to free a journalist imprisoned at Guantanamo gained support Thursday from the first Muslim member of Congress, who urged authorities to prosecute or release him after more than five years without charges.

Sami al-Haj, a Sudanese cameraman for Al-Jazeera, was captured in 2002 as he tried to enter Afghanistan to cover the war. His lawyer says he denies any connection to terrorism and has been on a hunger strike since January to protest his indefinite confinement.

In a rare show of public support from a U.S. official, Rep. Keith Ellison, a first-term Democrat from Minnesota, called for a hearing to determine whether the military has legitimate reason to hold al-Haj with about 330 other men at the prison on a Navy base in Cuba.

"If he's a bad actor, prove it. If not, let him out," the congressman told The Associated Press.

Ellison said he believes all Guantanamo prisoners should be allowed to challenge their confinement in the courts. But he said he is particularly concerned about the detention of a journalist who, as far as he can tell, was "detained for taking pictures." He made the public statement at the request of Al-Jazeera.

Representatives of Qatar-based Al-Jazeera have been meeting with political and business leaders and media groups in the United States in recent weeks to draw publicity to al-Haj's detention while simultaneously trying to jump-start U.S. distribution of Al-Jazeera's English language channel.

"We just want to raise awareness and give support for someone we feel is being totally mistreated," said Satnam Matharu, the network's head of international media relations.

At least two other members of Congress have expressed concern about the cameraman but were not yet ready to make a public statement, Matharu said.

As part of its campaign, the network plans a series of new video spots for its Arabic and English language channels and will revamp an Internet site devoted to the campaign to free al-Haj.

"We're standing behind him and we vouch for his innocence," he said.

At a military hearing that determined al-Haj, 38, was an "enemy combatant," U.S. authorities accused him of transporting money in the 1990s for a charity that provided funding to Chechen rebels, and of having other links to Islamic militants. But the military has never disclosed in detail why he was captured on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and turned over to the U.S.

The U.S. military says the Guantanamo detainees are held on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida or the Taliban. Al-Haj is believed to be the only journalist from a major news organization imprisoned at the base.

"Mr. al-Haj's detention is in no way based on his status as a reporter or the content of his reporting," Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman said. "There is a significant amount of information, both classified and unclassified, which supports detention of enemy combatants by U.S. forces."

Gordon noted that al-Haj's detention is reviewed at an annual military hearing, and that he can challenge his "enemy combatant" status in the courts. However, Congress and President Bush have limited federal court challenges to a review of military procedures, and stripped Guantanamo detainees of the broader right to challenge their confinement through habeas corpus petitions. The Supreme Court is reviewing that action in its current term.

Ellison, who supports restoring habeas rights to detainees, said he has conducted research into the case and has not seen anything solid linking al-Haj to any crimes. The congressman said he may seek a meeting with military officials or use his seat on the Judiciary Committee to press for more information.

"The evidence that I have found is that this guy is a cameraman who is being detained for taking pictures and that is a concern to me," he said.

The freshman congressman has been a vocal critic of the Iraq war and in June added his name to an effort to remove Vice President Dick Cheney from office through impeachment.

Ellison said his religion is irrelevant to his concerns about al-Haj, though he predicts it will be used to "attack" his support.

Al-Haj's lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, was able to meet with the cameraman in early October, and said he appeared weak and at times incoherent from his long-running hunger strike and the daily force-feeding that keeps him alive. While the military has said al-Haj is physically fine, Stafford Smith said "he really is mentally and physically suffering."

The journalist told his lawyer he had spoken to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which appeared to be investigating the U.S. military's force-feeding of prisoners on hunger strike.

A Red Cross spokesman in Washington said the agency was not conducting a formal investigation but only making a routine inspection. A Guantanamo spokesman said the military's conversations with the Red Cross are confidential and he could not comment. There are currently 13 men on hunger strike, including two or more than two years.

accuracy

09-11-2007, 05:41 AM

Three Jordanians return from Guantanamo Bay prison

Tue Nov 6, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSL0654049620071106

AMMAN (Reuters) - Three Jordanians returned home this week after being released from the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, their lawyer said on Tuesday.

Zachary Katznelson told Reuters that Osama Abu Kabir, Ahmed Hassan Suleiman and Ibrhaim Mahdi Zaidan were sent home from the camp on Sunday.

"The United States sent the three Jordanians from Guantanamo back to Jordan," said Katznelson, a senior counsel with the British-based rights group Reprieve.

The whereabouts of the three, who had been kept in solitary confinement, was unknown but it was likely they were being held by Jordan's intelligence services, the lawyer said.

Jordanian rights groups and politicians have criticized the U.S. authorities for their treatment of the inmates following allegations of torture and violation of religious rights during their detention.

Many of the men held at the Guantanamo prison were captured in Afghanistan in the U.S.-led war to oust the Taliban in 2001 after the September 11 attacks. Many have been held for years and most are being held without trial.

© Reuters2007All rights reserved

accuracy

09-11-2007, 06:06 AM

ACLU to Monitor Guantánamo Military Commission Proceeding Thursday

(11/7/2007)
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/32600prs20071107.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org; (212)549-2666
Hearing Will Determine Whether Canadian National Can Be Prosecuted

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union will be at Guantánamo Bay Thursday to monitor the military commission hearing of Canadian national Omar Ahmed Khadr. The proceeding follows months of disarray and uncertainty about the U.S. government’s system of prosecuting prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay without charges or trial. The ACLU is one of four organizations that have been granted status as human rights observers at the military commission proceedings and has observed the tribunals since they began in 2004.

“The Guantánamo proceedings must be changed so that they are consistent with constitutional and international law, and we will continue to do our part by monitoring them and documenting the problems,” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. “So far, the proceedings have failed miserably to uphold America’s commitment to due process and the rule of law.”

Khadr, now 21, was 15 years old when he was captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He is the first detainee to face a military commission since June when charges against him and a Yemeni prisoner, Salim Hamdan, were thrown out by military judges who said the commission lacked proper jurisdictional authority to prosecute them. The military judges ruled that the two defendants had not been designated “unlawful enemy combatants” as required under the Military Commission Act signed into law by President Bush in October 2006.

The U.S. government appealed the dismissal of the cases, and the newly established U.S. Court of Military Commission Review – a panel of three military officers appointed by the Pentagon – reinstated the charges in September by deciding that the military commission judges have the authority to decide whether detainees should be deemed “unlawful” enemy combatants. Despite an appeal filed by Khadr’s lawyers with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the military judge in Khadr’s case, Col. Peter Brownback, will hear the case Thursday.

Jamil Dakwar, Advocacy Director of the ACLU’s Human Rights Program, will attend Khadr’s hearing to ensure his treatment meets constitutional and international standards and to document the ways in which the prosecutorial system carried out by the U.S. military under the auspices of the Military Commissions Act may or may not be consistent with constitutional and international law. His comments and observations will be posted on the ACLU blog which will be available online at: blog.aclu.org/index.php?/categories/1-Torture-Abuse

“There have been inherent and fundamental flaws with this system since its inception. This most recent example of injustice in Khadr’s case is only further proof of that,” Dakwar said. “It is time to bring this sad chapter of American history to an end by ensuring that Guantánamo captives are either given fair trials or released.”

Khadr is charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, material support and espionage. Most of the charges relate to a 2002 incident in Afghanistan in which Khadr is alleged to have thrown a grenade, killing a U.S. soldier. Khadr’s lawyers argue that he should be treated as a minor and that he was abused by U.S. forces at Guantánamo Bay. Col. Brownback will determine whether Khadr is to be classified as an “unlawful” enemy combatant Thursday, and Khadr is also expected to be arraigned.

“The Bush administration’s record when it comes to upholding constitutional and international law in the context of these proceedings leaves us no choice but to remain on guard,” Dakwar said. “Nothing less than the legitimacy of due process and judicial fairness are at stake.”

The ACLU has repeatedly called on Congress and the Bush administration to shut down the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay. In May, the ACLU endorsed legislation introduced by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) that would effectively end the practice of indefinite detention without charge or due process for detainees who have been held for as long as five years without knowing the reason for their detention. It would also provide a push for the government to finally charge those detainees it believes are guilty of crimes against the United States.

Additional information about the ACLU’s involvement surrounding the detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay can be found online at
www.aclu.org/gitmo

accuracy

09-11-2007, 06:41 AM

Is Waterboarding Torture? Ask the Prisoners

06/11/2007

If Schumer and Feinstein want to understand the "procedure," they should demand to interview the men who were likely subjected to it.

By Michael Ratner

http://www.cageprisoners.com:80/articles.php?id=22329

This week Michael Mukasey will seek to clear hurdles on his path to become the highest law enforcement official in the nation. Yet he still refuses to answer a fundamental question: whether or not waterboarding is torture and, therefore, prohibited under our laws. No matter what our president says, this is not political bickering. It is about whether the rule of law still means anything to the executive. And whether our senators have the backbone to stand up for a principle more profound than political expediency.

If senators such as Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein have doubts about whether waterboarding is torture, they should -- and should be allowed to -- interview the men who have likely experienced it in secret CIA detention facilities in American hands.

For example, they should interview Majid Khan, a Baltimore resident abducted and held for years in secret CIA prisons. He was a "ghost detainee" who this past year was among the "reappeared" at Guantánamo.

President Bush himself has clearly stated that Khan was held at a secret CIA facility before being transferred to Guantánamo. Bush also made clear that an "alternative set of procedures" were enforced -- procedures widely believed to include waterboarding.

So, was Majid Khan really waterboarded? I don't know. Khan has been prohibited from speaking to anyone except my colleagues, lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights who were finally allowed to visit him recently. One of those attorneys, Gitanjali Gutierrez, and her colleagues have also since been silenced: The government forced them to sign a protective order because Khan knew about "enhanced interrogation techniques." Likely translation: Khan was tortured and the government is trying to cover it up by silencing him -- and even his attorneys.

So the government has successfully kept the public in the dark. But senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee can turn on the light.

Those senators are perfectly within their rights and powers to pick up the phone right now and demand to interview Khan and others who were likely tortured at CIA secret sites. They can conduct classified interviews with the lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights about their milestone visit with Khan. They can learn exactly what happened to these men. And, if the men were waterboarded, they can learn exactly what the practice entails.

What they will likely hear are descriptions like one written by Henri Alleg, a French journalist who suffered waterboarding during the Algerian war: "I had the impression of drowning, and a terrible agony, that of death itself, took possession of me."

And so the question is extremely simple: Do the men and women who serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee want to know, or not? Do they care about whether our nation has tortured? And if they do care, are they still prepared to confirm a man to be our attorney general whose legal and moral compass is so deformed that he cannot speak plain truth? If the U.S. Senate cannot summon the courage and decency to draw this basic line, then a citizen must ask if it serves any useful purpose at all.

I believe that upon talking to victims of waterboarding any reasonable senator -- or citizen -- will define it as torture. There is no reasonable disagreement on this point. It was a technique invented in the Spanish Inquisition and used to terrible effect in the centuries since. The only question is whether there is any institution or group of politicians in this nation with the will to stand up for our Constitution, even at the risk of their own political prospects. If there are such men and women, then there is yet hope that our nation will rescue the Constitution from those who would shred it.

This is not a moment for political theater. This is not a moment for politics at all. This is the moment for good and decent leaders to remember that the truth still matters and to act accordingly. Michael Mukasey aspires to be the living face of America's laws. By talking to ghost detainees about their experiences, we can help him reveal if he understands or respects those laws at all.

Michael Ratner is a human-rights lawyer and president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. CCR staff who recently met with Majid Khan in Guantanamo were not involved in writing this piece

SOURCE: Salon.com

accuracy

27-11-2007, 12:10 PM

Flight Logs Reveal Secret Rendition

25/11/2007

Stephen Grey
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=22504

THE secret flight plans of American military planes have revealed for the first time how European countries helped send prisoners, including British citizens, to the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

Despite widespread criticism of alleged human rights abuses and torture at the US base in Cuba, a Sunday Times investigation has shown that at least five European countries gave the United States permission to fly nearly 700 terrorist suspects across their territory.

Three years ago, The Sunday Times published flight logs of CIA civilian jets in Europe, setting off a controversy over the whether countries across the continent have been secretly involved in America's rendition of terrorist suspects to countries that carry out torture.

The row is now set to be reignited. Inquiries by Ana Gomes, a Portuguese member of the European parliament, have uncovered not only more CIA flight logs but also more sensitive military flight plans, which until now have remained a closely guarded secret.

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The logs show how most prisoners changed planes at a Turkish military airbase and flew across Greek, Italian and Portuguese airspace. Others reached Cuba after touching down in Spain, whose governing socialist party once expressed indignation at conditions in Guantanamo.

The flight logs show that three Britons — Shafiq Rasul, Jamal Udeen and Asif Iqbal — were flown across Europe to Cuba on January 14, 2002. Moazzam Begg, another Briton, was taken by the same route to Guantanamo on February 2, 2003; and Binyam Mohamed, a British resident whose release the British government is now trying to negotiate, arrived in Cuba after crossing Europe in a special flight in September 2004.

According to the flight plans, the first 23 prisoners to arrive at Guantanamo — including another British citizen, Feroz Abbasi, then 21, and an Australian, David Hicks — had arrived at the American naval base in Cuba after flying from the Moron airbase in Spain.

Abbasi has claimed in a statement that prisoners were abused within hours of arriving. "We were made to sit on our heels, one foot over the other, supported by one foot's toes alone, for hours. Some of us were old, weak, fatigued, and injured — they were the ones to drop first in the searing Caribbean heat."

Described by the Pentagon as the "worst of the worst" from Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the images of prisoners such as Abbasi dressed in orange jumpsuits, their heads shaved and shackled by their wrists and ankles, shocked the world. Within a day, Donald Rumsfeld, then US defence secretary, announced that the Geneva conventions would not apply to what were now called "enemy combatants".

Last week, Europe's leading watchdog on human rights alleged that European countries had breached the international convention against torture by giving the US secret permission to use its airspace.

Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, said: "What happened at Guantanamo was torture and it is illegal to provide facilities or anything to make this torture possible. Under the law, European governments should have intervened and should not have given permission to let these flights happen."

Gomes added: "It's clear to me that Guantanamo could not have been created without the involvement of European countries."

Methods used at Guantanamo Bay, condemned by Britain's Court of Appeal as a legal "black hole" and as a "monstrous failure of justice" by one law lord, have included the prolonged use of isolation, sleep deprivation, and use of stress positions. "These are methods that have been declared as unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights," Hammarberg said.

The military flight plans show that all key flights arriving in Guantanamo had come across European airspace either through Spain or the Incirlik airbase in southeastern Turkey. The Sunday Times compared the military flight plans against a database compiled by Reprieve, the British-based charity that represents Guantanamo prisoners, of when prisoners first weighed in at the camp.

The investigation, cross-checked against other Pentagon documents, shows for the first time which prisoner arrived on which flight at Guantanamo, and by what route. At least 170 other prisoners flew over Spanish territory, more than 700 crossed Portuguese space, and more than 680 were transshipped at Incirlik. Most flights also crossed Greek and Italian airspace, according to a source in European air traffic control.

On February 2 2003, for example, a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster plane took off from Incirlik with 27 prisoners on board for Cuba. The same day, prisoner number 558 weighed in at 136lb (62kg) at the camp. He can be named as Moazzam Begg, now 39, from Birmingham, who was released in January 2005, and has never been charged with a crime.

Interviewed by phone last week, Begg recalled: "Inside the plane there was a chain around our waist, and it connected to cuffs around my wrists, which were tied in the back, and to my ankles. We were seated but it was so painful not being able to speak, to hear, to breathe properly, to look, to turn left or right, to move your hands, stretch your legs, or anything." At the time flights were landing in Spain and crossing Spanish airspace, socialist leaders there were expressing "indignation" over conditions in Guantanamo. Now the socialists are in government after winning an election in March 2004 just after the Madrid train bombings and they are being asked to defend Spain's continued collaboration with American operations. Under international law, government and military planes can cross another country's territory only with diplomatic permission.

In a statement to the European parliament on the visits of CIA planes to Spain, the foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos has testified: "Our territory may have been used not to commit crimes on it, but as a stopover on the way to committing crime in another country."

Spain, it has now emerged, had a specific agreement with the US to allow flights and visits to Spanish airbases for American planes.

In Portugal, the foreign minister Luis Amado has said flights across his country's airspace took place "under the aegis of the UN and Nato and that Portugal naturally follows the principle of good faith in the relations with its allies". Nato's role in Guantanamo stems from a secret agreement made in Brussels on October 4 2001 by all Nato members, including Britain. Although never made public, Lord Robertson, the former British defence secretary who was later Nato's secretary-general, explained that day that Nato had agreed to provide "blanket overflight clearances for the United States and other allies' aircraft for military flights related to operations against terrorism".

Today, Nato is more coy about its role in helping send prisoners to Guantanamo.

In a letter to Gomes, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the current secretary-general, said no Nato planes had "flown to or from Guantanamo Bay" and that Nato "as an organisation has no involvement or co-ordinating role in providing clearance or overflight rights for other flights". Turkey, meanwhile, has declared that its agencies had "reached no findings regarding any unacknowledged deprivation of liberty conducted by foreign agencies within the territory of the republic of Turkey or any transport by aircraft or otherwise of the persons deprived of their liberty".

In London, Clive Stafford Smith, legal director of Reprieve, said, with America threatening that Guantanamo prisoners faced the death penalty, European governments had made "pious statements" that they would never send prisoners to the US without obtaining assurances they would not be executed.

Stafford Smith added: "Some European governments, it's now clear, systematically assisted in clandestine flights and illegal prisoner transfers to Guantanamo Bay. We need a full investigation and Europeans need to face their responsibility for these crimes."

See flight logs and complete list of prisoners at www.ghostplane.net

Additional reporting: Natalia Viana

SOURCE: The Times

accuracy

30-11-2007, 09:05 AM

Ex-Gitmo Inmate Seeks Life in Sweden

By MALIN RISING – 2 days ago
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i78wnVmONBw2Ba679423-Ye8hSyAD8T65LP81

SUNDBYBERG, Sweden (AP) — It's been a long journey: from China to Afghanistan to the U.S. lockup for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay.

Adel Abdu Al-Hakim hopes it ends here, in his sister's tidy apartment in a suburb of the Swedish capital.

"I was in prison for four and a half years and during that time I thought to myself that maybe this is my life," Al-Hakim, 33, told The Associated Press in an interview. "Now I just want to live the life of a normal person."

Last week he arrived in Sweden to reunite with relatives he once thought he would never see again.

Al-Hakim was released last year from Guantanamo along with four other Uighurs, a minority group of Turkic-speaking Chinese Muslims, after the U.S. admitted they were not terrorists. Authorities believed they might face persecution if returned to China, so they were sent instead to Albania, the only country that would receive them.

But the Uighurs found themselves isolated and jobless in a nation where no one spoke their language.

Al-Hakim took advantage of an invitation to attend a human rights conference in Sweden, where his sister had sought shelter in 2002. He applied for asylum on Nov. 20 after arriving on a four-day visa.

The chances for approval were uncertain. Al-Hakim likely will be allowed to stay pending a final decision, although authorities could deport him immediately if they determine his case has no merit.

"We have fought for a very long time and now we are very happy to be together," he said, surrounded by his sister Kavser and her daughters in the living room of the apartment in Sundbyberg.

He calmly recalled the tumultuous decade that brought him here.

Al-Hakim left China in 1999, fed up with what he said was harassment and discrimination by Chinese authorities. Two years earlier, he said, he had been detained and beaten after attending a protest over the mistreatment of Uighurs in his home town.

Critics accuse China of using claims of terrorism as an excuse to crack down on peaceful pro-independence sentiment among Uighurs.

After spending a year as a refugee in Kyrgyzstan, Al-Hakim and fellow Uighur Abu Bakker Qassim decided to move on to Turkey.

Their journey took them through Afghanistan — an unsafe destination in the fall of 2001 as the United States launched its military campaign against the Taliban.

As bombs rained down on an Afghan mountain village where they had joined other Uighurs, the men fled to Pakistan — only to be detained and handed over to U.S. authorities for $5,000 each, Al-Hakim said. "It was all about money."

Shackled and hooded, they were transferred to a prison camp in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where they spent six months before being moved to Guantanamo. At that point, the Americans knew they were not terrorists, Al-Hakim maintains.

"In the last interrogation in Afghanistan, the Americans acknowledged that they had arrested us by mistake, but said they could not let us go so easily," he said.

The formal acknowledgment came only after a lengthy legal battle when a military tribunal ruled Al-Hakim and other Uighurs were not enemy combatants.

"Of course I was angry. I tried to hide my emotions but I still cried a lot," Al-Hakim said.

Beijing wanted the Uighurs sent back to China, saying they were part of a violent Muslim separatist movement fighting for an independent state of "East Turkistan."

U.S. authorities resisted, but declined to let them into the United States. Appeals went out to third countries, and Albania finally agreed.

Lawyers in the U.S. and Sweden as well as human rights groups helped Al-Hakim obtain his visa for Sweden.

As he awaits a decision on asylum, the joy of being reunited with his sister and her family is tempered by the absence of his wife and children, who remain in China.

"I don't have the possibility to get them from over there. The Chinese authorities won't allow it," he said. "My children keep asking when I will come back ... why I don't want to come and get them, why all children have fathers and they don't."

accuracy

03-12-2007, 11:15 AM

The Torture Compromise of 2007

30/11/2007
David Bromwich
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=22539

A friend at a dinner party on the East coast found herself in an argument in which she was the only person opposed to torture. The other invitees, all graduates of favored preparatory schools and Ivy League colleges, worked in the law, investment banking, urban planning and the arts. They agreed that President Bush was incompetent and untrustworthy; but his fundamental mistake about torture had been to go after the law. Torture, they said, cannot be a policy, and a law that permits torture cannot be on the books. What is wanted is a leader who will break the law selectively, in a way we can trust. Torture should be allowable, but only by the right people and for the right reason. To a man and woman, the guests who held this view were supporters of Hillary Clinton.

Go back a year. A scholar-adviser of Democratic candidates was addressing a group of journalists shortly before the 2006 election. Confident of a victory, he rattled off the legislative successes that would come soon after the Democratic majority was in place. Prescription drugs, minimum wage. As the discussion wound down, a deferential question came from a liberal editor at the back of the room. "Can we expect the Democrats to repeal the suspension of habeas corpus and the Military Commissions Act?" The answer was (slowly), No. "Of course, we're all against those things, but they can't be a primary concern to a new majority. The laws should be changed. And things will get better; but I wouldn't expect this to be at the top of the Democratic agenda."

Sherrod Brown confirmed the accuracy of that prediction was he was asked, a few days after the election, whether he would work to repeal the Military Commissions Act, and he replied that he could vote to repeal it but would not sponsor a bill to that effect, because he had other priorities. Hillary Clinton, in turn, vouched for the understanding claimed by her supporters when she gave her reasoning against the confirmation of Michael Mukasey: "In the event we were ever confronted with having to interrogate a detainee with knowledge of an imminent threat to millions of Americans, then the decision to depart from standard international practice must be made by the president, and the president must be held accountable." Careful words. Leave aside the pandering to "the ticking-bomb scenario" by which the doctrine of torture has been sugar-coated to drug the popular mind these past several years. If interrogation is done against the law, and if the interrogation is ordered and superintended by the president alone, what can it mean to hold the president "accountable"?

The Scottish patriot Ross, in act 4 of Macbeth, is given to utter words that now seem piercing:

Alas, poor country!

Almost afraid to know itself.

We Americans are watching a process which, if allowed to continue to its logical end, will change what it means to be an American. It will change us morally, politically, and socially.

Alfred McCoy, in his extraordinary book A Question of Torture, recounts the history of the techniques designed in the 1950s and 1960s and tested on real- life political subjects through the 1980s, which aim at destroying the identity and breaking down the resistance of suspects. There is a direct progression from American and Canadian state-funded behavioral experiments, to the instruction given by U.S. special forces to the secret police of client states, to our own adoption of the same techniques in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and Iraq. The final step down, in which we do the thing ourselves, may mark a change of kind rather than degree. In any case, the climb out of this limbo of barbarism will not be easy; and a policy of reform can hardly commence until the question is answered: "How came we here?"

Accurate history must include the fact that the earliest large-scale approval of extraordinary renditions occurred in the administration of Bill Clinton. Nor can it fail to remark that the Clinton-Blair NATO war against Serbia was a rehearsal for the war on Iraq. In the same way that many non-political Americans forget (even though they have heard) that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, most liberals have forgotten (though they once heard) that the pretext for the Serbia bombing, the supposed massacre of tens of thousands of Kosovars, was a fabrication thoroughly exposed in the aftermath of that war.

Buried with the motives and causes of our humanitarian wars, lies an elaborate system of excuses and consolations. We give ourselves the right to conduct wars of choice, with destructive effects on others out of all proportion to the risk to ourselves, because we know we are not the sort of people who enjoy wars. So, too, we may reserve the right to torture when torture is really necessary, just because we are not the sort of people who torture. By contrast, the enemy must be fought by tremendous and disproportionate means precisely because the enemy are the sort of people who do torture. Hunted back to its hiding place, this train of thought would perhaps disclose the premise that it is better to be killed by Americans than it is to be killed by other people.

We have not yet come to terms with a fundamental self-deception. Such practices as rendition and torture and the indefinite detention of military-age Arab men, from street sweeps, where no charges are made and no names supplied (a tactic whose large-scale innovation is partly responsible for the reduction of violence in Baghdad)--these practices follow us home. Think of the post-2001 method of corralling anti-war demonstrators by police phalanx into intersection-sized boxes to be moved forward block by block against their will. Or the unwarranted mass arrests of demonstrators in New York City to "protect" the 2004 Republican convention.

Such have been some of our domestic experiments. But we have gone further. In August of this year, a Miami jury convicted of terrorism-conspiracy charges an American citizen, José Padilla, who had been tortured in prison, against whom the evidence was of exactly the character that would have convicted a Miami black man of rape in the year 1927. These things are happening. And yet, in the middle of the longest presidential campaign in our history, the only candidates to speak against the degradation that is now in progress are Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul--both of them ignored or, as often, ridiculed by the mainstream media. Their speech, and the silence or reticence or politic circumlocution of others, is the largest symptom of the silent crisis at home. How can we place ourselves again in the track of constitutional liberty unless we reject all of the persons and all of the means by which it has been betrayed?

SOURCE: Huffington Post

accuracy

04-12-2007, 09:35 AM

Guantanamo Case May Mean Greater Wartime Role for U.S. Courts

By Greg Stohr and Jeff St.Onge
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=a_MIGWh3y3GY&refer=latin_america

Dec. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Having rebuked the Bush administration twice over its handling of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. Supreme Court now has Congress in its sights.

In a case that will be argued Dec. 5, the justices will consider whether lawmakers, at President George W. Bush's urging, constitutionally barred inmates from challenging their detention in federal court through so-called habeas corpus petitions.

A decision allowing habeas petitions by Guantanamo inmates would be an assertion of a powerful wartime role for the judiciary -- one that perhaps even Congress and the president together can't take away. Some 300 inmates are at Guantanamo's Camp Delta, set up in 2002 to detain accused al-Qaeda fighters captured after the Sept. 11 attacks.

``This case is really about the ability of the courts to check the political branches,'' said Shayana Kadidal, a lawyer at the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents more than 250 prisoners.

The Bush administration contends that the Constitution and its guarantee of habeas rights don't cover enemy prisoners held outside the country, in this case on Cuban territory that the U.S. occupies under a 1903 lease. Habeas corpus is a legal device that dates back to 14th-century England and lets inmates claim they are being wrongfully held.

Even some supporters of the administration position say the court is unlikely to embrace it, largely because probable swing vote Justice Anthony Kennedy has hinted he will back the inmates. Kennedy was in the majority in 2006 when the court said Bush needed congressional authorization to try Guantanamo prisoners on criminal charges in military tribunals.

Kennedy and Stevens

The latest inmate appeals were initially rejected by the Supreme Court in April. Three justices dissented and two others, Kennedy and John Paul Stevens, said they would defer consideration ``despite the obvious importance of the issues.''

In June, after a military officer criticized Guantanamo hearings he helped oversee, the court reversed itself and granted the inmates a hearing. That step required the assent of at least five of the nine justices.

``The way it was granted here is a bad omen,'' said Richard Samp, a Washington lawyer who filed a brief supporting the administration.

In 2004, Kennedy joined a 6-3 decision that said a federal statute let Guantanamo inmates file habeas petitions. He wrote that Guantanamo ``is in every practical respect a United States territory.'' Congress responded with two laws that explicitly barred courts from considering Guantanamo petitions.

Constitutional Rights

The question now is whether the inmates have constitutional habeas rights that Congress can't take away without providing an adequate substitute. Solicitor General Paul Clement, who will argue for the government, contends the court has never extended habeas rights to foreign fighters captured and held abroad.

``This court's precedents confirm that such aliens have no constitutional right to petition our courts for a writ of habeas corpus,'' Clement argued.

Clement points to a 1950 ruling that barred habeas petitions by German soldiers who were captured by U.S. forces in China, convicted of war crimes and incarcerated in occupied Germany.

Former Solicitor General Seth Waxman, who will argue on behalf of the Guantanamo prisoners, contends those men are in a different situation.

Quoting from Kennedy's 2004 opinion, Waxman said the Guantanamo inmates face ``indefinite detention without trial.''

Prisoner Appeals

The inmates before the high court include six Algerian natives seized in Bosnia in 2002. A second appeal was filed by 39 prisoners, most taken into custody in Afghanistan or the bordering areas of Pakistan.

Inmates appear before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal, or CSRT, a military panel that decides whether the men are ``enemy combatants'' who should remain in detention. A 2005 law gives inmates only a limited right to appeal that conclusion to a federal court in Washington.

Lawyers for the prisoners say those procedures are a poor substitute for habeas rights. During CSRT hearings, shackled inmates appear before a panel of three officers.

The inmates can't have a lawyer present, are barred from seeing much of the evidence against them and in most circumstances can't call witnesses in their defense. In a number of cases, a second CSRT was convened after the first panel concluded an inmate wasn't an enemy combatant.

``CSRTs exist just to confirm the desired result,'' said Jonathan Hafetz, who represents detainee Jaralla Saleh Mohammed Kahla al-Marri. ``It's a totally loaded, rigged process.''

Prisoners Released

Officials at Guantanamo say the CSRTs have led to the release of 38 prisoners. Another 14 have been set free as a result of annual reviews of each prisoner's status, and 200 inmates have been transferred to other countries.

CSRTs are a ``robust, thorough, methodical process,'' said Navy Captain Ted Fessel, who runs the Guantanamo office that administers the tribunals.

Samp said that requiring more would place an unacceptable burden on soldiers.

``You'll have to stop fighting while you start to document all of the circumstances,'' said Samp, chief counsel for the Washington Legal Foundation. Soldiers will have to ``get down the names of all the witnesses and read the guy his Miranda rights and all sorts of things.''

The cases are Boumediene v. Bush, 06-1195, and Al-Odah v. United States, 06-1196.

To contact the reporters on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net ; Jeff St.Onge in Guantanamo Bay at jstonge@bloomberg.net

accuracy

04-12-2007, 10:30 AM

950 youths, 2,000 Qaeda members held in Iraq: US general

by Jay Deshmukh
Mon Dec 3, 11:19 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071203/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestusqaedadetainees_071203161934

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20071203/capt.sge.gdo26.031207161925.photo00.photo.default-512x341.jpg
Iraqis sit on the ground as they are momentarily detained by US soldiers in Baquba. US generals have warned that more youths are being influenced by Al-Qaeda to join the insurgency in Iraq, as 2,000 members of the jihadi group are now being held in Iraqi prisons.(AFP/Gianluigi Guercia)

BAGHDAD (AFP) - More and more youths, some only 10, are being influenced by Al-Qaeda to join the insurgency in Iraq, US generals said Monday, adding that 2,000 members of the jihadi group are being held in Iraqi prisons.

The number of juveniles in detention had jumped from 100 in January to about 950 now, many of them roped into the anti-American insurgency by the Iraqi affiliate of Al-Qaeda, the officers said.

Al-Qaeda is targeting the "young and the most impressionable. I equate them with drug dealers," said Major General Douglas Stone, head of the US military's detention operations in Iraq.

"It is a real concern. If I can break their back, I would do it," he told AFP at his office in Camp Cropper, one of the two US-run prisons in Iraq.

The jail near Baghdad airport holds around 4,000 of the nearly 26,000 people detained by the US military in he country. The rest are in Camp Bucca in the southern port city of Basra.

Of the 4,000 prisoners in Camp Cropper, 950 are juveniles, some as young as 10. Most are aged between 15 and 17 and are being held for offences ranging from "planting bombs to picking up a gun and firefighting," said Brigadier General Michael Nevin of the US military police.

"These juveniles have been involved in something that is perceived as a security threat to Iraq or coalition forces."

The number of juveniles rounded up has skyrocketed since a "surge" was launched in February which saw 28,500 extra American troops deployed in Iraq.

"In January we had around 100 juveniles. Now we have around 950," Nevin said.

Most of the youngsters have been sucked into the insurgency either through threats or offers of money from Al-Qaeda, he said. "There is a lot of Al-Qaeda influence on these youngsters."

He said that nearly 2,000 Al-Qaeda militants are being held in the two prisons in Iraq, while many others have worked for Al-Qaeda but do not necessarily follow the group's ideology.

"These 2,000 are clearly Al-Qaeda," said Stone, who took up his post in May.

He said the group had set up 50 to 60 units specialising in various insurgent activities.

"It's operating like a business organisation," he said.

"There are various units that specialise in making IEDs (improvised explosive devices), some in planting IEDs, some in kidnapping and some in money laundering. These sub-contractors are used in every region," said Stone.

Around 82 percent of the detainees in US custody are Sunni Arabs and are held as security threats until a joint US and Iraqi board rules on whether to order their release.

"The others are Shiites. Many of them from the Jaish al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army) and also Badr Corps," Niven said referring to the two largest Shiite militias.

The Mahdi Army is loyal to radical anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, while the Badr Organisation is linked to former Iran-based rebel leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim's Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council.

Stone said most of the detainees are "moderates" and the military plans to weed them out from the "extremists."

A multi-million dollar project is currently under way at Camp Cropper in which the juveniles and others are put through a reform programme.

"We hold the people who are security risks... and change them inside," Stone said. "The idea is to make people who are threats into non-threats."

In the past few months the US military has been pushing for quicker releases of detainees in what appears to be a softer approach towards the Sunnis who fuelled the raging anti-American insurgency in the aftermath of the invasion.

In October and November around 2,800 detainees were freed.

Despite this, a detainee spends an average "311 days" in the detention centre, said Nevin.

A detainee is briefed by a three-member administrative board in the prison on the reasons he is being held and which also allows him to express his views.

"This was never done before. We realised the detainees were angry because they did not know why they were being held," Stone added.

accuracy

05-12-2007, 11:28 AM

Gitmo inmate slashes throat with fingernail

By staff reporters

December 05, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22873348-5005961,00.html

AN inmate in the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay has survived a suicide attempt in which he slashed his own throat with a sharpened fingernail.

Commander Andrew Haynes, the deputy commander of the guard force at the prison, said he doubted last month's incident was a real suicide attempt, calling it an act of "self harm".

The incident occurred while the man was having his daily shower. Guards gave him first aid and sent him to the prison clinic, the Associated Press reported.

"There was an impressive effusion of blood,'' Cdr Haynes told reporters visiting the base.

A medical officer said the prisoner received several stitches and spent a week under psychiatric care.

There have been four suicides since the US opened the military prison at Guantanamo in January 2002 for men suspected of involvement in terrorism or links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Cdr Haynes, who said there had been up to six "self harm incidents'' in two months, described suicide as a "paramount tactic'' used by prisoners to discredit US forces.

Defence lawyers and human rights groups say the suicides are the result of prisoners' despair.

accuracy

10-12-2007, 12:19 PM

By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: December 9, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/washington/09gitmo.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=washington&adxnnlx=1197285271-DhEO3ZbUlb2LUOO7x0cYSA

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 — The first of the so-called high-value Guantánamo detainees to have seen a lawyer claims he was subjected to “state-sanctioned torture” while in secret C.I.A. prisons, and he has asked for a court order barring the government from destroying evidence of his treatment.

The request, in a filing by his lawyers, was made on Nov. 29, before officials from the Central Intelligence Agency acknowledged that the agency had destroyed videotapes of interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda that current and former officials said included the use of harsh techniques.

Lawyers for the detainee, Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident, released documents in his case on Friday. They claim he “was subjected to an aggressive C.I.A. detention and interrogation program notable for its elaborate planning and ruthless application of torture” to numerous detainees.

The documents also suggest that Mr. Khan, 27, and other high-value detainees are now being held in a previously undisclosed area of the Guantánamo prison in Cuba he called Camp 7.

Those detainees include 14 men, some suspected of being former Qaeda officials, who President Bush acknowledged were held in a secret C.I.A. program. They were transferred to military custody at Guantánamo last year.

Asked about Mr. Khan’s assertions, Mark Mansfield, a C.I.A. spokesman, said, “the United States does not conduct or condone torture.” He said a small number of “hardened terrorists” had required what he called “special methods of questioning” in what he called a lawful and carefully run program.

The documents were heavily redacted by government security officials, and none of Mr. Khan’s specific assertions of torture could be read. One entire page was blacked out.

In addition to the court filing, Mr. Khan’s lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York released recently declassified notes of their first meetings with Mr. Khan, in October. The notes asserted that he had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder because of his treatment, including memory problems and “frantic expression.” They said he was “painfully thin and pale.”

A Pentagon spokesman, Cmdr. Jeffrey D. Gordon, declined to respond to the assertions about Mr. Khan’s condition, saying that most detainees at Guantánamo gain weight.

Pentagon officials have said they believe that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, selected Mr. Khan, who grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore, to study the feasibility of blowing up gasoline stations and poisoning reservoirs in the United States. But he has not been charged with any offenses.

His lawyers said Mr. Khan, while living in Pakistan, was “forcibly disappeared” and that he had “admitted anything his interrogators demanded of him, regardless of the truth.”

Lawyers who represent Guantánamo detainees agree to stringent restrictions that bar them from disclosing information from their clients until it is cleared by government security officials.

The notes that were declassified from Mr. Khan’s lawyers, Gitanjali S. Gutierrez and J. Wells Dixon, say he “lives in Camp 7” and imply that he has contact with at least one other high-value detainee, Abu Zubaydah.

Officials at Guantánamo have not discussed the existence of a Camp 7. They often say publicly that the most recent center constructed there is Camp 6, a modern maximum-security building.

Commander Gordon, citing security concerns, declined to comment on the indication that there may be a secret detention unit, and added that “we do not disclose the exact location of detainees within Guantánamo.”

The request for an order barring the government from destroying any evidence of torture was filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is considering a challenge by Mr. Khan to his detention.

Mr. Khan’s lawyers claim that “there is a substantial risk that the torture evidence will disappear.” They did not specify what evidence they believe may exist.

An intelligence official speaking on the condition of anonymity said the C.I.A.’s interrogations of Mr. Khan were not videotaped.

Mr. Dixon, one of Mr. Khan’s lawyers, said Saturday that the admission that officials had destroyed videotapes of interrogations showed why such an order was needed.

“They are no longer entitled to a presumption that the government has acted lawfully or in good faith,” Mr. Dixon said.

accuracy

12-12-2007, 09:24 AM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v508/newlife71128/cia.jpg

accuracy

12-12-2007, 09:27 AM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v508/newlife71128/iraq2003.jpg
Tuesday December 11, 2007 5:46 PM

By PAMELA HESS

Associated Press Writer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7144072,00.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - The CIA's waterboarding of a top al-Qaida figure was approved at the top levels of the U.S. government, a former CIA agent said Tuesday as agency director Gen. Michael Hayden prepared for questioning by congressional panels about the destruction of videotapes of terror suspect interrogations.

According to the former agent, waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah got him to talk in less than 35 seconds. The technique, which critics say is torture, probably disrupted ``dozens'' of planned al-Qaida attacks, said John Kiriakou, a leader of the team that captured Zubaydah, a major al-Qaida figure.

Kiriakou did not explain how he knew who approved the interrogation technique but said such approval comes from top officials.

``This isn't something done willy nilly. This isn't something where an agency officer just wakes up in the morning and decides he's going to carry out an enhanced technique on a prisoner,'' he said Tuesday on NBC's ``Today'' show. ``This was a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and Justice Department.''

At the White House, press secretary Dana Perino said the CIA interrogation program approved by the president is safe, tough, effective and legal. But she said that Hayden will not ``talk about techniques and explain to the enemy what we are doing'' during two days of questioning before closed sessions of the Senate and House intelligence panels.

``It's no secret that the president approved a lawful program in order to interrogate hardened terrorists,'' Perino said. ``We do not torture. We also know that this program has saved lives by disrupting terrorist attacks.''

Kiriakou said that each time CIA agents wished to use waterboarding or any other harsh interrogation technique, they had to present a ``well-laid out, well-thought out reason'' to top government officials. In Zubaydah's case, Kiriakou said the waterboarding had immediate effect.

``The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate,'' Kiriakou said in an interview first broadcast Monday evening on ABC News' World News. ``From that day on, he answered every question. The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.''

Zubaydah, the first high-value detainee taken by the CIA in 2002, is now being held with other detainees at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He told his interrogators about alleged 9/11 accomplice Ramzi Binalshibh, and the two men's confessions also led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whom the U.S. government said was the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Kiriakou said he did not know the interrogation of Zubaydah was being recorded by the CIA and did not know the tapes subsequently were destroyed.

``Like a lot of Americans, I'm involved in this internal, intellectual battle with myself weighing the idea that waterboarding may be torture versus the quality of information that we often get after using the waterboarding technique,'' Kiriakou, now retired from the CIA, told ABC News. ``And I struggle with it.''

He added: ``What happens if we don't waterboard a person and we don't get that nugget of information and there's an attack. I would have trouble forgiving myself. ... At the time, I felt that waterboarding was something that we needed to do.''

Waterboarding is a harsh interrogation technique that involves strapping down a prisoner, covering his mouth with plastic or cloth and pouring water over his face. The prisoner quickly begins to inhale water, causing the sensation of drowning.

Hayden told CIA employees last week that the CIA taped the interrogations of two alleged terrorists in 2002. He said the harsh questioning was carried out only after being ``reviewed and approved by the Department of Justice and by other elements of the Executive Branch.'' Hayden said Congress was notified in 2003 both of the tapes' existence and the agency's intent to destroy them.

The CIA destroyed the tapes in November of 2005. Exactly when Congress was notified and in what detail is in dispute.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said the CIA claims it told the committee of the tapes' destruction at a hearing in November 2006. Rockefeller said, however, that the hearing transcript found no mention of that subject.

The House committee first learned the tapes had been destroyed in March 2007, according to Committee Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.

In last week's message, Hayden told CIA employees that ``the leaders of our oversight committees in Congress were informed of the videos years ago and of the Agency's intention to dispose of the material. Our oversight committees also have been told that the videos were, in fact, destroyed.''

But Reyes said Monday that Hayden's claim that Congress was properly notified ``does not appear to be true.''

accuracy

12-12-2007, 11:46 AM

By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Published: 12 December 2007

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3244719.ece

A former CIA officer involved in the capture and interrogation of the Al Qai'da suspect Abu Zubaida, has revealed on television that he was tortured by 'waterboarding' thereby incriminating his fellow agents in a felony.

John Kiriakou, who was based in Pakistan for the CIA and is now retired form the agency admitted that Ms Zubaida was subjected to a process of controlled drowning during which his lungs were filled with water and he was made to believe he was dying.

"It was like flipping a switch," Mr Kiriakou the first person directly involved in the questioning of any high level al-Qai'da detainees to speak out.

He told ABC News that Abu Zubaida was being defiant and uncooperative mid summer 2002 when he was tied down on a board, his nose and mouth wrapped cellophane to stop him breathing while water was forced down his throat. As the terrified detainee struggled for air water poured into his lungs and he broke down in about 35 seconds.

Mr Kiriakou said he was carefully briefed on what had happened. The next day, Mr Zubaida told his torturers that he would tell them whatever they wanted to know.

"He said that Allah had come to him in his cell and told him to cooperate, because it would make things easier for his brothers," Mr Kiriakou said. The information allegedly thwarted several attacks by Al Qai'da and "probably saved lives," but Mr Kirakou now says that he regards waterboarding as torture and un-American.

Mr Kiriakou revealed that he first spoke to Abu Zubaida in a Pakistani military hospital. where he was recovering from gunshot wounds suffered when he was captured. When he emerged from a coma he held hours of conversations with Mr Kiriakou from his hospital bed. They talked about religion and Abu Zubaida's private regret tha he had never had a family of his own.

Abu Zubaida became resistant when asked to reveal details about al-Qai'da's plans and leaders. He was then flown to a 'black site' or secret CIA prison, where he was interrogated more harshly.

"You have one more opportunity to cooperate. My guys are telling me that you're being a jerk," Mr Kiriakou told Abu Zubaida before the waterboarding began.

"They're being jerks, too," Mr Kiriakou says he replied. The former undercover CIA officer now apparently regrets ordering the waterboarding although he maintains that it provided a vital break that probably helped the CIA deter attacks. Crucially, he now says waterboarding is torture, and "Americans are better than that."

His evidence may be crucial as investigations begin into the use of torture and other illegal methods in the Bush Administration's 'war on terror.'

Mr Kiriakou's revelations came as senior top CIA officials were brought before a closed congressional inquiry into their decision to deliberately destroy video recordings of the waterboarding torture of Abu Zubaida and another 'high value' Al Qai'da captive, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

The torture of Abu Zubaida's interrogation has led to a fierce argument among US intelligence agencies and in the armed services. The FBI which is responsible for counter-intelligence in the US adamantly opposes the use of torture as counterproductive and unreliable while top CIA officers continue to defend it as an important tool in their armory against terrorists who do not respect the rules of war. The Armed services reject all forms of torture on the basis that they are unreliable.

Abu Zubaida who is being held in Guantanamo Bay has stated in legal documents that he told those torturing him whatever they wanted to hear in order to make the torture stop.

When the recordings were destroyed the CIA was under orders from several federal court to preserve interrogation and detention records of terrorism suspects after the 11 September attacks. Abu Zubaida's interrogation led to the capture of several of those now in Guantanamo Bay and their lawyers maintain that all recordings of his interrogation should have been saved.

"The revelation that the CIA destroyed these videotapes raises grave concerns about the government's compliance with the preservation order entered by this Court," wrote Marc Falkoff the lawyer for a Yemeni Mohmoad Abdah. In court papers he says thet CIA illegally flouted a June 2005 court order to the the government to "preserve and maintain all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."

© 2007 Independent News and Media Limited

accuracy

12-12-2007, 12:09 PM

Torture -The Guantanamo Guidebook

"Channel 4's programme examines torture in the war on terror by exposing seven volunteers to methods reported to have been used by American interrogators on alleged terrorists at the Guantanamo Bay camp.

The Guantanamo Guidebook reconstructs the regime at the US's Cuban base. For 48 hours, seven volunteers are subjected to interrogation techniques known to be used in the camp, ranging from harassment and abuse to sensory deprivation – with shocking results."

Video run time: 49.27 min

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17666.htm

accuracy

14-12-2007, 10:21 AM

http://www.bartcop.com/gitmo-usa.jpg

accuracy

14-12-2007, 10:35 AM

The Witnessing Of American Torture

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 by RLR
From The Atlantic
By Andrew Sullivan

http://www.trueblueliberal.com/2007/12/12/the-witnessing-of-american-torture/

http://www.trueblueliberal.com/wp-content/photos/thumb_torture7.jpg

The Brian Ross interview with former CIA interrogator, John Kiriakou, who tortured Abu Zubaydah, is well worth reading in full. You can download the transcript here and here. Among the things I learned:

- According to Kiriakou, everything was very closely monitored and approved up the chain of command. The president absolutely knew and approved of the waterboarding. President Bush personally authorized the torture of a prisoner, via the Deputy Director for Operations of the CIA. This was not free-lancing:

BRIAN ROSS: And did you know the CIA officers feel without a doubt you had the legal right to do what you were doing?

JOHN: Absolutely. Absolutely. I remember - I remember being told when - the President signed the - the authorities that they had been approved - not just by the National Security Counsel, but by the - but by the Justice Department as well, I remember people being surprised that the authorities were granted.

- Waterboarding was not the only torture technique. Sleep deprivation was integral to Zubaydah’s interrogation. And Kiriakou, like any other interrogator who has used sleep deprivation, and unlike Rudy Giuliani, understands that this is torture:

JOHN: You know, you may not think about it, but– but exhaustion is– is a very difficult thing to handle. It’s one thing to be tired. It’s another thing to be so tired that you begin to hallucinate. And after a while some people just can’t take it anymore. And they’ll tell you if– “Just give me an hour. Give me two hours of sleep, I’ll tell you anything you wanna know.”

Read more Torture

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/12/the-witnessing.html

accuracy

14-12-2007, 10:44 AM

JULIAN ASSANGE (investigative editor, julian@wikileaks.org)
2007-12-12 (Wednesday)
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks_busts_Gitmo_propaganda_team

Guantanamo Bay deletes detainee ID numbers, labels Fidel Castro "an admitted transexual" and more.

WASHINGTON--The US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has been caught conducting covert propaganda attacks on the internet. The attacks, exposed this week in a report by the government transparency group Wikileaks, include deleting detainee ID numbers from Wikipedia last month, the systematic posting of unattributed "self praise" comments on news organization web sites in response to negative press, boosting pro-Guantanamo stories on the internet news site Digg and even modifying Fidel Castro's encyclopedia article to describe the Cuban president as "an admitted transexual" [sic].

Shayana Kadidal, Managing Attorney of the Center for Constitutional Rights Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative, said in response to the report:

"The military's efforts to alter the record by vandalizing Wikipedia are of a piece with the amateurism of their other public relations efforts: [such as] their ridiculous claims that released detainees who criticize the United States in the media have 'returned to the battlefield'."

Follow up article from the Associated Press:

By MICHAEL MELIA
Associated Press
In this Oct. 10, 2007 photo, reviewed by a Pentagon official, an American soldier drives past the detention facility at the U.S. Navy base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico --
U.S. military personnel at Guantánamo Bay called Fidel Castro a transsexual and defended the prison for terrorism suspects in anonymous Web postings, an Internet group that publishes government documents said Wednesday.
The group, Wikileaks, tracked Web activity by service members with Guantánamo e-mail addresses and also found they deleted prisoner identification numbers from three detainee profiles on Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia that allows anyone to change articles.
Julian Assange, who led the research effort, said the postings amount to propaganda and deception.
This is the American government speaking to the American people and to the world through Wikipedia, not identifying itself and often speaking about itself in the third person, Assange said in a telephone interview from Paris.
Army Lt. Col. Ed Bush, a prison camps spokesman, said there is no official attempt to alter information posted elsewhere but said the military seeks to correct what it believes is incorrect or outdated information about the prison.
Bush declined to answer questions about the Castro posting.
Assange said that in January 2006, someone at Guantánamo wrote in a Wikipedia profile of the Cuban president: Fidel Castro is an admitted transexual, the unknown writer said, misspelling the word ``transsexual.
The U.S. has no formal relations with Cuba and has maintained its base in the southeast of the island over the objections of the Castro government.
Comments on news stories were posted by people using apparently fictitious names to news sites -- and were prepared by the Guantánamo public affairs office, according to Wikileaks. A comment on a Wired magazine story about a leaked Guantánamo operations manual that was recently posted on the Wikileaks Web site urged readers to learn about Guantánamo by going to the public affairs Web site, adding that the base is ``a very professional place full of true American patriots.
Assange's group could not specifically identify who from Guantánamo made about 60 edits to Wikipedia entries on topics that included not only the prison but also subjects such as football, cars and television programs.
The detention center at the U.S. Navy base currently has about 305 men on suspicion of links to terrorism, al Qaeda or the Taliban.

The evidence

public.jtfgtmo.southcom.mil
First we prove that the IP address used by a number of the attacks belongs to Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay (JTFGTMO). The documentation is provided for independent verification; non-technical readers may skip this section.

IP lookup
The server known as public.jtfgtmo.southcom.mil, is a gateway computer through which internet connections are passed between the U.S. and Joint Task Force Guantanamo. This server is located at the IP address: 130.22.190.5. (See reverse lookup for 130.22.190.5 at Iwebtool.com:

Read on:

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks_busts_Gitmo_propaganda_team

accuracy

15-12-2007, 08:39 AM

http://www.allhatnocattle.net/121307bag.jpg

accuracy

15-12-2007, 08:58 AM

By FRANK JORDANS – 2 days ago
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jYskYBxtB_aFEHLJWG8hqbIA_P6QD8TG8OV02

GENEVA (AP) — A U.N. human rights expert said Wednesday he found on a recent visit to Guantanamo Bay that the prison camp is not meeting international justice standards.

Martin Scheinin, the U.N.'s independent investigator on human rights in the fight against terrorism, has been campaigning against the Bush administration's detention practices, military courts and interrogation techniques.

He said his visit to Guantanamo last week raised more questions about the legal framework used to prosecute detainees there.

"The hearings provided graphic illustrations of the practical difficulties in providing fair trials at a distant military base," said Scheinin, a Finnish law professor.

About 305 detainees are held at Guantanamo, almost all of them without charges. The men suspected of links to terrorism are held as "enemy combatants" without the same rights as traditional prisoners of war.

U.S. officials said Wednesday they were disappointed by the report.

Scheinin's finding on the legal process at Guantanamo was "in part misleading about the facts of the process, and revisits well-worn, ill-informed criticisms of military commissions hearings," said Melanie J. Khanna, a U.S. legal adviser. "The unfortunate fact is that a large part of the report again repeats unfair and oversimplified criticisms of the United States."

Scheinin was presenting his observations on Guantanamo to the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council as part of a wider review of U.S. practices in the fight against terrorism.

He recalled attending hearings for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden who is charged under the 2006 Military Commissions Act with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism.

He said it seemed impossible for defense lawyers to provide evidence because they were unable to call witnesses from abroad or the detention facility.

Scheinin told The Associated Press that the recent visit confirmed his findings.

In particular, he expressed concern that the Military Commissions Act — which addresses the legal rights of detainees held outside U.S. territory — was being applied to people who had been seized before the law was created.

"Doing this many years after they have originally been detained on other grounds unavoidably results in something which international law categorizes as arbitrary detention," Scheinin said.

He also described as "very problematic" the question of the independence of the military tribunals and the use of evidence obtained by coercion.

Of the hearing he observed, Scheinin said "the military judge really did his best in difficult circumstances to strive for a fair trial, but within impossible conditions."

In addition to observing the legal hearings, U.S. officials had invited Scheinin to visit the actual detention facilities. Scheinin said he declined that offer because he was not guaranteed unmonitored access to the detainees.

"They wanted me also to go to the detention facility but unfortunately their policy of not allowing for full access did not make it possible for me this time," he told the AP. "I hope there will be another chance."

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press.

accuracy

15-12-2007, 09:05 AM

2 days ago
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iJDDNls-SuyKk26X9EsKcChFsCawD8TGAHC81

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The U.S. announced Wednesday that it has sent 15 prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay prison back to their home nations.

The military transferred 13 men to Afghanistan and two to Sudan, the Department of Defense said in a statement. Their names were not released.

The U.S. has now transferred about 485 prisoners to their native countries, where most have been subsequently released.

There are now about 290 men held at Guantanamo, most of them without charge. U.S. authorities have said they plan to prosecute about 80 in military tribunals at the Navy base in southeast Cuba. Military officials have said they are in negotiations with countries to accept dozens of prisoners who have been cleared for transfer by review panels.

accuracy

15-12-2007, 09:11 AM

Press Association
Thursday December 13, 2007
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2226341,00.html

A collection of poems written by prisoners held in the Guantánamo Bay detention centre has been made public in the UK for the first time.

Among the 21 poems are lines that one prisoner etched into a foam cup with a pebble and passed around other detainees before they were granted access to pen and paper.

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Books/Pix/pictures/2007/12/13/moazzambeggJGr256.jpg
Moazzam Begg at the launch of Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak

The poems were scratched into the cups provided to the men with their lunch and were taken away with empty plates by the guards after each meal. But their author, Shaikh Abdurraheem Muslim Dost, a Pakistani poet and prolific author before his detention, reconstructed them from memory after his release in 2005.

A year after the first prisoners were taken to the camp in Cuba they were finally given writing materials and many began composing poetry.
Some of the 17 men whose work is published in Poems From Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak have been released, but most remain behind bars. A handful were writers, poets or journalists before their capture but many were writing for the first time.

The poems were collected by Professor Marc Falkoff, an American law professor who has represented 17 of the prisoners. He noticed that in the correspondence with the outside world the prisoners would often include fragments of verse and even whole poems.

He said: "Their poems, all written 'inside the wire', were composed with little expectation of ever reaching an audience beyond a small circle of their fellow prisoners. But now that the poems have been declassified and collected, they offer the world a unique opportunity to hear directly from the detainees themselves. "In truth, it is something of a miracle that the collection - or the poetry that comprises it - even exists."

He said that the prisoners' poems follow in the footsteps of prisoners who wrote "in the Gulag, the Nazi concentration camps, and, closer to home, the Japanese American internment camps."

The collection represents only a small chunk of what was written in the camp, he said.

Much of the prisoners' poetry, including 25,000 lines composed by Dost, has been destroyed or confiscated by the American military on the grounds that it could pose a threat to security.

Among those whose work has been published is British former detainee Moazzem Begg.

He writes:

"Dreams are shattered, hopes are battered,
Yet with new status one is flattered!
The irony of it-detention, and all:
Be so small, and stand so tall."

Poet Laureate Andrew Motion attended the UK launch of the book last night.

accuracy

15-12-2007, 09:17 AM

http://www.allhatnocattle.net/Waterboarding_buckfush.jpg

accuracy

15-12-2007, 09:19 AM

http://www.allhatnocattle.net/121407sck.jpg

shredmasteruk

16-12-2007, 12:49 PM

Bush should be dragged out of his office twice a day and waterboarded.

accuracy

17-12-2007, 11:03 AM

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, December 14, 2007;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/12/14/BL2007121401204_pf.html

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v508/newlife71128/torture1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v508/newlife71128/torture3.jpg

President Bush's repeated insistence that "we don't torture" appeared even more transparently bogus yesterday as the White House threatened to veto a House bill that would explicitly ban a variety of abhorrent practices.

The bill would require U.S. intelligence agencies to follow interrogation rules adopted by the armed forces last year.

What does that mean? As Pamela Hess writes for the Associated Press, those rules explicitly prohibit "forcing detainees to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner; placing hoods or sacks over detainees' heads or duct tape over their eyes; beating, shocking, or burning detainees; threatening them with military dogs; exposing them to extreme heat or cold; conducting mock executions; depriving them of food, water, or medical care; and waterboarding."

Administration officials have consistently refused to confirm or deny whether any of those methods have been sanctioned by the White House and are in use. But really all you need to know is this: According to yesterday's formal statement of administration policy, limiting intelligence agencies to the army rules "would prevent the United States from conducting lawful interrogations of senior al Qaeda terrorists to obtain intelligence needed to protect Americans from attack."

The White House then asserted, without a scintilla of evidence (see Tuesday's column): "Such interrogations have helped the United States disrupt multiple attacks against Americans at home and abroad, thus saving American lives."

Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus write in The Washington Post that the legislation's passage "set[s] up another political showdown over what constitutes torture. . . .

"The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 made the Army Field Manual applicable to all Defense Department employees, but it left a loophole allowing the CIA to use aggressive techniques barred by that document. . . .

"Retired Army Gen. Paul J. Kern, a lead investigator of the abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, said he thinks that having two sets of standards for interrogation -- one for the CIA and another for the military -- has created problems of credibility and accountability. Kern, who signed a letter along with 27 other retired general officers asking the intelligence committees to hold the CIA to the military's rules, endorsed the standards set by the military.

"'We ought to have one set of standards, period,' Kern said."

(See site for hyper-linkks.)

accuracy

17-12-2007, 11:14 AM

http://images.salon.com/news/feature/2007/12/14/bashmilah/story.gif
Exhibit I: Rendering of Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah's first cell in Afghanistan (based on Bashmilah's own drawings).

A Yemeni man never charged by the U.S. details 19 months of brutality and psychological torture -- the first in-depth, first-person account from inside the secret U.S. prisons. A Salon exclusive.

By Mark Benjamin

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/12/14/bashmilah/index.html

Dec. 14, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- The CIA held Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah in several different cells when he was incarcerated in its network of secret prisons known as "black sites." But the small cells were all pretty similar, maybe 7 feet wide and 10 feet long. He was sometimes naked, and sometimes handcuffed for weeks at a time. In one cell his ankle was chained to a bolt in the floor. There was a small toilet. In another cell there was just a bucket. Video cameras recorded his every move. The lights always stayed on -- there was no day or night. A speaker blasted him with continuous white noise, or rap music, 24 hours a day.

The guards wore black masks and black clothes. They would not utter a word as they extracted Bashmilah from his cell for interrogation -- one of his few interactions with other human beings during his entire 19 months of imprisonment. Nobody told him where he was, or if he would ever be freed.

It was enough to drive anyone crazy. Bashmilah finally tried to slash his wrists with a small piece of metal, smearing the words "I am innocent" in blood on the walls of his cell. But the CIA patched him up.

So Bashmilah stopped eating. But after his weight dropped to 90 pounds, he was dragged into an interrogation room, where they rammed a tube down his nose and into his stomach. Liquid was pumped in. The CIA would not let him die.

On several occasions, when Bashmilah's state of mind deteriorated dangerously, the CIA also did something else: They placed him in the care of mental health professionals. Bashmilah believes these were trained psychologists or psychiatrists. "What they were trying to do was to give me a sort of uplifting and to assure me," Bashmilah said in a telephone interview, through an interpreter, speaking from his home country of Yemen. "One of the things they told me to do was to allow myself to cry, and to breathe."

Last June, Salon reported on the CIA's use of psychologists to aid with the interrogation of terrorist suspects. But the role of mental health professionals working at CIA black sites is a previously unknown twist in the chilling, Kafkaesque story of the agency's secret overseas prisons.

Little about the conditions of Bashmilah's incarceration has been made public until now. His detailed descriptions in an interview with Salon, and in newly filed court documents, provide the first in-depth, first-person account of captivity inside a CIA black site. Human rights advocates and lawyers have painstakingly pieced together his case, using Bashmilah's descriptions of his cells and his captors, and documents from the governments of Jordan and Yemen and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to verify his testimony. Flight records detailing the movement of CIA aircraft also confirm Bashmilah's account, tracing his path from the Middle East to Afghanistan and back again while in U.S. custody.

Bashmilah's story also appears to show in clear terms that he was an innocent man. After 19 months of imprisonment and torment at the hands of the CIA, the agency released him with no explanation, just as he had been imprisoned in the first place. He faced no terrorism charges. He was given no lawyer. He saw no judge. He was simply released, his life shattered.

"This really shows the human impact of this program and that lives are ruined by the CIA rendition program," said Margaret Satterthwaite, an attorney for Bashmilah and a professor at the New York University School of Law. "It is about psychological torture and the experience of being disappeared."

Bashmilah, who at age 39 is now physically a free man, still suffers the mental consequences of prolonged detention and abuse. He is undergoing treatment for the damage done to him at the hands of the U.S. government. On Friday, Bashmilah laid out his story in a declaration to a U.S. district court as part of a civil suit brought by the ACLU against Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing accused of facilitating secret CIA rendition flights.

Bashmilah said in the phone interview that the psychological anguish inside a CIA black site is exacerbated by the unfathomable unknowns for the prisoners. While he figured out that he was being held by Americans, Bashmilah did not know for sure why, where he was, or whether he would ever see his family again. He said, "Every time I realize that there may be others who are still there where I suffered, I feel the same thing for those innocent people who just fell in a crack."

It may seem bizarre for the agency to provide counseling to a prisoner while simultaneously cracking him mentally -- as if revealing a humanitarian aspect to a program otherwise calibrated to exploit systematic psychological abuse. But it could also be that mental healthcare professionals were enlisted to help bring back from the edge prisoners who seemed precariously damaged, whose frayed minds were no longer as pliable for interrogation. "My understanding is that the purpose of having psychiatrists there is that if the prisoner feels better, then he would be able to talk more to the interrogators," said Bashmilah.

Realistically, psychiatrists in such a setting could do little about the prisoners' deeper suffering at the hands of the CIA. "They really had no authority to address these issues," Bashmilah said about his mental anguish. He said the doctors told him to "hope that one day you will prove your innocence or that you will one day return to your family." The psychiatrists also gave him some pills, likely tranquilizers. They analyzed his dreams. But there wasn't much else they could do. "They also gave me a Rubik's Cube so I could pass the time, and some jigsaw puzzles," Bashmilah recalled.

The nightmare started for him back in fall 2003. Bashmilah had traveled to Jordan from Indonesia, where he was living with his wife and working in the clothing business. He and his wife went to Jordan to meet Bashmilah's mother, who had also traveled there. The family hoped to arrange for heart surgery for Bashmilah's mother at a hospital in Amman. But before leaving Indonesia, Bashmilah had lost his passport and had received a replacement. Upon arrival in Jordan, Jordanian officials questioned his lack of stamps in the new one, and they grew suspicious when Bashmilah admitted he had visited Afghanistan in 2000. Bashmilah was taken into custody by Jordanian authorities on Oct. 21, 2003. He would not reappear again until he stepped out of a CIA plane in Yemen on May 5, 2005.

Bashmilah's apparent innocence was clearly lost on officials with Jordan's General Intelligence Department. After his arrest, the Jordanians brutally beat him, peppering him with questions about al-Qaida. He was forced to jog around in a yard until he collapsed. Officers hung him upside down with a leather strap and his hands tied. They beat the soles of his feet and his sides. They threatened to electrocute him with wires. The told him they would rape his wife and mother.

It was too much. Bashmilah signed a confession multiple pages long, but he was disoriented and afraid even to read it. "I felt sure it included things I did not say," he wrote in his declaration to the court delivered Friday. "I was willing to sign a hundred sheets so long as they would end the interrogation."

.....continued next page

accuracy

17-12-2007, 11:17 AM

Bashmilah was turned over to the CIA in the early morning hours of Oct. 26, 2003. Jordanian officials delivered him to a "tall, heavy-set, balding white man wearing civilian clothes and dark sunglasses with small round lenses," he wrote in his declaration. He had no idea who his new captors were, or that he was about to begin 19 months of hell, in the custody of the U.S. government. And while he was seldom beaten physically while in U.S. custody, he describes a regime of imprisonment designed to inflict extreme psychological anguish.

I asked Bashmilah which was worse: the physical beatings at the hands of the Jordanians, or the psychological abuse he faced from the CIA. "I consider that psychological torture I endured was worse than the physical torture," he responded. He called his imprisonment by the CIA "almost like being inside a tomb."

"Whenever I saw a fly in my cell, I was filled with joy," he said. "Although I would wish for it to slip from under the door so it would not be imprisoned itself."

After a short car ride to a building at the airport, Bashmilah's clothes were cut off by black-clad, masked guards wearing surgical gloves. He was beaten. One guard stuck his finger in Bashmilah's anus. He was dressed in a diaper, blue shirt and pants. Blindfolded and wearing earmuffs, he was then chained and hooded and strapped to a gurney in an airplane.

Flight records show Bashmilah was flown to Kabul. (Records show the plane originally departed from Washington, before first stopping in Prague and Bucharest.) After landing, he was forced to lie down in a bumpy jeep for 15 minutes and led into a building. The blindfold was removed, and Bashmilah was examined by an American doctor.

He was then placed in a windowless, freezing-cold cell, roughly 6.5 feet by 10 feet. There was a foam mattress, one blanket, and a bucket for a toilet that was emptied once a day. A bare light bulb stayed on constantly. A camera was mounted above a solid metal door. For the first month, loud rap and Arabic music was piped into his cell, 24 hours a day, through a hole opposite the door. His leg shackles were chained to the wall. The guards would not let him sleep, forcing Bashmilah to raise his hand every half hour to prove he was still awake.

Cells were lined up next to each other with spaces in between. Higher above the low ceilings of the cells appeared to be another ceiling, as if the prison were inside an airplane hanger.

After three months the routine became unbearable. Bashmilah unsuccessfully tried to hang himself with his blanket and slashed his wrists. He slammed his head against the wall in an effort to lose consciousness. He was held in three separate but similar cells during his detention in Kabul. At one point, the cell across from him was being used for interrogations. "While I myself was not beaten in the torture and interrogation room, after a while I began to hear the screams of detainees being tortured there," he wrote.

While he was not beaten, Bashmilah was frequently interrogated. "During the entire period of my detention there, I was held in solitary confinement and saw no one other than my guards, interrogators and other prison personnel," he wrote in his declaration. One interrogator accused him of being involved in sending letters to a contact in England, though Bashmilah says he doesn't know anybody in that country. At other times he was shown pictures of people he also says he did not know.

"This is a form of torture," he told me. "Especially when the person subjected to this has not done anything."

In his declaration, Bashmilah made it clear that most of the prison officials spoke English with American accents. "The interrogators also frequently referred to reports coming from Washington," he wrote.

After six months he was transferred, with no warning or explanation. On or around April 24, 2004, Bashmilah was pulled from his cell and placed in an interrogation room, where he was stripped naked. An American doctor with a disfigured hand examined him, jotting down distinctive marks on a paper diagram of the human body. Black-masked guards again put him in a diaper, cotton pants and shirt. He was blindfolded, shackled, hooded, forced to wear headphones, and stacked, lying down, in a jeep with other detainees. Then he remembers being forced up steps into a waiting airplane for a flight that lasted several hours, followed by several hours on the floor of a helicopter.

Upon landing, he was forced into a vehicle for a short ride. Then, Bashmilah took several steps into another secret prison -- location unknown.

He was forced into a room and stripped naked again. Photos were taken of all sides of his body. He was surrounded by about 15 people. "All of them except for the person taking photographs were dressed in the kind of black masks that robbers wear to hide their faces," Bashmilah wrote in the declaration.

He was again examined by a doctor, who took notations on the diagram of the human body. (It was the same form from Afghanistan. Bashmilah saw his vaccination scar marked on the diagram.) The doctor looked in his eyes, ears, nose and throat.

He was then thrown into a cold cell, left naked.

It was another tiny cell, new or refurbished with a stainless steel sink and toilet. Until clothes arrived several days later, Bashmilah huddled in a blanket. In this cell there were two video cameras, one mounted above the door and the other in a wall. Also above the door was a speaker. White noise, like static, was pumped in constantly, day and night. He spent the first month in handcuffs. In this cell his ankle was attached to a 110-link chain attached to a bolt on the floor.

The door had a small opening in the bottom through which food would appear: boiled rice, sliced meat and bread, triangles of cheese, boiled potato, slices of tomato and olives, served on a plastic plate.

Guards wore black pants with pockets, long-sleeved black shirts, rubber gloves or black gloves, and masks that covered the head and neck. The masks had tinted yellow plastic over the eyes. "I never heard the guards speak to each other and they never spoke to me," Bashmilah wrote in his declaration.

He was interrogated more. Bashmilah recalls an interrogator showing him a lecture by an Islamic scholar playing on a laptop. The interrogator wanted to know if Bashmilah knew who the man was, but he did not. It was in this facility that Bashmilah slashed his wrists, then went on his hunger strike, only to be force-fed through a tube forced down his nose.

The CIA seems to have figured out that Bashmilah was not an al-Qaida operative sometime around September 2004, when he was moved to another, similar cell. But there was no more white noise. And while his ankles were shackled, he wasn't bolted to the floor with a chain. He was allowed to shower once a week. He was no longer interrogated and was mostly left alone.

Bashmilah was given a list of books he could read. About a month before he was released, he was given access to an exercise hall for 15 minutes a week. And he saw mental healthcare professionals. "The psychiatrists asked me to talk about why I was so despairing, interpreted my dreams, asked me how I was sleeping and whether I had an appetite, and offered medications such as tranquilizers."

On May 5, 2005, Bashmilah was cuffed, hooded and put on a plane to Yemen. Yemeni government documents say the flight lasted six or seven hours and confirm that he was transferred from the control of the U.S. government. He soon learned that his father had died in the fall of 2004, not knowing where his son had disappeared to, or even if he was alive.

At the end of my interview with Bashmilah, I asked him if there was anything in particular he wanted people to know. "I would like for the American people to know that Islam is not an enemy to other nations," he said. "The American people should have a voice for holding accountable people who have hurt innocent people," he added. "And when there is a transgression against the American people, it should not be addressed by another transgression."

Copyright ©2007 Salon Media Group,

accuracy

18-12-2007, 09:46 AM

What really goes on in Guantánamo Bay

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/image.php?file=/downloads/downloads/articles/1381298/article_images/image2_1197745299.jpg&height=167

http://books.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1381298.php/What_really_goes_on_in_Guantánamo_Bay

By M&C News Dec 16, 2007, 10:59 GMT

There is a new book called Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side that the NYT has said, “the author does offer is a bracing opening statement from the defense team at Guantánamo, years overdue. We don’t have to believe every last claim he makes. It’s enough to be incensed that we are hearing some of it for the first time.”

That author is Clive Stafford Smith and the book will be published by Nations Books.

The book description states the following, “Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith is one of the few people in the world who has had independent access to the prisoners at Guantanamo, representing more than fifty. Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side is his remarkable account of his descent into the darkly comic world of Guantanamo, a legal black hole in which the bleakness of the surroundings are punctuated by moments of humor and absurdity. From the absence of security at the airport, to the army protecting iguanas on the roads, Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side goes beyond the headlines to tell the true story of life at Guantanamo.”

accuracy

19-12-2007, 11:41 AM

Picture of Secret Detentions Emerges in Pakistan

New York Times

December 19, 2007
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/nytA97.html

By CARLOTTA GALL
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies, apparently trying to avoid acknowledging an elaborate secret detention system, have quietly set free nearly 100 men suspected of links to terrorism, few of whom were charged, human rights groups and lawyers here say.

Those released, they say, are some of the nearly 500 Pakistanis presumed to have disappeared into the hands of the Pakistani intelligence agencies cooperating with Washington’s fight against terrorism since 2001.

No official reason has been given for the releases, but as pressure has mounted to bring the cases into the courts, the government has decided to jettison some suspects and thereby spare itself the embarrassment of having to reveal that people have been held on flimsy evidence in the secret system, its opponents say.

Interviews with lawyers and human rights officials here and a review of cases and court records by The New York Times show how scraps of information have accumulated over recent months into a body of evidence of the detention system.

In one case, a suspect tied to the 2002 killing of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist, but not charged, was dumped on a garbage heap, so thin and ill he died 20 days later.

He, like one other detainee, was arrested in South Africa several years ago, and released in Pakistan this year.

In at least two other instances, detainees were handed over to the United States without any legal extradition proceedings, Pakistani lawyers and human rights groups say. American officials here and in Washington refused to comment on the cases.

“They are releasing them because these cases are being made public,” said Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, a lawyer working at the Supreme Court who has taken up many of the cases of the missing. “They want to avoid the publicity.”

In addition, human rights groups and lawyers here contend, the government has swept up at least 4,000 other Pakistanis, most Baluchi and Sindhi nationalists campaigning for ethnic or regional autonomy who have nothing to do with the United States campaign against terrorism.

In total, human rights groups and lawyers describe the disappearances as one of the grimmest aspects of Pervez Musharraf’s presidency, and one that shows no sign of slowing.

Under previous governments, “there were one or two cases, but not the systematic disappearances by the intelligence agencies under Musharraf,” said Iqbal Haider, secretary general of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent nonprofit organization.

The Pakistani government denies detaining people illegally and says that many of the missing are actually in regular jails on criminal charges, while other cases have been fabricated.

The issue of the missing became one of the most contentious between President Musharraf and the Supreme Court under its former chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

The releases are particularly galling to lawyers here because as one justification for imposing emergency rule on Nov. 3, President Musharraf accused the courts of freeing terrorism suspects. That decree was lifted Saturday, but the former chief justice and other judges were dismissed and remain in detention. The Supreme Court hearings on the missing have been halted.

While Mr. Musharraf criticized the court as being soft on terrorists, court records show that Mr. Chaudhry was less interested in releasing terrorism suspects than in making sure their cases entered the court system.

He said at each hearing that his primary concern was for the families of the missing, who were suffering great anguish not knowing where their loved ones were.

His main aim was to regularize the detention of the missing, not to free them, Mr. Siddiqui said. “Not a single person who was convicted was released on the Supreme Court’s order,“ he said.

Detainees have been warned on their release not to speak to anyone about their detention, yet fragments of their experiences have filtered out through relatives and their lawyers. A few even appeared in court and told their stories, and it became increasingly clear that the “disappeared” men had in fact been held in military or intelligence agency cells around the country, often for several years without being charged.

Still, the government denies detaining people illegally or torturing them. Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior and leader of the national crisis management cell that deals with terrorism, said many of the men said to be missing had been found in jails or police cells and had been charged with crimes.

Others, he said, may have gone to the hills or Afghanistan to fight and died there. Still others, he suggested, were fabricated. “Let me assure you that there’s a lot of politics going on into the missing persons also,” he said.

Critics say that abuses continue. The director of the human rights commission, I. A. Rehman, said the government had set up a nearly invisible detention system. “There are safe houses in Islamabad where people are kept,” he said, citing accounts from the police and those who have been freed. “Police have admitted this, flats are taken on rent, property is seized, people are tortured there.”

In some cases, detainees recounted that they had been interrogated in the presence of English-speaking foreigners, who human rights officials and lawyers suspect are Americans.

A United States Embassy spokeswoman said she could not comment on the allegations and referred all questions to Washington. A spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, Mark Mansfield, declined to comment on Mr. Rehman’s accusations, or on any specific detainees.

One detainee, a Jordanian named Marwan Ibrahim, who was arrested in a raid in the city of Lahore, where he had been living for 10 years, said he was sent to a detention center in Afghanistan run by Americans, then to Jordan and Israel, and was finally released in Gaza, according to an account Mr. Ibrahim gave to Human Rights Watch, another independent group.

Another detainee, Majid Khan, 27, a Pakistani computer engineer who disappeared from Karachi four years ago, surfaced April 15 this year before a military tribunal in Guantánamo Bay. His American lawyers say he was subjected to torture in C.I.A. detention in a secret location. Mr. Mansfield, the C.I.A. spokesman, declined to comment, except to say that the “C.I.A.’s terrorist interrogation effort has always been small, carefully run, lawful, and highly productive.”

“Fewer than 100 hardened terrorists have gone through the program since it began in 2002,” he added, “and, of those, less than a third required any enhanced interrogation measures.”

As more and more such accounts have come to light, President Musharraf has fought vigorously to keep the details of Pakistan’s secret detentions hidden.

A week into emergency rule, he passed a decree amending the 1952 Army Act to allow civilians to be tried by military tribunals for general offenses. The tribunals are closed to the public and offer no right of appeal.

The amendment was made retroactive to January 2003. Mr. Haider of the human rights commission said the amendment was to cover the illegal detentions by the intelligence agencies. “These agencies have gone berserk and President Musharraf is legitimizing their acts,” he said.

Brigadier Cheema, the Interior Ministry spokesman, acknowledged that prosecutors and investigators had had difficulty pinning crimes on detainees. Hundreds of people in Guantánamo have not been charged either, he pointed out. The Army Act amendment would resolve much of the problem, he said.

“Sometimes it becomes difficult to prove a case, but you have reasons that a person poses a threat to humanity and to society,” he said.

The intervention of the Supreme Court under Mr. Chaudhry was undoubtedly exposing this system of secret detentions.

He first took up the cases of the missing in 2006, demanding that the government trace the detainees and account for them.

His steady requests for information from senior police, Interior Ministry and military officials in court helped to trace nearly 100 detainees. Most of those were subsequently released without charges.

“This was very embarrassing to the government because the people who were supposed to be found and released, they told all their stories,“ said Mr. Rehman, the director of the human rights commission.

Amina Masood Janjua, who has led a campaign to trace the missing, first learned about news of her husband, who disappeared in July 2005, from a written account by another detainee. Later the detainee, Imran Munir, was produced in court and told her he had been held in the military base at Chaklala, in Rawalpindi, south of the capital, and saw her husband in another cell.

Another detainee, Hafiz Muhammad Tahir, was brought before the court and told the judges he had been ordered by the police to give a false account of his detention and charges against him, Mrs. Janjua said. In fact he had been held secretly for three years without charge. The chief justice ordered him to be freed, and he was released the same day.

But only four or five detainees ever appeared before the Supreme Court. The majority of the 100 detainees released this year have been freed surreptitiously by the police and intelligence agencies, lawyers and human rights officials said. “They cannot admit that they had these people because they have no charges against them, no documentation,” Mrs. Janjua said.

One such detainee, Saud Memon, was dumped on a garbage heap, she said. Mr. Memon owned a plot of land where Mr. Pearl, the American journalist, was beheaded in 2002. Citing witness accounts from Pakistani investigators, The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Pearl’s employer, reported recently that Mr. Memon had driven three men who were the killers to the site.

Mr. Memon was picked up in South Africa in March 2003, according to his family, and later brought to Pakistan and held by the intelligence agencies. His brother, Mahmood, said the family learned only this year that Mr. Memon was in Pakistan from another detainee who had also been released.

Mr. Memon was dumped near his home in April, so thin and ill that he never recognized his wife and children, and died within three weeks. Yet he was never charged and the Pakistani government never acknowledged holding him.

Mr. Mansfield, the C.I.A. spokesman, declined to comment on Mr. Memon’s case, saying, “The CIA does not, as a rule, comment on allegations regarding who has, or has not, been in its custody.”

Salman Masood contributed reporting for this article from Islamabad, Pakistan.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

accuracy

21-12-2007, 07:59 AM

Christine Kellett
December 21, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/haneef-gets-visa-back/2007/12/21/1198175297213.html

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/07/31/haneef_narrowweb__300x427,0.jpg
Mohamed Haneef.
Photo: AP

One-time terror suspect Mohammed Haneef is free to return and work in Australia.

The former Gold Coast Hospital registrar will have his visa returned after the Federal Court today dismissed an appeal by ousted Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews.

The court ruling is a second slap in the face for Mr Andrews, whose controversial decision to cancel the Indian doctor's visa was overturned by a Federal Court judge in August.

Government lawyers appealed the decision to the full bench of the court, insisting the then Minister had been right to force Dr Haneef out of the country due to his relationship with two second cousins with alleged links to a UK terrorism plot.

But their argument was thrown out just after 9.30 this morning when Justice Michael Black, sitting in Melbourne, handed down the court's ruling.

Dr Haneef, who flew home to India in July, is currently visiting Saudi Arabia for the annual Muslim Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

He was said to be in good spirits in the lead up to today's court finding.

His lawyer, Peter Russo, has insisted the 27-year-old father of one is keen to return to the Gold Coast, despite his treatment at the hands of the previous government.

He hopes to complete a four-year training course in Australia to qualify as a physician.

Dr Haneef was arrested by Australian Federal Police on July 2 at Brisbane International Airport after police investigating the failed car bombing of Glasgow Airport found his mobile phone SIM card in the possession of one of the UK suspects.

He was held in detention without charge, but the criminal case eventually collapsed.

His visa was cancelled on the grounds he was of "bad character", and he flew out of Australia on July 29.

The president-elect of the Law Society of NSW, Hugh Macken, welcomed today's Federal Court decision.

"It vindicates the role of the court in reviewing administrative and ministerial decisions.''

"It's an example of the courts providing protection for the rights of the citizen against the state.

"It confirms the role of the court as an independent review of all the facts, free from political and bureaucratic influences which is crucial to the administration of justice.

With the decision of the original judge, Justice Jeffrey Spender, upheld unanimously today by a full bench of the court, Mr Macken said there was nothing that presently stood out for consideration by the High Court on any application that might yet be made to seek special leave to appeal.

"Very simply, the evidence didn't support a finding of association by Dr Haneef with a terrorist organisation.''

The government's lawyers today said they would consider whether or not to launch a High Court challenge to this latest decision.

brisbanetimes.com.au, with Jennifer Cooke

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21-12-2007, 09:08 AM

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21-12-2007, 09:19 AM

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22-12-2007, 08:47 AM

As long as the US continues to deny legal redress to Guantánamo inmates, we cannot celebrate the release of a few prisoners

Kate Allen
21 December 2007

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/kate_allen/2007/12/no_closure_yet.html

Three more men are back from Guantánamo and the slow emptying of the prison camp continues. But is this cause for much celebration? Not really.

Leaving aside the issue of possible extradition of the released men to other countries to face criminal charges, the overriding problem is that the United States is still doggedly refusing to accept that there is anything wrong with holding prisoners who have been stripped of their human rights.

Six years on from the initiation of the US-declared "war on terror", the White House says it wants to close Guantánamo eventually but it still hasn't backed away from the legal process it's set up. This is profoundly worrying.

Let's examine the Guantánamo balance sheet. Since mid-January 2002, nearly 800 people have been imprisoned at Camp X-Ray and its successor prisons (Camp Delta, Camp Echo and the other hi-tech supermax facilities). Of these, almost 500 have been released without charge. So how many have actually been brought to trial? The answer is none. One man, the Australian David Hicks, pleaded guilty earlier this year as part of a deal that saw him sent to Australia to serve out his sentence. But no one has been formally tried and only a tiny number of the 300 prisoners still held have been charged (three at the last count). US officials are now only talking of a maximum of 80 ever eventually facing charges.

In simple terms of serving justice, this is a deeply unimpressive record. But the quality of this grindingly slow process is even more lamentable.

If the small number of attempted prosecutions ever goes ahead, they will be before "military commission" tribunals, military panels (rather than courts). These can allow secret unchallengeable "evidence" that may have come from tortured prisoners. The process is wholly run by the US department of defence and the death penalty can be imposed (including for "spying") with only a limited means of appeal. And lest we forget, only non-Americans are held at Guantánamo. The prisoners do not get full American justice - they get Guantánamo.

Guantánamo's kangaroo courts are a far cry from real trials and legal challenges in the US mainland courts (the real courts) may yet expose their patchwork quasi-legal processes as unfair, unworkable and unconstitutional.

Legally, then, Guantánamo is massive failure. It is also politically unpopular as never before. It has dragged the US human rights reputation through the mud and undermined global efforts to promote common human rights standards from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe.

Six years on many people - in this country and around the world - are deeply disturbed by the dangerous experiment of justice Guantánamo-style. Yes, the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were terrible crimes and the US government had a duty to bring the perpetrators to justice. But in sidestepping its own Constitution, in navigating around centuries of US and international laws, and in announcing that its Camp X-Ray prisoners were neither criminal suspects or prisoners of war, the US administration effectively tore up the rulebook. Rather than using tried and tested legal processes, the US stitched together bits and pieces from the laws of "war" and the laws of criminal justice. The outcome has been the creation of a freakish new legal creature: Guantánamo Bay. It's neither one thing nor another, a Frankenstein's monster of justice.

And Guantánamo has torn lives apart. Some 80% of the detainees still stranded at the camp are held in solitary confinement. Many of them are suffering from mental illnesses and there have been scores of suicide attempts (four men are now dead). Families in Britain and in countries around the world have struggled to find out what was happening to their loved ones, and what would become of them.

Amazingly enough, then, six years since this all began, the US has performed the unlikely feat of making Cuba synonymous with American human rights abuse, not with Cuban human rights abuse.

A few more men are out of Guantánamo, yes, but there's still little cause for celebration. I'll raise a small cheer the day the camp closes. I'll raise a far louder one when the US admits that this whole experiment with justice has been a disastrous mistake.

accuracy

26-12-2007, 10:33 AM

CIA chief to drag White House into torture cover-up storm

From The Sunday TimesDecember 23, 2007
http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3087293.ece

THE CIA chief who ordered the destruction of secret videotapes recording the harsh interrogation of two top Al-Qaeda suspects has indicated he may seek immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying before the House intelligence committee.

Jose Rodriguez, former head of the CIA’s clandestine service, is determined not to become the fall guy in the controversy over the CIA’s use of torture, according to intelligence sources.

It has emerged that at least four White House staff were approached for advice about the tapes, including David Addington, a senior aide to Dick Cheney, the vice-president, but none has admitted to recommending their destruction.

Vincent Cannistraro, former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, said it was impossible for Rodriguez to have acted on his own: “If everybody was against the decision, why in the world would Jose Rodriguez – one of the most cautious men I have ever met – have gone ahead and destroyed them?”

The tapes recorded the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, two suspected Al-Qaeda leaders, over hundreds of hours while they were held in secret “ghost” prisons. According to testimony from a former CIA officer, Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding, a form of torture that simulates drowning, and “broke” after 35 seconds. He is believed to have been interrogated in Thailand. The tapes were destroyed in 2005. Both men are now held in Guantanamo Bay.

The House intelligence committee has subpoenaed Rodriguez to appear for a hearing on January 16. Last week the CIA began opening its files to congressional investigators. Silvestre Reyes, a Democrat who is chairing the committee, has said he was “not looking for scapegoats” – a hint to Rodriguez that he would like him to talk.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer, believes the scandal could reach deep into the White House. “The CIA and Jose Rodriguez look bad, but he’s probably the least culpable person in the process. He didn’t wake up one day and decide, ‘I’m going to destroy these tapes.’ He checked with a lot of people and eventually he is going to get his say.”

Johnson says Rodriguez got his fingers burnt during the Iran-contra scandal while working for the CIA in Latin America in the 1980s. Even then he sought authorisation from senior officials. But when summoned to the FBI for questioning, he was told Iran-contra was “political – get your own lawyer”.

He learnt his lesson and recently appointed Robert Bennett, one of Washington’s most skilled lawyers, to handle the case of the destroyed interrogation tapes. “He has been starting to get his story out and was smart to get Bennett,” said Johnson.

The Justice Department has launched its own inquiry into the destruction of the tapes. It emerged yesterday that the CIA had misled members of the 9-11 Commission by not disclosing the existence of the tapes, in potential violation of the law. President George W Bush said last week he could not recall learning about the tapes before being briefed about them on December 6 by Michael Hayden, the CIA director.

“It looks increasingly as though the decision was made by the White House,” said Johnson. He believes it is “highly likely” that Bush saw one of the videos, as he was interested in Zubaydah’s case and received frequent updates on his interrogation from George Tenet, the CIA director at the time.

It has emerged that the CIA did preserve two videotapes and an audiotape of detainee interrogations conducted by a foreign government, which may have been relevant to the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the Al-Qaeda conspirator.

The CIA told a federal judge in 2003 that no such recordings existed but has now retracted that testimony. One of the tapes could show the interrogation of Ramzi Binalshibh, a September 11 conspirator, who was allegedly handed to Jordan for questioning.

Video: Joe Biden on the torture tape scandal and Iran

Video: Senator Kennedy on CIA tape destruction

Video: Reuters report on CIA torture tape destruction

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27-12-2007, 11:58 AM

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28-12-2007, 05:43 AM

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04-01-2008, 08:57 AM

Federal appeals court stays Guantanamo detainee transfer to Algeria

January 01, 2008
Mike Rosen-Molina
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/01/federal-appeals-court-stays-guantanamo.php

JURIST] A US federal appeals court on Monday temporarily blocked the transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainee Ahmed Belbacha [BBC profile] to his home country of Algeria while it considers Belbacha's request for a permanent bar against the transfer. Belbacha has been cleared for release from Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], but he argues that he will be tortured and perhaps killed if returned to Algeria.

The US Supreme Court in August denied [PDF text] Belbacha's emergency request to stay his transfer to Algeria [JURIST report]. Belbacha filed the emergency application for a stay [PDF text] after the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit lifted an earlier stay [order, PDF; JURIST report] on Belbacha's transfer. The appeals court instead put the case on an expedited schedule. US District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer ruled [AP report] in July the court lacked jurisdiction to consider the challenge. AP has more.

accuracy

05-01-2008, 04:25 AM

REFUSE/ALL - Have A Happy Holiday In Guantanamo Bay

About This Video

Added: October 14, 2006

Purpose made, and hopefully hard hitting, video for REFUSE/ALL's title track from their debut album .

Runtime 04.17 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjSFcPgtjSE&NR=1

accuracy

10-01-2008, 11:45 AM

N.M. National Guard, including Cruces attorney, headed to Guantanamo Bay

The Associated Press
Article Launched: 01/07/2008
http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_7903731

ALBUQUERQUE — Eighty New Mexico National Guard members are heading to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for a yearlong deployment to join a joint task force running the base.
The base, known as Gitmo, holds detainees who are waiting for legal proceedings to determine whether they are considered enemy combatants, the Albuquerque Journal reported in a copyright story Saturday.

The base held about 275 detainees as of late December, according to the Department of Defense.

"I think we get front-row seats to history," said Greg Zanetti, the New Mexico Army National Guard Brigadier General who will be second-in-command at Guantanamo, reporting to a Navy admiral. Zanetti sold his business as a financial adviser to go on the mission.

He is referring to the legal proceedings set to begin this spring and involving the detainees, most of whom have been held for years without formal charges.

Those not deemed enemy combatants in the Combatant Status Review Tribunals may be released. Those who are determined to be enemy combatants will receive annual administrative reviews to decide whether they should be released, transferred or detained longer.

"These are the Nuremberg trials," Zanetti said, referring to the post World War II trials of Nazi leaders. "You can imagine all the human rights groups who are all going to be there."
The Guard members are scheduled to deploy Jan. 14 to Fort Lewis, Wash., for classroom instruction before heading to Guantanamo Bay.

The deployments are the first for many of the Guard members, and Zanetti said they are excited about it, despite the disruption it will mean for their families.

"We're taking a lot of rank — lieutenant colonels and majors and sergeants," Zanetti said. "It's a very high-profile, in-the-news mission."

Two attorneys are among the group, but neither will be part of the prosecution or defense involving the detainees.

Alfred Perez, a lieutenant colonel who prosecutes immigration, drug and child pornography cases for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Las Cruces, will be doing legal assistance and military justice.

Joe Romero, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Albuquerque who comes from Las Vegas, N.M., will be responsible for background checks of visitors, who must fly in to the base's sole air strip.

Zanetti said the Guard members must be ready for the tribunals to start in March.

"Whether the attorneys are ready is a whole other question," he said.

accuracy

11-01-2008, 10:59 AM

11th January 2008
http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=450629

David Hicks has been released but Amnesty International says Australians should not forget Guantanamo Bay where at least 275 detainees are held indefinitely and without charge.

About 300 protesters gathered in central Sydney, clad in orange jumpsuits and white face masks, in a symbol of silent protest against the US detention facility.

Similar protest rallies to mark Guantanamo Bay's sixth year of operation will be held in capital cities across the globe over the next 24 hours, culminating in the US capital Washington DC.

"We're commemorating the sixth anniversary of the first transfers to Guantanamo Bay," Amnesty spokeswoman Katie Wood said in Sydney.

"What we have represented here is 275 of the detainees who are still there, and of course Guantanamo is just the tip of the ice berg."

Hundreds more people were held in Afghanistan's Bagram air base and in United States-backed "secret" detention camps, in breach of United Nations conventions, Ms Wood said.

"What we're opposing is the whole of the US's detention policies and practices in the context of the `war on terror`, and we're calling for human rights to be restored to the detainees."

Ms Wood said 80 per cent of those detained in Guantanamo Bay were held permanently in isolation cells, in breach of the UN convention on torture.

"And let's not forget the ones who are held in secret detention - victims of the practice of rendition, people who are illegally abducted and transferred to secret detention facilities," she said.

"It's unlawful, it's flouting human rights in the most egregious way and has done so for six years now."

Ms Wood said Guantanamo Bay's total detainee count over the six years was estimated at about 800 people, yet only three had faced a formal charge, including Australian David Hicks.

Hicks was held in Guantanamo Bay for more than five years without trial, before he pleaded guilty to a charge of providing material support for terrorism at a US military commission hearing in March last year.

He was sentenced to seven years imprisonment with all but nine months suspended on a plea bargain, which also allowed him to serve the remainder of his sentence in South Australia.

Hicks, who was captured among Taliban troops in Afghanistan in late 2001, was released from custody on December 29 last year.

Terry Hicks, David's father, told Macquarie Radio that the majority of Guantanamo Bay's detainees were of "no harm to anybody".

"Most of those people incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay, they (US authorities) have never come out with any proper evidence against them. They haven't had a chance to defend themselves," Mr Hicks said.

"The Americans, I think, would be very embarrassed if most of these people faced a proper court system to find out most of them are no harm to anybody."

AAP

accuracy

13-01-2008, 09:22 AM

Guantanamo detainees are not human beings - US judges

Fri, 01/11/2008
http://presscue.com/node/39281

On the sixth anniversary of the imprisonment of detainees at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, a United States judge threw out lawsuit brought by four former British detainees against Donald Rumsfeld and senior military officers for ordering torture and religious abuse, ruling that th the detainees are not "Persons" under U.S. Law, which according to another judge, means that they are less than "human beings".

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit also ruled that torture is a "foreseeable consequence" of military detention in dismissing the action brought by Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal Al-Harith, who spent more than two years in Guantánamo and were repatriated to the U.K. in 2004.

In a 43-page opinion, Circuit Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson found that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a statute that applies by its terms to all “persons” did not apply to detainees at Guantánamo, effectively ruling that the detainees are not persons at all for purposes of U.S. law.

The Court also dismissed the detainees’ claims under the Alien Tort Statute and the Geneva Conventions, finding defendants immune on the basis that “torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military’s detention of suspected enemy combatants,” and ruled that even if torture and religious abuse were illegal, defendants were immune under the Constitution because they could not have reasonably known that detainees at Guantánamo had any constitutional rights.

Judge Janice Rogers Brown agreed with the result but attacked the majority for using a definition of person “at odds with its plain meaning.”

“There is little mystery that a ‘person’ is an individual human being…as distinguished from an animal or thing.” she added and concluded that majority’s decision “leaves us with the unfortunate and quite dubious distinction of being the only court to declare those held at Guantánamo are not ‘person[s].’ This is a most regrettable holding in a case where plaintiffs have alleged high-level U.S. government officials treated them as less than human.”

“We are disappointed that the D.C. Circuit has not held Secretary Rumsfeld and the chain of command accountable for torture at Guantánamo," Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, co-counsel on the case, commented. "The entire world recognizes that torture and religious humiliation are never permissible tools for a government. We hope that the Supreme Court will make clear that this country does not tolerate torture or abuse by an unfettered executive.”

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16-01-2008, 09:19 AM

By Damien McElroy in Riyadh
Last Updated: 2:29am GMT 16/01/2008

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/15/wsaudi115.xml

President George W Bush will face a frosty reception today during a visit to Saudi Arabia amid anger at America's continued detention of the kingdom's citizens at Guantanamo Bay.

The US president arrived in Riyadh last night on the latest stage of his tour of the Middle East and was treated to the lavish personal hospitality of King Abdullah.

But talks today will be soured by the demand that the prison camp's remaining 13 Saudi detainees should be sent home at once - a plea by Prince Nayef, the interior minister, that was made public before Mr Bush arrived.

Saudi officials said growing public anger, fuelled by the media, had forced Riyadh to put Guantanamo at the heart of preparations for President Bush's first visit.

"I think the issue has been mishandled in bilateral terms," said Jamal Khashoggi, editor-in-chief of the Watan newspaper and a close aide to the royal family.

"It should have been resolved before the visit. Instead it's still in the media even though it's nearly resolved and already agreed that they will come back."

In a fresh indication of the damage that Guantanamo's extraordinary judicial set-up has inflicted on the US, particularly among strategic allies, America's most senior military official said yesterday that the camp should be shut.

Admiral Michael Mullin, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said: "I'd like to see it shut down. I believe that from the standpoint of how it reflects on us that it's been pretty damaging."

Intense lobbying by Saudi Arabia has resulted in the release of more than 100 of its nationals, almost half in the past four months.

Riyadh's strong relationship with Washington has been a factor in the rapid action. By contrast only 13 have returned to Yemen, which has poor relations with the US.

There are currently 277 detainees at Guantanamo, down from a peak of more than 600.

Prince Nayef greets returnees and offered $2,700 (£1,350) to 55 released detainees to celebrate the holy month of Ramadan last year. The ex-detainees, as well as extremists who seek amnesty after returning from fighting for al-Qa'eda abroad, go through an official "rehabilitation" programme.

The determination to put pressure on the US was reinforced by Bandar Haggar, the head of the National Human Rights Society, who called for the men to be returned. "This issue has had a negative impact on US-Saudi relations for six years," he said.

After a night at Riyadh Palace the US president is to spend today at King Abdullah's ranch. Saudi officials said the gesture is a return courtesy for a 2005 stay by the then Crown Prince Abdullah at Mr Bush's ranch in Texas.

accuracy

16-01-2008, 09:32 AM

Monday January 14, 2008 10:46 AM

By ROBERT BURNS

AP Military Writer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7223489,00.html

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - The chief of the U.S. military said he favors closing the prison here as soon as possible because he believes negative publicity worldwide about treatment of terrorist suspects has been ``pretty damaging'' to the image of the United States.

``I'd like to see it shut down,'' Adm. Mike Mullen said Sunday in an interview with three reporters who toured the detention center with him on his first visit since becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last October.

His visit came two days after the sixth anniversary of the prison's opening in January 2002. He stressed that a closure decision was not his to make and that he understands there are numerous complex legal questions the administration believes would have to be settled first, such as where to move prisoners.

The admiral also noted that some of Guantanamo Bay's prisoners are deemed high security threats. During a tour of Camp Six, which is a high-security facility holding about 100 prisoners, Mullen got a firsthand look at some of the cells; one prisoner glared at Mullen through his narrow cell window as U.S. officers explained to the Joint Chiefs chairman how they maintain almost-constant watch over each prisoner.

Mullen, whose previous visit was in December 2005 as head of the U.S. Navy, noted that President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates also have spoken publicly in favor of closing the prison. But Mullen said he is unaware of any active discussion in the administration about how to do it.

``I'm not aware that there is any immediate consideration to closing Guantanamo Bay,'' Mullen said.

Asked why he thinks Guantanamo Bay, commonly dubbed Gitmo, should be closed, and the prisoners perhaps moved to U.S. soil, Mullen said, ``More than anything else it's been the image - how Gitmo has become around the world, in terms of representing the United States.''

Critics have charged that detainees have been mistreated in some cases and that the legal conditions of their detentions are not consistent with the rule of law.

``I believe that from the standpoint of how it reflects on us that it's been pretty damaging,'' Mullen said, speaking in a small boat that ferried him to and from the detention facilities across a glistening bay.

He said he was encouraged to hear from U.S. officers here that the prison population has shrunk by about 100 over the past year, to 277. At one time the population exceeded 600. Hundreds have been returned to their home countries but U.S. officials say some are such serious security threats that they cannot be released for the foreseeable future. Only four are currently facing military trials after being formally charged with crimes.

Mullen also walked through an almost-completed top-security courtroom where the military expects to hold trials beginning this spring for the 14 ``high-value'' terror suspects who had previously been held at secret CIA prisons abroad. He was told that audio of the proceedings might be piped to locations in the United States where families of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and perhaps others, could hear them.

Mullen's predecessor, retired Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, is a defendant in a lawsuit by four British men who allege they were systematically tortured throughout their two years of detention at this remote outpost. On Friday a federal appeals court in Washington ruled against the four men.

It was six years ago that Guantanamo Bay received its first prisoners, suspected terrorists picked up on the battlefields of Afghanistan as the Taliban government was being ousted from power.

The facility is on land leased from the Cuban government under terms of a long-term deal that predates the rule of President Fidel Castro. It is commanded by Navy Rear Adm. Mark Buzby.

Gates, at a Dec. 21 news conference at the Pentagon, noted the administration's failure to settle the closure debate.

``I think that the principal obstacle has been resolving a lot of the legal issues associated with closing Guantanamo and what you do with the prisoners when they come back (to the United States),'' Gates said.

``Because of some of these legal concerns - some of which are shared by people in both parties on Capitol Hill - there has not been much progress in this respect,'' he added.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration considered Guantanamo Bay a suitable place to hold men suspected of links to the Taliban and al-Qaida, contending that U.S. laws do not apply there because Guantanamo is not part of the United States. Lawyers for the detainees have challenged that interpretation ever since.

Before he finished his Guantanmo Bay visit and flew to Key West, Fla., Mullen got a look at a site on the eastern shore of Guantanamo Bay - opposite the terrorist detention center - where the U.S. military is building a new refugee camp that would be used in the event of a sudden, major influx of refugees in the area. Initially the camp will be designed to hold 10,000 refugees and is scheduled to be finished by June.

accuracy

19-01-2008, 07:52 AM

Canada puts U.S., Guantanamo and Israel on torture 'watch list'

Canada has put the United States and Israel on a torture watch list, according to CTV. A Canadian government document cites the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and interrogation techniques that include "forced nudity, isolation, and sleep deprivation."

Reuters says that a U.S. Embassy spokeswomen in Ottawa said she was looking into the report. The Israeli embassy had no immediate response.

A Foreign Affairs Department training manual, titled "Torture Awareness Workshop Reference Materials," provides legal definitions of torture and instructs Canadian consular officials how to detect signs of abuse among detainees held abroad. It lists Guantanamo Bay and the United States, along with Afghanistan, China, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

The manual was inadvertently released to lawyers working on a lawsuit involving abuse of Afghanistan detainees by Canadians, the Canadian Press reported.

One Canadian prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, Omar Khadr, is due before a U.S. military commission in early February. The Pentagon has charged him with "murder by an unprivileged belligerent" for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed U.S. Delta Force soldier Christopher Speer in Afghanistan in 2002. Khadar was 15 at the time. Read the full charges here (pdf).

CBC News and the Toronto Star also picked up the report.

Posted by Michael Winter at 07:12 PM/ET, January 17, 2008 in Americas, Terrorism | Permalink
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/01/canada-puts-us.html

accuracy

21-01-2008, 09:57 AM

Check out the previous post, what a turn-around!- accuracy.

Canada REMOVES U.S., Israel from torture watchlist

Sat Jan 19, 2008 2:03pm EST

By David Ljunggren
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1762987120080119?rpc=64&sp=true

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's foreign ministry, responding to pressure from close allies, said on Saturday it would remove the United States and Israel from a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured.

Both nations expressed unhappiness after it emerged they had been listed in a document that formed part of a training course manual on torture awareness given to Canadian diplomats.

Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier said he regretted the embarrassment caused by the public disclosure of the manual, which also classified some U.S. interrogation techniques as torture.

"It contains a list that wrongly includes some of our closest allies. I have directed that the manual be reviewed and rewritten," Bernier said in a statement.

"The manual is neither a policy document nor a statement of policy. As such, it does not convey the government's views or positions."

The document -- made available to Reuters and other media outlets -- embarrassed the minority Conservative government, which is a staunch ally of both the United States and Israel.

U.S. ambassador David Wilkins said the listing was absurd, while the Israeli envoy said he wanted his country removed.

Asked why the two countries had been put on the list, a spokesman for Bernier said: "The training manual purposely raised public issues to stimulate discussion and debate in the classroom."

The government mistakenly gave the document to Amnesty International as part of a court case the rights organization has launched against Ottawa over the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan.

AMPLE EVIDENCE OF ABUSE

Amnesty International Canada, which says it has ample evidence that prisoners are abused both in U.S. and Israeli jails, said it was disappointed by Bernier's announcement.

"When it comes to an issue like torture, the government's main concern should not be embarrassing allies," Alex Neve, the group's secretary-general, told Reuters. The U.S. embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Under "definition of torture," the document lists U.S. interrogation techniques such as forced nudity, isolation, sleep deprivation and blindfolding prisoners.

It also mentions the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where a Canadian man is being held.

The man, Omar Khadr, has been in Guantanamo Bay for five years. He is accused of killing a U.S. soldier during a clash in Afghanistan in 2002, when he was 15.

Other countries on the watch list include Syria, China, Iran, Afghanistan, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.

The foreign ministry launched the torture awareness course after Ottawa was criticized for the way it handled the case of Canadian engineer Maher Arar, who was deported from the United States to Syria in 2002.

Arar says he was tortured repeatedly during the year he spent in Damascus prisons. An official inquiry into the affair showed Canadian diplomats had not been trained to detect whether detainees might have been abused.

(Editing by Philip Barbara)

accuracy

23-01-2008, 10:02 AM

http://www.allhatnocattle.net/Canadian_Minister_Maxime_Bernier_Torture.jpg

accuracy

23-01-2008, 11:12 AM

By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jan 22, 6:11 PM ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080122/ap_on_re_us/padilla_terror_charges

MIAMI - Jose Padilla, an American once accused of plotting with al-Qaida to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb," was sentenced Tuesday to a relatively lenient 17-year prison term on unrelated terror support charges.

Prosecutors, who long ago dropped the "dirty bomb" claim that made Padilla infamous, had sought life sentences for Padilla and two co-defendants, but a federal judge said authorities never even proved Padilla was a terrorist.

"There is no evidence that these defendants personally maimed, kidnapped or killed anyone in the United States or elsewhere," U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke said. "There was never a plot to overthrow the United States government."

Cooke took into account the harsh, isolated conditions Padilla faced during the 3 1/2 years he was held in a brig, without charge, as an enemy combatant after his 2002 arrest. Defense lawyers claim he was tortured by the military, but U.S. officials denied that and Cooke never used the word torture.

Padilla, 37, and co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun, 45, and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, 46, were convicted in August of terrorism conspiracy and material support after a three-month trial. Jurors concluded they were part of a support cell that sent recruits, money and supplies to Islamic extremists worldwide, including al-Qaida.

Padilla was billed as a "star recruit," while Hassoun was the recruiter and Jayyousi served as a financier and propagandist in the cell's early years, according to trial testimony.

Padilla was added to the case in late 2005, just as his legal challenges to continued detention without criminal charge were reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. Padilla was declared an enemy combatant a month after his highly publicized arrest on the purported radioactive "dirty bomb" plot, but those allegations were quietly discarded.

The strongest evidence in the case was a form Padilla completed in 2000 to attend an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan that was recovered by the CIA shortly after the U.S. invasion in late 2001. Prosecutors repeatedly invoked the al-Qaida connection and used a video of an old Osama bin Laden interview in an attempt to link the three to the world's most notorious terrorist.

Ultimately, Cooke said at the sentencing hearing, there was not enough evidence linking Padilla and the other two men to specific acts of terrorism or victims.

Sentencing guidelines had suggested a range of 30 years to life for all three, but Cooke used her discretion to go below even the minimum. Padilla got 17 years and four months; Hassoun, 15 years and eight months; and Jayyousi, 12 years and eight months. Their prison time will probably be even less counting months already served in pretrial detention and automatic reductions for good behavior, their lawyers said.

Cooke said life sentences should be reserved for the most serious terrorist offenders, such as Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui or Terry Nichols, convicted in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Her decision means Padilla would be released when he is about 50.

"I feel good about everything. This is amazing," said Padilla's mother, Estela Lebron. "He's not a terrorist. ... He's just a human being."

All three men are likely to appeal their convictions and sentences, their lawyers said. But even they were surprised at the leniency shown by Cooke. "It is definitely a defeat for the government," said Hassoun lawyer Jeanne Baker.

The Justice Department issued a short statement praising the efforts of prosecutors and investigators involved in the long-running case, which centered on tens of thousands of FBI wiretap intercepts collected over eight years.

"Thanks to their efforts, the defendants' North American support cell has been dismantled and can no longer send money and jihadist recruits to conflicts overseas," said Kenneth L. Wainstein, assistant attorney general for national security.

Padilla's lawyers tried to get the case thrown out by claiming his treatment during his time at the brig in Charleston, S.C., amounted to torture, which U.S. officials have repeatedly denied. His attorneys say he was forced to stand in painful stress positions, given LSD or other drugs as "truth serum," deprived of sleep and even a mattress for extended periods and subjected to loud noises, extreme heat and cold and noxious odors.

Cooke didn't mention specifics, but concluded Padilla suffered "harsh treatment" and "extreme environmental stresses" while at the brig. She did not give him direct credit for the time served but did use it as one rationale for a lower sentence.

Padilla might have gotten even less time if he did not have a criminal record dating to his youth as a Chicago gang member. He converted to Islam while in prison and eventually met Hassoun at a mosque in the suburb of Sunrise, then went to Egypt in 1998.

Padilla's arrest was initially portrayed by the Bush administration as an important victory in the months after the 2001 terrorist attacks, and later was seen as a symbol of the administration's zeal to prevent homegrown terrorism.

Civil liberties groups and Padilla's lawyers called his detention unconstitutional for someone born in this country and contended that he was only charged criminally because the Supreme Court appeared poised to order him either charged or released.

Attorneys for Hassoun and Jayyousi argued that any assistance they provided overseas was for peaceful purposes and to help persecuted Muslims in violent countries. But FBI agents testified that their charitable work was a cover for violent jihad, which they frequently discussed in code using words such as "tourism" and "football."

___

Associated Press writer Lisa Orkin Emmanuel contributed to this report.

accuracy

25-01-2008, 06:38 AM

Steven Edwards , Canwest News Service
Published: Wednesday, January 23, 2008

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=e154f390-ebf9-428f-9748-ba69ba8ba9ec&k=20940

UNITED NATIONS - The Pentagon has nixed a bid to have a child-soldier expert from the United Nations attend an upcoming hearing for Omar Khadr, it emerged Wednesday.

It has also refused permission for a leading French human rights jurist to attend the hearing, which will focus on arguments that international law on child soldiers proscribes Khadr's prosecution as a war criminal.

The rulings coincided with a French government call for Washington to drop charges against the Canadian terror suspect, who was 15 when U.S. forces seized him on an Afghan battlefield in July 2002.

The developments could lead to new pressure on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to speak out against in the proceedings, which are taking place before a military commission at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"It's difficult to see how Prime Minister Harper can defend the military commission as an 'appropriate judicial process' when the U.S. refuses to let the leading international experts watch," Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, Khadr's lead military defence attorney, said from Washington.

"The prime minister has been talking about allowing the process to work, but here you have the Department of Defence not letting the leading child soldier advocate in the world watch as the U.S. litigates this question of whether international law permits Omar's prosecution."

Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict, raised concerns about Khadr's case when she met in November with a senior State Department official in Washington.

Lawyers for Khadr, now 21, subsequently requested the Pentagon allow a senior technical officer from her office attend the upcoming hearing, slated for Feb. 4.

At the hearing, the lawyers will ask the military judge to dismiss war crimes charges and other against their client on grounds child soldiers are guaranteed "special protection" under a "protocol" - ratified by the United States in 2002 - of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

If the motion is refused, Kuebler says that Khadr, the only westerner remaining in Guantanamo, faces the prospect of becoming the first child soldier to be tried for war crimes.

"We hope that people make note of the fact that this process, that the prime minister places such faith in, won't even allow it to be viewed by people who know something about the issue," he said.

The French intervention on Khadr's behalf came after the Pentagon refused permission for Robert Badinter, a high-profile French criminal lawyer who also serves in the senate, to travel to Guantanamo.

"We consider that any child associated with an armed conflict is a victim and should be treated as such," French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani told reporters in Paris.

"As a minor at the time of the events, Mr. Khadr must, therefore, be given special treatment, a point on which there is universal consensus."

The Pentagon did not comment on the rulings, but has granted access in the past to outside observers, including representatives of the monitoring group Human Rights Watch and the Canadian Foreign Affairs Department.

Coomaraswamy's office was still seeking guidance from the UN's legal department about whether to press to attend the hearing when the Pentagon turned down the request Khadr's lawyers had made on the world body's behalf.

"We cannot interfere in the proceedings of a national court, but we will continue to raise the (wider) issue with the State Department and suggest that care be taken," said Laurence Gerard, spokeswoman for Coomaraswamy.

Barring any successful motions to dismiss, Khadr's trial is expected to begin in May. The son of Ahmed Said Khadr, a former financier for Osama bin Laden who was killed in 2003 during a raid on suspected terrorists in Pakistan, Khadr is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. army sergeant. He has been detained at Guantanamo since the fall of 2002.

© Canwest News Service 2008

accuracy

02-06-2009, 12:12 PM

By VOA News
29 May 2009

The Obama administration is strongly denying a British newspaper report that says images of apparent rape and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners are among photographs that the U.S. government is trying to prevent from being made public.

Britain's Daily Telegraph quoted retired U.S. Army Major General Antonio Taguba as saying the pictures show "torture, abuse, rape and every indecency," and that he supports President Barack Obama's decision not to release them.

Taguba published a report in 2004 on the abuse scandal at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. The scandal was triggered by the publication of photos of inmates being abused by smiling guards.

http://www.voanews.com/english/images/DOD_Bryan_Whitman_175_0.jpg
Pentagon spokesman Brian Whitman (file photo)

U.S. Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman Thursday said the Telegraph showed "an inability to get the facts right" and completely mischaracterized the images described in the article. Whitman said none of the photos in question depicts the images described in the newspaper article.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs also dismissed the British newspaper report.

President Obama has said photographs of detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan that he objects to releasing are "not particularly sensational" but would do no good if publicized.

Mr. Obama said the photos were investigated because they depict behavior that does not conform to U.S. Army rules of conduct. He said the people responsible for such treatment have been identified and dealt with.

The president also said he has asked his legal team to fight the release because he is concerned that the pictures would affect the safety of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The American Civil Liberties Union said recently that the Defense Department agreed to release the photos by May 28. The ACLU sued in 2004 to have the photographs released.

The previous Bush administration also refused to release the photos, saying they may violate the country's obligations to the detainees under the Geneva Conventions.

In 2004, published photos of U.S. soldiers abusing and humiliating detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq sparked outrage around the world. The scandal led to 11 U.S. soldiers being sentenced to prison terms of up to 10 years.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-05-29-voa2.cfm

accuracy

03-06-2009, 12:31 PM

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/afp/20090601/capt.photo_1243891483128-1-0.jpg

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer Nedra Pickler, Associated Press Writer – Mon Jun 1, 4:03 pm ET
WASHINGTON – A federal judge ordered the United States on Monday to publicly reveal unclassified versions of its allegations and evidence justifying the continued imprisonment of more than 100 detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay.

The Justice Department had been filing unclassified versions of its legal documents under seal, so that they could only be seen by judges, attorneys and government officials. Attorneys for the detainees were able to share the documents with their clients and witnesses who would agree to rules restricting the information's disclosure.

Department officials said the practice was necessary to protect national security after they discovered that some unclassified records mistakenly contained some classified information. The department had said the documents were only sealed temporarily while they could be more carefully reviewed for classified information.

Attorneys for the detainees said the secrecy made it harder for them to prepare for upcoming hearings and that some witnesses would not agree to the court's secrecy rules. The Associated Press, The New York Times and USA Today had joined the fight, arguing that the government was keeping valuable information from the public that has a right to monitor the legal process.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan sided with the detainees' attorneys and the media, saying the public has a right to access the records.

"The issue of what to do with the detainees at Guantanamo Bay remains a source of great public interest and debate," Hogan wrote.

"Providing the public with access to the charges levied against these detainees, as detailed in the factual returns, ensures greater oversight of the detentions and these proceedings," he said. "As long as public access does not come at the expense of the litigation interests of petitioners or national security, the court believes the public has a common law right to access the returns."

The judge ordered the Justice Department to publicly file its unclassified records or request what specific information it wants to keep protected, marking the exact words with a colored highlighter, by July 29.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said the ruling is under review and that the documents were never meant to be sealed indefinitely. He said the government has limited resources for classification and was using them to create declassified versions of the documents that detainees' attorneys could share with their clients and witnesses.

Dave Tomlin, AP's associate general counsel, applauded the ruling as "a very welcome affirmation of what we think was clear from the start."

"A court doesn't have to accept the government's word that keeping court records secret protects important security interests," Tomlin said. "The government must try to prove it, and it's the court's job to decide if they've succeeded."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_guantanamo_documents;_ylt=AjNNCI45V.amNsDJmmL8K 64DW7oF

accuracy

03-06-2009, 12:36 PM

A federal judge has ordered the release of 17 Uighurs, Chinese Muslims, from the Guantánamo detention camp. But they're still there, and on Monday they staged a protest for visiting journalists.

BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- A group of Muslims from China awaiting a court-ordered release staged a self-styled protest inside their prison camp Monday, waving signs demanding their freedom written in crayon on their Pentagon-issued art supplies.

''We are the Uighurs,'' said one sign. ``We are being oppressed in prison though we had been announced innocent.''

Another: ``We need to freedom.''

The U.S. government has for months been seeking a nation to offer asylum to some 17 Uighurs with Chinese citizenship who fear persecution and perhaps torture if they are returned to their communist-controlled homeland.

Attorney General Eric Holder has said he was willing to resettle some in the United States. But some members of Congress have rebelled, casting them as terrorists and creating a deadlock on the future of the men whom a federal judge ordered released from these remote prison camps in October 2008.

Instead, the military moved the men to a small razor-wire ringed compound called Camp Iguana, away from the 220 foreign captives here still held as enemy combatants. As detainees approved for release, they have been receiving increasingly greater liberties -- such as weekly telephone calls, takeout fried chicken and pizza and a wooden hut set aside to serve as a mosque.

BRIEF PROTEST

Monday, they staged the polite protest for about five minutes for visiting reporters before guards hustled the journalists away.

''As you can see, they are pretty much free men,'' said a Navy chief who supervises sailors guarding the men at the half-acre compound. He called the protest ''their own doing,'' and permitted a dozen reporters visiting the prison to film the signs.

Unclear Monday evening was how much of the video would survive a censor's review.

RISING TENSION

Frustrations had been building at Camp Iguana across days of visits by both attorneys and reporters seeking to document what may prove to be the last days of the controversial prison camps, which President Barack Obama has ordered emptied by Jan. 22.

At one point Monday, one of the Uighur men called out: ``Obama didn't release us. Why?''

Last week, the group approached a visiting TV crew and asked to deliver an oral statement. Guards waved them off, saying that U.S. military censors would destroy any such images.

The U.S. military says it seizes and destroys photos of detainees, even those in which the captives pose for news photographers, under an interpretation of the Geneva Conventions that shields prisoners of war from public humiliation.

Prison camp commanders have been seeking to afford the Uighurs greater freedoms short of giving them the run of the 45-square-mile base that has a port, airstrip, harbor and school system for sailors' children.

For example, the military has ordered 20 laptop computers to let the men set up a virtual computer lab and acquire some DVD-driven high technology skills in anticipation of their release.

NOT ENOUGH

But the measures have not been enough for the Uighurs, who belong to a movement that seeks independence and religious freedoms in China.

Their lawyers have argued for years that they admire American democracy and deserve to be resettled on U.S. soil. A Lutheran group in the Washington, D.C. area has offered to help, and religious leaders in Tallahassee, have also offered to sponsor three.

''We were an oppressed nation in China,'' said one sign. ``Now we are being oppressed in America for a second time.''

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/1077014.html

accuracy

03-06-2009, 12:40 PM

Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to closing the detention center for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay and moving some of the detainees to prisons on U.S. soil, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.
By more than 2-1, those surveyed say Guantanamo shouldn't be closed. By more than 3-1, they oppose moving some of the accused terrorists housed there to prisons in their own states.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-06-01-gitmo_N.htm

motleyhoo

06-06-2009, 09:22 AM

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-06-01-gitmo_N.htm

This is because Americans are overwhelmingly stupid, as if being a suspected terrorist is some kind of disease that is going to infect the prison and surrounding areas. These prisons already have inmates that are cold blooded murderers and rapists, and the prisons in question have never had an escape. But it's all about the children. We can't have terrorists running around everywhere hunting down and killing our children. I am seriously embarrassed about just how freaking dumb most people in this country are.

.

luciferhorus

06-06-2009, 04:30 PM

U.S. Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman Thursday said the Telegraph showed "an inability to get the facts right" and completely mischaracterized the images described in the article. Whitman said none of the photos in question depicts the images described in the newspaper article.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs also dismissed the British newspaper report.

Women and Children Raped at Abu Ghraib

I just watched a 20 minute news report on Al Jazeera this morning on this subject. It 'may' be repeated later since Al Jazeera often repeat such reports.

http://www.antiwar.com/photos/perm/ag25.jpg

This story is taking the Islamic media by storm, however it has almost entirely been ignored in the Western mass media.

http://www.antiwar.com/photos/perm/ag23.jpg

According to the AL Jazeera report it appears that the Daily Telegraph article incorrectly reported that the (unreleased) photos in question come from Abu Ghraib; the photos do not exclusively come from Abu Girab, but from a variety of prisons throughout Iraq.

I watched a clip of the White House Press secretary slagging off the Daily Telegraph and stating that the story did not represent the truth. In fact the only aspect of the story which was incorrectly reported was that the photos came from all over Iraq, not just from Abu Ghraib, as the Telegraph stated.

http://www.antiwar.com/photos/perm/ag17.jpg

This led into a 20 minute or so new article interviewing various American 'experts.' It seems that America has something called the 'Graham Secrecy Act' which over-rules the Freedom of Information laws; it seems the US military can legally suppress such photos if it is thought that it will incite hatred against their troops.

Too late.

Al-Jazeera is the major new source which 55% of Muslims use as their first source of TV news information (channel 514 on Murdoch's Sky in Europe).

LL

Lux

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Abu_ghraib_nakedhang_06.jpg

http://judicial-inc.biz/abu-ghraib_sbs21.jpg

http://judicial-inc.biz/abu-ghraib_sbs31.jpg

http://judicial-inc.biz/abu-ghraib_sbs38.jpg

http://judicial-inc.biz/abu-ghraib_sbs62.jpg

http://judicial-inc.biz/abu-ghraib_sbs47.jpg
Terrorists?
http://judicial-inc.biz/abu-ghraib_sbs48.jpg
Child Prisoners in Abu Ghirab.
Unreleased photos allegedly show women and children being raped by US soldiers, according to the Telegraph article.

See also: http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67403

accuracy

07-06-2009, 11:32 AM

Canada refuses US Guantanamo request

By ROB GILLIES – 1 day ago

TORONTO (AP) — Canada has refused a request from the Obama administration to take men cleared for release from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay.

Kory Teneycke, a spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said Friday recent inquiries concerning 17 Chinese Muslims called Uighurs at Guantanamo were rejected.

Teneycke says Canada won't take any detainees. He says they have no connection to Canada and there are security concerns.

U.S. authorities no longer consider the Uighurs enemy combatants but have not been able to find a country willing to accept them and have opposed their release into the United States. The Uighurs fear persecution if they are sent back to China.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hfMU5IxQUM-M2rTFlOLOEl4b_wxwD98KGPUG2

accuracy

07-06-2009, 11:38 AM

Obama: No 'hard commitment' on Guantánamo from Germans

Posted on Friday, 06.05.09

Associated Press
DRESDEN, Germany -- President Barack Obama said Friday the U.S. hasn't asked Germany to take specific detainees from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and that Chancellor Angela Merkel hasn't made any ``hard commitments.''

Obama said his administration is working with the European Union to develop a plan to empty the facility, which Friday held about 239 detainees. The president ordered the prison camps closed by Jan. 22 but he faces persistent questions about where the captives could go.

A task force is examining the detainee case files and has concluded that more than 50 of the men are already cleared to leave.

Obama said he and Merkel discussed the facility but that he hasn't asked Merkel for ''hard commitments'' on detainees, nor has she offered them.

Washington has asked Germany to take a dozen prisoners, although German officials have said most should be resettled in the United States.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/world/story/1082976.html

accuracy

10-06-2009, 11:30 AM

Gov't has 'grave concerns' over potential martyrs

2 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration has grave concerns about allowing terrorism detainees to plead guilty and accept the death penalty.

Senior White House adviser David Axelrod says that giving detainees a chance to make martyrs of themselves by being executed by the U.S. is among those concerns.

A Justice Department task force is considering allowing five detainees accused of planning the Sept. 11 attacks to plead guilty. Those five, being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison, face the death penalty.

In an interview taped for CBS' "Face the Nation," Axelrod said discussions on how to proceed with the detainees are continuing and that Obama has made no decision.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

deem

10-06-2009, 11:59 PM

Wtf!

accuracy

11-06-2009, 12:01 PM

Palau to take Uighur detainees from Guantanamo Bay

By RAY LILLEY, Associated Press Writer Ray Lilley, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jun 10, 5:31 am ET
WELLINGTON, New Zealand – The tropical Pacific island nation of Palau announced Wednesday it will accept up to 17 Chinese Muslims who have languished in legal limbo at Guantanamo Bay despite a Pentagon determination that they are not "enemy combatants."

China's Foreign Ministry had no immediate reaction to the decision by Palau to grant Washington's request to resettle the detainees from China's Uighur minority who had been incarcerated at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba. Palau is one of a handful of countries that does not recognize China and maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

President Johnson Toribiong said Palau was accepting the detainees "as a humanitarian gesture" intended to help them restart their lives. His archipelago, with a population of about 20,000, will accept up to 17 of the detainees subject to periodic review, Toribiong said in a statement released to The Associated Press.

"This is but a small thing we can do to thank our best friend and ally for all it has done for Palau," he said.

A former U.S. trust territory in the Pacific, Palau has retained close ties with the United States since independence in 1994 when it signed a Free Compact of Association with the U.S.

While it is independent, it relies heavily on U.S. aid and is dependent on the United States for its defense. Native-born Palauans are allowed to enter the United States without passports or visas.

The Obama administration sought a solution for the detainees after facing fierce congressional opposition to releasing them on U.S. soil despite a Pentagon determination that they were not "enemy combatants."

Palau, made up of eight main islands plus more than 250 islets, is best known for diving and tourism and is located some 500 miles (800 kilometers) east of the Philippines in the Pacific Ocean.

A federal judge last year ordered the Uighur detainees released into the United States after the Pentagon determined they were not "enemy combatants." But an appeals court halted the order, and they have been in legal limbo ever since.

U.S. officials have not said publicly where the detainees might be sent, but said privately that Palau was a prime candidate for their relocation.

Asked Tuesday about discussions with Palau on the Uighurs, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly declined to comment beyond saying the U.S. is "working closely with our friends and allies regarding resettlement" of detainees at Guantanamo.

Two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. was prepared to give Palau up to $200 million in development, budget support and other assistance in return for accepting the Uighurs and as part of a mutual defense and cooperation treaty that is due to be renegotiated this year.

The U.S. would not send the Uighurs back to China for fear they will be tortured or executed. Beijing says Uighur insurgents are leading an Islamic separatist movement in China's far west and wants those held at Guantanamo to be returned to China.

In 2006, Albania accepted five Uighur detainees from Guantanamo but has since balked at taking others, partly for fear of diplomatic repercussions from China.

The State Department said last week that Daniel Fried, the career diplomat who was named earlier this year to oversee Guantanamo's closure, had visited Palau but offered no details on his mission. Fried has been negotiating with third countries to accept many of the Guantanamo detainees.

Australia and Germany already have Uighur populations, making those countries obvious candidates.

Australia recently agreed to review a request to accept some Uighurs, after twice rejecting it from the United States. Germany has been reluctant to accept any detainees unless the United States takes some, too.

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Devlin Barrett in Washington contributed to this report.

nofuture

12-06-2009, 01:42 AM

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/11/maddow-more-sickening/

Published: June 11, 2009

More ’sickening’ truths about torture soon to be revealed

A crucial CIA Inspector General’s report from May 2004 is expected to reveal some long-hidden truths about the Bush administration’s use of torture.

According to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, “This report is sort of the big kahuna in terms of what we have been waiting to see from the government’s own files on torture. That report, which is long and has been described by people who have seen it as ’sickening,’ apparently stopped the torture program in its tracks.”

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) recently warned in a speech on the floor of the Senate that almost everything we think we know about the Bush administration’s torture program is wrong.

“There has been a campaign of falsehood about this whole sorry episode,” Whitehouse stated. “We’ve been misled about nearly every aspect of this program. … Measured against the information I’ve been able to get access to, the storyline that we have been led to believe … is false in every one of its dimensions.”

Maddow then asked Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff whether the report will fill in the mission information to which Whitehouse referred.

A crucial CIA Inspector General’s report from May 2004 is expected to reveal some long-hidden truths about the Bush administration’s use of torture.

According to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, “This report is sort of the big kahuna in terms of what we have been waiting to see from the government’s own files on torture. That report, which is long and has been described by people who have seen it as ’sickening,’ apparently stopped the torture program in its tracks.”

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) recently warned in a speech on the floor of the Senate that almost everything we think we know about the Bush administration’s torture program is wrong.

“There has been a campaign of falsehood about this whole sorry episode,” Whitehouse stated. “We’ve been misled about nearly every aspect of this program. … Measured against the information I’ve been able to get access to, the storyline that we have been led to believe … is false in every one of its dimensions.”

Maddow then asked Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff whether the report will fill in the mission information to which Whitehouse referred.

accuracy

12-06-2009, 12:28 PM

Gitmo suicide had been prisoners' representative

By ANDREW O. SELSKY – 1 day ago

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Almost five months before he was found dead at Guantanamo Bay, a detainee volunteered to represent prisoners in talks with the military and left his jailhouse for a meeting with the detention camp's most senior commanders. But he never returned — from then on, he was held in the prison's psychiatric ward, a former detainee recalled.

Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh Al Hanashi died in the ward this month in what the military has called an apparent suicide — the fifth since the prison opened and the first on President Barack Obama's watch.

The U.S. military has refused to say how Saleh allegedly killed himself in the closely watched psychiatric ward. But the former detainee, Binyam Mohamed, said it wasn't like him to commit suicide.

"He was patient and encouraged others to be the same," Mohamed said. "He never viewed suicide as a means to end his despair."

Even if it was suicide, Mohamed still classifies the death as "murder, or unlawful killing, whichever way you look at it," saying that the U.S. had caused Saleh to lose hope by locking him up indefinitely without charges.

Mohamed was transferred in February to Britain, which released him. His account, sent to The Associated Press Wednesday by one of his lawyers, provides some details about the dead man's detention for the first time.

Mohamed said Saleh left their high-security Camp 5 jailhouse for a meeting on Jan. 17 with Rear Adm. David Thomas and Army Col. Bruce Vargo. Thomas is the top commander of the military's joint task force that runs the prison and related operations in Cuba. Vargo commands the joint detention group.

It is unclear what happened at the meeting, or if it came off at all. But Mohamed, who himself was asked by the military to be a prisoners' representative but declined, said Saleh never returned to Camp 5 and was instead put into Guantanamo's Behavioral Health Unit, where detainees with mental problems are held and closely monitored.

Asked about the meeting, Guantanamo's spokesman said it is not unusual for detainees to speak with the commanders of the task force and the detention group. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brook DeWalt declined to give details.

"Specific issues related to this detainee will be looked at as part of the ongoing investigation," the spokesman said in an e-mail to AP, adding that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the death.

When he died on June 1, Saleh was one of seven inmates being held in the psychiatric ward, and all had been force-fed, attorney David Remes, whose client was one of the seven, said last week.

DeWalt said it would be inappropriate during the NCIS investigation to comment.

Saleh, a Yemeni, allegedly had fought alongside the Taliban and had been held without charge at Guantanamo since February 2002. While he opposed what he considered abusive treatment of detainees, he "was always very sociable and tried to help resolve issues between the guards and prisoners," said Mohamed.

Attorney Elizabeth Gilson, who represents another detainee at the psychiatric ward, said she heard details about the suicide from her client but cannot divulge them because the information is classified. She described the force-feeding as "abusive and inhumane."

Mohamed, himself force-fed while at Guantanamo, described the experience of being strapped into a "restraint chair" and being fed liquid nutrients through a tube. He remembers one of the nurses as sympathetic.

"While the ... hard tube is forced through your nostril down to your stomach your eyes swell with tears and run down your cheeks," Mohamed wrote. "It's always comforting to hear the nurse say 'Oh don't worry. it's okay that happens to everyone' and wipe off your tears for you. And as the tube goes through the throat, you get the sensation of choking."

Saleh was a long-term hunger striker, but the military said he resumed eating in May.

AP writer Mike Melia contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

accuracy

12-06-2009, 12:44 PM

http://www.bartcop.com/gitmo-in-ny.jpg

accuracy

16-06-2009, 11:52 AM

http://www.allhatnocattle.net/beck_prisoner.jpg

accuracy

16-06-2009, 12:00 PM

Yemen denies Guantanamo inmates heading to Saudi

http://maps.google.com/staticmap?center=15.352029,44.207456&markers=15.352029,44.207456,red&zoom=5&size=186x186&key=ABQIAAAA4nur-ime_GQysVNAB3EOPBSsTL4WIgxhMZ0ZK_kHjwHeQuOD4xTtIva Bhsv7I_yMlYRReNzvEBSUcQ

By AHMED AL-HAJ – 1 day ago

SAN'A, Yemen (AP) — Yemen on Sunday denied reports that it has agreed to a U.S. proposal to transfer almost 100 Yemeni inmates at Guantanamo Bay prison to terrorist rehabilitation centers in Saudi Arabia.

The statement comes days after U.S. officials said they were close to a deal with the two countries. The Yemenis make up the largest national group among the remaining Guantanamo detainees, and determining their fate is key to President Barack Obama's plan to close the prison.

Yemen's Foreign Ministry said the country was still discussing with the U.S. the possibility of transferring the detainees back home. It issued a statement saying the country "denies media reports about the transfer of Yemeni detainees from the prison at Guantanamo to rehabilitation centers in Saudi Arabia."

A Saudi official declined comment Sunday, saying the issue concerns Yemen only.

The U.S. has been hesitant to send the detainees home because of Yemen's history of either releasing extremists or allowing them to escape from prison. U.S. officials have made a strong push for Yemen to endorse the Saudi plan because the kingdom has one of the most successful militant rehabilitation programs.

Negotiations over the fate of the Yemeni inmates have been under way for months, stalled over a Saudi demand that Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh publicly endorse the proposal, U.S. officials have said. Saleh has refused to do so fearing a backlash among his people, the officials said, and, as of late last month, he preferred for Yemen to set up its own rehabilitation centers.

Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo, a Navy detention center that houses suspected terrorists, by early next year. U.S. officials have been searching for places to resettle detainees, lobbying hard with foreign governments. The pace of those efforts picked up last month after Congress said it would prevent detainees, even those cleared of wrongdoing, from being brought to the U.S.

Over the last week alone, the Obama administration transferred 10 detainees out of Guantanamo. Two were sent to Chad and Iraq, one was brought to New York to stand trial in civilian court, four were sent to Bermuda and three to Saudi Arabia.

A deal in principle has been reached with the Pacific island nation of Palau to accept some Chinese Muslims, known as Uighurs. That leaves 229 detainees still at the U.S. military detention center in Cuba.

Hundreds of extremists, including Guantanamo detainees, have gone through the Saudi rehabilitation program, receiving job training, psychological therapy and religious re-education before being sent back to society. The vast majority have not rejoined the fight, according to Saudi officials and terrorism experts.

Yet some have. In February, Saudi Arabia said that 11 former Guantanamo detainees who went through the rehab program were on its government's most wanted terrorist list for their connections to al-Qaida. Among them was Said Ali al-Shihri, who emerged as a leader of Yemen's branch of al-Qaida after being released from the Saudi program last year.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

tothestars

17-06-2009, 09:37 AM

I suggest that those who read this thread take 2 minutes and envision the prisioners walk out free. It is worth a try at least.

always_rebel

17-06-2009, 10:52 PM

I suggest that those who read this thread take 2 minutes and envision the prisioners walk out free. It is worth a try at least.

That's a great idea actually. Why do we keep forgetting to do that? I wonder.

That's what Im going to do right now. Guys walking free. Greeted by families. Waving their hands to cameras. Smiling... :D

accuracy

18-06-2009, 11:17 AM

Spain could take 5 Guantanamo inmates - El Pais

Wed Jun 17, 2009 4:44

MADRID, June 17 (Reuters) - Spain is ready to take between three and five inmates from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, newspaper El Pais reported on Wednesday, citing government officials.

Senior U.S. State Department official Daniel Fried was due to meet officials from the Spanish Foreign Ministry in Madrid on Wednesday to discuss possible relocation of detainees from Guantanamo, Spanish and U.S. embassy officials said.

But they could not confirm the El Pais report about how many if any detainees Spain might be prepared to take. "Spain will study the proposal from the U.S. government with interest and will try to help to solve the issue of Guantanamo, international and local law permitting," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

El Pais reported that Spanish authorities want to discuss who would pay for security for any detainees resettled here, who would not necessarily have any prior links to Spain and would probably have freedom of movement within the country.

The men in question would probably be Syrian and Tunisian citizens, the newspaper reported.

The European Union said on Monday that its member states were ready to help resettle detainees freed from the prison at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba. Italy has agreed to accept three of the prisoners.

Soon after taking office on Jan. 20, U.S. President Barack Obama set a one-year deadline for closing the prison, which holds more than 220 inmates and has been strongly criticised by human rights groups.

Obama has insisted some of the inmates will be sent to prisons in the United States, but he faces strong opposition in Congress.

Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

accuracy

18-06-2009, 11:20 AM

Bermuda protesters denounce Guantanamo decision

Tue Jun 16, 2009

HAMILTON (Reuters) - Hundreds of protesters called for Bermudian Premier Ewart Brown to step down on Tuesday and accused him of acting like a dictator in allowing four Guantanamo prisoners from China to settle on the mid-Atlantic island.
Some 600 people gathered outside Parliament in the island's capital Hamilton, waving banners and chanting "Brown must go" as they marched to the Cabinet office.

Brown emerged from the building and shouted to the booing crowd: "As some of you might know, I grew up in the protest era. This is nothing new to me. I have seen them larger and longer," he said.

Under an agreement with Brown, the United States last week sent to the British territory four members of China's Muslim Uighur minority who had been held at the Guantanamo prison camp long after the U.S. military and courts determined they posed no threat.

The United States said it could not send them to China because they faced persecution there, but U.S. politicians blocked efforts to release them in the United States.

The British government complained that it had not been consulted about the deal and questioned whether Brown had authority to admit the Uighurs.

In Bermuda, opponents who had earlier accused Brown of autocracy also condemned him for acting unilaterally.

Tuesday's protest was aimed not so much at the Uighurs as at Brown for his failure to consult the island's people or governor and his perceived snub of Britain's Queen Elizabeth, whom the governor represents.

Bermuda, a banking center and tourist destination, is Britain's oldest colony and one of the world's wealthiest places.

Janice Battersbee, who described herself as a lifelong supporter of Brown's Progressive Labour Party, stepped up to the microphone when Brown invited the protesters to send a representative to speak.

"The leadership of this country seems to be on a course heading toward dictatorship that the majority of Bermudians are no longer willing to tolerate," Battersbee said.

"This latest action is the final straw. We are fed up, disgusted, disrespected and angry."

Brown said he had been summoned to meet with the governor, Sir Richard Gozney, but did not elaborate. When Battersbee finished speaking, Brown was led away by police and left in an official car.

About 40 Brown supporters shouted "Brown must stay" but were drowned out by shouts and claxons. The two sides sparred verbally but there was no violence in the orderly capital of Hamilton.

Brown took office in 2006 and was re-elected to a five-year term when his party won a majority in Parliament in 2007.

Bermuda's immigration minister, David Burch, said the four Uighur men had received several job offers but that their status remained in limbo until the British government completes a security review.

(Writing by Jane Sutton; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Philip Barbara)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

accuracy

18-06-2009, 11:26 AM

US to prosecute about 60 Guantanamo detainees: Holder

Published: Wednesday June 17, 2009

Attorney General Eric Holder told US senators on Wednesday that fewer than 60 of the 230 detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison could face eventual prosecution while the rest would be cleared for release.

He was also optimistic about finding countries to take in the dozens ready to be set free.

Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee that about a quarter of the suspects still at the Guantanamo Bay prison, opened by former president George W. Bush in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, would likely face prosecution.

"We've gone through (the cases of) about half of the detainees at this point," Holder said, responding to a question by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. "I don't think we're going to have a very huge number."

When pressed on the number by Graham, who asked: "Would you say less than 25 percent, 25 percent or less?" Holder responded: "That might be about right."

Holder also said he thought the United States would be able to find countries willing to take in the roughly 50 detainees who have already been cleared for release.

"I think that by sharing information about who these people are, responding to the questions that are posed by our allies who might be recipients of these people, that we can come up with a way in which we can assure them that they will not pose a danger to their countries, will not pose a danger to us," he said.

"And I think that we're going to be successful in placing these people," said Holder.

Holder also said that cases of prisoners who face indefinite detention without charge would be periodically reviewed and treated with the due process "consistent with the laws of war."

Human rights groups and attorneys for the suspects argue that holding dozens of terror suspects currently at the US military prison in Cuba without charges would be a violation of fundamental principles of US democracy.

Holder promised a "periodic review" of the situation of each detainee.

"We would want to work with members of this committee and with Congress to come up with the exact parameters of that due process," Holder said.

"We'd only want to do that in conjunction with Congress and with the assurance that what we are doing is consistent with our values and with our commitment to due process."

from another site:

Memo to Eric Holder: so we have been holding at least 170 innocent men in Gitmo for all this time, when there wasn't really a charge against them that could have even stood up in a military tribunal?!?

And another observation, Attorney General Holder: there is no place in American jurisprudence for "indefinite detention without charge."

It doesn't exist: I defy you to find that in ANY US penal code.

And last, when you make the statement that those "...who face indefinite detention without charge would be periodically reviewed and treated with the due process "consistent with the laws of war.", you are trying (spectacularly badly, I might add) to con the American people yet again.

This country was founded upon the principle of the rule of law, and never the "laws of war": that statement regarding the "laws of war" is an intellectually dishonest dodge at the highest level, and sir, YOU KNOW IT!

accuracy

20-06-2009, 10:52 AM

Palau's Muslims anxiously await Gitmo detainees

By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA, Associated Press Writer Tomoko A. Hosaka, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jun 19, 9:41 am ET
KOROR, Palau – At the call to prayer, the men turn one-by-one down a narrow path through the jungle, marked only by a towering coconut tree.

Hidden at the end of the dirt track stands the sole mosque in Koror, home to more than two-thirds of people in Palau, the tiny Pacific nation that has agreed to take in a group of Chinese Muslim detainees from Guantanamo Bay.

The mosque is perched on bamboo stilts and held together by a patchwork of corrugated metal. For the small group of about 500 Muslims in this predominantly Christian nation, this is a spiritual sanctuary.

Most are workers from Bangladesh, who began landing on this remote archipelago over a dozen years ago, seeking better jobs and peace.

Reflecting local sentiment, they expressed mixed feelings Friday about the expected arrival of 13 Guantanamo detainees. They are protective of their adopted society and the lives they have built.

Haranou Rashid, a Bangladeshi chicken farmer who has lived in Palau for 13 years, said the news makes him nervous.

"Palauans like us," the 40-year-old said. "We do not make any trouble here. But when newcomers arrive, maybe they are not good."

If one Muslim causes problems, Rashid said, it would hurt all Muslims in Palau.

Palau made global headlines last week when it agreed to President Barack Obama's request to take a group of Uighurs — Turkic Muslims from China's far western Xinjiang region.

The Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurs) were captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001 and then held at the U.S. prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which Obama has vowed to close. The Pentagon determined last year that the Uighurs were not "enemy combatants," but the men have been stuck in legal limbo since then.

The United States asked Palau for help after other countries turned it down. Four other Uighurs left Guantanamo last week for a new home in Bermuda.

George Clarke, a Washington-based attorney representing two of the Uighurs, said his clients have asked about the religious facilities in Palau.

Any Muslim — regardless of their past — is welcome to pray at the mosque in Koror, said Mohi Uddi, 32, president of the Bangladesh Association.

Uddi, a maintenance worker, has lived in Palau for more than a decade. He says he is not worried about the Uighurs because if they come, it is Allah's will.

"If they are real Muslims, they have to follow what our Quran says," said Uddi, adding that he does not tolerate the violence embraced by extremists.

Palau is among the smallest countries in the world, with some 20,000 people scattered over 190 square miles (490 square kilometers) of tropical islands. A third of the population is foreign, mainly Filipinos. About 450 Bangladeshis live in Palau, and the vast majority of them are Muslim.

There are only two mosques in the whole country.

While Bangladeshi workers are quick to praise Palau's beauty, life is hardly idyllic for them and other low-skilled laborers.

The minimum wage for Palauans is $2.50 an hour. For foreign workers, it's $1.50. The Division of Labor says it sees a regular stream of foreign workers complaining about low salaries and mistreatment by their Palauan employers.

In December 2005, the government issued a moratorium on new workers from Bangladesh. The number of Bangladeshi workers jumped from 163 in 2004 to 425 in 2005, according to a U.N. refugee agency report in 2007.

"Language barriers and fraud among recruiters have resulted in social tensions and problems for the Palauan government, which does not have formal diplomatic ties with Bangladesh," the report said.

Anowar Hossain, a Bangladeshi construction worker, says Muslims tend to stick to themselves. Few locals, for example, know where to find the mosque.

Still, he describes Palau as a "nice country" with gorgeous waters and mountains. And for now, it is home.

"I try not to worry about (the Uighurs)," said Hossain, 34. "If they come, they are welcome here."

Mujahid Hussein, Palau's only Pakistani, said he does not know enough about the Uighurs to determine whether they embrace Islam's core tenet of peace. He has never had any problems as a Muslim in Palau and describes his 10 years here as "good and simple."

"We Muslims hate terrorism," said Hussein, 36. "We do not consider terrorists Muslims. If (the Uighurs) are clear of terrorism, then we have no problem."

(This version CORRECTS Corrects that Palau has two mosques instead of one; ADDS photos.)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090619/ap_on_re_as/as_palau_muslims;_ylt=AmWdiqUDGn3aZfBfcVquiVIBxg8F ;_ylu=X3oDMTJuNWdkM2hrBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwNjE5L2Fz X3BhbGF1X211c2xpbXMEcG9zAzEyBHNlYwN5bl9wYWdpbmF0ZV 9zdW1tYXJ5X2xpc3QEc2xrA3BhbGF1c211c2xpbQ--

drhemp

20-06-2009, 12:57 PM

There was actually a good report on Newsnight last night about Guantanamo inmate, Omar Deghayes, who was tortured and kept captive by the Americans for 6 years, purely on the basis of mistaken identity.

A case of mistaken identity at Guantanamo Bay

Peter Marshall | 17:36 PM, Friday, 19 June 2009

It is more than four years since I first heard the name Omar Deghayes.

His family, who were based in Brighton, were at their wits end.

Omar, their son and brother was being held in Guantanamo Bay.

The United States deemed him to be a terrorist. The evidence? A jihadi video from Chechnya in which Omar Deghayes was said to feature.

The family had not seen the video, which had been found in an apartment in Madrid.

The formidable Spanish judge, Balthazar Garzon, was demanding the Americans hand Omar Deghayes to Spanish police so he could help with their inquiries - the notion was that he had been linked to the cell responsible for the Madrid train bombings which killed 191 people.

Omar, who had only recently become a devout Muslim and headed east, was in deep trouble.

Later that day, through contacts in Madrid, I secured a copy of this all-important video.

His brother, Taher, watched as the murky, ill-focused footage revealed jihadists in conference around a table and then roaming outdoors, mugging for the camera on the Chechen hills.

We came to a close-up of a well-fed, bearded character on whom the Spanish police had superimposed the name "Omar Deghayes".

Taher exhaled and beamed: "That's not him! No, it's not him."

He then went through all the different reasons this was most certainly not his younger brother - the nose, the eyes - there was no resemblance.

And wouldn't he recognise his own brother? He'd known him literally all his life, even before the family had fled their home in Libya after the assassination of their father, a prominent lawyer and opponent of President Gadaffi.

We put out a film on Newsnight telling the story of Deghayes, showing the video and letting Taher state his case.

But this was a brother supporting a brother (and I use the word in the familial sense). He would proclaim mistaken identity wouldn't he? We could not reach any firm conclusion.

A few days later I received a call from the BBC's monitoring service at Caversham, the people who follow with diligence the fine detail and daily shifts of international affairs.

Paul Tumelty, a researcher with great expertise in the waning fortunes of Chechen jihadists, said he had seen our Newsnight piece and had instantly recognised the man named in the video as Omar Deghayes.

He was "100% certain" this was in fact a notorious jihadist. And that he certainly was not Deghayes but one "Walid", a warlord who had been much feared. Past tense. Walid had been dead for a year or more, killed fighting the Russians.

At this point one would like to say we ran that story and Deghayes was on the next plane home from Guantanamo Bay. Sadly, only the first part of the sentence is true.

t was almost three more years before Omar Deghayes was released.

As he tells it, his US captors simply replaced one set of false allegations with another - a pattern he claims was familiar throughout his incarceration.

His account of what happened during his years of imprisonment - in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Guantanamo - is both fascinating and troubling.

It poses further serious questions as to how the behaved in the War On Terror and to what extent British intelligence was complicit.

Omar says it is good to be back in Brighton. After so often being the subject of interrogation, now he would like some answers of his own.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/petermarshall/2009/06/the_case_of_mistaken_identity.html

accuracy

21-06-2009, 10:39 AM

Thanks for your post drhemp :)

drhemp

21-06-2009, 11:53 AM

Thank you for all your posts in this thread. The evidence is out there what these criminals have done; I hope they are bought to justice and punished for their crimes. I would like my grandchildren to look back in history and know that at least they were bought to account for these atrocities.

accuracy

23-06-2009, 12:16 PM

You are welcome, drhemp! :)

accuracy

23-06-2009, 12:26 PM

Five Uighurs 'don't want' resettlement in Palau

1 day ago

KOROR (AFP) — Five of 13 Guantanamo Bay detainees set for resettlement in the tiny Pacific nation of Palau do not want to go there, President Johnson Toribiong said on Monday.

Palau said earlier this month it had agreed to take the detainees, members of the Chinese Muslim Uighur ethnic group.

But Toribiong said only eight of 13 Uighur detainees destined for Palau had agreed to be interviewed by a delegation of Palau officials who visited the controversial US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay last week.

"A handful may not come," Toribiong told reporters.

He declined to discuss whether arrangements had been made for the transfer of the detainees, who were cleared of any wrongdoing by the US four years ago.

Palau politicians and traditional chiefs are due to be briefed on the delegation's visit to Guantanamo on Tuesday, with a press conference a day later.

Toribiong insisted the public feedback on the resettlement had been positive, despite some speaking out against his decision.

"Those who oppose it are misinformed," he added.

"Had I said no to President Obama, what do you think would have been the consequences?" Toribiong said, without giving details.

He reiterated the decision was not related to upcoming negotiations on future US aid to Palau, which Washington administered until independence in 1994.

The detainees were part of a group of 22 Uighurs living in a self-contained camp in Afghanistan when the US-led invasion of the country began in October 2001, in the wake of the September 11 attacks that year.

They said they had fled to Afghanistan to escape persecution in their vast home region of Xinjiang in western China.

The US declined to return them to China, fearing they could be tortured.

US President Barack Obama has promised to shut down Guantanamo by January, and Washington has been pushing for other countries to accept inmates with no charges against them.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

jakemaverick

24-06-2009, 12:53 AM

Interesting forum. Interesting read.

You do need to know, however, similar and worse things are also happening in the UK.

It happened to me. Still IS happening to me. My crime? Just thinking, having opinions and talking to people occasionally......

I wrote it all down. Just desperately trying to publicise it now. Far too long to post here.

jakemaverick911 at gmail dot com

if you can spare a couple of hours to read!!!

Any contact from journalists or anybody else who can help me publicise would be greatfully appreciated!!! To think that I also used to value my privacy.....;-)

drhemp

24-06-2009, 12:37 PM

Ex-detainees allege Bagram abuse
By Ian Pannell
BBC News, Kabul

Allegations of abuse and neglect at a US detention facility in Afghanistan have been uncovered by the BBC.

Former detainees have alleged they were beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with dogs at the Bagram military base.

The BBC interviewed 27 former inmates of Bagram around the country over a period of two months.

The Pentagon has denied the charges and insisted that all inmates in the facility are treated humanely.

All the men were asked the same questions and they were all interviewed in isolation.

Ill-treatment

They were held at times between 2002 and 2008 and they were all accused of belonging to or helping al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

None were charged with any offence or put on trial; some even received apologies when they were released.

Just two of the detainees said they had been treated well.
“ They put a pistol or a gun to your head and threatened you with death. ”
Former Bagram detainee

Many allegations of ill-treatment appear repeatedly in the interviews: physical abuse, the use of stress positions, excessive heat or cold, unbearably loud noise, being forced to remove clothes in front of female soldiers.

In four cases detainees were threatened with death at gunpoint.

"They did things that you would not do against animals let alone to humans," said one inmate known as Dr Khandan.

"They poured cold water on you in winter and hot water in summer. They used dogs against us. They put a pistol or a gun to your head and threatened you with death," he said.

"They put some kind of medicine in the juice or water to make you sleepless and then they would interrogate you."
BAGRAM AIR BASE
# Base built by the Soviet military in the 1980s
# Around 600 people are held
# Prisoners are classified as "unlawful enemy combatants'

The findings were shown to the Pentagon.

Lt Col Mark Wright, a spokesman for the US Secretary of Defence, insisted that conditions at Bagram "meet international standards for care and custody".

Col Wright said the US defence department has a policy of treating detainees humanely.

"There have been well-documented instances where that policy was not followed, and service members have been held accountable for their actions in those cases," he said.

'Legal black hole'

Bagram has held thousands of people over the last eight years and a new detention centre is currently under construction at the camp.

Some of the inmates are forcibly taken there from abroad, especially Pakistanis and at least two Britons.

Since coming to office US President Barack Obama has banned the use of torture and ordered a review of policy on detainees, which is expected to report next month.

But unlike its detainees at the US naval facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the prisoners at Bagram have no access to lawyers and they cannot challenge their detention.

The inmates at Bagram are being kept in "a legal black-hole, without access to lawyers or courts", according to Tina Foster, executive director of the International Justice Network, a legal support group representing four detainees.

She is pursuing legal action that, if successful. would grant detainees at Bagram the same rights as those still being held at Guantanamo Bay.

But the Obama administration is trying to block the move.

Last year, the US Supreme Court ruled that detainees at Guantanamo should be given legal rights.

Speaking on the presidential campaign trail, Barack Obama applauded the ruling: "The court's decision is a rejection of the Bush administration's attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo.

"This is an important step toward re-establishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus."

Ms Foster accuses the new administration of abandoning that position and "using the same arguments as the Bush White House".

In its legal submissions, the US justice department argues that because Afghanistan is an active combat zone it is not possible to conduct rigorous inquiries into individual cases and that it would divert precious military resources at a crucial time.

They also argue that granting legal rights to detainees could harm Mr Obama's "ability to succeed in armed conflict and to protect United States' forces" by limiting his powers to conduct military operations.

A US federal appeals court judge is expected to rule soon.

These revelations come at a time when Mr Obama is trying to re-set Washington's relationship with the Muslim world and trying harder than ever to win the war in Afghanistan.

It is a controversy that threatens to damage the image of the new administration in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/south_asia/8116046.stm

Published: 2009/06/24 08:25:53 GMT

© BBC MMIX

accuracy

25-06-2009, 12:19 PM

Afghan prisoners claim they were abused in US jail

Prisoners held in a controversial US military jail have claimed they were beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with dogs.

By Ben Farmer in Wardak Province, Afghanistan
Published: 11:48AM BST 24 Jun 2009

The former detainees at Bagram military base in Afghanistan, complained of physical abuse and being subjected to extremes of heat or cold.

Others alleged they were blasted with unbearably loud noise, forced to strip in front of female soldiers and put in stress positions.

Concern at 'prisoner abuse' photographs as Barack Obama prepares to block publication
CIA ignored warnings from US soldiers that torture and extreme stress would not workThe Pentagon has denied the charges and said prisoners are treated well.

The 27 former prisoners interviewed in a BBC investigation had been detained after being accused of being associated with al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

None were charged or put on trial before their release and some had subsequently received apologies.

Only two detainees said they had been treated well.

Dr Khandan, one former inmate, told the BBC: "They did things that you would not do against animals let alone to humans. They poured cold water on you in winter and hot water in summer.

"They used dogs against us. They put a pistol or a gun to your head and threatened you with death. They put some kind of medicine in the juice or water to make you sleepless and then they would interrogate you."

Human rights activists have condemned the prison as a "legal black hole".

It holds approximately 600 prisoners on the largest US airbase in Afghanistan and detainees have fewer legal rights than those held in Guantánamo Bay. While most were seized in Afghanistan a small number are believed to have been captured abroad.

Inmates cannot consult lawyers, see the evidence against them, or challenge their detention.

President Barack Obama has pledged to review his policy on prisoners seized in the war on terror, but Bagram is being extended to hold a maximum of 1,100 inmates.

The International Justice Network, a legal support group, is representing four inmates in legal action to gain the right to challenge their captivity.

However the White House is fighting against such a move.

The US military claims those held are potentially dangerous insurgents, often seized from the battlefield and holding them protects international forces.

A spokesman for the Pentagon said conditions at Bagram "meet international standards for care and custody".

accuracy

27-06-2009, 08:38 AM

Reuters
Friday, June 26, 2009; 7:30 AM

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland is examining the possibility of taking in two Uzbek prisoners identified for resettlement from the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said on Friday.

The Irish government signaled earlier this year that it would be open to taking in detainees to help facilitate President Barack Obama's order that the prison for foreign terrorism suspects be closed by the end of January.

Portugal and Italy agreed to rehouse prisoners last week while Hungary and Spain are in talks with the United States regarding the issue after European Union members said they were ready to help resettle detainees.

"They (the United States) have identified two people from Uzbek(istan) who have been in Guantanamo for some time," Martin told Newstalk radio station.

"There has been a campaign in relation to one of them. His advocates believe he was completely and wrongly brought to Guantanamo and we're currently examining those."

The U.S. government has decided the fate of about half the detainees at the Guantanamo Bay, and no more than a quarter of them will go on trial, Attorney General Eric Holder said last week.

There are 229 captives still being held at Guantanamo. The camp, opened after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, drew international criticism for holding prisoners indefinitely, many without charge.

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/26/AR2009062601192.html

jakemaverick

28-06-2009, 12:20 AM

now the original post has shown up but the second has been 'disappared'???? very bizarre!!!

accuracy

01-07-2009, 01:19 PM

Report: Israel shackling detainees in painful ways

http://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer2/02012008/1538165/JER15_a.jpg

Public Committee Against Torture in Israel says different authorities in country systematically handcuff detainees in humiliating manners that in several instances rise to level of torture in violation of international law. IDF: Military police investigation launched in number of cases

Ynet Published: 06.24.09, 10:20 / Israel News

Different authorities in Israel – led by the Shin Bet and Israel Defense Forces – shackle detainees in painful ways that amount to torture and ill treatment, in violation of Israeli law, basic moral principles and international law, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) says in a report released Wednesday morning.

The report is based on 547 cases of arrest by soldiers and dozens of interrogations by the Shin Bet in the past year, as well as additional cases from previous years. According to the report, the testimony of the detainees is supported by soldier testimony provided by the Breaking the Silence organization.

According to the PCATI, these figures are "surely only the tip of the iceberg" and the main victims of this practice are Palestinian security detainees, "yet the culture of contempt for the dignity of detainees gravitates inward towards Israeli society itself at times harming detainees who belong to other groups."

The report, entitled, “Shackling as a Form of Torture and Abuse,” was written by PCATI Advocate Samah Elkhatib Ayoub, who claims that the various security agencies in Israel shackle detainees in painful and humiliating manners that in a number of instances rise to the level of torture in violation of domestic law, High Court of Justice judgments, international law and accepted international standards of practice which allow for restraining for the purposes of preventing a detainee from escaping, or endangering himself or his surroundings.

In Israel, the report says, detainees are painfully shackled as a matter of practice. "Painful shackling is done for invalid and irrelevant reasons, which include causing pain and suffering, punishment, intimidation, and illegally eliciting information and confessions."

http://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer2/04062007/1202003/JRL166_wa.jpg

'Shackling detainees in painful manner as matter of practice' (Photo: AP)

The report was published ahead of the UN International Day in Support of Torture Victims that is marked throughout the world on June 26.

'Detainee complains – soldier tightens cuffing'
The report presents a long line of testimonies from Palestinian detainees who were painfully shackled by soldiers, Shin Bet agents and at times prison guards. Many detainees, the report says, suffer from painful shackling at various stages during arrest, detention and interrogation and even while being transferred for medical treatment.

In the segment dealing with the IDF, the report claims that soldiers tend to shackle detainees hands in a painful and harmful manner which begins at the time of arrest and lasts during their transfer to the various interrogation facilities.

According to the report, detainees are largely and systematically shackled behind their backs in combination with excessive tightening of the narrow plastic manacles, causing pain and at times lasting injury. Some of the detainees describe additional tightening of the plastic restraints with the obvious goal to causing additional suffering which is the usual answer to detainee's who complain about the pain.

http://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer2/01082004/681673/JRL102_Wa.jpg

'Painful shackling is done for invalid and irrelevant reasons' (Photo: AP)

"I shouted that my hands were hurting. One of the soldiers came up to me and asked what was wrong and why I was shouting," said Yazan Sawalha, a resident of Nablus who was arrested by the IDF and whose testimony is presented in the report. "I said that the handcuffing was very painful. Then he took a look at my hands. I thought he was going to unfasten the handcuffs but instead he twisted the knot even more and tightened the cuffing further."

'Detainees tied to chairs'
Another part of the report deals with the Shin Bet's interrogation facilities. Although the facilities are highly secured and there is no danger of escape, the report says, detainees are regularly shackled with their hands behind their backs, around the back of the chair upon which they are sitting, and it is not uncommon for them to be held in this position for hours at a time and even for days on end.

"Often the detainee is left in this manner in a locked interrogation room for hours at a time, even when he is not being interrogated. Shackling of this sort, when the body is contorted occasionally results in long-term damage," the report claims.

"This practice cannot be justified by the concerns for the safety of the interrogators or prevention of escape attempts offered by officials. The unacceptability of this claim is further demonstrated in light of the fact that these detainees – restrained in interrogation chambers – are brought before police interrogators so that they can take their confession while the detainee is left unrestrained. These facts leave no room for doubt: Painful shackling is designed to break the interrogee's spirit and to illegally extract a confession or information from him.

"In addition, there are occasions when the Shin Bet interrogators will shackle the interrogee in an additional pair of manacles that are fastened on the forearm or on the upper arm and which the interrogators then pull on in a manner that is clearly designed to cause intolerable pain."

The report includes the story of an interrogee who was restrained by his hands and feet to a cot for two consecutive days without even being interrogated and denied access to the lavatory, forcing him to relieve himself in his clothes.

http://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer2/02012008/1442518/PDJ107_wa.jpg

Report includes series of recommendations (Photo: AP)

"(One of the interrogators) brought very narrow metal handcuffs, tightened them on my arms above the elastic bandage, and turned them strongly around the arm," said east Jerusalem resident Haytham Ibrahim Salhab, who was interrogated in the Russian Compound. "I felt he was turning the bone, as if the bone was separating from the flesh of my arm.

"He did this separately to each arm, alternately – first the right hand then the left… I shouted out loud because it was very painful. And each time I shouted he shouted louder in my ear, yelling in my right ear as he turned the handcuffs on my right arm, and vice versa."

Need for documentation
Although the report points to improvements in practices and procedures concerning the shackling of detainees when they are brought for medical treatment – following actions taken by PCATI and Physicians for Human Rights – security detainees are said not to benefit from these improvements.

Rather, the report says, they continue to receive medical treatment in hospitals while they are shackled, uniformly with no consideration of the threat they may or may not present.

The report contains a number of detailed recommendations to the different authorities, including a call to cease the blanket shackling of detainees which does not take their individual situation into consideration.

In instances in which there is a justification to shackle the detainee, the report says, it must be done in such a manner that does not cause pain and which is proportional to the need. PCATI also calls for the enforcement of the law and to bring to justice those who violate the law, and their superiors, and to allow for independent monitoring mechanisms in Shin Bet interrogator centers.

The report's authors also call for documentation via video and audio of the interrogations so that it will be possible to supervise them and have information in inquiries into complaints of painful shackling and other forms of torture and ill treatment during interrogation.

Reponse: These are dangerous people

The IDF Spokesperson's Unit said in response that "the IDF is acting in accordance with international law and the laws of the State of Israel, and meets all the obligating rules in terms of the detention of terror activists and wanted men.

"The IDF's policy is to strictly maintain the safety and wellbeing of all detainees, from the moment they are captured and held by the army. The IDF views with severity any unnecessary harm caused to detainees, fundamentally examined every claim on harm caused to detainees, and acts with all severity of the law in the required cases.

"In accordance, complaints made with the IDF in regards to painful shackling and have been looked into and examined by the prosecution for operation affairs, and in several cases an order was given to launch a military police investigation. These days, a Central Command team led by an officer at the rank of colonel is working to examine all the procedures in dealing with Palestinian detainees."

The Shin Bet said in response, "Most of the people interrogated by the Shin Bet are suspected of serious terror offenses. Naturally, these are very dangerous people, and a significant number of them are eventually convicted and sent to long years in prison.

"Past experience shows that people interrogated for security offenses have not hesitated before attacking the service's interrogators and causing real injuries. Cuffing detainees suspected of security offenses is a necessity. The claim that shackling interrogees is meant to get them to break down and confess illicitly is unfounded."

The security organization added that "in 2008, with the purpose of making it easier for interrogees, the Shin Bet decided to extend the handcuff chains used to bind security detainees, without significantly harming the interrogators' safety or increasing the risk of the interrogee escaping.

"This was reported to the Public Committee Against Torture, but for some reason was not included in its press release. It should also be noted that any complaint made by an interrogee or on behalf of an interrogee in regards to pain caused due to cuffing by the Shin Bet is examined, and the complainant receives notice on the findings of the examination."

Copyright © Yedioth Internet. All rights reserved.

accuracy

25-07-2009, 11:06 AM

U.S. admits it has no case against teen held at Guantanamo

Posted on Friday, July 24, 2009

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/72465.html

By Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department conceded Friday that it lacks the evidence to hold a teenage Guantanamo detainee as an enemy combatant after a federal judge last week ruled that his confession was inadmissible.

In a hearing last week, U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle ruled that Mohammed Jawad's confession to Afghan officials was inadmissible because it had been extracted through torture. She also questioned whether the Justice Department had any evidence to proceed with a trial to determine whether he can be held as an enemy combatant.

Huvelle called the case an "outrage" and told Justice Department lawyers that their case against Jawad had been "gutted."

"Without his statements, I don't understand your case," she told Justice Department lawyers. "Sir, the facts can only get smaller, not bigger. . . . Face it, this case is in trouble. . . . Seven years and this case is riddled with holes."

She then urged the lawyers to "let him out. Send him back to Afghanistan."

Department lawyers, however, signaled they may bring him to the U.S. for a criminal trial.

The lawyers asked a judge to delay Jawad's immediate release to allow criminal investigators to review allegations that he threw a grenade at soldiers. A Justice Department spokesman said late Friday that Attorney General Eric Holder has ordered the investigation be "expedited."

In a statement issued Friday, Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said the department had to determine whether it has enough evidence to prosecute him in criminal court.

Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer with the ACLU's National Security Project, was skeptical that the government could come up with new evidence to prosecute Jawad in federal court.

"They're simply trying to manufacture new ways to prolong his detention," he said.

The Justice Department's case against Jawad, whom Afghan officials say was captured when he was just 12 years old, underscores the difficulties the U.S. government faces in justifying its continued imprisonment of Guantanamo detainees.

President Barack Obama ordered the closure of Guantanamo by January, but the administration has struggled to come up with a way to either release or try detainees.

A task force convened by Obama to review Guantanamo cases considered Jawad's case and referred him for possible prosecution, Boyd said.

He added that prosecutors have also reviewed statements by an eyewitness that was "not previously made available to the court."

Boyd didn't elaborate on what that evidence entailed. If the judge refuses to grant more time for the criminal investigation, however, the Justice Department said it would need several weeks to prepare his transfer back to Afghanistan.

Last year, a military judge determined that Afghan police threatened Jawad's family while he was undergoing interrogation at a Kabul police station. The judge also concluded there was evidence that Jawad was under the influence of drugs at the time of his capture and forced confession.

''You will be killed if you do not confess to the grenade attack,'' the detainee quoted an interrogator as saying. "We will arrest your family and kill them if you do not confess.''

accuracy

25-07-2009, 12:12 PM

52 percent of U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq, Afghanistan diagnosed with TBI

WASHINGTON -- Some 52 percent of soldiers severely injured in Iraq and Afghanistan who have come to the U.S. Army's largest hospital for treatment have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries (TBI), an internal study has found.

The results of the study, carried out by Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC) at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, also showed a steep increase -- from 33 percent -- in TBI cases since the end of 2008.

Diagnoses of TBI are rising steadily as arrangements for TBI checks improve, while at the same time improvised explosive device (IED) attacks -- the primary cause of TBI -- in Afghanistan are intensifying, with 46 U.S. soldiers killed by the homemade bombs so far this year. Casualties from these attacks flow into Walter Reed, which provides treatment to badly wounded soldiers unavailable anywhere else.

According to DVBIC at Walter Reed, since January 2003 -- just before the beginning of the Iraq War -- 52 percent of soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan by bombs and treated at the hospital have been diagnosed with TBI. According to figures uncovered by the Mainichi, this would mean the number of diagnosed TBI cases has risen to well over 10,000 since the end of 2008, when the figure stood around 9,100. Furthermore, in more than 90 percent of those diagnosed with TBI, the patient had no visible head injuries.

On the battlefield, TBI is caused by the supersonic shockwave produced by an explosion -- often from an IED -- which damages or destroys brain cells. A soldier caught in the blast may not even know he or she has been injured.

The U.S. Department of Defense began conducting cognitive ability tests on all military personnel to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan in November 2007. The servicemen and women who took the tests began returning from their combat tours early this year, allowing for greater chances of discovering a TBI and probably leading to the increased numbers of diagnosed cases.

The Department of Defense estimated in March this year that the final tally of TBI cases would reach 10 to 20 percent of all personnel deployed to Iraqi and Afghani battlefields.

(Mainichi Japan) July 23, 2009

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/international/news/20090723p2a00m0na011000c.html

These tests were only started two years ago?!?

I want every one of our returning Vets, experiencing physical and/or mental problems as a result of combat, to get precisely the same level of first-class care care our congress members get for life.

Our Vets deserve this; I can't really say with any enthusiasm that our congress members actually do. (WRH)

accuracy

25-07-2009, 12:21 PM

The War on Terror is a Zionist racket

July 22, 2009

“The Americans were responsible for creation of a gangster state headed by an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders,” – Sir John Troutbeck wrote in his letter to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin on June 2, 1948.

“Of course the people don’t want war….but after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether, it’s a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a Communist dictatorship,” – Dr. Herman Georing, Hitler’s propaganda minister.

The former British Minister of Environment, Michael Meacher, in his article titled The war on terrorism is bogus (Guardian, September 6, 2003) – wrote that the 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its world domination.

On February 7, 2001 – former CIA director George Tenet (born as David Cohen) eerily described to the Congress what did occured six months later: “Terrorists are also becoming oprationally more adept and more technically sophisticated (inside Afghanistani caves!) in order to defeat counter-terrorism measures…”

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), was a Zionist think tank, which during 1997-2006 – played a very significant role in reshaping the Middle East map by Washington which has made Israel is the greatest beneficiary of the so-called “War on Terror”. Zionist William Kristol and Robert Kagan who founded the PNAC – urged Bill Clinton to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, though, both countries posed no military or economic threat to the US. The Jewish controlled mainstream media provided support to PNAC hoax by inventing propaganda lies of WMDs, Saddam’s involvement in 9/11; his invasion of Kuwait, and his use of chemical warfare against Shias and Kurds – which all were carried out by western blessings. However, to sell their evil agenda against the Muslim world – they needed a “New Pearl Harbor” some horrible tragedy to happen on the very soil of America – which did happen on September 11, 2001. Nine days after the 9/11 (September 20, 2001) – PNAC sent a letter (authors included Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Scooter Libby) to Dubya Bush urging him to bring a ‘regime change’ in Iraq, while projecting Islamic Iran as “the future threat” to the US: “Over the long term, Iran may well prove a large threat to US interests in Persian Gulf as Iraq has. And even should US-Iranian relations improves, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be a essential in US security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region…”

The PNAC, after successfully completing its goal of destroying any possible threat to the zionist entity – closed down their shop in 2006 – and most of its members joined the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), another Jewish think tank with intimate links to the Likud Party in Israel.

Gideon Long (Reuters, May 28, 2003) quoting Amnesty International Report 2002, wrote: “Washington’s war on terror has made the world more dangerous by curbing human rights, undermining international law and shielding governments from secrutiny….”

One of the other Zionist think tanks which plays an important part in American imperialism around the world – is The International Crisis Group . Its board members include Jewish billionaire George Soro, Morton Abramowitz, Kenneth Adelman, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and former president of Council on Foreign Affairs, Leslie H. Gelb.

Mahboob Khawaja PhD in his July 14 article under the title The War on Terrorism that America lost, wrote:

The premise of the American led “war on terrorism” was based on the Nazis blueprint of flagrant lies and perpetuated “fear” to drain out all the positive and creative thinking of the American people and to enslave them for years to come while the Neo-conservatives dominated Bush Administration with overwhelming indoctrination of Nazism continued the militancy towards freedom of thought and conscience, human rights and legal justice denying America’s own history and rich values. America lost the war the day it invaded Iraq. The American Empire had no purpose and strategy to fight Islamists and its delusion represents failure and self-defeat on all the fronts.

The overriding motivation for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are shielded by political smokescreen that the US and UK will run out of sufficient hydrocarbon energy supplies in 2010, whereas, the Arab and Muslim world would control almost 60% of the world oil producing capacity and perhaps more significantly 95% of the remaining global oil production capacity. The news media reports indicate that the US is predicted to produce only 39% of the domestic oil production in 2010, whereas in 1990, it produced 57% of its total oil consumption. The UK Government had projected ”severe” gas shortages by 2005, and indicated that 70% of the electricity will be drawn from gas and 90% of gas will be imported. It is interesting to note that Iraq is said to have 110 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in addition to approximately 15 – 20% of the world oil reserves. In another research report by the Commission on America’s National Interests (July 2000), it observed that the most promising new energy resources are found in the Caspian Sea, Central Asian region and it would avoid the US exclusive dependence on the Saudi Arabian oil imports. The report outlined the feasible routes for the Caspian Seas oil deliveries, one hydrocarbon pipeline via Azerbaijan and Georgia and another pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan would ensure the future strategic demands of the US government. To counteract the USSR influence in Afghanistan, Taliban group was created with active support of the US intelligence agencies and the Peoples Party of Pakistan under the former PM Miss Bhutto. The Taliban group was helped to form a government in Afghanistan and to ensure the future passage of a hydrocarbon pipeline via Afghanistan and Pakistan onward to the Arabian Sea. The leadership included Osama bin Laden, the close affiliate of the US sponsored war against the Soviet Union. For years, the US officials held discussion with these groups to finalize formal agreement for the passage of the oil and gas pipelines in Afghanistan. If the author of the Forbidden Truth has any credibility, the US and Taliban negotiators continued discussion of the possible pipeline until August 2001. After the 9/11 attacks, the US government was outraged and asked Pakistan’s military leader General Pervez Musharaf to dismantle the Taliban government from power in Kabul. The US government never made any claim or evidence public to suggest that Taliban as a group were involved in the September 2001 attacks on the US.

After President Barrak Obama was sworn in as the new President, America looked morally exhausted and militarily lost, being unable to think of the much needed strategic change but more importantly, searching desperately for a navigational change in wars against the Islamists.

Gwynne Dyer, a well known British author (“The International Terrorist Conspiracy”), asserts that terrorism is not an ideology but a political technique and those groups willing to opt for violence in support of their goals, may resort to it. Dyer maintains that “there is no shadowy but powerful network waging a terrorist war against the West, the whole thing is a fantasy….there never was much of an Islamist “terrorist network” anyway – certainly nothing to compare the extensive cooperation between the extreme left-wing “urban guerrilla” of the developed world (Germany’s Baader-Meinhof Gang, Italy’s Red Brigades, the Japanese Red Army etc.)…..”

http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/the-war-on-terror-is-a-zionist-racket/

accuracy

26-07-2009, 12:02 PM

More troops will die in Afghanistan, says Joe Biden

More British and American troops will die in Afghanistan, but the war against the Taliban is in the national interests of both countries, the US vice-president, Joe Biden, said today.

Speaking in the deadliest month for British troops since the US-led invasion in 2001, Biden insisted that the current offensive against the Taliban in Helmand province was worth the effort and was a "prerequisite" to get the country ready for presidential elections next month.

Memo to VP Biden: stop lying to the American people, and to the long-suffering Afghans.

The purpose of this war of aggression is two-fold; to "pacify" the Afghan people so that the pipelines can be installed, and to protect the opium crops.

And before anyone starts screaming about how dare I suggest that our kids are dying to protect the drugs and drug dealers, consider this.

As reported in:

http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/140183/drug_eradication_in_afghan...
icer/

"Officials in President Barack Obama's administration say they want to emphasize alternative crops and avoid aggressive eradication operations that could alienate Afghans."

Please remember that when the Taliban were in control before the American and NATO invasion, opium farming had been almost completely wiped out.

As reported in:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1115-06.htm

"In the book ''Bin Laden, la verite interdite'' (''Bin Laden, the forbidden truth''), that appeared in Paris on Wednesday, the authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's deputy director John O'Neill resigned in July in protest over the obstruction. "

"They affirm that until August, the U.S. government saw the Taliban regime ''as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia'', from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. "

But, confronted with Taliban's refusal to accept U.S. conditions, ''this rationale of energy security changed into a military one'', the authors claim."

Remember what we were getting force-fed on all the corporate news feeds in August, 2001?!?!

Gary Condit and Chandra Levy, 24/7, while the US government was planning the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

Apparently, the price to be paid in blood and money to pursue this military misadventure was considered a "bargain" by the Bush administration, relative to what the Taliban were asking for the pipeline rights.

Tell that to the parents, wives, or children of our soldiers who continue to come home, dead, in metal boxes, or catastrophically physically and/or mentally damaged in ways from which they will never recover.

WRH

jakemaverick

26-07-2009, 10:24 PM

why am i not getting da id icke's newsletter? signed up several times!!!!

accuracy

28-07-2009, 09:51 AM

I can't answer that, best try to contact a "moderator" for any further
info.

jakemaverick

28-07-2009, 10:41 PM

accuracy

thnx, tried, never get an answer!!! surprised i can still log in here......

accuracy

19-11-2009, 10:39 AM

Am re igniting this thread, (again) this time for good, as it's good
to keep in uniform and a central thread.

accuracy

19-11-2009, 10:41 AM

Obama admits will miss deadline to shut Guantanamo

AFP) – 21 hours ago

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama admitted for the first time on Wednesday that the United States would miss the January 2010 deadline he set for closing the "war on terror" prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The US leader also said Americans should not be "fearful" of the prospect that five men accused of masterminding the September 11, 2001 attacks will go on trial in New York City, a notion that has sparked vocal domestic opposition.

"Guantanamo -- we had a specific deadline that was missed," Obama told US-based NBC television, in one of a flurry of interviews he gave in Beijing as his Asia tour winds down.

Obama had vowed during his first week in office in January this year that he would close Guantanamo within a year of taking office, saying that the prison camp does not adhere to US standards on human and civil rights.

The White House has said however that it will continue to push for the facility's closure, and is moving to repatriate some detainees who have been cleared for release while seeking countries willing to provide asylum to others.

Obama also urged Americans to avoid being fearful when it came to putting the alleged plotters of the 9/11 attacks on trial.

"I think this notion that somehow we have to be fearful, that these terrorists possess some special powers that prevent us from presenting evidence against them, locking them up and exacting swift justice, I think that has been a fundamental mistake," he told CNN, according to early excerpts of its interview.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week that five men accused of plotting the attacks, including the self-described mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, would be moved from Guantanamo Bay to New York for prosecution.

The five men face trial at a courthouse just steps from Ground Zero, where thousands lost their lives after hijacked airliners were flown into the two World Trade Center towers.

Holder's announcement, made while Obama visits Asia, prompted furious reactions from a number of victims' families and outrage among Republican lawmakers.

Republican Senator John McCain, Obama's former election rival, warned the decision sent "a mixed message about America's resolve in the fight against terrorism.

"We are at war, and we must bring terrorists to justice in a manner consistent with the horrific acts of war they have committed," he said.

A poll on Tuesday showed that almost two-thirds of Americans disagree with the Obama's decision.

Sixty-four percent of those surveyed said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should be tried in a military court, while only 34 percent agreed with Obama that the civilian judicial system was the best way forward, the CNN poll said.

Seventy-eight percent of those polled said they thought he should be executed if found guilty, and a quarter of those said they did not normally support capital punishment.

But Obama said he believed the decision was the right one.

"You know, I said to the attorney general, 'Make a decision based on the law,'" he said. "I also have great confidence in our... courts, the courts that have tried hundreds of terrorist suspects who are imprisoned right now in the United States."

Holder also announced Friday that five detainees had been designated for trial before military tribunals, though he did not specify where the tribunals would be convened.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jH_2b37ZZzRUd-53L_Q6jtBW5diA
2009 AFP

accuracy

20-11-2009, 11:18 AM

Marine Fights for His Life and Fair Compensation

SPRINGFIELD - The VA won't pay for one Marine's injury.

Lance Cpl. Josef Lopez deployed to Iraq in 2006 when he was 20 years-old. He enlisted in the Marine Corps fresh out of high school and was enthusiastic about serving to protect the lives of others. He never thought that he would almost lose his own life from something as routine as a vaccination.

"I started having trouble walking," Lopez said. "There was a numbness that started in my feet and gradually worked it's way up."

After being overseas only nine days Lopez had trouble with his legs tingling. Literally overnight he was paralyzed. The sensation worked its way up and soon he couldn't use his arms.

"When the morning came everyone woke up and found me laying on the floor and I wasn't able to move my legs at all," he described.

Doctors in Balad, Iraq scrambled to find out the medical mystery taking over Joe's body.

"The next day they sent him to Germany and I got a call from the doctor in Germany who told me that they weren't sure if he was going to make it. And they wondered if I could come to Germany and try to get him to respond to me," Joe's mom, Barbara Lopez said.

Joe was on life support and doctors had no choice but to put him in a medically-induced coma. Barbara and her older son Steven flew to Germany to find out shocking news.

"Well when I fist woke up they said the vaccine caused your body to attack itself," Joe said.

The smallpox vaccine that Joe got from the Department of Defense just days before deployment was the reason for it all. Joe had an adverse reaction causing incredible damage. The bottom line: his immune system was eating away at his nervous system causing the nerves to deteriorate.

The family flew to Bethesda Hospital in Maryland where Joe remained in the ICU for three weeks. Doctors argued over what treatment to give him, but eventually decided on the controversial IVIG treatment. It slowly worked bringing him out of the coma.

"They told me he might be a vegetable," Barbara said. "They wanted me to watch for brain damage and question him...see what he remembered...she if he was still him."

Each day she would question him and have him blink once for the answer yes and twice for no. Days later he started talking. The greatest news was that Joe remembered who he was and everything about his life.

Despite this good news Joe had another huge obstacle to overcome.

"One of my doctors came and said you'll never be able to walk again," he said.

However, slowly Joe started rebuilding his strength. He came back to his hometown of Springfield and endured intense physical therapy. He also spent more than a year in a wheelchair.

"No one ever thinks they'll be in a wheelchair, and I've always had that 'it's not going to happen to me' mentality. Now it's the opposite," Joe said.

Today Joe can walk but not for very far or for very long. He takes 10 to 15 pills each day and will need to for the rest of his life. The VA paid for his medical bills but there is more to the story.

The Lopez family had thousands of dollars in non-medical bills - and the VA refuses to pay. Barbara had to leave her job for several months to care for Joe and they had to install a wheelchair lift in their home. There are also other expenses Joe will have for the rest of his life that Barbara worries about. After speaking with other Marine and their falsie she heard about TSGLI compensation.

TSGLI is a government program that is designed to compensate injured service members for injury form traumatic events. To the dismay of his family, Joe was denied coverage.

The VA Department of Insurance Chairman, Stephen Wurtz, says Joe was denied because his injury didn't come from a traumatic combat event, but from a needle. He also said the government can't afford to cover injuries from vaccines.

"Any additional claims under TSGLI are paid by the government, and the government would now be paying that many more claims during a period of conflict," Wurtz commented.

Lopez said what upset him even more is the fact that they amended the TSGLI bill after he applied to specifically disqualify vaccine injuries form compensation. The Lopezes visited Missouri U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill to explain their fight for fair compensation. McCaskill is now working on a bill that would extend coverage to service members injured by vaccines.

"It would give him the same coverage and frankly I really think we need to take care of this young man and his family," Sen. McCaskill said in a satellite interview with KOMU. "He was willing to take care of us."

Through all of this Joe is not just sitting around. He now races a specially made hand cycle in the Marine Corps Marathon each October to raise money for other Marine families. His mom, Barbara participates in the 10K.

Reflecting back on his journey to recovery the past three years Joe said the hardest part is the unknown: "Just the not knowing. Not knowing if I would ever walk again."

The love and support of his mother Barbara was constant through all that unknown.

"She was the first person I saw when I woke up, and she was there everyday," said Joe.

Reported by: Laura Nichols

Published: Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 11:01 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 12:00 AM

http://www.komu.com/satellite/SatelliteRender/KOMU.com/ba8a4513-c0a8-2f11-0063-9bd94c70b769/bd91d06c-80ce-0971-01c1-1e65be782951

accuracy

21-11-2009, 10:55 AM

http://www.bartcop.com/china-human-rights-1109.jpg

accuracy

21-11-2009, 11:21 AM

CIA Secret 'Torture' Prison Found at Fancy Horseback Riding Academy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doJ9rUQt5h8

accuracy

22-11-2009, 09:44 AM

E-poll shows support for housing Guantanamo prisoners in Illinois

November 20, 2009

By Ed Collins SPECIAL TO THE NEWS-SUN
A straw poll of 541 voters in state Sen. Susan Garrett's 29th District indicates 52 percent of respondents are in favor of moving prisoners from the military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to an idle Illinois prison.

Another 35 percent were opposed, and 13 percent said they were undecided. She received responses from 541 constituents in the poll e-mailed two days ago.

Garrett, a Democrat from Lake Forest, said Gov. Pat Quinn and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., are seriously proposing the vacant Thomson Correctional Center in northwestern Illinois as a potential federal replacement should Gitmo be closed.

She said it is likely the General Assembly would have to approve the sale of the prison to the federal government so about 200 detainees currently at the Cuban facility could be moved to Illinois.

A typical response from a Deerfield voter indicated, "I am in favor of anything that brings revenue to Illinois."

Another voter from Highland Park said, "It's a no-brainer. It would absolutely be good for Illinois. As for safety, ask people in Florence, Colo., site of the supermax prison there, if they feel safe. It is probably one of the safest places in the country."

However, a Lake Forest resident noted, "I personally fear that housing detainees in an Illinois prison is unsafe and a very high risk, and that we cannot adequately protect the prisoners or our citizens. This would make Illinois a prime target for revenge -- and what better place to focus such acts than Chicago."

In a separate question, Garrett asked constituents if they believed prisoners at Gitmo should be given military trials, instead of civil trials

Fifty-two percent said they thought a military trial was appropriate, versus 33 percent who said they thought a civil trial should be provided. Fifteen percent had no opinion. She received responses from 540 constituents.

Typical responses to the e-mail question included a Highland Park resident who said, "If the Gitmo prisoners are eligible for the normal rights of criminal suspects then this is surely a bad idea. On the other hand, if we decide that we should not treat these individuals as terrorists, but as common criminals, then there may be a positive spin on these folks being considered murderers, rather than as heroic martyrs, from a world perspective."

Another Highland Park resident said, "An issue we haven't heard discussed is the fact that these prisoners haven't had their Miranda Rights read to them before they were interrogated. Bringing them to civil court is going to throw all their confessions out. Besides the obvious downsides of doing this, there is huge political risks to the administration (and Congress) if this goes badly."

Related Blog Posts
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/newssun/news/1894906,5_1_WA20_GARRETT_S1-091120.article

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22-11-2009, 10:59 AM

Terror trials differ in civilian, military courts

Terror trials: Civilian courts more independent; military tribunals easier on evidence

MARK SHERMAN
AP News

Nov 21, 2009 10:37 EST

The federal courts and military tribunals that will prosecute suspected terrorists vary sharply in their independence, public stature and use of evidence. But the Obama administration has so far offered no clear-cut rationale for how it chooses which system will try a detainee.
The fuzzy line drawn by the administration has made it easier for critics on both the left and right to assert that no firm legal principle is guiding the choices.

The administration has said similarly situated suspects can be tried in either system, while others may still be held without trial because there is insufficient evidence for either proceeding, but they are considered too dangerous to release.

"I think the Obama administration is trying to straddle this debate between whether we should approach al-Qaida as a problem of massive-scale criminality or as a problem of war," said Matthew Waxman, a former Bush administration State Department and Pentagon official now at Columbia University law school.

Indeed, on Capitol Hill last Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder testified, "The 9/11 attacks were both an act of war and a violation of our federal criminal law, and they could have been prosecuted in either federal courts or military commissions."

The administration is sending professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged henchmen to a civilian trial in New York, while a suspect in the USS Cole bombing in 2000 and four other terror suspects will be tried by military commissions.

The major differences between the systems are the federal judiciary's independence, rooted in the Constitution and lifetime appointments of judges, and the relaxed rules for admitting evidence in military tribunals.

Federal courts bar evidence obtained by coercion. And the new law regarding military commissions that President Barack Obama signed last month forbids evidence derived from torture and other harsh interrogation techniques. But the commissions still have rules that allow greater use of hearsay testimony and, in some instances, could permit the introduction of coerced testimony.

Military judges ultimately will decide what evidence can be admitted, but the new law allows statements made by defendants to be used even if they are not given voluntarily in certain circumstances, including in combat situations. Written witness statements, rather than live testimony that is subject to cross-examination, also can be admitted by military judges.

The larger issue, for some civil libertarians, is what the American Civil Liberties Union's Jonathan Hafetz called a "legitimacy deficit."

The commissions set up under President George W. Bush to try terrorism detainees have been revised several times based on Supreme Court decisions and acts of Congress that moved their rules and procedures closer to federal courts.

"But they just don't have the credibility and never will have the credibility that federal courts have," Hafetz said.

Joanne Mariner, director of the terrorism and counterterrorism program at Human Rights Watch, said another indication of the reduced stature of the commissions is that, by law, they can never be used to try U.S. citizens.

"The federal courts are a co-equal branch of government and judges are constitutionally protected from interference. That is really important in politically charged and high-profile cases," Mariner said. "Military commission judges and prosecutors have no such protection."

On the other hand, supporters of the military tribunals say they provide sufficient protections for accused terrorists. Moreover, they say, the Sept. 11 attack is a classic war crime — the mass murder of civilians — for which military tribunals have traditionally been used.

"Other things being equal, you would think that targeting civilians makes the crime more grave," said Gregory G. Katsas, a Bush Justice Department official. "If you don't try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed by military commission, I don't know who you try."

A host of leading Republicans, including Bush's last attorney general, Michael Mukasey, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have said the 9/11 defendants should be tried by military tribunal.

The administration appears to have made pragmatic and political choices after determining that it is likely to win convictions in a civilian trial of the alleged Sept. 11 plotters, but seems less sure of its prospects if suspects from other attacks were tried in federal court.

Holder hinted at this balancing act in his Senate Judiciary Committee testimony.

"I am a prosecutor, and as a prosecutor my top priority was simply to select the venue where the government will have the greatest opportunity to present the strongest case in the best forum," he said, while rejecting senators' assertions that convictions are easier in military commissions.

But he also said those who attacked a civilian target on U.S. soil were being sent to a civilian federal court and those who attacked or plotted against military targets abroad were going before tribunals.

Holder's formulation puts the U.S. in the position of distinguishing between American interests based on which government agency was attacked. The attack on a Navy warship, the Cole, is to be handled by military commission, while the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 have been prosecuted by successive administrations in federal court.

Waxman said that it is unlikely al-Qaida makes that distinction. "We're talking about a transnational terrorist network whose criminality extends across borders," he said. "The scene of the crime is global."

The lack of a clear explanation of the administration's choice has led some legal experts to conclude federal courts will be used when convictions seem assured and commissions will handle cases where evidence is weaker or more difficult to get past a federal judge.

"It somewhat supports the idea that if we can't make the case, we'll send them to a second-class system, which is the military commission," said Laura Olson, senior counsel at The Constitution Project, which objects to using military tribunals.

This two-tiered system may not entirely satisfy civil libertarians who want the administration to abandon the commissions or the Republican-led opposition in Congress that objects to giving Mohammed and the others their day in federal court.

But it could prove a viable approach that both avoids the credibility problems of using commissions for the highest visibility cases and the risk of acquittals if less devastating attacks were tried in civilian courts, said University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner.

"This moderate view that avoids the two extremes may be very appealing to people in the long run," Posner said.

http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/11/21/terror-trials-differ-in-civilian-military-courts/

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26-11-2009, 10:21 AM

'Cruel, illegal, immoral': Human Rights Watch condemns UK's role in torture
Pressure for inquiry grows as torturers themselves allege British complicity

Ian Cobain guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 November 2009 20.09 GMT

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pixies/2009/11/24/1259093265593/Cabinet-meeting-001.jpg
Under pressure: attorney general Lady Scotland. Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

The attorney general was under intense pressure tonight to order a wider series of police investigations into British complicity in torture after one of the world's leading human rights organisations said there was clear evidence of the UK government's involvement in the torture of its own citizens.

After an investigation spanning more than a year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) today condemned Britain's role in the torture of terror suspects detained in Pakistan as cruel, counter-productive and in clear breach of international law.

Critically, a report published today by HRW – entitled Cruel Britannia: British Complicity in the Torture and Ill-treatment of Terror Suspects – draws upon corroborative evidence received from the Pakistani torturers themselves.

Researchers at the New York-based NGO spoke to Pakistani intelligence agents directly involved in the torture who say their British counterparts knew they were mistreating British terrorism suspects. These agents said British officials were "breathing down their necks for information" while they were torturing a medical student from London, and that British intelligence officers were "grateful" they were "using all means possible" to extract information from a man from Luton being beaten, whipped, deprived of sleep and threatened with an electric drill.

"UK complicity is clear," the report says, adding that it had put the government in a "legally, morally and politically invidious position".

The attorney general, Lady Scotland, has already asked Scotland Yard to investigate two alleged cases of British complicity in torture, one involving Binyam Mohamed, a British resident tortured in Pakistan and Morocco, and a second involving an unnamed MI6 officer and an alleged victim not identified.

William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said it was vital that Scotland be asked to examine all cases where there is credible evidence of British complicity. "We believe that any credible allegations of UK complicity in torture should be referred to the attorney general to establish whether police investigation is necessary," he said.

"The prime minister made a commitment to do just that. It is up to the government now to say what it will do in light of the allegations contained in the report."

The former shadow home secretary David Davis said the report was "astonishing", in that it "destroys the last remnants of any defence the government might have". He called on the government to hold an independent judicial inquiry.

HRW added to the growing number of calls for an inquiry into Britain's role in the torture. Among those issuing demands are parliament's joint committee on human rights, the Liberal Democrats, Amnesty International, and the former director of public prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald. Lord Carlile, the government's independent reviewer of counterterrorism legislation, Lord Guthrie, a former chief of defence staff, and Lord King of Bridgwater, a former Conservative defence and Northern Ireland secretary, have also called for an inquiry.

HRW pointed out todaythat the government may have little choice but to investigate British complicity, not only because a failure to do so is threatening to undermine its core values, but because it is a requirement of international law.

"The convention against torture requires states to reinforce the prohibition against torture through legislative, administrative, judicial and other measures," the report says.

Privately the Conservatives are aware that they may inherit this problem if they win the next election.

Asked todaywhether the government's repeated insistence that it does not condone, encourage or solicit torture was any longer credible, a Foreign Office spokesperson replied with the prepared statement: "There is no truth in the more serious suggestion that it is our policy to collude in, solicit, or even directly participate in abuses of prisoners." Human Rights Watch had not suggested any direct British participation in torture.

The Guardian reported this year that an official government policy, devised to govern British intelligence officers while interrogating people held overseas, resulted in people being tortured, and that Tony Blair, when prime minister, was aware of the existence of this policy.

The Guardian has repeatedly asked Blair about any role he played in approving the policy, whether he knew that it led to people being tortured, whether he personally authorised interrogations that took place in Guantánamo and Afghanistan as well as Pakistan, and whether he made any effort to change the policy. Blair's spokesman responded by saying: "It is completely untrue that Mr Blair has ever authorised the use of torture. He is opposed to it in all circumstances. Neither has he ever been complicit in the use of torture."

When the Guardian pointed out to Blair that it had not suggested that he had authorised the use of torture – as opposed to asking him whether he had authorised a policy that led to people being tortured – and that his spokesman had not answered the questions that were asked, his spokesman replied: "Tony Blair does not condone torture, has never authorised it nor colluded in it. He continues to think our security services have done and continue to do a crucial and very good job."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/24/human-rights-uk-role-torture

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27-11-2009, 10:29 AM

Official Charged With Closing Guantánamo Quits

By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: November 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/us/25gitmo.html?_r=1

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department official in charge of closing the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has resigned after only seven months in the job, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Phillip Carter, who was named deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee policy in April, resigned last Friday because of “personal issues,” a Pentagon official said. Mr. Carter could not be reached for comment and no other reasons were given for his departure.

Mr. Carter, 34, a lawyer and an Army adviser to the Iraqi police in Baquba in 2005 and 2006, was in charge of veterans outreach in President Obama’s 2008 campaign.

Mr. Carter’s departure comes as the administration has acknowledged that it will not be able to close the prison by Jan. 22, the self-imposed deadline Mr. Obama announced immediately after taking office.

Mr. Carter has also left in the middle of the administration’s efforts to prosecute some of the Guantánamo detainees and find a location in the United States to house perhaps 50 to 100 terrorism suspects indefinitely. The Cuba prison now has 215 detainees.

The administration is looking closely at the possibility of holding some of the detainees in a maximum-security prison in Thomson, Ill., about 125 miles west of Chicago.

Gregory B. Craig, the White House counsel in charge of detainee policy for Mr. Obama, also announced his resignation this month.

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27-11-2009, 10:35 AM

http://www.bartcop.com/terror-miranda-rights.jpg

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01-12-2009, 09:56 AM

Court sides with Gov't in detainee photo case

Mon Nov 30, 10:16 am ET
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court has thrown out an appeals court ruling ordering the disclosure of photographs of detainees being abused by their U.S. captors.

In doing so Monday, the high court cited a recent change in federal law that allows the pictures to be withheld.

The justices issued a brief, and expected, order Monday directing the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York to take another look at a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union to obtain the photos of detainee abuse. President Barack Obama at first didn't oppose the release, but he changed his mind, saying they could whip up anti-American sentiment overseas and endanger U.S. troops.

The administration appealed the matter to the Supreme Court, but also worked with Congress to give Defense Secretary Robert Gates the power to keep from the public all pictures of foreign detainees being abused.

Gates invoked his new authority in mid-November, saying widespread distribution of the pictures would endanger American soldiers.

The ACLU has said it will continue fighting for the photos' release.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who served on the 2nd Circuit until August, did not take part in the court's consideration of the case, Department of Defense v. ACLU, 09-160.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091130/ap_on_go_su_co/us_supreme_court_abuse_photos;_ylt=AhUw_bcJwLb4Ssw CemNs2Jqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFlaTlhcnI0BHBvcwM4NgRzZWM DYWNjb3JkaW9uX3BvbGl0aWNzBHNsawNjb3VydHNpZGVzd2k-

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02-12-2009, 10:29 AM

2 Guantanamo detainees arrive in Italy

Tue Dec 1, 2:45 pm ET

ROME – Italy is considering taking in other prisoners from Guantanamo to help President Barack Obama close down the prison, the country's foreign minister said Tuesday, a day after Italy accepted two former detainees.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi promised Obama at a White House meeting in June that Italy would accept three people as part of the U.S. administration's bid to close down Guantanamo.

Obama said last month that he would miss his January deadline to close the prison, partly because he cannot persuade other nations to take the detainees.

Italy took in two Tunisian inmates Monday as a "concrete political sign" of the country's commitment to help Washington close Guantanamo, Justice Minister Angelino Alfano said in a statement late Monday.

Two other inmates from Guantanamo were sent to France and Hungary also on Monday, U.S. officials said, leaving 211 detainees at the U.S.-run prison in Cuba. Since 2002, more than 550 detainees have been transferred from the military base.

But France said Tuesday it did not plan to take in any more inmates following the arrival of Saber Lahmar, the second detainee taken in by France at Obama's request. The Algerian spent seven years at Guantanamo following his detention in Bosnia on suspicion of plotting to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, but was later cleared for lack of evidence.

Adel Ben Mabrouk, 39, and Mohamed Ben Riadh Nasri, 43, of Tunisia, were immediately taken into custody upon arrival in Milan late Monday. Both men are accused of being members of a terror group with ties to al-Qaida and of recruiting fighters for Afghanistan, officials said.

Italy plans to put the Tunisians on trial. Nasri spoke with prosecutors past midnight, and Mabrouk will be questioned in the next few days.

"He was heard, more than interrogated," attorney Roberto Novellino said of Nasri. "Physically he's fine, just tired because the trip was long." He said Nasri discussed why he was sent to Guantanamo and the circumstances of his transfer there.

Washington has asked Italy to take in more Guantanamo detainees and gave a list of names, which Rome is studying, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said.

Frattini declined to give any details about the third detainee's identity or arrival date. But he said Italy has agreed "to take in others."

So far, "we haven't pinpointed yet" which detainees Italy will take, Frattini said.

Prosecutors said that two collaborators in Italy's witness protection program have given statements on the two Tunisians. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said he wants them to be put on trial and convicted quickly.

According to prosecutors, a lawyer and a transcript obtained by The Associated Press, both men frequented an Islamic center in Milan in the 1990s that a U.S. Treasury report at the time labeled as "the main al-Qaida station house in Europe."

Lazhar Ben Mohamed Tlil, a key prosecution witness, said Nasri, known by his alias Abou Doujana, was head of an organization of Tunisians at a camp in Afghanistan where recruits received both ideological and military training. It was at this camp, the witness said, that he and other recruits were taught that "to kill infidels was the duty of every Muslim" and were prepared to carry out suicide attacks.

Tlil was recently questioned by U.S. investigators and identified from photos fellow Tunisian trainees in the Afghan camps, his court-appointed lawyer, Davide Boschi, told the AP.

Nasri had previously fought in Bosnia, according to the witness.

An Italian prosecutor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Mabrouk and Nasri traveled from Italy to Afghanistan and, once there, maintained a "functional relationship inside the organization" of Tunisians here to recruit fighters for suicide missions.

Nasri was allegedly the head of the organization and was described by the U.S. military as a "dangerous" Tunisian operative when he appeared before a U.S. military review panel.

Obama confirmed last month that he would miss his January deadline to close the Guantanamo prison — partly because he cannot persuade other nations to take the detainees.

Monday's transfers leave 211 detainees at Guantanamo. Since 2002, more than 550 detainees have been transferred from the military base.

The U.S. alleged that Nasri traveled to Afghanistan, via Italy and Pakistan, and trained at an al-Qaida-linked camp. He fled from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, when it fell to the Northern Alliance and was wounded in the U.S. bombing of the Tora Bora area, where he was captured and turned over to American forces.

Nasri also had alleged links to Muslim fighters in Bosnia as well as Algerian militants, officials said in documents released after he appeared at the military panel. He was also previously convicted in Italy for passing counterfeit money, and was convicted in Tunisia of being a member of a terrorist organization and sentenced to 10 years, the documents said.

He told the U.S. military that he did not belong to a Tunisian Islamist group, much less head one, and denies ever trying to overthrow the Tunisian government.

In Italy, Nasri is accused along with eight other people of criminal association, aiding illegal immigration and terrorism charges stemming from 1997-2001.

Mabrouk had been held without charge at Guantanamo since February 2002.

He lived in Italy before traveling to Afghanistan in early 2001, according to the transcript of his hearing before the U.S. military panel that reviewed his case. U.S. authorities alleged he had links to al-Qaida and trained at one of its camps. The U.S. also alleged he had previously associated with extremists in Bosnia and had been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Tunisia for being a member of a terrorist organization.

Mabrouk's 2005 arrest warrant in Italy accuses him of international terrorism, falsification of documents, aiding illegal immigration, theft and drug trafficking. He is alleged to have been part of a group affiliated with the Milan mosque that provided logistical and financial support for recruiting fighters for Iraq.

Mabrouk was captured on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border by Pakistani forces and turned over to the U.S.

He told the U.S. military panel that he only went to Afghanistan as an immigrant and did receive some weapons training but denied ever being in Bosnia or knowing about any prison sentence in Tunisia, according to U.S. military documents.

___
Associated Press writers Colleen Barry, Nicole Winfield and Frances D'Emilio in Italy and Devlin Barrett in Washington contributed to this report.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091201/ap_on_re_eu/eu_italy_guantanamo_detainees;_ylt=AuIBA2ffEgWtcoW MZul9ix6yFz4D;_ylu=X3oDMTMydTJ0ZXRxBGFzc2V0A2FwLzI wMDkxMjAxL2V1X2l0YWx5X2d1YW50YW5hbW9fZGV0YWluZWVzB HBvcwMxBHNlYwN5bl9hcnRpY2xlX3N1bW1hcnlfbGlzdARzbGs DMmd1YW50YW5hbW9k

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02-12-2009, 10:33 AM

United States Transfers a Guantanamo Bay Detainee to France

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Department of Justice today announced that a detainee has been transferred from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the control of the government of France.

As directed by the President's Jan. 22, 2009 Executive Order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of this case. As a result of that review, the detainee was approved for transfer from Guantanamo Bay. In accordance with Congressionally-mandated reporting requirements, the Administration informed Congress of its intent to transfer the detainee at least 15 days before his transfer.

Late last night, Sabir Lahmar, a native of Algeria, was transferred to the government of France. On Nov. 20, 2008, a federal court ruled that Lahmar may no longer be detained under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force and ordered the government to take all necessary and appropriate diplomatic steps to facilitate his release from detention at Guantanamo Bay. The United States is grateful to the government of France for helping achieve President Obama's directive to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

This transfer was carried out under an arrangement between the United States and the government of France. The United States has coordinated with the government of France to ensure the transfer takes place under appropriate security measures and will continue to consult with the government of France regarding this individual.

Since 2002, more than 550 detainees have departed Guantanamo Bay for other destinations, including Albania, Algeria, Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Belgium, Bermuda, Chad, Denmark, Egypt, France, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Palau, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom and Yemen.

SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/united-states-transfers-a-guantanamo-bay-detainee-to-france-78218002.html

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03-12-2009, 10:06 AM

Iranian doctor 'killed by poisoned takeaway salad'

A doctor who exposed the torture of jailed protesters in Iran died after his salad was poisoned, prosecutors alleged yesterday.

By Our Foreign Staff
Published: 5:32PM GMT 02 Dec 2009

Ramin Pourandarjani, 26, was based at Kahrizak, a prison on Tehran's outskirts where hundreds of opposition protesters were taken after being arrested in the crackdown following June's disputed presidential elections.

He died in mysterious circumstances on November 10, weeks after telling a parliamentary committee that a protester he had treated at the facility had died from heavy torture.

Authorities in Iran had initially claimed that Pourandarjani was killed in a car accident before suggesting that a heart attack or suicide was the cause.

However, Abbas Dowlatabadi, Tehran's public prosecutor, claimed that the young physician died from an overdose of propranolol – a drug used to treat high blood pressure and lower heart rate – in a takeaway salad.

Last week, Iran's top police commander, Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, insisted the death was a suicide, saying the doctor faced charges over failure to fulfil his duties to treat the detainees and killed himself in despair in a lounge at the courthouse. The police chief said a note was found with the body.

Opposition supporters have claimed that Pourandarjani was killed because he knew the conditions of a number of torture victims at Kahrizak, including 24-year-old Mohsen Rouhalamini, the son of a prominent conservative figure.

Hundreds of protesters and opposition activists were arrested in the crackdown that suppressed protests following the disputed June 12 presidential election. The opposition says at least 69 people were killed while the government has confirmed around 30 deaths.

More than 100 protesters, activists and pro-reform opposition have been on trial, accused of fuelling the protests and being part of a plot to overthrow the government.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/6711489/Iranian-doctor-killed-by-poisoned-takeaway-salad.html

accuracy

05-12-2009, 09:43 AM

Torture continues at US prisons in Afghanistan

December 4, 2009

Recent media reports reveal that the US military continues to carry on torture and illegal detention in Afghanistan at a dungeon known to inmates as "the black prison."
The jail, located on the Bagram Air Base next to the notorious Bagram prison north of Kabul, operates under the executive order of President Obama. After entering office, Obama ordered the closure of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prison "black sites"-which were in fact no longer active-but exempted those prisons run by the military's Special Operations, which was headed from 2003 until 2008 by General Stanley McChrystal, now US commander of the Af-Pak theater.

US military officials recently said they had no plans to close the Afghan jail and another like it at the Balad Air Base in Iraq, which they claimed were needed to interrogate "high-value detainees."
Two teenage Afghan boys told the Washington Post that they were beaten, photographed naked, sexually humiliated, denied sleep, and held in solitary confinement by American guards at the prison this year. Interviewed at a juvenile detention center in Kabul, where they have been transferred, "the teenagers presented a detailed, consistent portrait" of the abuse they experienced, the newspaper reported. Their descriptions of the prison were confirmed by two other former prisoners.

In addition to being punched and slapped, Rashid, who the Post describes as "younger than 16," said he was forced to view pornography "alongside a photograph of his mother." He was also forced to strip naked in front of about a half-dozen US soldiers. "They touched me all over my body," he said. "They took pictures, and they were laughing and laughing. They were doing everything."

"That was the hardest time I have ever had in my life," said Rashid, who was arrested this spring. "It was better to just kill me. But they would not kill me. ... I was just crying and crying. I was too young."
On Saturday, the New York Times published interviews with three former inmates who also spoke of the black prison near Bagram. Each informant "was interviewed separately and described similar conditions," the Times notes, and "[t]heir descriptions also matched those obtained by two human rights workers who had interviewed other former detainees at the site." One of the three men was arrested months after Obama's inauguration as US president, as were the two teenage boys interviewed by the Post.

All of those interviewed by the Times and the Post maintained that they were not "Taliban." Without being charged with a crime, they were seized by US soldiers, then bound, gagged, and hooded, and taken to the "black prison."

The jail, according to the Times' sources, "consists of individual windowless concrete cells, each illuminated by a single light bulb glowing 24 hours a day." The cells are small; one prisoner said his was only slightly longer than the length of his body. US soldiers throw food into the cells through slots in the door.

Prisoners are exposed to extreme cold and sleep deprivation. The teenage boys told the Post that when they attempted to sleep on the hard floor, US soldiers "shouted at them and hammered on their cells." Prisoners' only respite from this extreme solitary confinement are twice-a-day interrogations, during which some are beaten or humiliated.

"He kept asking me, 'Tell us the truth.' I told them the truth more than 10 times," Mohammad told the Post. "That I'm a farmer, my father was a farmer, my brother was a farmer. But they said, 'No, help us with this case. Tell us the truth.' That's why he was slapping me."

The prisoners are held in these conditions for weeks-35 to 40 days, according to the Times-their families unaware of their fate. "For my whole family it was disastrous," said Hayatullah, a Kandahar resident who said he was working in his pharmacy when he was arrested. "Because they knew the Americans were sometimes killing people, and they thought they had killed me because for two to three months they didn't know where I was."

Hamidullah, who was held five and a half months in detention, including five to six weeks in the black jail, said he heard the sounds of other detainees being tortured and abused. "They beat up other people in the black jail, but not me," he said. "But the problem was that they didn't let me sleep. There was shouting noise so you couldn't sleep."
Interrogators insisted he was a Taliban fighter named Faida Muhammad. "I said, 'That's not me,'" he recalled. "They blamed me and said, 'You are making bombs and are a facilitator of bomb making and helping militants,'" he said. "I said, 'I have a shop. I sell spare parts for vehicles, for trucks and cars.'"
The US military permits no contact with the outside world, and in violation of international law, denies the International Committee of the Red Cross access to the secret prison.

Gulham Khan, a 25-year-old sheep trader, who mostly delivers sheep and goats for people who buy the animals in the livestock market in Ghazni, was captured in late October 2008 and released in early September this year. He told the Times, "They kept saying to me, 'Are you Qari Idris?' I said, 'I'm not Qari Idris.' But they kept asking me over and over, and I kept saying, 'I'm Gulham. This is my name, that is my father's name, you can ask the elders.'"
Ten months after his initial detention, American soldiers went to the group cell where he was then being held and told him he had been mistakenly picked up under the wrong name, Khan told the Times. "They said, 'Please accept our apology, and we are sorry that we kept you here for this time.' And that was it. They kept me for more than 10 months and gave me nothing back."
The Times noted, "In their search for him, Mr. Khan's family members spent the equivalent of $6,000, a fortune for a sheep dealer, who often makes just a dollar a day. Some of the money was spent on bribes to local Afghan soldiers to get information on where he was being held; they said soldiers took the money and never came back with the information."
"This is something nobody can bear. It's extraordinary," said Malik Mohammad Hassan, a tribal elder from the Jalalabad area, "They treated us like wild animals."

After Special Operations soldiers have finished interrogating the prisoners, they are transferred to the regular Bagram prison where they are packed into cages holding approximately 20 men each.

Bagram, which reputedly holds an estimated 700 inmates, is a hated symbol of US imperialism to Afghans-so much that the Obama administration has announced its intention to end its use as a prison. Prisoners at Bagram are denied access to legal assistance or the right to know the charges and evidence against them. There have been many reports of torture there, among them at least two cases in which prisoners were brutally beaten to death by US soldiers; one of these cases is memorialized by the documentary Taxi to the Dark Side.

The revelations of torture and illegal detention continuing under Obama give the lie to his claim that the war in Afghanistan is about "protecting the American people" and "fighting terrorism."

Washington aims to subjugate Afghanistan in order to place the US military close to the region's oil and gas reserves and to head off the growing influence of other powers in the region. It is acutely aware that defeat and withdrawal would spell a drastic weakening of its global position.

These predatory aims require the US military to terrorize and intimidate the entire Afghan population. It is notable that those prisoners interviewed by the Times and the Post were ordinary Afghans-a wood carver, a farmer, a sheep herder, a pharmacist, a retired teacher, and a used parts dealer-all of whom denied any involvement with the Taliban.

Obama's decision to increase the US military presence in Afghanistan by 30,000 soldiers and escalate the dirty colonial war will inevitably result in more horrors perpetrated against the people of Afghanistan.

Josh Mitteldorf, a senior editor at OpEdNews, was educated to be an astrophysicist, and has branched out from there to mathematical modeling in a variety of areas. He has taught mathematics, statistics, and physics at several universities. He is an (more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Torture-continues-at-US-pr-by-Tom-Eley-091204-31.html

accuracy

05-12-2009, 10:11 AM

US military suicides reach new high

02 Dec 2009

http://www.inteldaily.com/tpllib/img.php?im=cat_172/12949.jpg&w=250&h=239

WSWS) -- The number of serving American military personnel who took their lives in 2009 has already exceeded last year’s record. These suicides are first of all tragic. Secondly, they indicate the immense psychological harm that the neo-colonial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have inflicted on members of the armed forces.

The US Army, the largest branch of the military, suffered the most dramatic increase. By 16 November, 140 soldiers on active duty and 71 National Guard and Reserve personnel had taken their lives this year—a total of 211. By comparison, there were 52 Army suicides in 2001. The number steadily rose over the following years, reaching 197 in 2008.

The overall suicide rate in the US Army has reached 20.2 per 100,000 personnel. The Marine Corp recorded 42 suicides as of October 31—the same number as in all of 2008 and a rate of more than 19 per 100,000 personnel.

Among Americans in a comparable age bracket to military personnel, the annual suicide rate is approximately 19 per 100,000 people. For the overall US population, the rate in 2006 was 11.6 per 100,000, though the number is expected to have increased since the onset of severe recession and mass lay-offs.

The correlation between the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the rise in military suicides is clear. The rate among Navy and Air Force personnel—who have not been flung into the front lines of the conflicts—is roughly the same as 2001 and well below the national average. Before 2001, the Army and Marine rate was also below the national average and, more significantly, generally half that registered in a comparable age bracket. People seeking to enlist undergo psychological examinations. Those with diagnosable disorders that contribute to suicidal tendencies are generally turned down.

What has changed is the deployment of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and marines to Iraq and Afghanistan. Many have been involved in or witnessed terrible events. At least one in five have returned with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A study of veterans with PTSD published in August by the Journal of Traumatic Stress found that 47 percent had had suicidal thoughts before seeking treatment and 3 percent had attempted to kill themselves.

Every day, an average of five members of the armed forces attempt suicide. Since 2003, close to 1,000 have succeeded—more than have died in the entire eight-year war in Afghanistan. Of that number, 41.8 percent had served one tour in either Afghanistan or Iraq, 10.3 percent had been sent on two deployments, 1.7 percent had served three tours and 0.9 percent had been deployed four or more times. The majority were male and under 30 years of age. More than half were married or divorced at the time.

Web searches produce numerous accounts of the terrible impact that suicide has wrought over the past eight years. A poignant interview with the wife of a soldier who took his life was published on November 29 by MPNnow, a Rochester, New York-based publication.

Tricia Hobart lost her husband and father of her three children on October 16, 2005. Mike Hobart committed suicide while back in the US on two weeks leave from a tour in Iraq. His leave was in order to receive treatment for nerve damage he suffered in an engagement.

Tricia Hobart told MPNnow: “I feel really bad for the families that have gone through what we have or that will be going through it in the future. After seeing what a year of deployment in Iraq did to my husband, I felt that there would be many more suicides to follow. Mike was a very loving, caring and understanding man, but after being in Iraq for many months, things changed his behaviour.

“The men and women, after being there in times of war, are changed for life in one way or another. Some learn to deal with their nightmares and flashbacks of what they saw and did while there, and some cannot put it behind them. Unfortunately, for those men and women that can’t put it behind them, suicide is one of the ways they choose to deal with life after war.”

The suicides among serving personnel are only the tip of the iceberg. Hundreds of former soldiers, veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars who have left the military either voluntarily or involuntarily, are also taking their lives.

The US Department of Veteran Affairs does not kept an official tally. However, a study in 2007 commissioned by CBS News found staggering levels of suicide among Afghanistan and Iraq veterans. Of 6,256 veterans who took their own lives in 2005, for example, the highest rate was among former soldiers aged 20 to 24, which was estimated to be as much as four times higher than the national average.

The veterans’ suicide telephone hotline operating out of a clinic in Canandaigua, New York, has already taken 118,984 calls so far this year and believes it has prevented 3,709 veterans killing themselves.

The psychological problems suffered by many veterans are being compounded by the stresses flowing from the US economic downturn. A study earlier this year found that at least 15 percent of former soldiers aged 20 to 24 were unemployed. Overall unemployment among Afghanistan and Iraq veterans was at least 11.2 percent, compared with 8.8 percent among non-veterans in a comparable age bracket.
The US Army, the largest branch of the military, suffered the most dramatic increase. By 16 November, 140 soldiers on active duty and 71 National Guard and Reserve personnel had taken their lives this year—a total of 211. By comparison, there were 52 Army suicides in 2001. The number steadily rose over the following years, reaching 197 in 2008.The overall suicide rate in the US Army has reached 20.2 per 100,000 personnel. The Marine Corp recorded 42 suicides as of October 31—the same number as in all of 2008 and a rate of more than 19 per 100,000 personnel.Among Americans in a comparable age bracket to military personnel, the annual suicide rate is approximately 19 per 100,000 people. For the overall US population, the rate in 2006 was 11.6 per 100,000, though the number is expected to have increased since the onset of severe recession and mass lay-offs.The correlation between the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the rise in military suicides is clear. The rate among Navy and Air Force personnel—who have not been flung into the front lines of the conflicts—is roughly the same as 2001 and well below the national average. Before 2001, the Army and Marine rate was also below the national average and, more significantly, generally half that registered in a comparable age bracket. People seeking to enlist undergo psychological examinations. Those with diagnosable disorders that contribute to suicidal tendencies are generally turned down.What has changed is the deployment of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and marines to Iraq and Afghanistan. Many have been involved in or witnessed terrible events. At least one in five have returned with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A study of veterans with PTSD published in August by the Journal of Traumatic Stress found that 47 percent had had suicidal thoughts before seeking treatment and 3 percent had attempted to kill themselves.Every day, an average of five members of the armed forces attempt suicide. Since 2003, close to 1,000 have succeeded—more than have died in t

accuracy

09-12-2009, 10:24 AM

"Suicides" at Gitmo

Why is Obama fact-blocking the suspicious deaths?

Link

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/12/07/guantanamo/print.html

From bartcop's site:

Excerpt:
On June 10, 2006, three detainees were found dead in their individual cells. Without any autopsy or investigation,
U.S. military officials proclaimed "suicide by hanging" as the cause of each death, and immediately sought to exploit
the episode as proof of the evil of the detainees. Admiral Harry Harris, the camp's commander, said it showed
"they have no regard for life" and that the suicides were "not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetric warfare
aimed at us here at Guantanamo"; another official anonymously said that the suicides showed the victims were
"committed jihadists (who) will do anything they can to advance their cause," while another sneered that
"it was a good PR move to draw attention."

Questions immediately arose about how it could be possible that three detainees kept in isolation and under constant
and intense monitoring could have coordinated and then carried out group suicide without detection, particularly since
the military claimed their bodies were not found for over two hours after their deaths. But from the beginning, there was
a clear attempt on the part of Guantanamo officials to prevent any outside investigation of this incident.

To allay the questions that quickly emerged, the military announced it would conduct a sweeping investigation and publicly
release its finding, but it did not do so until more than two years later when -- in August, 2008 -- it released a heavily redacted
reported purporting to confirm suicide by hanging as the cause. Two of the three dead detainees were Saudis and one was
Yemeni and they had participated in hunger strikes to protest the brutality, torture and abuse to which they were routinely subjected.
Perversely, one of the three victims had been cleared for release earlier that month.

http://www.bartcop.com/

accuracy

11-12-2009, 09:44 AM

Cleared Guantánamo detainee sent to Kuwait

Posted on Wednesday, 12.09.09

BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com
A Kuwaiti royal jet evacuated from Guantánamo Wednesday a Kuwaiti Airways engineer who was freed from eight years detention because a U.S. judge ruled interrogators wrung a false confession out of him at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.

The case of Fouad al Rabia, a 50-year-old father of four, brought into sharp relief the quality of evidence intended for his trial by a military commission.

Rabia's case also illustrated the long and twisted path Guantánamo detainees have faced in trying to challenge their imprisonment. Rabia first sued for his freedom in early 2002, but his case was heard only this year.

"This innocent citizen of one of the United States' best allies was wrongfully imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay for almost eight years, during which he was tortured, abused and coerced into making false confessions,'' said defense attorney David Cynamon.

A Kuwaiti families committee retained a Washington, D.C., law firm for nearly eight years in their quest to release their citizens at Guantánamo.

At one point, there were 12 Kuwaitis held in the makeshift prison camps in southeast Cuba. Wednesday's release left two Kuwaitis among the 210 foreign captives.

In September, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly instructed the Obama administration to release Rabia "forthwith,'' an order that took three months in part because the U.S. government was weighing its options.

In the end, Cynamon said, the Emir of Kuwait sent one of his personal jets, a J-5 twin engine 12-seater, to fetch him under a release agreement negotiated between the two countries.

To win Rabia's freedom, his lawyers argued that the military mistakenly profiled the graduate of Daytona's Embry Riddle Aeronautical University as a key aide to Osama bin Laden at the 2001 battle of Tora Bora -- and then subjected him to systematic abuse at Guantánamo until he told them what they wanted to hear.

Kollar-Kotelly, with access to secret Pentagon evidence, agreed in a 65-page ruling.

She found that Rabia had been subjected to a sleep deprivation program forbidden by the U.S. Army's field manual, that his interrogators themselves didn't believe his confession, and that the evidence backed his assertion that he was in Afghanistan on a humanitarian mission that he undertook annually.

"If there exists a basis for al Rabia's indefinite detention, it most certainly has not been presented to this court.''

Human rights advocates and military commission critics said the case illustrated how much the war court prosecutions relied on self-incrimination and coerced testimony that would be excluded from federal criminal trials.

"The legal system that freed him certainly failed him because it took the government seven years to have a hearing on the merits, in which the judge ruled they essentially had no reason to hold him in the first place,'' said attorney Andrea J. Prasow, a former Pentagon defense lawyer now working on counterterrorism issues at Human Rights Watch.

She blamed a culture at Guantánamo, and within the U.S. government, that didn't take a dispassionate look at the evidence against detainees.

"The interrogators as well as everyone else were told they were the worst of the worst and they've all done terrible things,'' she said. "I don't think the mind-set allowed for the possibility that some of them were innocent.''

The Justice Department confirmed the release Wednesday afternoon, once the Kuwaiti aircraft carrying Rabia had left the Navy base.

"The United States will continue to consult with the government of Kuwait regarding this individual,'' a Justice Department statement said. It declined to give details.

The Pentagon says one of the nine Kuwaitis released from Guantánamo returned to the battlefield as a suicide bomber in Iraq. Abdallah al Ajmi was released in 2005 and drove a truck filled with explosives into an army base outside Mosul, killing 13 Iraqi soldiers and himself.

The last two Kuwaitis at Guantánamo include Fawzi al Odah, 32, whose case was also reviewed by Kollar-Kotelly. In that instance she found the Defense Department had presented sufficient evidence to hold him indefinitely at Guantánamo.

Al Odah's father has championed the Kuwaiti efforts to get their relatives out of Guantánamo.

The other is Fayiz al Kandari, whom a Pentagon prosecutor alleges trained with al Qaeda, "served as an advisor to Osama bin Laden'' and produced jihad recruiting tapes.

Cynamon said the release Wednesday did not end the Kuwaiti's quest to clear his name.

"We call upon President [Barack] Obama to provide both a formal apology on behalf of the United States and appropriate compensation,'' he said, adding that Rabia "can never reclaim the eight years he lost at Guantánamo Bay.''

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1374078.html

accuracy

13-12-2009, 09:33 AM

Attempt to Secure Freedom for Last Briton in Guantanamo Bay Is Rejected

Miliband snubbed by US over prisoner's release

By Robert Verkaik, Law editor

Saturday, 12 December 2009

The government has clashed with the Obama administration over the return of the last UK resident to be held at Guantanamo Bay.

Foreign Office officials yesterday confirmed that Foreign Secretary David Miliband last month made an "exceptional" request to the US for the release of Shaker Aamer, but that his appeal has been rejected.

Mr Aamer, 42, who lived with his British wife and four children in London for five years after arriving in Britain in 1996, has been detained at the prison camp in Cuba since February 2002 after his capture in Afghanistan in December 2001. He was later handed over to American forces and held at Bagram prison, where he claims he was subjected to torture during interrogations.

Britain made its first request for the release of Mr Aamer to representatives of the Bush administration in August 2007. Mr Miliband was known to have discussed Mr Aamer's release with Hillary Clinton after President Obama's election victory, but it was not known until yesterday that a second request had been made.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: "We have made an exceptional request for the release and return of Shaker Aamer, a Saudi national, to the UK.

"This is because of the exceptional nature of the Guantanamo facility and our sustained efforts to see it closed. Though we were successful with securing the return of four other non-UK nationals, we have not been able yet to do so with Shaker."

Mr Aamer has never been charged with an offence.

This week the High Court in London ruled that there was evidence of wrong-doing in Mr Aamer's case and ordered the UK Government to disclose secret documents that Mr Aamer alleges prove Britain was complicit in his torture.

The case is potentially more damaging to Britain than that of former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed because British agents are accused of being present during Mr Aamer's alleged torture. In one allegation an MI5 agent is said to have been present when Mr Aamer's US interrogators banged his head against a wall, although the agent did not intervene.

In his court victory on Tuesday two judges ruled that Mr Aamer was entitled to see UK Government documents relating to his detention. His lawyers say they contain evidence supporting his claims that confessions he made were obtained through torture.

Lord Justice Sullivan said: "Our present view is that this matter is clearly very urgent. If this information is to be of any use it has to be put in the claimant's hands as soon as possible."

Later Mr Aamer's solicitor, Irene Nembhard, said: "It is the first ray of light for Shaker and his family. [They] will be overjoyed and they will be expecting that the British Government will give their lawyers the documents to assist them in persuading the Americans to release Shaker." President Obama made the closure of the US naval base a key priority when he was elected last year. He set himself a deadline of one year but has since admitted that he will not be able to meet this target.

Clive Stafford Smith, the director of UK legal charity Reprieve, has represented Mr Aamer in the US. He said that the British and American governments seem to working in unison to keep information about Mr Aamer's treatment from being made public. "It seems to be another big example of the British government working with the US to hide their mutual wrongdoing," he said.

The US have told the UK that they believe Mr Aamer represents a security risk.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/miliband-snubbed-by-us-over-prisoners-release-1838764.html

accuracy

15-12-2009, 10:28 AM

Guantanamo Detainee Deaths

By Stephen Lendman
12-14-9

Under the direction of Professor Mark Denbeaux, Seton Hall University School of Law's Center for Policy & Research (CP&R) published 15 "GTMO Reports," including profiles of detainees held, allegations against them, and discrepancies in government accounts explaining reasons for reported deaths.

An earlier report analyzed unclassified government data (obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests) based on evidentiary summaries of 2004 military hearings on whether 517 detainees held at the time were "enemy combatants." Most were non-belligerents. In fact, a shocking 95% were seized randomly by bounty hunters, then sold to US forces for $5,000 per claimed Taliban and $25,000 for supposed Al Qaeda members. At least 20 were children, some as young as 13.

The latest report titled, "Death in Camp Delta," covers three simultaneous detainee deaths on June 9, 2006 in the maximum security Alpha Block. Yassar Talal Al Zahrani, Mani Shaman Turki Al Habardi Al Tabi, and Ali Abdullah Ahmed were found dead shortly after midnight on June 10.

At first, the Pentagon's said they were found hanging in their cells as part of an anti-American "asymmetrical warfare conspiracy" based on medical personnel saying a short written note on each body indicated a coordinated effort to rebel against confinement as martyrs as well as longer confirming statements in their cells. At the same time, the media was shut out and lawyers prevented from visiting clients to minimize the incident and suppress truths.

CP&R's report found "dramatic flaws in the government's investigation (and) raise(s) serious questions about the security of the Camp (and) derelictions of duty by officials of multiple defense and intelligence agencies" who let them die, more likely killed them, then whitewashed the investigation to suppress it.

According to official autopsies, the men were hanging unobserved for at least two hours, despite constant surveillance by five guards responsible for 28 inmates in a lit cell block monitored by video cameras. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) require each detainee be observed at least once every 10 minutes. They weren't, yet no guards were disciplined in spite of evidence of "a camp in total disarray."

In August 2008, over two years later, investigators from the Naval Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) released "a heavily redacted report (concluding) that the detainees had hanged themselves in their cells and that (another) detainee, while walking the corridors that night had announced, 'tonight's the night.' "

Still key questions are unanswered, including:

-- the time and exact means of death;

-- how the dead men braided a noose using torn up sheets and/or clothing unobserved and made mannequins of themselves to look like asleep bodies in bed;

-- hung sheets to obstruct viewing into their cells;

-- stuffed rags down their throats to choke;

-- tied their hands and feet together;

-- hung the noose from the metal mesh of the cell wall or ceiling;

-- climbed on a sink, placed the noose around their necks, released their weight, and were strangled; and

-- did all this unobserved for two or more hours.

In addition, one man was scheduled for release in 19 days. Now he's dead so for sure he was murdered because dead men tell no tales, and maybe he had plenty to say.

CP&R's report "examines the investigation, not to determine what happened that night, but rather to assess why an investigation into three deaths could have failed to address significant issues."

It also covers suspicions that something very sinister was involved. Consider the following:

-- the Pentagon initially suppressed the fact that the men were dead for two or more hours before discovery;

-- how they could have hung in their cells unobserved;

-- why wasn't required constant supervision done - by guards and video camera monitoring;

-- how did all three follow precisely the same procedure, even more surprising as they were on the same cell block less than 72 hours with occupied and unoccupied cells between them - under constant supervision so they couldn't have cooperatively planned anything, let alone identical suicides;

-- why weren't guards ordered to make sworn statements about the incident;

-- why didn't the government determine which guards were on duty that night;

-- why was no explanation given why guards, who brought the bodies to medics, didn't tell them what happened, and why didn't medics ask;

-- why was no one disciplined;

-- why weren't cell block guards, tower guards, and medics "systematically interviewed" about the incident; and

-- why wasn't relevant, easily accessible information reviewed and reported, including from:

-- audio and video recordings;

-- "Pass-On" books in which each shift provides information to the next one;

-- the Detainee Information Management System (DIMS) records of all occurrences; and

-- Serious Incident Reports that include suicide attempts.

Why was an alleged conspiracy to commit simultaneous suicides not fully investigated? Why not after another detainee allegedly said "tonight's the night" wasn't security tighter than usual? Why weren't all material witnesses questioned? Why so much secrecy and cover up unless to suppress disturbing truths?

At issue is that three men died with "little to no explanation of how this could have occurred in a maximum security facility." Investigators didn't clarify what happened or answer basic questions as to "who, what, where, when, why, and how Al Zahrani, Al Tabi, and Ahmed died."

Many questions remain. No detainee cries were heard nor unusual activity to indicate a suicide attempt. On duty guards, other military personnel, and various detainee statements revealed inconsistencies and unanswered questions. CP&R drew no conclusions. It evaluated known facts and reported critical omissions to let others make their own assessments.

Various investigative files were analyzed - from the DOD, NCIS, the Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF), US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the Staff Judge Advocate (SJA), Armed Forces Medical Examiner autopsies, and FOIA obtained documents, in spite of names, dates, and other relevant facts on most pages completely redacted.

"The report provides an in-depth look at the SOPs of Camp Delta....It then scrutinizes the (detainee) deaths and the subsequent autopsies. Next the report analyzes the (investigative) findings....Finally, it points out the defects in the investigation" that smack of cover up to suppress the truth.

NCIS Investigation

NCIS is the "primary law enforcement and counterintelligence arm of the United States Department of the Navy" with three objectives - prevent terrorism, protect secrets, and reduce crime.

It evaluated autopsy reports, and conducted interviews with guards, officers on duty, escort control, guards from other cell blocks, medical personnel, and 16 Alpha Block detainees. Its findings concluded that the three detainees committed suicide by hanging.

CITF Report

Established in 2002, it includes members from all US armed services branches to investigate detainees captured in the "war on terrorism" and build criminal cases against them. It's a Joint Task Force that includes members from the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID), NCIS, and Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI). About half of its findings were redacted, and its documents revealed no final conclusions.

SOUTHCOM

It's one of DOD's global commands and the umbrella unit for JTF-GITMO. Its material supplements NCIS and CITF files, specifically documents found in detainees' cells, including purported suicide notes and "uncertified translations." It drew no conclusions regarding the information collected and examined during its investigative involvement.

The SJA Report

Its "informal investigation" focused on whether specific SOP violations occurred on June 9 and 10, and if so, whether they contributed to aiding the detainee deaths. It found six violations, redacted as "not insignificant" that may or may not have contributed to the detainees' deaths.

Camp Delta

Operating as one of three Guantanamo detention facilities, it's governed by SOPs that extensively monitor detainees from the moment they arrive with guard instructions to maintain a "continuous presence on the blocks" by conducting frequent headcounts, cell searches, and various other security measures.

Containing four camps, numbered 1 through 4, each with 10 cell blocks, Alpha Block is in Camp 1 with 48 cells, all clearly visible, aligned in two rows facing each other along a corridor called a tier. It's a maximum security facility for detainees separated for either behavioral or intelligence purposes, each in a separate cell measuring six feet, eight inches by eight feet with a sink, toilet, and cot. On each cell door is a "bean hole" or small window-like opening through which guards deliver meals and perform shackling and medical checks. A small rear window lets in some natural light.

Camp 1 is under constant surveillance by cell block guards and others in towers able to look directly into cells to monitor all movement throughout the facility. Sally Ports control access to all persons entering and exiting the camp. The Detention Operations Center (DOC) headquarters oversees all detention and security operations for complete control.

Chain of Command

SOPs define chain of command responsibilities, headed by the Commander of Joint Detention Operations Group (CJDOG) in charge of camp operations. The on-duty Commanding Officer (CO) is in charge of Camp Delta and reports to the CJDOG.

All movement is tightly secured, so when detainees are removed from cells, SOPs require they be escorted by guards following strict procedures, including the use of three-piece restraints to prevent escape. Surveillance is constant and detainees are subjected to an "intense intelligence-gathering operation" that involves horrific torture and abuse for extended periods. It wasn't part of CP&R's report, but it's relevant to what happened.

An Immediate Response Force (IRF) five-member team is also used for forced cell extractions and in cases of "self-harm incidents." Video monitoring documents everything.

Compliance with SOPs is central to maintaining camp security. Guard violations may lead to disciplinary action.

Estimated Time of Death

Medical examiners said the detainees were dead and hanging in their cells for an extended time without being noticed - "at least a couple of hours prior to the discovery." However body descriptions showed they were deceased longer.

The government's SJA Report includes Dr. Dean Hawley's evaluation, an Indiana University Pathology Professor, expert in the field of strangulation and asphyxiation deaths. Ligature abrasions (rope burns) on the bodies indicate they were hanging post-mortem for several hours. Their advanced rigor mortis proved they were dead much longer than two hours, "under continuous guard presence." Their bodies were also "cold to the touch" indicating they were hanging a long time, likely several hours.

The investigations were whitewashed with the NCIS, CITF, and SJA unanimously pronouncing the three deaths suicides. Yet until the bodies were discovered, nothing unusual was observed by guards or other detainees although in past self-harm incidents:

"other detainees (made) it urgently and loudly known that (an inmate) was carrying out some type of self-harm. Despite their ability to see into other cells, no detainee alerted the guards to any (incidents) that night, nor did the guards, who were on high alert, notice anything unusual...."

Colonel Bumgarner and Admiral Harris Statements

Blame the victims was part of the coverup. In a June 9 Fox News interview, Colonel Bumgarner (Camp Delta Joint Detention Group commander) told host Bill O'Reilly than he believed an Al Qaeda cell was operating in the camp, and said:

"Make no mistake....they will cut your throat in a heartbeat. Make no mistake about it...."

In an 11-page statement, he added that the detainees were becoming more violent, yet how could they alone in cells, and when outside painfully shackled hands and feet.

In another media statement, camp commander Admiral Harris called the suicides an act of coordinated "asymmetric warfare" against America, "not an act of desperation." He added that they were:

"tied to a mystical belief at Guantanamo that three detainees must die at the camp for all the detainees to be released....They are smart. They are creative. They are committed. They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own....I believe this was not an act of desperation, but rather an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us."

According to Colleen Graffy, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, the incident was a "good PR move to draw attention."

Evidence Without Findings, Findings Without Evidence

"The investigations contain many pieces of evidence that are never explained or explored further," suggesting coverup. In addition:

"The government reported that the detainees committed suicide as part of a conspiracy," yet "fail(s) to present any (supporting) evidence," suggesting there's none. "In fact, all (known) evidence is inconsistent with the conclusion that the detainees conspired."

Reported suicide notes on detainees' bodies and in their cells had similar, ambiguous wording with investigators saying "there is not explicit discussion of suicide in the handwritten portion" of the longer note in one cell.

No evidence corroborates the claim that another detainee walked through the cell block on June 9 saying "tonight's the night." In fact, detainees are prohibited from walking through the corridors of a maximum security facility or communicating with each other.

Yet NCIS' Statement of Findings said "there was a growing concern that someone within the Camp Delta population was directing detainees to commit suicide." But investigative files omit mentioning who did it, and no evidence shows steps taken to identify the supposed offender or enhance security to stop him.

"There are no documents, statements, video surveillances, log-book notes, DIMS reports, or other records that suggest a coordinated act. No guard was questioned about how the detainees could have communicated to conspire or coordinate their elaborate acts while under constant surveillance....The investigation fails to mention that Al Tabi was cleared for transfer to his native Saudi Arabia and scheduled to leave Guantanamo before the end of the month."

Also, he'd only been in Alpha Block 72 hours, hardly enough time to conspire or for any reason, given his impending release. In addition, the three men were on the same cell block side, separated by vacant and occupied cells supervised by five guards every 10 minutes and constant video monitoring.

"The investigative file contains no evidence of either oral or written communications between the three detainees or any others or any evidence to show how the three would be able to coordinate all the necessary preparations for committing suicide simultaneously."

In addition, guard interviews were "superficial," containing little information on what each saw and did before discovering the bodies. Other interviews were just as faulty, sketchy, and delayed until days after the incident. "There was no systematic attempt" to obtain detained accounts of what everyone knew and could relate. Questions weren't asked, specifically:

-- if detainees were hanging in their cells for over two hours, why didn't guards see and report it;

-- if sheets and blankets were hung in cells to obscure vision inside, why weren't they immediately removed;

-- if guards saw detainees braiding noses, why didn't they stop them;

-- how could materials have been gotten to make mannequins asleep in their beds look life-life enough to fool guards; and

-- if guards saw notes passed between detainees or heard them communicate, why didn't they immediately halt them.

Six days after the incident, four guards were told that they were suspected of making false statements and/or not obeying direct orders, yet no disciplinary action was taken. In addition, evidence was missing, including:

-- "Sworn statements on required forms

-- Serious Incident Reports

-- Surveillance video

-- Audio recordings

-- Duty roster

-- Detainee transfer book

-- Pass-on book

-- DIMS system information

-- Statements from additional witnesses, including tower guards," able to view inside all cells easily; and

-- interviews with other Detainee Operations Center personnel.

In addition:

"The way in which the investigative files are presented makes it difficult to understand how the investigation was conducted. It produced more than 1,700 pages of interviews and information regarding the events of June 9 and 10, but the evidence obtained as presented is virtually impenetrable. Pages are missing, paragraphs are redacted, and documents with information are disorganized, making it difficult to review any of the evidence obtained...."

The investigation took three months, but wasn't released until April 28, 2009, 18 months later.

CP&R concluded that the men "died under questionable circumstances," with the investigation producing "more questions than answers." Without proper investigation, it's impossible to determine the deaths' true cause, suggesting they were by means other than reported to suppress the truth. It wouldn't be the first time.

Known Murders in US Torture-Prisons

In his 2007 book, "The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison," British historian Andy Worthington reviewed them all, who they are, the majority being non-belligerents, and the use of torture, in some cases harsh enough to kill.

Chapter 14 of his book recounted "Murders in Bagram," America's notorious Afghanistan torture-prison, now undergoing a $60 million expansion to hold 1,100 more prisoners besides the 600 or more now there.

Besides the most unspeakable tortures, he detailed at least 10 known murders, naming names and explaining that their treatment, in fact, killed them.

Mullah Habibullah for one, called "uncooperative," placed in isolation, shackled by his wrists to the wire ceiling, then beaten until after four days he was coughing and complaining of chest pains. The violence still continued and killed him.

Dilawar was a taxi driver, randomly seized and imprisoned. Also called non-compliant, he apparently spat on one soldier who beat him brutally for two days and killed him.

Former UK prisoner, Moazzam Begg (now freed) reported witnessing one death in late 2002, and with two other detainees another in July, never investigated. They said a young Afghan man was fine on arrival, "and the next thing they were carrying him out on a stretcher."

Begg spent 10 months at Bagram, wrote a book titled "Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar," in which he explained that a Kandahar guard he knew told him about a murder caused by "hitting (a) detainee so hard that he felt he had fractured something," and that another guard used "Thai-style elbow-and-knee techniques." Still another one confirmed the murder, then later denied it.

A UK Bargram detainee now released, Omar Deghayes, confirmed witnessing two murders while there, including "a prisoner shot dead after he had gone to the aid of an inmate who was being beaten and kicked by the guards," and another prisoner beaten to death.

These and others at Bargram, Guantanamo, and other US torture-prisons are unreported or called suicides or naturally occurring deaths. Strong evidence confirms otherwise and suggests the three Guantanamo detainees didn't commit suicide. They were murdered in
cold blood.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to the Lendman News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday - Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://republicbroadcasting.org/Lendman

http://www.rense.com/general88/Guant.htm