Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Guantanamo inmates suffering mental damage: report
Over two-thirds of the detainees in the Guantanamo Bay prison are suffering from or at risk of mental problems because they are kept isolated in small cells with little light or fresh air, according to Human Rights Watch.
In a report entitled "Locked Up Alone: Detention Conditions and Mental Health at Guantanamo", the group says 185 of the 270 detainees at the U.S. military prison for terrorism suspects are housed in facilities similar to "supermax" prisons.
They spend 22 hours alone in cramped cells, have very limited contact with other human beings and are given little more than the Koran to occupy themselves, said the report, which is based interviews with government officials and attorneys.
Detainees held in this manner include many that have not been charged with crimes and have already been cleared for release or transfer, according to the report.
"Guantanamo detainees who have not even been charged with a crime are being warehoused in conditions that are in many ways harsher than those reserved for the most dangerous, convicted criminals in the United States," said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch.
More than six years after the United States began sending terrorism suspects to the naval base in Cuba, not a single case has gone to trial. (Reuters)
Labels: Guantanamo, Torture, U.S.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Lawyer: Gitmo interrogators told to trash notes
The Pentagon urged interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to destroy handwritten notes in case they were called to testify about potentially harsh treatment of detainees, a military defense lawyer said Sunday.
The lawyer for Toronto-born Omar Khadr, Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, said the instructions were included in an operations manual shown to him by prosecutors and suggest the U.S. deliberately thwarted evidence that could help terror suspects defend themselves at trial.
Kuebler said the apparent destruction of evidence prevents him from challenging the reliability of any alleged confessions. He said he will use the document to seek a dismissal of charges against Khadr.
A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said he was reviewing the matter Sunday evening.
The "standard operating procedures" manual that contained the purported instructions was made available to Kuebler last week as part of a pretrial review of potential evidence, the Navy lawyer said. (AP)
Labels: Guantanamo, U.S.
Friday, June 6, 2008
US to probe why Guantanamo detainees talked
U.S. military officers responsible for defending Guantanamo detainees said they will investigate why five men accused in the Sept. 11 attacks were allowed to talk among themselves at their arraignment, allegedly pressuring one of the defendants to reject his lawyers.
All five said they would represent themselves in the death penalty trial, the first U.S. attempt to prosecute those believed to be directly responsible for killing 2,973 people in the bloodiest terrorist attacks ever on U.S. soil.
None entered pleas, and two said they hope to become martyrs for their anti-American cause.
Lawyers for Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi complained he was pressured by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the former third-ranking al-Qaida leader and alleged mastermind of the 2001 attacks.
"It was clear Mr. Mohammed was trying to intimidate Mr. Hawsawi," said Army Maj. Jon Jackson, his lead military attorney. "He was shaking."
Jackson complained to the judge after an interpreter overheard other defendants asking al-Hawsawi questions like, "So, you're in the Army now?"
Al-Hawsawi, who allegedly helped Sept. 11 hijackers prepare for the attacks with money and Western-style clothing, looked thin and frail as he sat on a pillow on his chair. The others appeared to be in robust health. (AP)
Labels: Guantanamo, Torture, U.S.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Five 9/11 suspects set for first public appearance in years
Five alleged terrorists accused of plotting the September 11, 2001, attacks are to appear in public for the first time in years during a military hearing in the US prison at Guantanamo Bay Thursday. Seven years after some 3,000 people were killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, there are lingering doubts that the trial will ever get fully under way.
But Khaled Sheikh Mohammad, considered the brains of the attacks, along with alleged co-conspirators Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Wallid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, all face the death penalty if convicted by the "military commission."
They are due to appear before the judge, Marine Corps Colonel Ralph Kohlmann, to be arraigned on the charges against them which include conspiracy, murder, attacking civilians, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property, terrorism, and material support for terrorism.
All were arrested between 2002 and 2003, and transferred to the controversial base in 2006, reportedly after spending years in secret CIA prisons.
The trials have already been overshadowed by the controversy surrounding their arrests and whether so-called confessions published by the US military were exacted under torture. (AFP)
Labels: Al Qaeda, Guantanamo, U.S.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Guantanamo detainee writes Brown for help
A British resident held at the US "war on terror" detention center at Guantanamo Bay has written a letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown calling for his release, The Independent newspaper reported Friday. In the letter, excerpts of which the daily published, Binyam Mohamed insisted he was innocent, but said he feared the death penalty if charged with terrorism offenses. "I have been held without trial by the US for six years, one month and 12 days," wrote Mohamed, 29, the final Guantanamo detainee left with a right to return to Britain. "Still there is no end in sight, no prospect for a fair trial." Mohamed said he was grateful for Britain's public declaration of support for his cause, adding that before Britain intervened, he was "resigned to my fate." He added, however: "But it has been a cruel hope. Nine months later, I am still here, no closer to home, still in this terrible prison." Mohammed said he felt "deeply betrayed" by Britain. "It is long past time to end this matter," he wrote. "I have been next to committing suicide this past while. That would be one way to end it, I suppose." Three other British residents were released from Guantanamo Bay and flown back last year, while a fourth was transferred to Saudi Arabia. Ethiopian-born Mohamed said that of the six years he had spent in US custody, more than one year was spent in a torture chamber in Morocco, and another five months in Afghanistan. He was picked up in Pakistan in April 2002 while attempting to leave the country for Britain, after traveling to Pakistan and Afghanistan from Britain the previous year to deal with a drug habit and other personal problems. Brown's office declined to comment on the letter. (AFP)
Labels: Guantanamo, U.K., U.S.
RIGHTS: These Names Have Never Been Spoken in a U.S. Court
"My name is Ahmed Mohammed," she told police after her arrest outside the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington in January.
On Thursday, in a courtroom in the U.S. capital, she has -- at her own insistence -- been charged under that name, although her real one is Sherrill Hogen.
"Torture is a product of a sick society," Hogen told the DC Superior Court, "Of leaders bloated with power and fear, and is the antithesis of human goodness, compassion and love. I don't think I have a choice about where to put my energies."
Hogen, a 69-year-old retired social worker, was arrested while protesting in front of the Supreme Court building against the indefinite detention of the alleged terror suspects at the U.S. military base in the Cuban territory of Guantanamo Bay.
Like 34 other activists who took part in the protest on the doorstep of the Supreme Court building on Jan. 11, Hogen is now facing trial on minor criminal charges ranging from "unlawful free speech" to disorderly conduct.
"We came to the Supreme Court building because it has jurisdiction over the [primary] issue about which we knew there were violations of justice," she said to the judge Thursday. "[That is] the denial of habeus corpus to the prisoners held by the U.S. at Guantanamo." (IPS)
Labels: Guantanamo, Torture, U.S.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Guantanamo protesters in court
A group of protesters have appeared in a US court in Washington DC after their arrest at a demonstration against the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The 35 protesters, from the group Witness Against Torture, were arrested during a protest at the US Supreme Court in January to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the camp.
In court on Tuesday the group, some wearing orange jumpsuits, waived their rights to a lawyer and represented themselves under the names of various real-life Guantanamo detainees.
They face charges of either "unlawful free speech" or "causing a harangue" or both, and could face a maximum of 60 day in jail.
Prosecutors had offered to drop the charges, but the protesters said they used the detainees' names in a symbolic move.
"When we were arraigned [it] was the first time their names had ever been spoken in a US court, today will be the second," Chris Brant, one of the protesters, told Al Jazeera. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Guantanamo, Judiciary, U.S.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
FBI interrogation warning 'ignored'
Senior Bush administration officials ignored warnings from the FBI over interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq and Afghanistan, a new US government report says.
The FBI clashed with the Pentagon and the CIA over techniques which included the use of dogs and sexual provocation, according to the US justice department report.
The justice department report released this week said the FBI and justice department raised concerns with the National Security Council and with officials at Guantanamo Bay.
It admits that FBI agents did "use techniques that would not normally be permitted in the United States or participate in interrogations during which such techniques were used by others", but said they did so "in only a few instances".
For the most part, the report says, FBI agents avoided participating in detainee abuse and many denounced any abuse that they witnessed. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Guantanamo, Torture, U.S.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
'Suicide attempt' of 9/11 suspect
The alleged "20th hijacker" in the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US tried to commit suicide days before his charges were dropped, his lawyer said.
Mohammad al-Qahtani thought he was to be executed at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay and attempted suicide, his attorney Gitanjali Gutierrez said.
The Pentagon dropped the charges of murder and war crimes against Mr Qahtani on 13 May.
No reason was given for dropping the charges, which could be filed again.
Ms Gutierrez said her client had tried to cut himself at least three times in April, once badly enough to require hospital treatment.
Mr Qahtani had made the suicide attempts after learning that he and five other Guantanamo prisoners faced possible death sentences for their alleged roles in the 11 September attacks that killed about 3,000 people. (BBC)
Labels: Guantanamo, Torture
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Bin Laden driver's trial postponed
A US military judge has ruled that the trial for Osama bin Laden's former driver should be delayed by seven weeks.
A supreme court ruling on the right of detainees to challenge their imprisonment in civil courts is expected during this period.
Salim Ahmed Hamdan will be the first person to face trial at the US naval base in Cuba.
Lawyers for Hamdan, whose trial was scheduled to start on June 2, had requested a postponement.
Keith Allred, navy captain, decided to delay the trial till it was clear whether or not the supreme court's highly anticipated ruling, expected by June 30, would affect his arraignment.
The development is the latest in a series of delays for the US government as it tries to prosecute Hamdan, a Yemeni, who acted as bin Laden's personal driver in Afghanistan, and according to evidence "helped him to evade US retribution folliwng the September 11 attacks".
There are no plans to postpone the trial of the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four others involved in the planning, because of the Hamdan case ruling, a Pentagon spokesman said on Friday. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Al Qaeda, Guantanamo, U.S.
US military lawyers want Sept. 11 charges dropped
Charges against five Guantanamo prisoners accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks should be thrown out because they were improperly influenced by a Pentagon legal adviser, U.S. military lawyers said in documents filed on Friday.
Also on Friday, a U.S. military judge postponed the Guantanamo trial of Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, until July 21, to allow time to assess his mental competency.
Hamdan was to be the first prisoner tried in the U.S. war crimes court at the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba.
The Guantanamo tribunals are the first U.S. war crimes tribunals since World War Two and have faced steady criticism from human rights activists and reversals in American courts.
The tribunals were established after Sept. 11, 2001 to try non-American captives whom the Bush administration considers "enemy combatants," who are not entitled to the legal protections granted to soldiers and civilians.
In the case of alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other prisoners who could face execution if convicted, the military defense lawyers said the charges were tainted by meddling and "overreaching" on the part of Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann.
Hartmann was assigned to provide impartial legal advice to the Pentagon appointee overseeing the Guantanamo trials. (Reuters)
Labels: Guantanamo, Torture, U.S.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
US drops 9/11 'hijacker' charges
The Pentagon has dropped charges against a man alleged to have been the "20th hijacker" in the September 11 attacks, his US military defence lawyer has said.
Mohammed al-Qahtani, who is being held at a US military jail at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was one of six men facing murder and war crimes charges for their alleged roles in the 2001 attacks.
Bryan Broyles, al-Qahtani's military lawyer, said on Monday that Susan Crawford, the convening authority for military commissions, dismissed the charges against al-Qahtani on Friday.
The charges were dismissed "without prejudice," meaning they could be filed again at some point in the future.
Crawford is proceeding with charges against five other people accused of having a role in the attacks, Broyles said.
Prosecutors are to seek the death penalty for the men if they are found to be guilty. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Guantanamo, U.S.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
'Guantanamo man' in Iraq bombing
A former Kuwaiti detainee at the US camp at Guantanamo Bay carried out a recent suicide bombing in northern Iraq, the US military has said.
A spokesman for US Central Command told the Associated Press that Abdullah al-Ajmi took part in an attack in Mosul on 29 April that killed several people.
Ajmi and two other Kuwaitis blew up two explosive-packed vehicles next to Iraqi security forces, media reports say.
The US transferred Ajmi to Kuwaiti custody from Guantanamo Bay in 2005.
He was later acquitted by a Kuwaiti court of terrorism charges.
According to Kuwaiti and pan-Arab media reports, Ajmi and his two alleged accomplices, Nasir al-Dawsari and Badr al-Harbi, were able to leave Kuwait a month ago without alerting the attention of the authorities because they had wrongly been issued new passports. (BBC)
Labels: Guantanamo, Iraq, Kuwait, U.S.
Canadian becomes first child soldier since Nuremberg to stand trial for war crimes
An inmate at the US-run Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba is set to be the first child soldier to go on trial for war crimes since Nuremberg, after a military judge ruled that there were no legal obstacles preventing the camp's special military commissions from prosecuting him.
Omar Khadr, a Canadian national, was 15 at the time of his alleged crimes. His defence team said his age should see him treated as a victim and rehabilitated, rather than prosecuted as a war criminal. He has had no access to education while at Guantanamo, where he has spent more than a quarter of his life.
But in a brief ruling which has now been made public, the military judge Peter Brownback rejected the plea, paving the way for trial and a new chapter in Guantanamo's history. He said international laws dealing with the treatment of child soldiers were "interesting as a matter of policy", but they did not prevent the military commission set up to try the Guantanamo inmates prosecuting Mr Khadr, who is now 21.
After the publication of the ruling, the head of Mr Khadr's defence team, Lt-Cdr William Kuebler, said the decision to go ahead with the trial was "disappointing, but not surprising". (Independent)
Labels: Canada, Guantanamo
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Freed Guantanamo men face trial
Five Afghan detainees who were released from Guantanamo Bay last week have been sent to jail upon their arrival in Afghanistan.
They had been detained at Guantanamo Bay with the Al Jazeera cameraman, Sami al-Hajj.
Al-Hajj and the Afghan detainees were on the same plane after they were released from the US military prison.
The detainees, who have been taken to the Pul-i-Charkhe prison on the outskirts of Kabul, the Afghan capital, will now face Afghan courts.
Detainees from Guantanamo Bay and any other US prison facility are usually transferred to Afghan custody once they are released.
A relative of Hajji Ruhollah, one of the men released, is now seeking legal assistance to find out when Ruhollah will be free.
Speaking to Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr in Kabul, the relative said: "If the US decides to release them then they are innocent, and if there is no evidence against them, he should be released without trial." (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Afghanistan, Guantanamo, U.S.
Guantanamo man says UK knew he would be tortured
British intelligence knew in advance that a former London janitor now awaiting trial by a U.S. military commission in Guantanamo Bay would be tortured in an Arab country to extract evidence, his lawyers allege.
Lawyers for Ethiopian-born Binyam Mohamed, 29, filed a High Court case on Tuesday to try to force the British government to give evidence that would help his defense to expected charges before the tribunal at the U.S. detention camp on Cuba.
They say a British security official interviewed Mohamed after he was arrested in Pakistan in April 2002, and told him he would be transferred to an Arab country and tortured.
Mohamed says he was flown to Morocco in July 2002 on a CIA plane and held there for 18 months, during which time he says he was repeatedly stripped naked and cut with a scalpel on his chest and penis. He was transferred to Afghanistan in 2004 and finally, later that year, to Guantanamo. (Reuters)
Labels: Guantanamo, Torture, U.K., U.S.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Al-Hajj says US wanted him to spy
A celebration has been held in Sudan after the release of Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera cameraman, from Guantanamo Bay, with hundreds of well-wishers in attendance.
Civil society groups and the Al Jazeera television network organised the gathering in the capital, Khartoum, on Monday to mark his freedom.
He addressed the rally and said that his US captors had hoped to turn him into a spy.
"I was subjugated to more than 130 interrogations, 95 of them were about my work and Al Jazeera," he told the crowd, which included Wadah Khanfar, the network's director general.
"They wanted me to betray the principles of my job and to turn me into a spy.
"It was made clear to me later the main goal behind my detention was to detain the journalist who reveals the truth. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Free Media, Guantanamo, Sudan, U.S.
Sudan minister defends weak al-Hajj
A Sudanese minister has refuted a US defence department official's claim that Sami al-Hajj, a released detainee of Guantanamo Bay, was affecting weakness on his return from the camp to Sudan.
The US official had told ABC news that al-Hajj was "a manipulator and a propagandist".
Dr Kamal Obeid, the Sudanese state minister for media affairs, said in an interview with Al Jazeera on Sunday that he was "surprised" to hear the remarks.
He said that on his arrival in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, from Guantanamo Bay early on Friday morning, "al-Hajj appeared exhausted, with very slow heart beats and low blood pressure.
"When I grasped his hands, they were very cold, apparently affected by the cooling system in the aircraft.
"But when I greeted his other two colleagues, their bodies were much warmer."
An official from the US state department said that he had viewed al-Hajj's show of weakness as an attempt to influence pubic opinion. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Guantanamo, Sudan, Torture, U.S.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Sami al-Hajj hits out at US captors
Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj has hit out at the US treatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison where he was held for nearly six and a half years.
Saying that "rats are treated with more humanity", al-Hajj said inmates' "human dignity was violated".
Al-Hajj, who arrived in Sudan early on Friday, was carried off the US air force jet on a stretcher and immediately taken to hospital.
Later, he had an emotional reunion with his wife and son.
His brother, Asim al-Hajj, said he did not recognise the cameraman because he looked like a man in his 80s.
Still, al-Hajj said: "I was lucky because God allowed that I be released."
But his attention soon turned to the 275 inmates he left behind in the US military prison.
"I'm very happy to be in Sudan, but I'm very sad because of the situation of our brothers who remain in Guantanamo. Conditions in Guantanamo are very, very bad and they get worse by the day," he said from his hospital bed. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Guantanamo, U.S.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Sami al-Hajj freed from Guantanamo
Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj has been released from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay and is being flown to Sudan, according to sources.
Al-Hajj's family is expected to greet him when he lands in the capital Khartoum late on Thursday.
Once he arrives, al-Hajj will undergo a series of medical checks.
Al-Hajj was seized by Pakistani intelligence officers while travelling near the Afghan border in December 2001.
Despite holding a legitimate visa to work for Al Jazeera's Arabic channel in Afghanistan, he was handed to the US military in January 2002 and sent to Guantanamo Bay.
Al-Hajj, who is originally from Sudan, was held as an "enemy combatant" without ever facing a trial or charges.
He has been on hunger strike since January 7, 2007.
Al-Hajj's wife, Asma Ismailov, spoke to Al Jazeera before she travelled to Sudan.
"Now I can think differently, now I can plan my life differently, everything will be fine, God willing," she said.
Zachary Katznelson, a lawyer from the Reprieve organisation has worked on al-Hajj's case since August 2005 and has visited him 10 times in Guantanamo Bay, the last time just three weeks ago.
"Al-Hajj is remarkably thin, he has been on hunger strike and forcibly fed through his nose while being strapped down, twice a day, for 16 months," he said.
"He looks like an ill man, he has problems with his kidneys, liver, blood in his urine and there are concerns that he may have cancer."
Katznelson said that the cameraman's release was probably motivated by political concerns. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Guantanamo, U.S.
US secret prisons 'bigger issue'
Wearing a pristine white thobe, a dark skinned eight-year-old boy of Sudanese descent looks into a video camera.
He says: "Ana bahibak baba" (I love you dad) - part of a message to be sent to his father.
Mohammed al-Hajj, the timid boy on Al Jazeera English's studio lawn, is sending the message because he has not seen his father for six years.
And his father is desperate for any scraps of communication and support from the outside world - he is Sami al-Hajj, an inmate at Guantanamo Bay.
Al-Hajj is currently being force fed as he is on hunger strike and, according to Clive Stafford Smith, his British lawyer, he is also being subjected to psychological torture.
Stafford Smith says that the US authorities, desperate to get al-Hajj to end his hunger strike, have resorted to new methods of control.
"They've been telling him that he is strongly suspected of having cancer of the kidney and that he can't have proper medical care until he stops the hunger strike," Stafford Smith says.
"I honestly don't know if they are trying to terrify him to get him to stop the hunger strike or whether they are just being delinquent in not giving him medical care. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Guantanamo, Torture, U.S.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Ex-prosecutor testifies for Guantanamo inmate, cites political pressure
Political pressure and evidence obtained by abusing prisoners has undermined the Guantanamo "war on terror" tribunals, US media quotes their former chief prosecutor as having testified. Colonel Morris Davis, who resigned last year as the Pentagon's chief prosecutor for terrorism cases, was called to testify Monday on behalf of Osama bin Laden's former driver at a military commission at the remote US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Davis said senior officials in President George W. Bush's administration urged him to move high-profile trials along quickly for political reasons, The Washington Post reported. Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England and other Pentagon officials told him that charging well-known detainees before elections this year could have "strategic political value," Davis was quoted as saying by the Post.
Davis also accused Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, the legal adviser to the military official in charge of the tribunals, of tolerating evidence obtained from "waterboarding," an interrogation method that simulates drowning and is widely condemned as a form of torture.
"To allow or direct a prosecutor to come into the courtroom and offer evidence they felt was torture, it puts a prosecutor in an ethical bind," Davis told the court. But he said Hartmann replied that "everything was fair game - let the judge sort it out." (AFP)
Labels: Guantanamo, Torture, U.S.
Guantanamo, Pakistan detainees plan to sue Britain
Lawyers for former detainees are preparing to sue the British government and intelligence services for alleged complicity in abuse of terrorism suspects by the United States and Pakistan.
The cases, if they reach court, would be among the first anywhere to examine alleged wrongdoing by spy agencies in the U.S.-led "war on terrorism". Similar lawsuits in the United States have been thrown out on grounds of national security.
Lawyers for eight former inmates of the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba are launching proceedings to sue Britain for alleged complicity with their abduction, ill-treatment and interrogation, sources familiar with the case say.
Five are British and three are foreign nationals living in Britain. (Reuters)
Labels: Guantanamo, Torture, U.K., U.S.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Top US general 'hoodwinked' over aggressive interrogation
The US's most senior general was "hoodwinked" by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques for terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, the Guardian can reveal.
The development led to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners.
General Richard Myers, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture.
The way he was duped by senior officials in Washington - who believed the Geneva conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date - is disclosed in a devastating account of their role, extracts from which will be published in tomorrow's Guardian.
In his new book, Torture Team, Philippe Sands QC, a professor of law at University College London, reveals:
• Senior figures in the Bush administration pushed through previously outlawed measures with the help of unqualified and inexperienced military officials at Guantánamo.
• Myers believes he was a victim of "intrigue" by top lawyers at the department of justice, the office of the vice president, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld's defence department.
• Myers wrongly believed interrogation techniques had been taken from the army's field manual. (Guardian)
Labels: Guantanamo, Torture, U.S.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Translation woes stall Saudi's Guantanamo hearing
A U.S. war crimes court at Guantanamo reconvened on Wednesday over the case of a Saudi Arabian prisoner accused of plotting with al Qaeda to blow up ships, but the hearing was halted due to translation problems that have plagued the process.
The defendant, Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al Darbi, understood the proceedings well enough to tell the judge, Army Col. James Pohl, that he believed the court in a U.S. naval base in a remote part of Cuba was illegal.
"I believe there is no international court or local court in the United States that treats detainees or accused people the same way we are treated here," al Darbi said through an Arabic-English translator.
He called the tribunal "a crime against humanity, a crime against the law and a crime that defies any kind of justice." (Reuters)
Labels: Guantanamo, Saudi Arabia, U.S.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Saudi Arabia releases 32 ex-Guantanamo detainees
Saudi authorities have released 32 men repatriated from the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba last year, a newspaper reported on Thursday. They were freed on bail after being questioned and undergoing "rehabilitation" sessions with Muslim clerics and other experts aimed at reintegrating them into Saudi society, the London-based Al-Hayat said. The 32 were among Guantanamo inmates repatriated last year, it said. Another 24 Saudis transferred from Guantanamo are still undergoing rehabilitation, the Saudi-owned paper added. The US has repatriated a total of 117 Saudis from the detention camp which Washington set up after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Thirteen Saudis are still held in the notorious facility, said lawyer Kateb Shammari, who represents detainees' families. Three Saudi inmates held in Guantanamo allegedly committed suicide - two in June 2006 and the third in May 2007. After the 2006 deaths, US officials stirred outrage by describing the two reported Saudi suicides and that of a Yemeni as "an act of asymmetric warfare" and "a good PR move" by terror suspects. Human rights activists in Saudi Arabia have challenged the suicide theory cited by US authorities. (AFP)
Labels: Guantanamo, Saudi Arabia
Friday, March 14, 2008
Al-Qaeda suspect sent to Guantanamo (Al Jazeera)
The United States has said it is holding an Afghan national suspected of helping arrange the escape of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda leader, from Tora Bora in late 2001.
Bryan Whitman, Pentagon spokesman, said on Friday that Muhammed Rahim was turned over to the US military by the CIA and then transferred to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
"He helped prepare Tora Bora as a hideout for Osama bin Laden. He assisted al-Qaeda's exodus from the area in late 2001," Whitman said.
Bin Laden is believed to have slipped past US and Afghan forces near the Pakistan border, and has eluded capture ever since.
The Pentagon spokesman would not say when or where Rahim was captured or how long he had been held by the CIA, but said he was transferred to Cuba earlier this week. (Link)
Labels: Al Qaeda, Guantanamo, U.S.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Guantánamo guards suffer psychological trauma (Guardian)
The guards at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp are the "overlooked victims" of America's controversial detention facility in Cuba, according to a psychiatrist who has treated some of them.
In some cases, a tour of duty at the camp has made guards suicidal and prompted a variety of psychiatric symptoms, from depression and insomnia to flashbacks. The guards' testimony also provides a harrowing insight into the treatment of prisoners.
Professor John Smith, a retired US Air Force captain, treated a patient who was a guard at the camp. "I think the guards of Guantánamo are an overlooked group of victims," Smith told the American Academy of Forensic Sciences annual meeting in Washington DC on Saturday. "They do not complain a lot. You do not hear about them." (Link)
Labels: Guantanamo, Torture, U.S.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
