Bush-prison-torture News!

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This thread is a continuation from The Unhived Mind website.

Guantanamo Bay Prison and Torture News.

http://z13.invisionfree.com/THE_UNHIVED_MI...pic=19173&st=45

And also from The Forum site's thread ------Conspiracy 'Theories'

Aussie David Hicks,held in Guant. Bay/Torture news

http://www.davidickeforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27682

Welcome!

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After five years of torture, Bisher is slowly slipping into madness

False allegations from MI5 put my clients in Guantánamo Bay and the British government has failed them abysmally

G Brent Mickum
Tuesday January 9, 2007
The Guardian


The day after tomorrow marks the confluence of two ignominious anniversaries. The first is the five-year anniversary of the opening of the notorious prison camps run by the US at the Guantánamo naval air station in Cuba. In the five years since the US started shipping prisoners from around the world to Guantánamo, approximately 99% have never been charged with any transgression, much less a crime. Approximately 400 prisoners, characterised by the Bush administration as "the worst of the worst", have been released without charge, many directly to their families. That any prisoners have been released is due almost entirely to the outrage of the civilised world.

Thursday is also the start of my clients' fifth year of captivity around the world. Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna, both British residents, are prisoners because British intelligence tipped off the CIA that they were travelling from the UK to Gambia and falsely described them as Islamist terrorists. We know this because in a court proceeding last year the British government produced copies of telegrams sent by MI5 to the CIA. Although the names are redacted from the documents, we know that the CIA was the recipient because the judge in the case inadvertently noted that they had been sent to the CIA. In the telegrams, MI5 provided knowingly false information to induce my clients' arrest and subsequent rendition.
Bisher and Jamil remain prisoners because, until March of last year, Britain refused to demand their release. Then the foreign secretary made what appears to be a half-hearted request for the release of Bisher in the face of public exposure of the connections with MI5. Britain, however, still refuses to demand the release of Jamil and seven other British residents. None will ever be charged; there is no evidence in the record I have reviewed that would withstand the slightest scrutiny in any court. Moreover, the treatment of Bisher and Jamil has been so appalling, the Bush administration would never allow their story to be exposed to the world in open court. And, of course, some of that story directly implicates British officials.

Bisher and Jamil have withstood various forms of physical torture during their five years as prisoners. Both have suffered numerous beatings (Bisher suffered broken ribs and perhaps a broken foot because of beatings by guards, though both injuries went untreated - despite Bisher's requests for medical assistance), stress positions, temperature extremes, extreme sleep deprivation, death threats, threats to family and, at various times, starvation and being denied water that was fit to drink.

It pains me to report that, at the start of his fifth year in prison, the once healthy and extremely articulate Bisher is failing. He is no longer able to withstand the most insidious form of torture being used by the US military: prolonged isolation combined with environmental manipulation that includes constant exposure to temperature extremes and sleep deprivation.

Bisher is, slowly but surely, slipping into madness. British officials have long been aware of Bisher's treatment. To my knowledge, they have done nothing to intercede on his behalf. Until last March the British government adamantly refused to intercede on behalf of any of the British residents still interred at Guantánamo.

That changed suddenly when the government asked for Bisher's return on non-humanitarian grounds, belatedly conceding that Bisher had worked for MI5. Unfortunately for Bisher, this long-overdue admission, and the British government's request for his immediate repatriation, coincided with Bisher being thrown into isolation. He remains there more than nine months later, with no end in sight.

Bisher's world is a cell 6ft by 8ft in Camp V, where alleged "non-compliant" prisoners are incarcerated. After all these years and hundreds of interrogations, Bisher finally refused to be interrogated further. Despite the fact that Guantánamo officials have publicly proclaimed that prisoners are no longer required to participate in interrogations, Bisher is deemed to be non-compliant and hence is tortured daily.

While in isolation he has, in addition to the temperature extremes, been subjected to other sensory torments. His cell is frequently unbearably cold because the air conditioning is turned up to the maximum. Sometimes his captors take his orange jump suit and sheet, leaving him only in his shorts. For a week at a time, Bisher constantly shivers and is unable to sleep because of the extreme cold. Once, when Bisher attempted to warm himself by covering himself with his prayer rug, one of the few "comfort items" permitted to him, his guards removed it for "misuse".

Dinner never arrives before 9:30pm, and sometimes comes as late as 12am. It is almost always cold. Changes of clothing take place at midnight when prisoners are given a single, thin cotton sheet. Prisoners are unable to sleep until close to 1am. They are awakened at 5am, when each is required to return his sheet. All of Bisher's legal documents and family photographs were seized from him last June and have never been returned.

What the British government knows and the British public needs to know is that Bisher's treatment is designed to achieve a single objective: causing an individual to lose his psychological balance and, ultimately, his mind. Every aspect of Bisher's prison environment is controlled and manipulated to create constant mental instability. The damage to Bisher's psyche is not unexpected. The ravages of extended isolation and sensory deprivation leave no marks, but they destroy the mind.

I have conveyed my concerns about Bisher and Jamil to the British embassy in Washington for some time now. Most recently, I provided detailed declarations, submitted under oath, detailing Bisher's deteriorating mental condition and his appalling treatment. Although I have been assured that great progress has been made negotiating the terms of his release, it is still uncertain and, I'm told, is at least four more months away. If Bisher spends four more months in the conditions I have described, the man I met in September 2004, who was healthy, articulate, thoughtful and humorous, will in all likelihood no longer exist. He will probably slip into a madness that is permanent. If that comes to pass, Britain must recognise and accept the grave culpability it bears.

Almost a hundred prisoners that we know of have died in US custody; 33 of these deaths are formally classified as homicides by the military. Not since the second world war, when the US imprisoned American citizens of Japanese descent, has this country experienced such a constitutional nadir.

If the world is to fight this war on terror, morality must not be allowed to become collateral damage. The time is long past for the British government to demand Bisher's and Jamil's immediate return. Paradigms of innocent suffering, they will remain wraiths that hover above the political and moral landscape, constantly reminding us that the destinies of those who would wage just war and those against whom that war is waged are mingled.

In the process of reasserting the moral high ground in this war, Britain must not forget to reclaim the war's innocent victims. The victims of the United States are too innumerable to count. Britain has Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna.

· George Brent Mickum is an American lawyer representing Jamil el-Banna and Bisher al-Rawi, British residents who are detained at Guantánamo Bay; for a longer version of this article visit commentisfree.co.uk/brent_mickum

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A voice from Gitmo's darkness


A current detainee speaks of the torture and humiliation he has experienced at Guantanamo since 2002.

By Jumah al-Dossari
JUMAH AL-DOSSARI is a 33-year-old citizen of Bahrain. This article was excerpted from letters he wrote to his attorneys. Its contents have been deemed unclassified by the Department of Defense.


01/11/07 "Los Angeles Times" -- -- Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba — I AM WRITING from the darkness of the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo in the hope that I can make our voices heard by the world. My hand quivers as I hold the pen.

In January 2002, I was picked up in Pakistan, blindfolded, shackled, drugged and loaded onto a plane flown to Cuba. When we got off the plane in Guantanamo, we did not know where we were. They took us to Camp X-Ray and locked us in cages with two buckets — one empty and one filled with water. We were to urinate in one and wash in the other.

At Guantanamo, soldiers have assaulted me, placed me in solitary confinement, threatened to kill me, threatened to kill my daughter and told me I will stay in Cuba for the rest of my life. They have deprived me of sleep, forced me to listen to extremely loud music and shined intense lights in my face. They have placed me in cold rooms for hours without food, drink or the ability to go to the bathroom or wash for prayers. They have wrapped me in the Israeli flag and told me there is a holy war between the Cross and the Star of David on one hand and the Crescent on the other. They have beaten me unconscious.

What I write here is not what my imagination fancies or my insanity dictates. These are verifiable facts witnessed by other detainees, representatives of the Red Cross, interrogators and translators.

During the first few years at Guantanamo, I was interrogated many times. My interrogators told me that they wanted me to admit that I am from Al Qaeda and that I was involved in the terrorist attacks on the United States. I told them that I have no connection to what they described. I am not a member of Al Qaeda. I did not encourage anyone to go fight for Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden have done nothing but kill and denigrate a religion. I never fought, and I never carried a weapon. I like the United States, and I am not an enemy. I have lived in the United States, and I wanted to become a citizen.

I know that the soldiers who did bad things to me represent themselves, not the United States. And I have to say that not all American soldiers stationed in Cuba tortured us or mistreated us. There were soldiers who treated us very humanely. Some even cried when they witnessed our dire conditions. Once, in Camp Delta, a soldier apologized to me and offered me hot chocolate and cookies. When I thanked him, he said, "I do not need you to thank me." I include this because I do not want readers to think that I fault all Americans.

But, why, after five years, is there no conclusion to the situation at Guantanamo? For how long will fathers, mothers, wives, siblings and children cry for their imprisoned loved ones? For how long will my daughter have to ask about my return? The answers can only be found with the fair-minded people of America.

I would rather die than stay here forever, and I have tried to commit suicide many times. The purpose of Guantanamo is to destroy people, and I have been destroyed. I am hopeless because our voices are not heard from the depths of the detention center.

If I die, please remember that there was a human being named Jumah at Guantanamo whose beliefs, dignity and humanity were abused. Please remember that there are hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo suffering the same misfortune. They have not been charged with any crimes. They have not been accused of taking any action against the United States.

Show the world the letters I gave you. Let the world read them. Let the world know the agony of the detainees in Cuba.

UMAH AL-DOSSARI is a 33-year-old citizen of Bahrain. This article was excerpted from letters he wrote to his attorneys. Its contents have been deemed unclassified by the Department of Defense.

Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times

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Guantanamo Unclassified

Prisoner # ISN 940



Adel Hamad, husband and father, aid worker and teacher, has been detained at Guantanamo Bay since 2003.

01/11/07 Video Runtime 8 Minutes

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16139.htm

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Five Myths About Guantanamo Bay

MYTH: The detainees at Guantanamo are the “worst of the worst."

Fact: Few of the men sent to Guantanamo are the high-ranking al Qaeda or Taliban members the US government alleges them to be. Hundreds were not even involved in the conflict, but rather sold to the US by bounty hunters or turned over by rival clan members trying to settle a vendetta, while high level al Qaeda operatives with the money to buy their freedom got away. According to Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit from 1999 until 2004, no more than 10 percent of those brought to Guantanamo Bay were considered high-value detainees.


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MYTH: All the Guantanamo detainees are combatants who fought against the United States.

FACT: Many of them were not picked up on or anywhere near the battlefield. Detainees were taken into custody from 14 different countries, including Gambia, Bosnia, and Thailand. About half were taken into custody in Pakistan – and, as noted above, the thousands of dollars offered by the US to bounty hunters encouraged false arrests. According to US military records, the US has not even accused the majority of them of fighting US or coalition forces.


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MYTH: All the Guantanamo detainees will be prosecuted.


FACT: Of the nearly 400 men still being held at Guantanamo (another 300 have been repatriated or released), only 10 have been charged with a crime. None have been convicted. The Bush administration now claims that it plans to bring charges against a total of 70 detainees under the military commissions approved by Congress this fall. This still leaves more than 300 detainees at Guantanamo who have never – and will never – be prosecuted. They are simply being held indefinitely without charge or trial. Most of the detainees have filed habeas corpus petitions in federal courts asking that a judge review the legality of their detention. Pressured by President Bush, Congress enacted legislation that bars the courts from hearing their habeas claims – or any other claim regarding their treatment. Absent a new law out of the new Congress or a decision by the Supreme Court that the denial of habeas is unconstitutional, the detainees could spend the rest of their lives behind bars, without trial or any independent review of the legality of their detention.


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MYTH: All of the Guantanamo detainees have had fair hearings where they could contest their detention.

Fact: None of the detainees has been given a fair or impartial hearing to determine whether his detention is justified. The Bush administration claims that the summary hearings that have taken place before three military officers are a sufficient substitute for independent judicial review. The officers conducting these hearings have relied on secret, classified evidence that was presumed to be genuine and accurate but was never shown to the detainee. This put detainees in the impossible situation of rebutting evidence that they had never even seen and subjecting them to decisions made on the basis of untested evidence. In many cases the detainee was never even told what specific activities he was accused of doing that would supposedly make him an “enemy combatant.” Detainees were not allowed lawyers and in most cases were not able to produce any witnesses or evidence apart from their own statements.


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MYTH: All of the Guantanamo detainees have been treated humanely.

FACT: Pentagon superiors, including then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, provided Guantanamo interrogators broad authority to use interrogation techniques that ranged from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment to outright torture. The practices included prolonged forced standing, extended sleep deprivation, painful stress positions, exposure to extreme heat and cold, and use of snarling dogs. One memo from an FBI officer who visited Guantanamo described detainees as being “chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water ... Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18, 24 hours or more.“ The military has since repudiated the use of such abusive interrogation techniques in a newly issued Army Field Manual.

http://hrw.org/campaigns/guantanamo/2007/myths.htm

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Absolute Power

The real reason the Bush administration won't back down on Guantanamo.

By Dahlia Lithwick

01/14/07 "Slate" -- -- Why is the United States poised to try Jose Padilla as a dangerous terrorist, long after it has become perfectly clear that he was just the wrong Muslim in the wrong airport on the wrong day?

Why is the United States still holding hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, long after years of interrogation and abuse have established that few, if any, of them are the deadly terrorists they have been held out to be?

And why is President Bush still issuing grandiose and provocative signing statements, the latest of which claims that the executive branch holds the power to open mail as it sees fit?

Willing to give the benefit of the doubt, I once believed the common thread here was presidential blindness—an extreme executive-branch myopia that leads the president to believe that these futile little measures are somehow integral to combating terrorism. That this is some piece of self-delusion that precludes Bush and his advisers from recognizing that Padilla is just a chump and Guantanamo merely a holding pen for a jumble of innocent and half-guilty wretches.

But it has finally become clear that the goal of these foolish efforts isn't really to win the war against terrorism; indeed, nothing about Padilla, Guantanamo, or signing statements moves the country an inch closer to eradicating terror. The object is a larger one, and the original overarching goal of this administration: expanding executive power, for its own sake.

Two scrupulously reported pieces on the Padilla case are illuminating. On Jan. 3, Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio interviewed Mark Corallo, spokesman for then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, about the behind-the-scenes decision-making in the Padilla case—a case that's lolled through the federal courts for years. According to Totenberg, when the Supreme Court sent Padilla's case back to the lower federal courts on technical grounds in 2004, the Bush administration's sole concern was preserving its constitutional claim that it could hold citizens as enemy combatants. "Justice Department officials warned that if the case went back to the Supreme Court, the administration would almost certainly lose," she reports, which is why Padilla was hauled back to the lower courts. Her sources further confirmed that "key players in the Defense Department and Vice President Cheney's office insisted that the power to detain Americans as enemy combatants had to be preserved."

Deborah Sontag's excellent New York Times story on Padilla on Jan. 4 makes the same point: He was moved from military custody to criminal court only as "a legal maneuver that kept the issue of his detention without charges out of the Supreme Court." So this is why the White House yanked Padilla from the brig to the high court to the federal courts and back to a Florida trial court: They were only forum shopping for the best place to enshrine the right to detain him indefinitely. Their claims about Padilla's dirty bomb, known to be false, were a means of advancing their larger claims about executive power. And when confronted with the possibility of losing on those claims, they yanked him back to the criminal courts as a way to avoid losing powers they'd already won.

This need to preserve newly won legal ground also explains the continued operation of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Last week marked the fifth anniversary of the camp that—according to Donald Rumsfeld in 2002—houses only "the worst of the worst." Now that over half of them have been released (apparently, the best of the worst) and even though only about 80 of the rest will ever see trials, the camp remains open. Why? Civil-rights groups worldwide and even close U.S. allies like Germany, Denmark, and England clamor for its closure. And as the ever-vigilant Nat Hentoff points out, new studies reveal that only a small fraction of the detainees there are even connected to al-Qaida—according to the Defense Department's own best data.

But Guantanamo stays open for the same reason Padilla stays on trial. Having claimed the right to label enemy combatants and detain them indefinitely without charges, the Bush administration is unable to retreat from that position without ceding ground. In some sense, the president is now as much a prisoner of Guantanamo as the detainees. And having gone nose-to-nose with the Congress over his authority to craft stripped-down courts for these "enemies," courts guaranteed to produce guilty verdicts, Bush cannot just call off the trials.

The endgame in the war on terror isn't holding the line against terrorists. It's holding the line on hard-fought claims to absolutely limitless presidential authority.

Enter these signing statements. The most recent of the all-but-meaningless postscripts Bush tacks onto legislation gives him the power to "authorize a search of mail in an emergency" to ''protect human life and safety" and "for foreign intelligence collection." There is some debate about whether the president has that power already, but it misses the point. The purpose of these signing statements is simply to plant a flag on the moon—one more way for the president to stake out the furthest corners in his field of constitutional dreams.

Last spring, The New Yorker's Jane Mayer profiled David Addington, Vice President Richard Cheney's chief of staff and legal adviser. Addington's worldview in brief: A single-minded devotion to something called the New Paradigm, a constitutional theory of virtually limitless executive power, wherein "the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it," Mayer describes.

Insiders in the Bush administration told Mayer that Addington and Cheney had been "laying the groundwork" for a vast expansion of presidential power long before 9/11. In 2002, the vice president told ABC News that the presidency was "weaker today as an institution because of the unwise compromises that have been made over the last 30 to 35 years." Rebuilding that presidency has been their sole goal for decades.

The image of Addington scrutinizing "every bill before President Bush signs it, searching for any language that might impinge on Presidential power," as Mayer puts it, can be amusing—like the mother of the bride obsessing over a tricky seating chart. But this zeal to restore an all-powerful presidency traps the Bush administration in its own worst legal sinkholes. This newfound authority—to maintain a disastrous Guantanamo, to stage rights-free tribunals and hold detainees forever—is the kind of power Nixon only dreamed about. It cannot be let go.

In a heartbreaking letter from Guantanamo this week, published in the Los Angeles Times, prisoner Jumah Al Dossari writes: "The purpose of Guantanamo is to destroy people, and I have been destroyed." I fear he is wrong. The destruction of Al Dossari, Jose Padilla, Zacarias Moussaoui, and some of our most basic civil liberties was never a purpose or a goal—it was a mere byproduct. The true purpose is more abstract and more tragic: To establish a clunky post-Watergate dream of an imperial presidency, whatever the human cost may be.

A version of this piece appeared in the Washington Post Outlook section.

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Cell phone cams expose torture

By Claude Salhani Jan 16, 2007
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middlee..._expose_torture

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- Human rights groups have long complained against the use of torture in Egypt, a fact consistently denied by the Egyptian government. But a video recording made with a cell phone camera and posted on the Internet for the world to see places the government of President Hosni Mubarak in an embarrassing position.

The Egyptian government -- and indeed all governments which resort to the use of torture -- may start having second thoughts now that, thanks to modern technology, denial is no longer an option. With the probability that such actions may be recorded and later used as evidence against the torturers in criminal courts, police officers may now think twice before abusing prisoners.

While torture may serve an immediate goal, that of forcing the suspect to reveal information, it carries a devastating long-term effect for both the prisoner and the people applying the torture.

For the victims of torture it augments the hate and helps widen the schism between them and the established powers. Often, as in Iraq, for example, it lays the groundwork for future revenge.

To prove this point one need only look at the case of al-Qaida`s number two man, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. The radical Islamist militant and deputy leader of the world`s most feared terrorist group is reported to have turned to radical and violent Islam only after suffering severe torture while serving time in an Egyptian jail. It is said that it was the torture that changed him.

Regrettably, the story of Zawahiri being subjected to torture is far from being unique. Despite repeated calls from the world community, from human rights advocates and others, the torture of suspects in Egyptian, or other Arab jails, persists. And in Asian jails, or for that matter American jails, remains all too current. Think back to Abu Ghraib and the horrid scenes from the U.S.-run jail outside Baghdad. Or much closer to home, think of the stories -- the nightmares, rather -- that emerged from the Guantanamo detention facilities.

Zawahiri`s case became known to the public as a result of his association with al-Qaida. But for every case that surfaces to the public`s attention there remain hundreds, if not thousands, more untold stories of prisoners being routinely tortured while in the custody of government security agencies.

But the tables may be starting to turn on the torturers thanks to modern technology and the invention of the cell phone video camera.

After the video taping of Saddam Hussein`s execution by someone using a cellular phone equipped with a video camera found its way on the Internet, the world had the opportunity to see justice miscarried within minutes. Saddam`s hanging turned out to be more of a lynching and an embarrassment for the Iraqi government.

This week a similar scandal has erupted in Cairo over the use of cell phone/video cam, this time to film a torture scene. Somehow, someone managed to sneak a cell phone camera into an Egyptian police station and document a disturbing scene showing a woman hanging from a lateral pole that was balanced between the backs of two chairs. The woman`s hands and feet are tied and she is swinging upside-down with the wooden pole placed under her knees.

The popular Internet site youtube.com displayed this clip as well as several others showing Egyptian policemen hitting, kicking, shouting and abusing detainees.

The prisoners appear completely helpless; if they attempt to defend themselves, if they try to cover their faces in order to avoid blows, they are hit even harder.

The Egyptian government has consistently denied the use of torture by its military, police and security forces. But the sudden appearance on youtube.com of dozens of clips taken by cell phone cams has brought much embarrassment to the government of President Mubarak, a staunch U.S. ally in the Middle East and in the war on terror.

Adding to Mubarak`s embarrassment, Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV`s documentary channel had one of its producers arrested at Cairo International Airport as she tried leaving the country with footage showing the use of torture in Egyptian detention centers.

Howayda Taha, the al-Jazeera producer, found herself charged with 'harming the state`s national interest' -- meaning al-Jazeera was planning to air the torture footage. The al-Jazeera journalist was accused of fabricating images in a way that is detrimental to the country`s reputation; she was prohibited from leaving the country and had nearly 50 tapes confiscated.

Maybe someone managed to film her arrest with a cell phone camera?

(Comments may be sent to Claude@upi.com.)

Copyright 2007 by United Press International

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Guantanamo is a US torture camp

BY VIKRAM DODD

18 January 2007



IT would be the ideal spot for a beachside birthday party. Surrounded by a turquoise sea, palm trees and white sand, the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is now five years old. Tony Blair calls it an ‘anomaly’, but the evidence is overwhelming.


Camp Delta, which still houses 470 men never convicted of any crime, is a torture camp. That should be the starting point of any debate about what is acceptable in the west's fight with Islamist extremists. More than 750 men have passed through the camp, with nearly half being released. Many prisoners, past and present, have given consistent and repeated testimony of serious abuses and ill treatment. There is also significant evidence from US officials and government documents of widespread abuse at the camp.

The British detainees known as the Tipton Three (after their home town of Tipton in the north of England) allege they were repeatedly beaten, shackled in painful positions for long periods and subjected to sleep deprivation. They were also subjected to strobe lighting, loud music and extremes of hot and cold -- all meant to break them psychologically. Other detainees have suffered beatings, sexual assaults and death threats. At least one man has been ‘water boarded’ -- tied to a board and placed under water so that he had the sensation of drowning.

According to the Red Cross, the regime at Guantanamo causes psychological suffering that has driven inmates mad, with scores of suicide attempts and three inmates killing themselves last year.

Even US officials are shocked. Last week FBI documents revealed that an inmate's head had been wrapped in tape for quoting from the Qur'an. Another was humiliated for his religious beliefs and ‘baptised’ by a soldier posing as a Catholic priest. The documents show FBI agents saw 26 instances of abuse in their time at Guantanamo. The FBI is highly sceptical about alleged confessions gained by its military colleagues. A May 2004 FBI memo branded intelligence gained from ‘special techniques’ as ‘suspect at best’. Indeed, one of the Tipton Three confessed to being in a video shot at an Afghan terror camp alongside Osama bin Laden -- in fact, at the time he was working in an electronics store in the UK.

But the US should not shoulder all the blame. Some of the material from Guantanamo has been used by Britain's counter-terrorism agencies. In June 2003 Tony Blair told the House of Commons: ‘Information is still coming from people detained there ... That information is important’. George Bush, his aides and the US military define what they have been doing as a special programme using special measures: their position appears to be that as long as blood is not drawn, it is not torture.

One official investigation found an inmate had been sexually humiliated and forced to perform dog tricks on a leash. It said the conduct was “abusive and degrading” but not torture. In a UK court hearing over Guantanamo, a senior British judge, Mr Justice Collins, declared: “America's idea of what is torture is not the same as ours.”

A UN report has confirmed evidence of torture, and Amnesty International has declared Guantanamo ‘the gulag of our time’. Guantanamo is not the only US torture camp. Bagram in Afghanistan has been dogged by stories of abuse, and there are secret US prisons around the world where it is widely feared new horrors are occuring.

Human rights have been traded away in Guantanamo in the hope of gaining security, and it has not worked. One of the US's founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, stated: “He who trades liberty for security deserves neither and will lose both.”

Adorned on the walls of the Guantanamo camp is its mission statement: ‘Honour-bound to defend freedom’.

After five years of Guantanamo, do you feel any safer?

Vikram Dodd is a senior staff writer on the London-based Guardian newspaper.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle...on=opinion&col=

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MULTIMEDIA

A special report on David Hicks by The Sydney Morning Herald

http://www.smh.com.au/multimedia/hicks/main.html

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The Waste Land: Declassified poetry from Guantánamo Bay

Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007. By Ken Silverstein
http://www.harpers.org/sb-the-waste-land-1169582427.html

Jumah al-Dossari, originally from Bahrain, was seized by Pakistani security forces in late 2001 and turned over to the United States. The U.S. military brought him to the Guantánamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, where, he claims, he was beaten, his life was threatened, and he was isolated from other prisoners for long stretches of time. Dossari, who denies any connection to Al Qaeda or terrorism, and has never been charged with any such crime, has repeatedly attempted to commit suicide while imprisoned. His most recent attempt, according to Amnesty International, was in March 2006, when he tried to slit his throat.

Death Poem

By Jumah al-Dossari

Take my blood.
Take my death shroud and
The remnants of my body.
Take photographs of my corpse at the grave, lonely.

Send them to the world,
To the judges and
To the people of conscience,
Send them to the principled men and the fair-minded.

And let them bear the guilty burden, before the world,
Of this innocent soul.
Let them bear the burden, before their children and before history,
Of this wasted, sinless soul,
Of this soul which has suffered at the hands of the “protectors of peace.”

---end of poem-------

That poem will be included in a collection of poetry by Guantánamo detainees that is being assembled by Marc Falkoff, a law professor at Northern Illinois University and an attorney for seventeen clients at the prison camp. Poems from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak will be published this fall by the University of Iowa Press and will include essays by several prominent literary and cultural figures. Most of the poems were written in Arabic and translated by non-professionals.

Falkoff, who has a doctorate in literature, was intrigued when several of his clients began sending him poems. “I didn't think much of it,” he told me, “until I was reading a terrifically moving volume of poems called Here, Bullet by Brian Turner, an Iraq War vet. I started thinking about the power of topical poetry, and it occurred to me that the public should read the poetry that my clients wrote. I was curious if other lawyers had clients who’d written poetry, so I asked around and learned that there was a lot of it in their files. It hit me that we could pull a lot of this stuff together as a collection so the public could, yes, hear the voices of Guantánamo, and perhaps move [[beyond]] the administration's sloganeering.”

Falkoff won't be able to include all of the works he had hoped to, because the Pentagon has classified some of the poems. In a September 18, 2006 memo, a Pentagon official explained that several poems submitted for declassification had been rejected because poetry “presents a special risk” due to its “content and format.” It was not made clear whether the Pentagon believes the danger lies in the power of words or in the risk that detainees could send coded messages to terrorist operatives through their poems. “As much as I'd like to think it's the former, I presume it's the latter,” Falkoff replied when I asked him about the military's thinking on the matter.

Of the work that has been cleared for publication, Falkoff plans to include “Ode to the Sea” by Ibrahim al Rubaish (“Your beaches are sadness, captivity, pain and injustice whose bitterness eats away at patience/Your calm is death, and your sweeping is strange and a silence rises up from you, holding treachery in its fold”) and “Even if the Pain” by Saddiq Turkestani. The latter is one of nine ethnic Uighurs whom the Pentagon long ago determined not to be “enemy combatants” but continues to hold because they would likely be tortured and killed if sent home to China. The Bush Administration won't allow them into the United States, and no other government has volunteered to take them.

Several of the poets in the volume were released from Guantánamo after long periods of incarceration, without ever having been charged. They include the Moazzam Begg of Britain (“Freedom is spent, time is up/Tears have rent my sorrow’s cup/Home is cage, and cage is steel/Thus manifest reality’s unreal”) and Abdur Rahim Muslim Dost of Afghanistan (“Those who argue or reason unjustly and foolishly with Dost the Poet/They can't help to surrender or runaway”).

Dost's brother, Badruzzaman Badr, was also detained at Guantanamo and later freed (his work, too, will appear in the collection). Both men returned to their home in Peshawar, Pakistan, and last September published The Broken Shackles of Guantanamo, which describes their experiences there. The book is also critical of the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, and its collaboration with the United States in the “war on terror.” On September 29 of last year, Dost was arrested as he left a local mosque; he has thus far not been charged but has been prevented from seeing an attorney or his family. His brother has reportedly gone into hiding.

* * *

[accuracy]

Guantanamo inmates facing worse conditions-lawyer

26 Jan 2007 Source: Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L26364409.htm



By Suleiman al-Khalidi

AMMAN, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Some Guantanamo Bay prisoners have been moved to a new wing where they face the worst conditions since their arrival, as interrogators make a last attempt to extract confessions, a U.S. lawyer said on Friday.

Zachary Katznelson, who represents 36 detainees, said that since he last saw his clients there in December at least 160 of the 395 prisoners had been moved to solitary confinement in "Camp 6", the latest modern facility to be opened at the base.

"Since they were moved, every lawyer is reporting clients extremely depressed, some becoming psychotic. The men say this is the harshest treatment since they arrived five years ago," Katznelson said in an interview with Reuters.

More than 770 people have been held at the U.S. military base in Cuba since the prison camp opened there in January 2002, and only 10 have been charged with crimes. About 395 remain, suspected of links to al Qaeda and the Taliban and kept in modern maximum security cells.

Many people have called for the detainees to be charged with crimes or released. U.S. officials say they are a threat to the United States and could return to the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq if released.

Inmates in the new camp were locked "in extreme isolation in six-foot by eight-foot cells with lights on 24 hours and all they have are an inch-thin mattress, a steel platform to sleep, a steel sink and toilet and the Koran," Katznelson said.

"They are turning on air-conditioning up to a maximum, freezing the prisoners," said the U.S. lawyer, a senior counsel with the British-based rights group Reprieve.

Katznelson said the tougher policy was tied to an assumption that time was running out for interrogators to yield results, as pressure grew for Washington to close the controversial prison.

"They want to do whatever is possible to break them mentally in the hope that somehow they will reveal some kernel of information they have been withholding for five years," he said.

REGULAR CONTACT

More than 100 have been kept in less harsh solitary confinement conditions in Camp 5 for the past two years while 130 others had regular contact with fellow prisoners, Katznelson said.

U.S. President George W. Bush has made no move to close Guantanamo but has been under pressure by rights groups to allow countries to assume responsibility for their own nationals and to allow for its closure as soon as possible.

"They know many of these people will go home soon. They are still pushing them, pushing them...even though are saying we have nothing left to say," Katznelson said.

U.S military prosecutors are expected to bring cases against between 60 and 80 of those still held. About 380 detainees have been sent home, 114 of them last year.

Katznelson, said "declassified information" he received showed that, since October, the level of beatings had risen dramatically.

"Entire cans of Mace have been sprayed in prisoners' faces. Prisoners are being denied medical care unless they give information to interrogators," Katznelson said.

Many of the men held at Guantanamo Bay were captured in Afghanistan in the U.S.-led war to oust the Taliban in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks. Many have been held for years and nearly all are being held without trial.

More inmates returned home in the past six months than in any period since the prison was opened, Katznelson said.

He said Yemen was seeking to get back its 100 citizens, the largest national group at the base. Saudi Arabia took back at least 60 of its nationals last year. Afghanistan had only 70 detainees after at least 140 inmates were handed over, most freed outright on their return.

"In the last few months, more states are saying we want our sons back. We will put them on trial if there is any evidence against them but we want to do justice for our men," Katznelson.

[accuracy]

28th January 2007

The detention of terror suspect David Hicks in a Guantanamo Bay "hell hole" is an abuse of human rights that must end immediately, the Australian Democrats say.

Democrats legal affairs spokeswoman Natasha Stott Despoja said it was an "outrage" that Hicks was being held in solitary confinement for 22 hours a day, with fluorescent lighting, air-conditioning and restricted access to reading materials.

"This is abuse of human rights," Ms Stott Despoja said in a statement.

"Mr Hicks has no charges against him, yet he has been detained in this hellhole for five years."

The 31-year-old Adelaide-born father of two has been held at the US naval base in Cuba since January 2002, after being captured with the Taliban in Afghanistan the previous month.

Ms Stott Despoja said she and South Australian ALP senator Linda Kirk had called for a cross-party delegation to visit the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to inspect the conditions.

"Australian politicians can no longer turn a blind eye to this facility and blight on international law," she said.

"... I will continue to fight for Hicks to be repatriated.

"Other countries have had their citizens returned.

"It is time to bring David Hicks home."

Conditions inside Guantanamo Bay have been detailed in US District Court documents.

Hicks' Australian lawyer David McLeod left for Cuba on Friday and is due to visit Guantanamo Bay on Monday, but has said there is no guarantee his client will agree to see him.

Hicks, a convert to Islam, was charged with conspiracy, aiding the enemy and attempted murder but the charges were dropped after the US Supreme Court ruled last June that the military commissions set up to try Guantanamo Bay detainees were unlawful.

The Pentagon announced a new system of military commissions earlier this month and Hicks is expected to face fresh charges within weeks.

AAP

[accuracy]

27th January 2007

David Hicks is spending 22 hours a day in "nightmarish" isolation in conditions described by Guantanamo Bay inmates as "a dungeon above the ground", court documents suggest.

Fresh evidence about the treatment of prisoners in the US military base has been revealed amid deepening concerns about the Australian terrorist suspect's mental state, and just days before Hicks receives a visit from his Australian lawyer.

Conditions inside Hicks' cell block at the naval base in Cuba are so bad that detainees are suffering mental health problems ranging from "crushing loneliness" to hearing "voices", the documents say.

Life inside Guantanamo Bay's Camp 6, where Hicks was transferred in early December from another section of the prison, has been detailed in declarations filed in a case in the US District Court.

Lawyers are trying to expedite hearings for five terrorist suspects who are Uighur Muslims from the Xinjiang region of northern China that borders Central Asia.

The documents say the impact of Camp 6 conditions on the inmates has been "profound", and all five Uighurs are struggling to pass the days of "infinite tedium and loneliness".

"All describe a feeling of despair, crushing loneliness and abandonment by the world," a statutory declaration by the men's lawyer, Sabin Willett, said.

"One felt he was in the 'dungeon above the ground'; another said 'it feels like we are in tunnels'.

"All expressed a desperate desire for sunlight, fresh air and someone to speak to."

The tiny cells in camp 6 are constructed of solid metal and receive no natural air or sunlight.

There are no windows except for small glass strips which provide a view of the corridor, a clock and the military police guarding them.

They eat and pray alone and have no reading material other than the Koran.

Each inmate is allowed two hours "rec time" every 24 hours, but this is frequently only called late at night or in the early hours of the morning.

Recreation time is spent in a confined area measuring three metres by four metres and surrounded by concrete walls two storeys high, giving prisoners little chance of seeing the sun.

The US military had imposed on the men "a regimen of isolation and cruelty unheard of in penal or military law and unknown to civilised people", said Willett, who visited Guantanamo Bay on January 15 to 18.

Hicks', who is waiting for fresh charges to be laid against him, has been held at Guantanamo Bay without trial for five years and has been in continuous isolation since March last year.

His American military lawyer, Marine Corps Major Michael Mori, said he was disturbed by the reported conditions inside Camp 6.

"It's worse than even our supermax prisons in the United States," he told AAP.

"They've got TV, they've got books. These people don't have anything."

Hicks' Australian lawyer David McLeod left for Cuba on Friday and is due to visit Guantanamo on Monday, but has said there is no guarantee his Adelaide-born client will agree to see him.

The 31-year-old, who was captured among Taliban forces in Afghanistan in December 2001, refused to take a phone call from his family just before Christmas, raising fresh concerns about his emotional state.

Charges of conspiracy, aiding the enemy and attempted murder were dropped after the US Supreme Court ruled last June that the military commissions to try Guantanamo Bay detainees were unlawful.

The Pentagon announced a new system of military commissions earlier this month and Hicks is expected to face fresh charges within weeks.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said he wasn't aware of the specific conditions in which Hicks is detained, but added Australia is pushing for charges to be laid within weeks.

"I haven't seen the documents and I undoubtedly will be briefed on any documentation that has been tabled, but at this point I haven't seen any such documentation," he said.

"The prime minister has made it clear that we will be seeking from the United States charges by mid-February and we'll see how events unfold from there."

AAP

[accuracy]

29th January 2007

Prime Minister John Howard says Australian terror suspect David Hicks can't be held indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay without going to trial.

Last week, the government told the United States it wanted Hicks, who has been held by the Americans for five years, charged by the middle of February.

"We'll see whether that time line is met," Mr Howard told Southern Cross Broadcasting.

"I'm not happy at the time that has gone by.

"I do not accept that he can be held indefinitely without trial, whatever view I may have about the alleged offences with which he is charged."

The 31-year-old Adelaide father of two has been detained at the US' Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba since January 2002, a month after he was captured with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

He pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, aiding the enemy and attempted murder at a US military commission hearing in August 2004, but the charges were struck out by a US Supreme Court ruling last June declaring the military commissions unlawful.

The Americans announced a new system of military commissions earlier this month, saying Hicks would be charged soon.

Mr Howard defended Australia's decision not to ask the US to return Hicks to Australia, like Britain had done with its citizens detained at Guantanamo Bay.

"We took the view that somebody who was charged with the offences that Hicks was charged with, knowing as we did that he could not be charged with any offence under Australian law because they were not crimes under Australian law when he allegedly committed them ... we took a view that it was reasonable that he face a military commission in the United States, he said."

On talkback radio, Mr Howard rejected criticism from a listener that the government was being a lapdog to the US by allowing Hicks to be held so long.

"There are a lot of Australians who think a close and strong alliance between Australia and the United States will be as important to our future security as it proved to be critically in the past," he said.

"I don't think we're sacrificing Australians - I think what we're doing is trying to strike a very difficult balance, on the one hand our detestation of the alleged offences and also our proper desire to ensure that no one is held indefinitely without trial."

Also on Monday, the Law Council of Australia said the new system of military commissions remained fundamentally flawed and Hicks should be able to challenge his detention at Guantanamo Bay in US courts.

As the Labor Party considers signing an appeal to US Congress, the law council has written to US lawmakers calling for a fair trial for Hicks.

"He must be brought promptly to a trial before a regularly constituted court affording, in the words of the Geneva Convention, 'all the necessary judicial guarantees recognised as indispensable by civilised peoples'," council president Tim Bugg wrote.

"Failing that, he should be released and repatriated."

The law council said in its letter to congress, Hicks should be released if he couldn't be dealt with by a properly constituted court.

"The construction of a specially designed but inferior and deficient system of justice to deal with people pre-ordained as terrorists diminishes the moral standing of our two societies," Mr Bugg wrote.

"Although now a creature of the congress rather than the Pentagon, the military commissions regime remains fundamentally flawed and fails to provide fundamental fair trial guarantees."

AAP

[oneofmany]

why is anyone in that pit? It's inhumane :(

[jimijams]

'It's like a Nazi camp': Hicks

Accused terrorist David Hicks has told his lawyers that conditions at Guantanamo Bay, where he has been held for five years, are "like a Nazi concentration camp".

In other developments, the Queen has replied to a letter sent by an Australian journalist pleading for her to intervene in the Hicks case, however she has declined to become involved.

Hicks, a 31-year-old father of two, met his lawyers today inside the newly-created Camp Six at the US military prison in Cuba.

The Adelaide-born Muslim convert showed signs of mental deterioration, his Australian-based lawyer David McLeod said after the meeting.

"He shows all the signs of someone who has been kept in isolation for a very long time," Mr McLeod said.

"He's not in very good shape, the conditions are pretty ordinary."

Hicks has been detained by the US military without trial since he was captured with Taliban forces in Afghanistan in December 2001.

He was sent to Guantanamo Bay the following month.

"He continues to be locked up 22 hours a day," Mr McLeod said.

"He has seen the sun three times since he has been at Camp Six in early December.

"He has no privacy whatsoever in Camp Six - his toilet paper is rationed, he hasn't been able to comb his hair since going there because he's not provided with a comb or brush.

"The guards can see into his cell 24 hours a day.

"I won't go into his condition in more detail than that.

"We have just had some time with him and we are seeing him again tomorrow.

"But suffice to say, he's not in good shape."

Queen replies to letter

Barry Everingham wrote to the Queen on December 12 last year urging the monarch to exercise her power as Australia's head of state to get Hicks out of the prison.

In a letter from Buckingham Palace received by Mr Everingham today, the Queen's correspondence officer Sonia Bonici said the Queen had asked her to thank him for the letter.

"Mrs Bonici wrote, this is not a matter in which Her Majesty would intervene," Mr Everingham said.

While Mr Everingham said he was disappointed that the Queen had not become involved directly in the issue, he was happy she had forwarded his letter to the British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett.

If nothing else, the Queen will have a better idea of the sort of person Prime Minister John Howard is, Mr Everingham said.

"I outlined in my letter to her his [Mr Howard's] intransigence in dealing with this outrageous treatment of David," Mr Everingham said.

Mr Everingham said in his letter the Australian Government was deaf to appeals for its intervention to have Hicks returned to Australia while he awaited trial.

"David has been ignored ... and the Prime Minister has abandoned an Australian citizen to a fate surely worse than death," Mr Everingham wrote.

"Is there something you, Australian Head of State, can do to address this grievous wrong?"

Emergency motion filed

A US lawyer, Sabin Willett, has visited Camp Six, where Hicks was moved last month, and filed an emergency motion in the US Court of Appeals criticising the conditions.

In an affidavit to the court, Mr Willett described the conditions as like a "Nazi concentration camp - a place where, when they take you in, you never come out".

In his affidavit, Mr Willett said Camp Six detainees are held in solid metal cells with no natural light or air and detailed other alleged human rights violations.

"We put those things very quickly to David and he confirmed each and every allegation of the nature of Camp Six," Mr McLeod said.

"Those observations in those articles are totally consistent with what David is putting up with."

US prosecutors are expected to lay fresh charges against Hicks within weeks.

He pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, attempted murder by an unprivileged belligerent and aiding the enemy before a US military commission in August 2004.

But the charges were dropped last year when the US Supreme Court ruled the military commissions designed to prosecute Hicks and other Guantanamo detainees were unlawful.

The US announced its new rules for the commissions on January 18.

AAP
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/its-like-a-nazi-camp-hicks/2007/01/30/1169919319298.html

[accuracy]

This is the official website of David Hicks:

“Fair Go For David”

David Hicks : Australian Citizen

Location : Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba


http://www.fairgofordavid.org/

http://www.fairgofordavid.org/images/David23.jpg

[accuracy]

Potshot at Guantanamo lawyers backfires

Big firms laud free legal aid for detainees.

By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | January 29, 2007

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/01/29/potshot_at_guantanamo_lawyers_backfires/


WASHINGTON -- Two weeks after a senior Pentagon official suggested that corporations should pressure their law firms to stop assisting detainees at Guantanamo Bay, major companies have turned the tables on the Pentagon and issued statements supporting the law firms' work on behalf of terrorism suspects.

The corporate support for the lawyers comes as law associations and members of Congress have expressed outrage at the remarks of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Charles D. "Cully" Stimson on Jan. 11.

In a radio interview, Stimson stated the names of a dozen law firms that volunteer their services to represent detainees, and he suggested that the chief executives of the firms' corporate clients would make the lawyers "choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms."

He said he expected the newly public list of law firms that do work at Guantanamo Bay to spark a cycle of negative publicity for them. Instead, Stimson himself became the center of nationwide criticism and later apologized for the remarks.

The episode has become an embarrassing chapter in the Pentagon's long-running battle with the detainees' lawyers and appears to have spurred public support for the legal rights of the detainees, nearly 400 of whom just marked the start of their sixth year of incarceration at the base.

Charles Rudnick , a spokesman for Boston Scientific Corp., said the company supports the decision of its law firm, WilmerHale, to represent six men who were arrested in Bosnia in 2001 "because our legal system depends on vigorous advocacy for even the most unpopular causes."

Brackett Denniston, senior vice president and general counsel of General Electric, said the company strongly disagrees with the suggestion that it discriminate against law firms that do such work. "Justice is served when there is quality representation even for the unpopular," Denniston said in a statement.

Verizon issued a similar statement.

The lawyers have welcomed these expressions of solidarity from their paying clients.

"It would seem [the Pentagon] made a miscalculation," said Stephen Oleskey , an attorney at WilmerHale in Boston who has traveled to Guantanamo Bay seven times since he took up the case in 2004. "We haven't had any clients call up and say, 'We are really deeply disturbed that you are advocating for fair hearings.' The amount of support [we have gotten] has been heartening."

He said a committee at WilmerHale swiftly made the decision in 2004 to offer free help to the detainees when a request went out from the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based nonprofit legal organization, which had filed a petition in federal court on behalf of the detainees.

"As time has gone on, it has become plainer that it is an important issue for our justice system," Oleskey said. "People have been more and more interested in hearing about it. We have been asked to speak at universities, human rights groups, and churches."

Michael Ratner , president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said that in his early days of defending Guantanamo detainees he got hundreds of hate letters from the public every time he spoke about the issue on television. But now, he said, he receives only positive feedback, especially since Stimson's remarks.

"They miscalculated, that's for sure," said Ratner, who helps coordinate 500 lawyers and 120 law firms across the country to defend the detainees.

Support for the defense of Guantanamo detainees has become so widely accepted that two Newton attorneys are defraying the cost of their trips to Guantanamo Bay by collecting donations from the public.

Doris Tennant and Ellen Lubell have collected $7,000 in the past three weeks toward the estimated $20,000 they expect to spend defending an Algerian detainee known as Number 744. It is difficult to tell whether the controversy has made fund-raising easier, Tennant said, because Stimson's remarks coincided with their appeal for funds. But she said many of her supporters made reference to Stimson as they voiced their support and sent in checks.

"It has been quite an outpouring," said Tennant, who hopes to make her first visit to Guantanamo Bay next week.

That support is not what Stimson predicted when he gave a radio interview Jan. 11, the fifth anniversary of the day the detainees were brought to the base.

Stimson told the Washington-based Federal News Radio that the cause of detainees was "not popular" with the American people and that the list of major law firms representing the detainees was "shocking."

"I think quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hurt their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms," he said.

In the interview, he named about a dozen firms, including WilmerHale. He said that corporations would become outraged when they realized that their legal fees were subsidizing this kind of pro bono work.

In addition to the interview, a Wall Street Journal columnist quoted an unnamed US official making similar remarks in a column that also included the names of several top firms.

Now, some lawyers for detainees are accusing the Pentagon of an organized effort to generate bad publicity for the firms.

Baltimore-based lawyer William J. Murphy , who represents a Kuwaiti detainee, has filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records of communications between senior Pentagon officials and the media before the Jan. 11 interview in a bid to uncover evidence of a smear campaign.

Some lawyers said publicizing the names of the law firms had achieved one of Stimson's objectives -- distracting attention from the roughly 395 men who remain imprisoned.

"It backfired to the extent that they didn't get the kind of support that they were hoping," said Neil McGaraghan , a Boston-based attorney at Bingham McCutchen, which represents a group of ethnic Uighurs from China at Guantanamo Bay.

"But to the extent that it has drawn attention away from Guantanamo and focused it on the lawyers, it has worked."

© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

[accuracy]

Sudan journalists protest detention of colleague at Guantanamo

Monday 29 January 2007
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article20001

Jan 28, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Television stations in Sudan turned black for three minutes on Sunday to protest the detention of a Sudanese cameraman held in U.S. custody at the Guantanamo Bay prison for more than five years.

http://www.sudantribune.com/IMG/jpg/Sami_al-Hajj.jpg
Sami al-Hajj

A cameraman for the pan-Arab TV channel Al-Jazeera, Sami al-Hajj was arrested in Afghanistan in 2001 and is detained at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in southern Cuba.

Like several hundred other men held at Guantanamo on allegations they have links to international terrorism, al-Hajj has not been tried.

"We want him released immediately or, if there are any charges against him, that he be presented to trial" said Mohammed Mustafa Mamoon, the spokesman for the Sudanese TV union that organized the protest.

Sudan’s state television and the private Blue Nile Satellite TV suspended broadcasting for three minutes at 10 p.m. local time (1900GMT) in a sign of solidarity with al-Hajj, the spokesman said.

Osama bin Laden, who’s terrorist organization has often used Al-Jazeera to broadcast messages, mentioned al-Hajj in an audiotape released last May, saying the cameraman had no ties to al-Qaida.

Mamoon said al-Hajj has been on hunger strike for the past three weeks to protest his conditions of detention and ask for his release. Mamoon did not say how he obtained this information, which could not be independently verified.

A lawyer representing al-Hajj was not immediately available for comment Sunday, and the U.S. military, which runs the prison, does not confirm the identity of individual hunger strikers.

Several Sudanese nationals are being held at Guantanamo, including the cameraman. Details on his arrest have not been made public.

Last week, hundreds protested in Khartoum against al-Hajj’s prolonged detention and demonstrators including members of his family and some colleagues handed a memo demanding his release to the U.S. embassy.

The U.S. and Sudan have long had strained diplomatic relations but are reported to cooperate on counterterrorism issues despite a growing antagonism over how to pacify Darfur, where the White House says Khartoum is perpetrating a genocide.

Some 759 people have been held over the years at Guantanamo, according to U.S. Defense Department documents released to The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

(AP)

[accuracy]

Guantanamo protest at U.S. Consulate

Fake prison set up at rally

By MIKE KOREEN, TORONTO SUN
Sun, January 28, 2007

http://torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2007/01/28/3466826-sun.html

On a cold, snowy day, Samy Mousa stood in a T-shirt across from the U.S. Consulate on University Ave., refusing to put on his heavy coat.

It was the Dunbarton High School student's way of showing support for the 400-plus terror suspects at the U.S.-controlled Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba during a Close Guantanamo rally yesterday.

About 60 people took part in the event organized by Amnesty International Toronto, one of a series of worldwide rallies calling for the closure of the five-year-old facility.

Amnesty International constructed a fake prison yesterday and had protesters in orange jumpsuits standing inside to illustrate the plight of the detainees, many of whom are being held without charges or trials.

"First and foremost, we are demanding George Bush close Guantanamo," Michael Craig, the event organizer, said. "We are hoping the Democratic-controlled congress will start to take action to close Guantanamo and re-confirm a commitment to human rights. But we are also very upset that Stephen Harper has been missing in action on this issue. ... We are calling on Stephen Harper to speak out."

[accuracy]

Abu Ghraib officer to face court-martial

By DAVID DISHNEAU, Associated Press Writer
Fri Jan 26
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070126/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/abu_ghraib;_ylt=AloNjUAlTcMJ8h2u2mFgQGwD5gcF;_ylu= X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA--

HAGERSTOWN, Md. - The only U.S. military officer charged with a crime in the Abu Ghraib scandal will be court-martialed on eight charges, including cruelty and maltreatment of prisoners, the Army said Friday.


Lt. Col. Steven Lee Jordan, a 50-year-old reservist from Virginia who ran the interrogation center at the Iraqi prison, was accused of failing to exert his authority as the place descended into chaos, with prisoners stripped naked, photographed in humiliating poses and intimidated by snarling dogs. He was also charged with lying to investigators.

He has not been accused of personally torturing or humiliating prisoners, and was not pictured in any of the photos that embarrassed the Pentagon and shocked the Muslim world.

Army spokesman Col. Jim Yonts told The Associated Press that Maj. Gen. Guy C. Swann, commander of the Military District of Washington, decided Jordan must stand trial.

Jordan was charged in April with 12 offenses. Swann dismissed four of them after Jordan was given an Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a civilian preliminary hearing, in October.

Besides cruelty and maltreatment, the charges include disobeying a superior officer, willful dereliction of duty and making false statements.

Jordan's military lawyers did not immediately return calls for comment.

2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[accuracy]

By Rob Taylor
Reuters
Wednesday, January 31, 2007

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/31/AR2007013100126.html

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The United States may speed up the trial of Australia's only Guantanamo Bay inmate, David Hicks, following a rare split between the two allies over accusations he faced "Nazi concentration camp" conditions.

With his five-year detention shaping as an election year issue for Australia's conservative government amid growing public clamor for his release, Prime Minister John Howard has insisted to U.S. authorities that Hicks be charged by February.

"Our position is we want him charged by the end of next month. We have made that very clear to the Americans," Howard told a news conference on Wednesday.

"We are not happy about the time that has gone by it is also important to remember the gravity of the charges."

U.S.-based lawyer Sabin Willet said Hicks's cell was like a Nazi death camp and Australian lawyer David McLeod who visited Hicks's Cuban enclave prison on Tuesday said he was shocked "seeing him chained to the floor, hollow eyes."

Hicks, 31, was arrested in Afghanistan in late 2001 and accused of fighting for al Qaeda. He is among around 395 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban fighters being held in the U.S. enclave, and is tipped to be one of the first to face trial.

Charges against Hicks of conspiracy, attempted murder and aiding the enemy were dropped when the U.S. Supreme Court last June rejected the tribunal system set up by President George W. Bush to try foreign terrorism suspects.

Hicks, a convert to Islam, had previously pleaded not guilty.

But his case is straining Canberra's usually unswerving support for the U.S.-led war on terror, as Howard faces re-election in the second half of the year against polls showing 62 percent of Australians oppose the handling of the Iraq war.

Australia was an original coalition member in both Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney will visit Canberra in February to thank the country for its military support.

But in a subtle shift, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who has previously lashed out at terrorist "appeasers," said on Wednesday he did not want any Australian maltreated.

"If fresh allegations, detailed allegations, facts can be brought forward to us in relation to Hicks, then we're obviously happy to investigate that," he told local radio.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has admitted Hicks's case is dragging and called last week for an urgent medical assessment.

"I think the government must now be feeling a bit angry with Washington, as the Americans have done nothing to meet Australian concerns," Hugh White, Professor of Strategic and Defense Studies at the Australian National University told Reuters.

U.S. military prosecutor Colonel Moe Davis denied Hicks was in poor physical and mental condition, but said the Australian was confined in his Guantanamo cell for long periods.

"The detainees there generally are offered two hours of outdoor recreation time a day, so that would be the 22 hours a day - about right," Davis said.

© 2007 Reuters

[accuracy]

Defense shows documents that accused officer wasn't in the chain of command

BY DAVID DISHNEAU
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Jan 31, 2007

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArti cle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149192937284&path=!news&s=1045855934842

WASHINGTON - The only officer charged with crimes in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal was arraigned yesterday on eight charges including cruelty and maltreatment of detainees.

Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, a 50-year-old reservist from Fredericksburg, chose not to enter a plea to the charges, which carry prison terms totaling up to 22 years. Jordan also deferred his decision on whether to be tried by a judge or by a jury of at least five fellow officers, all of equal or greater rank.

The 15-minute hearing was held in a small, third-floor courtroom at Fort McNair in Washington. The judge, Army Col. Stephen R. Henley, scheduled a hearing for Tuesday on a defense motion to dismiss the charges for lack of a speedy trial.

Jordan was charged April 28.

According to background presented at a hearing in October, Jordan was sent to Abu Ghraib in September 2003 by top intelligence commanders in Iraq to run the newly established Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center. But witnesses for both sides said Jordan devoted himself mainly to improving soldiers' safety and welfare, introducing himself to incoming interrogators as the civil affairs officer and as a liaison between the center and U.S. commanders in Baghdad.

Jordan wasn't in the chain of command stretching from interrogators to their commander at Abu Ghraib, Col. Thomas Pappas, leader of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, according to documents produced by the defense. Several interrogators testified they reported not to Jordan, but to Capt. Carolyn Wood, leader of a unit within the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center called the Interrogation Command Element.

Neither Pappas nor Wood have been charged with crimes. Pappas was reprimanded and fined $8,000 for once approving the use of dogs during an interrogation without higher approval. Wood hasn't been disciplined for any role she played at Abu Ghraib.

Wearing a green dress uniform yesterday, Jordan generally said only, "Yes, sir," and "No, sir," to the judge's routine questions.

He is not in custody but is on extended active duty at the Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Belvoir.

Jordan's case is the last remaining active investigation in the Abu Ghraib scandal. Eleven enlisted soldiers have been convicted of crimes at Abu Ghraib, and a number of officers have been reprimanded.

[accuracy]

BY JAY WEAVER
Jan. 30, 2007
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/nation/16580780.htm

An appellate court in Atlanta today put the pow back into the prosecution's terror case against Jose Padilla and two other Muslim men by reinstating the first count in the Miami indictment -- conspiring to commit murder, kidnapping and other violent acts to carry out Islamic extremism overseas.

The three-judge panel overturned a major decision by U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke, who had ruled in August that the first count repeated two other terror-related charges and was therefore unconstitutional.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' panel, consisting of Chief Judge J.L. Edmondson and Circuit Judges Gerald B. Tjoflat and John R. Gibson, concluded the first count did not violate the double-jeopardy provision of the Constitution.

The decision was a clear victory for federal prosecutors in Miami because it means if they win convictions on the first count against Padilla and two other defendants, they would face life imprisonment.

Without the first count included at trial on April 16, Padilla and the others accused of being part of a North American terror cell faced a potential maximum of 15 years in prison.

''We are gratified by the 11th Circuit's swift decision and look forward to presenting the evidence at trial,'' said U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta.

The legal teams for the three defendants have 21 days to ask for a rehearing by the panel or the entire 12-member appellate court.

Cooke had dramatically changed the dynamics of the high-profile terror case in August when she lopped a big chunk off of the indictment, saying the government wrongly overcharged the notorious former ''enemy combatant'' and the other two defendants, Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi .

The judge threw out the first count of the indictment -- that they ''conspired to murder, kidnap and maim persons in a foreign country . . . to advance violent jihad'' -- saying it repeated charges from two other counts involving a scheme to provide financial and other support for Islamic terrorist activities.

''There can be no question that the government has charged a single conspiracy offense multiple times, in separate counts, when in law and in fact only one [alleged] crime has been committed,'' Cooke wrote in an eight-page ruling.

''The danger'' in the indictment, she wrote, is that it violates the double-jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits the prosecution or punishment of a defendant twice for the same offense.

But the appellate panel, in a 15-page ruling, disagreed: ``It appears that the trouble in this appeal stems from the interrelatedness of the three counts at issue. . . . But while these three charges are interrelated, they are not interdependent.''

The panel then concluded: ``Moreover, it bears repeating that double jeopardy is not implicated simply because a factual situation might exist where a defendant could commit one act that satisfies the elements of two distinct offenses.''

[accuracy]

By Caroline Overington and Verity Edwards
February 01, 2007

THE Australian Government last night asked for an independent assessment of David Hicks's mental health, but admitted that US authorities would be unlikely to agree.

"We are still awaiting a detailed read-out from the Australian consul-general in Washington, who is currently in Guantanamo to visit Mr Hicks," said a DFAT spokeswoman last night.

"And while we have sought an independent report on Mr Hicks, initial US advice is that independent physical and mental healthcare is not generally permitted at Guantanamo Bay," the spokeswoman said.

http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5376495,00.jpg
Concern ... the mental health of David Hicks, thought to be pictured here at Guantanamo Bay, has severely deteriorated, his lawyer said / File / No credit

The move comes after Foreign Minister Alexander Downer declared in mid-January that Hicks showed no signs of mental illness after five years in a cell. The assessment was based on a three-minute observation by an official at the US embassy in Canberra who did not speak to the Australian terror suspect.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said yesterday that charges - which are likely to include attempted murder and aiding the enemy - were "imminent, which ought not to be surprising".

When the charges are laid, Hicks is likely to face a pre-trial hearing within 30 days and a trial by May.

The expected charges are not clear, although the chief US military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, Colonel Morris Davis, said they were likely to be similar to the charges dropped when the US Supreme Court ruled the previous military process invalid.

Hicks's lawyers allege that his mental and physical health is deteriorating and that the 31-year-old is rationed toilet paper, denied a comb, chained to the floor and has seen the sun three times since early December last year.

On Tuesday night, Hicks refused a visit from Australia's consul-general in Washington, John McAnulty, declaring in a letter: "I don't want to see you. I am afraid to speak to you."

In his letter, Hicks claimed an American impersonated an Australian official during a recent visit and that he had been disciplined for speaking about his incarceration. "In the past I have been punished for speaking to you," he wrote.

John Howard said the Government would press for details on Hicks's health.

Colonel Davis rejected allegations that Hicks had been poorly treated, saying he was not, as reported yesterday, chained in his cell for 22 hours a day. He was shackled to the floor during an interview with his lawyer.

Colonel Davis said Hicks was "fine".

Additional reporting: Pia Akerman, Sid Marris, Andrew McGarry

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21150426-5005961,00.html

[accuracy]

By 7News
Thursday February 1
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070201/23/129n1.html

Former Guantanamo detainee Mamdouh Habib is to stand for election in the NSW state poll.
Mr Habib will run as an independent in the safe Labor seat of Auburn, standing against ALP incumbent Barbara Penny.

He announced his candidacy on Thursday morning, pledging to campaign against anti-terrorist legislation - to work for "the right to freedom of expression and in opposition to the anti-terrorist laws, state and federal".

He also pledged to "fight racism, the end of scapegoating of Aborigines, Muslims and migrants," and to oppose Australia's involvement in the war in Iraq.

Mr Habib spent three years at the US prison camp at Guantanamo in Cuba, after he was arrested in Pakistan in 2001 on suspicion of involvement in terrorism.

He was released without charge in January 2005.

Born in Egypt, father-of-four Mr Habib became an Australian citizen after moving to the country in 1980.

[accuracy]

http://www.cageprisoners.com/images/top.jpg

1848 days of illegal imprisonment!

Visit http://www.cageprisoners.com/

[accuracy]

From correspondents in Los Angeles.
February 02, 2007

THE US military today said photos and articles on former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's execution were shown to David Hicks and other Guantanamo Bay inmates as "intellectual stimulation".

Hicks's legal team was outraged during this week's visit to the US prison camp to learn Hicks had viewed photos of Saddam's execution and trial.

US Commander Robert Durand, director of public affairs at Guantanamo Bay, today described the articles and photos available to the inmates as "neither graphic nor sensational".

Commander Durand said the photos and articles were from mainstream news organisations such as Britain's BBC, The New York Times and the Washington Post and were available to Guantanamo inmates as part of the the prison's library and literacy program.

Hicks's lawyers had said the Adelaide detainee had viewed a photo of Saddam hanging from a noose, but Commander Durand rejected the suggestion.

He said a photo of Saddam prior to his hanging accompanied a BBC news report.

"Our primary mission is safe and humane care and custody of the detainees.

"In addition to our library and literacy programs, detainees are provided with a weekly collection of news articles.

"The news articles, intended to provide intellectual stimulation for the detainees, are taken from mainstream news sources such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the BBC, al Jazeera, the Gulf News, and wire services such as AP, Reuters and AFP.

"Articles chosen are not always pro-US.

"Our news program provides current news from worldwide media sources every week.

"The news photos that appear in the stories are neither graphic nor sensational. The news articles are in English, printed from the web.

"A BBC news article describing Saddam Hussein's execution, with a photo of him prior to his hanging, was included in the camp news."

Hicks's lawyers were also upset a poster containing photos of Saddam at his trial were also displayed for Guantanamo inmates to view.

The poster has been taken down.

"Posters in Arabic are also used to bring news in the camp," Commander Durand said.

"A recent poster showed Saddam Hussein's capture, court appearances and sentencing.

"It did not show his execution.

"The intent of this poster was to show that the Iraqi people are making progress and have delivered justice.

"We regret that the language of this poster appeared insensitive.

"The poster has been removed and replaced with more current news."

Hicks's lead American defence lawyer, Joshua Dratel, who was at Guantanamo this week with Hicks's US military lawyer Major Michael Mori, and Australian lawyers, David McLeod and Michael Griffin, was outraged by the poster and execution coverage.

"Displaying photos of condemned men to those who may be facing capital charges can only interpreted as an attempt to intimidate and compel submission under a threat of death and mentally torture an already abused detainee population," he said.

Hicks has been in US custody since late 2001 when he was captured in Afghanistan.

The US expects to charge him shortly.

In Canberra, Greens leader Bob Brown said the showing of the pictures was "premeditated torture".

"The Hicks saga goes from bad to worse," Senator Brown said.

"The Guantanamo Bay horror is based on unlawful behaviour and sadistic practice by the jailers."

Federal Labor MPs have sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Party speaker of the US Congress, asking for help in bringing Hicks home.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21157929-401,00.html

[accuracy]

By SARAH ABRUZZESE
Published: February 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/03/washington/03gitmo.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 — The senior Pentagon official who set off a controversy last month with remarks suggesting that corporations should consider severing business ties with law firms that represent Guantánamo Bay detainees has resigned.

The official, Charles D. Stimson, deputy assistant secretary for detainee affairs, said that it was his decision to resign and that he was not asked to leave by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, said Bryan Whitman, a spokesman for the Pentagon.

“He determined that it was going to hamper his ability to be effective in this position,” Mr. Whitman said.

Mr. Stimson’s comments in an interview on Jan. 11 on Federal News Radio angered many lawyers and caused the Defense Department to distance itself publicly from his remarks.

In the interview, Mr. Stimson named more than 12 firms that are defending detainees.

“I think, quite honestly, when corporate C.E.O.’s see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those C.E.O.’s are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms,” Mr. Stimson said.

Mr. Stimson, a former Navy defense lawyer, wrote an apology published in The Washington Post, saying the remarks did not reflect his “core beliefs.”

On Jan. 24, the Bar Association of San Francisco requested that the State Bar of California investigate Mr. Stimson for possible violations of California ethics rules, the San Francisco group’s Web site says.

The president of the American Bar Association, Karen J. Mathis, said that she could not comment on the resignation, but that by reacting to his comments “the American public reaffirmed its commitment to a core principle of our justice system: that every accused person deserves adequate legal representation.”

Mr. Whitman said Mr. Stimson did a lot for the department “with respect to setting policy standards, increasing transparency and working with international organizations and allies, with respect to the nature of our detention operations.”

[accuracy]

By Laurence Peter
BBC News 2 February 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6325561.stm

A Lebanese-born German, who accuses the CIA of having kidnapped and tortured him, says he is determined to get an apology from the US authorities.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41095000/jpg/_41095084_masriap203b.jpg
Mr Masri is seeking damages from the CIA

Khaled al-Masri alleges that he was seized in Macedonia, flown to a secret jail in Afghanistan and tortured there.

"I'll pursue the case until the Americans admit what they did to me, give an explanation and make an apology," he told the BBC News website.

Munich prosecutors have ordered the arrest of 13 suspected CIA agents.

Mr Masri says he was abducted at the end of 2003 and detained for five months before being released in Albania after the Americans realised they had got the wrong man.

'Traumatised'

Mr Masri says his case is an example of the US policy of "extraordinary rendition" - a practice whereby the US government flies foreign terror suspects to third countries without judicial process for interrogation or detention.

"I'm suffering from stress - this experience has left me traumatised," he said.

His German lawyer Manfred Gnjidic told the BBC News website that his client was feeling "isolated and depressed".

"His life isn't back to normal, he was tortured, nobody cared about him until now. The trauma is so deep in him, he needs a lot of help, not just in psychotherapy. Nobody was able to get him a simple job."

Mr Gnjidic says that he has evidence of how his client was maltreated: "We have some witnesses, we worked a lot to get one of them, from Algeria."

The arrest warrants for the 13 agents accused of involvement were issued last month. The information for them came from Mr Masri's lawyers and a journalist and officials in Spain, where the flight carrying Mr Masri is thought to have originated.

Mr Gnjidic described the CIA agents as "contractors" from a base in North Carolina.

German arrest warrants are not valid in the US, but if the suspects were to travel to the European Union they could be arrested.

Milan case

Mr Masri says he was abducted on 31 December 2003 by US agents in Skopje, capital of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

He is seeking to sue the US government over his detention, but in May a judge dismissed a lawsuit he filed against the CIA, citing national security considerations.

"The most important thing is that the European and German authorities are saying directly to the CIA agents that this is an illegal way to act," Mr Gnjidic said.

"Now the German government should insist on getting the rehabilitation of Mr Masri by the American side."

Meanwhile in the Italian city of Milan, court hearings to decide whether to indict 25 alleged CIA agents and several Italians accused of kidnapping a Muslim cleric in 2003 are under way.

Osama Mustafa Hassan, or Abu Omar, says he was abducted from the streets of Milan and then tortured in Egypt.

[accuracy]

February 04, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21163674-2,00.html

GUANTANAMO Bay inmate David Hicks could enter a plea bargain on terrorism charges in a desperate effort to come home, his father Terry said today.

http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5378414,00.jpg
Trial ... Mr Hicks is among the first three detainees to be charged
under the new tribunal system / Image supplied



Fresh charges of providing support to terrorism and attempted murder were sworn against the Australian prisoner yesterday.

Hicks has been held without trial for five years at the US military base in Cuba after being detained in Afghanistan in late 2001.

Terry Hicks said his son had been mentally weakened by his time in custody and may consider a plea bargain in response to the charges.

Mr Hicks said the new charges would frustrate his son because he had already pleaded not guilty to similar charges.

“Now all of a sudden they'll be coming to him and saying 'this is what you're charged with',” Mr Hicks told ABC Radio.

“He isn't well, he's not coping, he's suffering mental stresses at the moment.

“I believe what's happening is they'll catch David in that frame of mind where he desperately wants to come home and he'll possibly enter into a plea bargain,” Mr Hicks said.

In August 2004, Hicks pleaded not guilty at a US military commission hearing to charges of conspiracy, attempted murder by an unprivileged belligerent and aiding the enemy.

Those charges were dropped when the US Supreme Court ruled last June that the commissions were unlawful.

Federal Labor said today the charges Hicks faces are retrospective under American law and wants Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock to explain the Government's response.

Mr Ruddock has long held that Hicks, who has been detained for five years at the US base in Cuba before the charges were announced yesterday, could not be charged in Australia because anti-terror laws were not in place at the time of his arrest and couldn't be used retrospectively.

“Philip Ruddock has said he is averse to retrospective law being passed in Australia to deal with David Hicks,” Labor's attorney-general spokesman Kelvin Thomson said.

“But yesterday his name was on a press statement welcoming the move by the United States to charge David Hicks, when one of the proposed charges – material support for terrorism – was not an offence until the US Military Commissions Act of 2006 made it one.”

Mr Thomson asked if this meant Mr Ruddock would raise with the US its plan to try David Hicks under a retrospective law.

“Or does he believe it is not OK to charge David Hicks in Australia under retrospective Australian law, but it is OK to charge David Hicks under retrospective American law at Guantanamo Bay?” he said.

Prime Minister John Howard said he was satisfied with the US Government implementing a retrospective law for Hicks.

“We do not believe the passage of retrospective criminal law in Australia is appropriate,” Mr Howard said in Sydney.

“What the Americans do is up to the Americans.

“We believe the arrangements for the military commission meet the reasonable requirements of Australian law.”

Mr Howard rejected the Opposition's comparison between the US retrospective law and Australia's claim it couldn't charge Hicks under such circumstances.

“I don't accept the interpretation of what the US is doing,” Mr Howard said.

“I don't equate the US is doing with the passage of retrospective criminal law in Australia.”



US military prosecutor Colonel Moe Davis has recommended Hicks be charged with “providing material support for terrorism and attempted murder in violation of the law of war”.

Col Davis has “sworn” the charges against Hicks but they won't be formally laid until they have been approved by US military judge Susan Crawford – a process expected to take two weeks.

If convicted, the 31-year-old former jackeroo from Adelaide faces a maximum penalty of life in a US prison.

[accuracy]

4th February 2007
http://thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=145&ContentID=20475

The announcement of proposed charges against Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks brings little relief, says his father Terry Hicks.

Overnight, Colonel Morris Davis, the chief prosecutor for the upcoming US military commissions, announced Hicks and two other Guantanamo Bay inmates would be the first three brought to trial.

Col Davis has recommended Hicks be charged with "providing material support for terrorism and attempted murder in violation of the law of war".

If convicted, the 31-year-old former jackeroo from Adelaide faces a maximum penalty of life in a US prison.

Col Davis swore the charges against Hicks today but they won't be formally laid until they have been approved by US military judge Susan Crawford - a process expected to take two weeks.

Terry Hicks says the new proposed charges are confusing and bring little promise that the process is moving forward.

"There is in one way, but I would be more relieved if David was facing a fair and just situation, not virtually the same thing that they went through before, which has been ruled as illegal," Mr Hicks said today.

Hicks pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, attempted murder by an unprivileged belligerent and aiding the enemy at a US military commission hearing in August 2004.

But those charges were dropped when the US Supreme Court ruled last June that the commissions were unlawful.

"The basic bottom line is David's got to go through another process of an unfair and unjust system and they're not going to listen to him anyway," Mr Hicks said today.

He said he just wanted his son home and was getting sick of hearing uncertain dates.

"It gets a bit ridiculous - no one ever seems to want to put a hard and fast date on anything because I think what happens if you put a date on and nothing happens, then there's repercussions - we jump up and down," he said.

Hicks' military defence lawyer, Major Michael Mori, said his client would still be facing unjust charges.

He said the charge of material support was not part of the law of war and did not appear in any US or Australian military manual as a law of war offence.

"What is most disturbing is that while Australian ministers have consistently said that creating a new law and applying it retrospectively to David Hicks is inappropriate, the same ministers are encouraging the US administration to apply a new law created less than four months ago retrospectively to David Hicks," Major Mori said in a statement today.

Democrats senator Natasha Stott Despoja agrees, labelling the process a sham.

"Today's announcement of new charges that may be brought against Hicks continues the tragic farce that has been David's fate since being taken by military authorities in Afghanistan," she said in a statement today.

The senator says Hicks is about to face a process that defies the rule of law and contravenes international humanitarian law.

"The new commissions allow detainees to be convicted on evidence obtained by coercion and on hearsay evidence they will not have the opportunity to challenge," Senator Stott Despoja said.

Prime Minister John Howard said he was pleased the charges were to be laid before a mid-February deadline that he had set.

"I'm glad that the charges are being laid and that the deadline I set has been met," Mr Howard told reporters today at his Sydney residence Kirribilli House.

"They are very serious charges and that is why they should be dealt with as soon as possible."

But Labor says the government can't say its demands have been met because no charges have actually been laid as yet.

"David Hicks has not yet been charged, nor is a trial imminent," Labor's legal affairs spokesman Kelvin Thomson said.

Mr Thomson said the prosecution has only indicated an intention to charge Hicks.

He said today's announcement was a small step towards a trial for Hicks, but a giant leap backwards for a fair trial for the detainee.

AAP

[accuracy]

By Chris Amos - Staff writer
Friday Feb 2, 2007
http://navytimes.com/news/2007/02/ntguantanamodocs070202/

A detachment of 74 active-duty personnel from Naval Hospital Jacksonville, Fla., have begun deploying to Guantanamo Naval Station, Cuba, to work at a hospital that serves foreign detainees.

The deployment should be completed within 30 days, according to Terresa White, public affairs officer for the hospital.

The detachment, which includes doctors, nurses and hospital corpsmen, will train for about one week at Fort Lewis, Wash., before traveling to Guantanamo, White said.

The group will relieve another group of 86 medical personnel who deployed to Guantanamo from Jacksonville about six months ago.

About 26 members of the first group will arrive in Jacksonville tomorrow; the remainder should follow within weeks.

*************************

[accuracy]

5th February 2007
http://www.thewest.com.au:80/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=353261

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says charges the US is planning to lay against Australian terrorist suspect David Hicks will not be retrospective because last year's introduction of the charge of supporting terrorism was a "mere codification".

Mr Ruddock was speaking after the US military said at the weekend it would seek to charge the Adelaide-born Hicks with attempted murder, conspiracy and supporting terrorism.

The charges relate to allegations against Hicks dating back to before late 2001, when he was captured while fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

However, the charge of supporting terrorism was not an offence until the US Military Commissions Act of 2006 made it so.

Labor and Hicks's lawyers say the accused terrorist should not be charged retrospectively.

However, Mr Ruddock told ABC radio: "I've been assured that there were existing laws and this is a mere codification."

Chief prosecutor for the US office of military commissions, Colonel Moe Davis, backed Mr Ruddock's explanation and said the claim the charge was new was "a load of rubbish".

"It's an offence that Congress recognised more than a decade ago," Colonel Davis told ABC radio.

"The difference here is the forum in which that offence can be prosecuted."

Hicks's US-appointed military lawyer Major Michael Mori said the charge of supporting terrorism was retrospective.

Major Mori accused the Australian government of back-flipping on its stance against retrospective charges.

"Before, they said 'we can't bring David back from Guantanamo (Bay) because we can't create new laws and apply them to him retroactively' and yet, to serve their purpose of getting David done over ... they're more than willing to allow the United States to do to an Australian what they won't do to an Australian," Major Mori told ABC Radio.

Colonel Davis said the evidence against Hicks was damning and would be fully laid out during the military commission.

"He picked up a rifle and a grenade, went to where he thought the US forces and coalition forces would be present, when they weren't there he relocated to another spot where he thought there were better opportunities."

Hicks has been held for more than five years in the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

AAP

[accuracy]

February 6, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/us-handling-of-hicks-poor-pm/2007/02/06/1170524082371.html

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/02/05/davidhicksboy_wideweb__470x358,0.jpg
The image of Hicks as a boy released this week.

Prime Minister John Howard has criticised America's handling of the David Hicks' case as a handful of his backbenchers demanded the Australian terror suspect be returned home.

Speaking to government members as parliament returned for the year, Mr Howard also acknowledged that community sentiment was changing about the Adelaide man who has been held without trial at a US military prison in Cuba for five years.

"The PM said he acknowledged the shift in community sentiment," a coalition spokesman said.

"He feels this hasn't been well-handled by the Americans."

Mr Howard told his colleagues that the government had resolved to put a deadline on charges against Hicks and "would pursue the Americans on other timelines".

"The prime minister said he was very uncomfortable the Americans had taken three years to get around to charging him," the spokesman said.

Mr Howard continued to harden his line against the US as half a dozen backbenchers voiced their concerns about the way the Hicks case had been handled.

"People did report that this is coming up in the community ... people are very concerned about the treatment of David Hicks, it's principally been the length of time (it's taking to charge him)," the coalition spokesman said.

Three government members argued for Hicks to be returned home.

Proponents of Hicks' repatriation have suggested he could be sent to Australia and subjected to a control order, which would monitor and restrict his movements.

"The issue of a control order came up but it was pointed out we don't decide who has a control order, it is something decided by the courts," the spokesman said.

Earlier Former Australian Guantanamo Bay inmate Mamdouh Habib has joined hundreds of protesters on the lawns of Canberra's Parliament House, calling for Hicks to be brought home.

Habib, who is running as an independent for a seat in the NSW election, told the crowd Hicks was being tortured and brainwashed in the US camp.

"Guantanamo Bay is an experiment ... and what they experiment in is brainwashing," Mr Habib claimed.

"Not just mentally, they want to know what to do to harm you to make you crazy ... that's what they are brainwashing.

"That's the treatment of David Hicks, and they give him the wrong medicine to make him sick.

"David Hicks was in camp five - now they have built camp six, more rooms to brainwash, he can't talk, he is brainwashed completely.

"We sit down and watch this man, what he's been through we are ashamed, we have to stand up for this guy and if we don't do it now he is lost, he is gone."

AAP

[accuracy]

6th February 2007
http://www.thewest.com.au:80/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=353642

The United States says it could be more than a month before Australian terror suspect David Hicks knows the final charges he will face before a US military commission.

The Australian government had set a mid-February deadline for Hicks to be charged but while prosecutors last week recommended he face charges of attempted murder, conspiracy and supporting terrorism, it could be several more weeks before they are finalised.

Speaking to Australian journalists via video link, Sandra Hodgkinson, deputy director of the Office of War Crimes Issues, said it was not certain the charges would be finalised by the middle of February.

The recommended charges have now been referred to the convening authority, US Military Appeals Court chief judge Susan Crawford, who will review them and decide which ones to refer to the US military commission.

"It could be within a few weeks to more than a month time period in which the convening authority and the legal adviser to the convening authority, in particular, will take a careful look at the information ... so that they can do a thorough review," Ms Hodgkinson said.

"Several weeks to more than a month is what's likely until the next phase for the convening authority to move forward."

Once the final charges have been referred to the military commission, Hicks will face a preliminary hearing within 30 days so he can plead to the charges.

From the time the charges are referred to the military commission, the US will have four months to choose the judge and others who will officially make up the commission to try Hicks.

Ms Hodgkinson and John Bellinger, the US State Department's legal adviser, could give no guaranteed time frame for Hicks to be brought to trial.

However, both vowed it was the highest priority for the US government.

"It's too early to speculate what might be possible, the intention is to move forward swiftly," Ms Hodgkinson said.

"Certainly that's something we've assured the Australian government of."

Mr Bellinger said the United States was anxious to get started with the trials of Hicks and others as quickly as it could.

"We really do want to move forward. Although we do not believe we are required to try any of these individuals, for those we believe ... have committed violations of the laws of war, we want to move forward.

"It has been frustrating for us that we have not been able five years later to move forward with these trials."

Prime Minister John Howard on Monday night vowed to keep harassing the US until Hicks was brought to trial.

He is facing pressure from his backbench in the coalition joint party room to ensure the 31-year-old Adelaide father of two faces a speedy and fair trial after being held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for more than five years.

Mr Bellinger said America understood the frustration of the Australian government.

Hicks' Australian lawyer David McLeod said one senior US legal official had told him during a recent visit that it could be six months before Hicks goes to trial.

"Guantanamo Bay is really at the end of the earth, and just getting people there and getting things organised and having motions dealt with, his best estimate is September," he told ABC radio.

The US has also promised the government that if Hicks is acquitted he will be returned to Australia.

Even if convicted, there is a good chance Hicks may still be returned to Australia to serve his time.

"We've had discussions with the Australian government and, at this time, it's certainly believed that Mr Hicks may be able to carry out his incarceration, after the appeals process is complete, in Australia," Ms Hodgkinson said.

The US officials rejected suggestions by Hicks' supporters that he was more of a larrikin adventurer who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time than a terrorist.

"The record has shown ... that he had trained in three different al-Qaeda training camps and had a significant amount of training, including undertaking surveillance operations and a significant amount of weapon training," he said.

"This, from our perspective, is not the activities simply of an individual who is an adventurer."

AAP

[accuracy]

Government blocks release of advice on Hicks

February 7, 2007

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pows-sexually-abused-report/2007/02/07/1170524145809.html

The federal government has blocked a bid to force it to release its advice about the legality of US military commissions set to try Australian terror suspect David Hicks.

The government used its majority in the Senate today to vote down a motion from the Australian Democrats calling for the release of legal advice regarding the military commissions.

The Senate action came after Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said the US would likely agree to return Hicks home if the Australian government asked.

Hicks has been held in the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for more than five years without trial, after being arrested in Afghanistan in December 2001.

Mr Ruddock confirmed Hicks could be brought home, if that was the government's wish.

"I think it's quite clear that we do have a special relationship with the United States and while any decision that would be taken, would be taken by the United States, it is reasonable to assume that if the prime minister made such a request, there would be a probability that people would want to accede to it," he said.

Mr Ruddock told reporters in Canberra the government was unwilling to bring Hicks home because he couldn't be charged in Australia.

US prosecutors recommended last week that Hicks face charges of attempted murder and providing material support for terrorism, but it could be several weeks before the draft charges are approved.

Mr Ruddock denied reports the charges against Hicks were not yet official.

"I would simply say the charges have been sworn," he said.

"In Australia, we would say if somebody was of interest to law enforcement authorities they would be charged and those charges having been laid would be then dealt with by a committal authority."

Mr Ruddock said this is a similar process that has happened in Hicks' case and now a judge advocate is reviewing the charges.

"She cannot lay new charges but she can vary them or strike them out in the same way that a judicial officer would in Australia in committal proceedings," he said.

Meanwhile, a junior US officer has reported witnessing Taliban prisoners of war being sexually abused in Afghanistan weeks after Hicks says he was anally penetrated by his American captors.

Documents obtained by AAP show the officer reported a Taliban prisoner was abused on February 11, 2002.

"I noticed that one of the MPs (military police) was lubricating two of his fingers preparing to perform the anal probe instead of the medical person," says the officer's sworn statement, made in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

"Without warning the EPW (Enemy Prisoner of War), and in a cruel way, he push both his fingers into the EPW's anus.

"This caused the EPW to scream and fall to the ground violently."

Hicks's father Terry Hicks last year said the Australian "suffered beatings and anal penetration".

"If it was the doctor doing it, then that's part of the process these prisoners go through ... but this was a thug," Mr Hicks said today.

Mr Hicks said he held out little hope of a reopening of any investigation into the alleged abuse.

AAP

[accuracy]

Phillip Coorey and Cynthia Banham
February 7, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pm-i-could-free-hicks--but-wont/2007/02/06/1170524096341.html

JOHN HOWARD has told his party room he could secure the release of David Hicks any time but says that would be wrong because the terrorism suspect should face a trial first.

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/02/06/hicks7207_wideweb__470x277,0.jpg
Chorus of discontent ... protesters gather outside Parliament House yesterday to demand the release of David Hicks from the Guantanamo Bay military prison.
Photo: Louie Douvis

The admission yesterday prompted MPs to challenge him why he did not.

Bruce Baird, Petro Georgiou and Warren Entsch contended Mr Hicks had been in detention too long, would not receive a fair trial and should be brought home and placed under a control order.

"What do you expect us to do?" Mr Howard was quoted as saying.

Mr Entsch responded "bring him home like the Brits did", a reference to the British Government repatriating its Guantanamo Bay inmates because of concerns about the military commissions.

Mr Howard said that meant Mr Hicks would go free because he could not be charged under Australian law.

But he also indicated yesterday he would not let him languish indefinitely, saying he would set the US further timelines for the case to be dealt with.

He earlier gave the US until the middle of this month for Mr Hicks to be charged. At the weekend, two new charges were sworn against Mr Hicks but have not yet been approved or laid.

Lawyers from the US State Department said yesterday it was unlikely he would be formally charged by mid-February, and it was too early to say whether he would be tried within a year.

The Prime Minister said public sentiment was shifting and the matter had not been well handled by the Americans.

But this did not deter backbenchers from speaking out, saying it was not the person but the process that concerned them.

Mr Entsch said he had no sympathy for Mr Hicks as an individual but was worried about the lack of due process he had been afforded. "After five years it's ridiculous. The process is clearly flawed," he said.

Others MPs pointed out that Mr Hicks's case was becoming a "big concern" in the community.

The West Australian senator Judith Adams said a Labor victory in a state byelection in Perth over the weekend was in part fuelled by anger over Mr Hicks and Iraq.

Mr Howard dismissed this.

Labor's legal affairs spokesman, Kelvin Thomson, said Mr Howard's claim exposed the whole process as a joke.

"If the Prime Minister is claiming he can determine, and therefore by default, is determining David Hicks's fate, this is outrageous," Mr Thomson said.

Mr Hicks has been in Guantanamo Bay for more than five years. He was charged in 2004 but the charges lapsed last year when the original military commissions were ruled illegal by the US Supreme Court.

John Bellinger, the legal adviser to the US Secretary of State, admitted Guantanamo Bay had become "a lightning rod for criticism that threatens our record on human rights" and it was important to try to counter this.

Sandra Hodgkinson, the deputy in the office of war crimes, said after the charges had been laid, Mr Hicks had 30 days to be arraigned and enter a plea and then a trial must start within 120 days.

The laying of charges "could be within a few weeks to more than a month's time", she said. Asked if a trial would happen within a year, she said, "It's too early to speculate as to what might be possible."

Mr Bellinger defended the trial process as fair and he denied Mr Hicks was being charged under a retrospective law.

He said there were many instances of international war crimes tribunals using offences that were "obviously put down on paper much later than the conduct actually that was in question".

Mr Bellinger said he did not believe it was a violation of Mr Hicks's human rights to be held in Guantanamo Bay for five years without charge, and the Australian was "more than just an adventurer".

[accuracy]

07 February, 2007
http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=47318
INDEPENDENT NATIONAL NEWSPAPER OF EAST MALAYSIA


Kuala Lumpur: Ali Shalah, popularly known as 'the man in the hood' in a famous photograph depicting the torture suffered by Iraqis at the American-run Abu Ghraib prison, in Baghdad, Tuesday spilled the beans on the inhumane treatment he received at the detention centre.

Ali, who now heads an organisation representing tortured victims in Iraq, captivated some 2,000 audience with his story at the three-day War Crimes Conference at the Putra World Trade Centre, organised by the Perdana Global Peace Organisation headed by former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

"My nightmare began on 13th October, 2003, when I was arrested and put in a small room, which I later found out to be a toilet, which was flooded with water and human waste. I was interrogated in that room.

"They asked me if I was Sunni or Shiaa. I replied that we don't have that kind of difference in Iraq. They also claimed that I had helped instigate people to oppose the occupation and to reveal the location of Osama bin Laden.

"They also said I was an important person in the Iraqi resistance. I was then marked to be transferred to the Abu Ghraib. They wrote "big fish" on my forehead denoting that I was an important detainee," he said, relating his experience at a special session chaired by Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali, the wife of Dr Mahathir.

He said he was then beaten up and put in the truck and transferred to the prison, which had five sectors with each sector having a tent surrounded by a wall and barbed wire.

Living condition in these tents was bad with each tent accommodating 45 to 50 detainees, he said adding that each tent was given only 60 litres of water daily for washing, cooking and cleaning.

"Our breakfast was at 5am, lunch at 8am while dinner was at 1pm. During Ramadhan food was given at midnight but food was again given during the day, encouraging us to break our fast," he said.

Ali said he was interrogated twice during his "stay" at the infamous prison but "I heard that detainees were tortured using lighted cigarettes and by injecting hallucinogens".

"After one month, I was called up and my hands were tied, a hood put over my head and transferred to a cell. At the cell they asked me to strip but when I refused they tore my clothes and tied me up again. They then dragged me up a flight of stairs and when I could not move, they beat me repeatedly.

"When I reached the top of the stairs, they tied me up to some steel bars.

They then hurled me human waste and urinated on me. Then they put a gun on my head and said that they would execute me there. Another soldier used a megaphone to shout abuses at me and this went on the whole night," Ali said.

He said the next morning he was asked the names of resistance fighters in Iraq and when he replied that he did not know any, they inserted a jagged wooden stick into my rectum, followed by the barrel or a rifle, which caused him to bleed profusely.

"The next morning the interrogator came to my cell and tied me to the grill of the cell and then played the pop song 'By the Rivers of Babylon' continuously until the next morning. The effect on me was that I lost my hearing and lost my mind," he added.

On the 15th day of detention, Ali was given a blanket, in which he made a hole and used it to cover himself.

Soon after this, the former lecturer, said he was forcefully placed on top of a carton box containing canned food and connected wires to his fingers "and ordered me to stretch my hand out horizontally and switched on the electric power".

"As the electric current entered my whole body, I felt as if my eyes were being forced out and sparks were flying out. My teeth were clattering violently and my legs shaking violently as well. My whole body was shaking all over. I was electrocuted on three separate sessions," he said to pin-drop silence in the hall.

Throughout the torture, he said the interrogators would take photographs of him.

He said he was then left alone in the cell for 49 days, and during this period the torture stopped.

"At the end of the 49th day, I was transferred back to the tents and after 45 days at the tents, I was informed by a prisoner that he overheard some guards saying that I was wrongly arrested and that I would be released.

"I was released in the beginning of March, 2004. I was put into a truck and taken to a highway and then thrown out. A passing car stopped and took me home," he ended his tale.

To a question from the floor after his talk, he said only God kept him alive during his ordeal but the suffering he went through was only "a drop in the ocean". - Bernama

Copyright © Daily Express, Sabah, Malaysia

[accuracy]

Feb 7, 2007
By Bernd Debusmann, Special Correspondent

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2007-02-07T081901Z_01_N06446205_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-MUSLIMS-YEE.xml&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage2

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Capt. James Yee spent 76 days in solitary confinement, much of the time shackled and in leg irons, after accusations of sedition, espionage and aiding the enemy while serving as a Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay.

The Army's case against him collapsed at trial, and it eventually wiped his record clean and gave the West Point graduate an honorable discharge.

Two years later, he is still waiting for an apology. "Since my case was dismissed, nobody has taken responsibility for what happened to me," he said in an interview. "Nobody has explained what went wrong or why. Nobody apologized."

Yee says the way he was treated damaged the reputation of military justice and is one of the reasons why American Muslims are reluctant to join the military at a time when it needs Arabic speakers as it wages war in two Muslim countries.

(For a related story see "Fear of bias keeps U.S. Muslims out of military")

"If the Pentagon came out and said 'we admit we made a mistake,' it would show the integrity of the system. An apology would make the military stronger."

Despite what he calls humiliating treatment driven by bigotry, ignorance and mistrust, Yee said he would consider rejoining the military if there were a formal apology. "I'm waiting for the outcome of an investigation by the (Pentagon's) Inspector General."

The Pentagon has given no indication of when the investigation might be completed. It began in December, 2004, after written requests to then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld by lawmakers.

Since leaving the Army, Yee has written a book about his ordeal, "For God and Country, Faith and Patriotism Under Fire," and given lectures at universities and Muslim community centers around the country.

ABUSE ENCOURAGED?

Critics of the United States around the world see the detention of prisoners at its naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a symbol of American disregard for international law.

In his book, which became a bestseller in Indonesia but had limited success in the United States, Yee portrays an environment in which guards were encouraged to abuse prisoners by the prison commander, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller.

Miller went to Iraq in 2003 to step up intelligence gathering from prisoners there. He refused to testify in the courts martial in January last year of two dog handlers charged with prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, invoking his constitutional right to avoid self incrimination. He retired six months later and received a Distinguished Service Medal for meritorious service in a ceremony at the Pentagon's Hall of Heroes.

Yee said he prompted the ire of senior officers at Guantanamo by drawing attention to U.S. soldiers abusing the Koran, mocking Islam and stripping prisoners of their dignity. After he was arrested and taken to a Navy brig in Jacksonville, Florida, he said he was subjected to similar treatment.

"My cell was 8 foot by 6 foot, the same size as the detainees' cages at Guantanamo," he wrote in his book. "Now I was the one in chains. It was my turn to be humiliated every time I was taken to a shower. Naked, I had to run my hands through my hair to show that I was not concealing a weapon. Then mouth open, tongue up, down, nothing inside."

"Right arm up, nothing in my armpit. Left arm up. Lift the right testicle, nothing hidden. Lift the left. Turn around, bend over, spread your buttocks, knowing a camera was displaying my naked image as male and female guards watched. It didn't matter that I was an army captain, a graduate of West Point, the elite U.S. military academy.

The fact that he had not been charged at that time and his religious beliefs prohibited him from being fully naked in front of strangers did not matter to his captors, he said in the interview. "So, if that kind of justice, that kind of treatment, is given to a U.S. citizen, what can a foreigner expect?"

© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.

[accuracy]

10th February 2007

More than 800 people attended a prayer service in support of Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks in central Melbourne.

Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne Dr Philip Freier spoke at the service at St Paul's Cathedral, which is opposite Federation Square.

The service included a prayer for a fair trial, for Hicks' mental and physical health and for the victims of terrorism.

"God loves justice," Archbishop Freier said.

"And what is increasingly evident in the incarceration of David Hicks is the lack of justice in his detention."

Anglican diocese of Melbourne media director Roland Ashby said the service had attracted "a broad range of people".

"Anglicans, but also people who don't usually come to church but were very happy the church is saying something about this."

Hicks, a 31-year-old Adelaide father of two, has been held at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for more than five years.

The US last week began the process of laying charges against Hicks, who is accused of taking part in terrorist operations in Afghanistan.

AAP

[accuracy]

February 10, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21200396-2,00.html

DAVID Hicks, already facing the possibility of 20 years' jail on terrorism charges in the US, is the subject of a new investigation by the Indian Government over his attacks on their armed forces in Kashmir.

The investigation has been triggered by disclosures in American prosecution files about the involvement of Hicks with a terrorist group that has killed thousands of people in the disputed Indian territory of Kashmir.
The prosecution file states that the former kangaroo skinner and father of two who converted to Islam joined the terror group Lashkar-e-Toiba in Pakistan, travelled to the border with Indian Kashmir in 2000 and fired on Indian troops.

Reports of the American disclosures were sent to New Delhi this week by the Indian deputy high commissioner to Australia, Vinod Kumar.

Senior officials in New Delhi yesterday confirmed they were examining that material.

"We're looking into it and finding out the facts," an official in New Delhi told The Weekend Australian.

"If Mr Hicks was involved with them at any level, and if he was indeed firing weapons at our troops, then, most certainly, we'd like to talk to him about it.

"We'd be interested to talk to anyone who has done that. We don't take kindly to attacks on our soldiers -- even attacks by people like Mr Hicks."

The American file is consistent with a letter Hicks wrote to his family in Adelaide in which he admits to firing hundreds of bullets in Kashmir at the enemies of Islam.

In a March 2000 letter, Hicks told his family "don't ask what's happened, I can't be bothered explaining the outcome of these strange events has put me in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in a training camp. Three months training. After which it is my decision whether to cross the line of control into Indian-occupied Kashmir."

The training camp was run by Lashkar-e-Toiba, the army of the pure, Islamic fundamentalists fighting to free Muslims under Indian rule and designated a terrorist group by Australia in 2003.

In another letter on August 10, 2000, Hicks wrote from Kashmir, claiming to have been a guest of Pakistan's army for two weeks at the front in the "controlled war" with India.

"I got to fire hundreds of bullets. Most Muslim countries impose hanging for civilians arming themselves for conflict. There are not many countries in the world where a tourist, according to his visa, can go to stay with the army and shoot across the border at its enemy, legally."

Australia has an extradition relationship with India as a fellow member of the Commonwealth that could allow the transfer of a suspect in special circumstances.

Hicks has been detained at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba since being captured in Afghanistan in 2001 where he was fighting alongside Taliban forces.

US prosecutors last week announced Hicks will face a US Military Commission to answer new charges of attempted murder and providing material support to a terrorist organisation.

LET has waged a brutal insurgency aimed specifically at "destroying" India and "annihilating" Hinduism and Judaism, having proclaimed Hindus and Jews to be enemies of Islam.

It has over the years - including 2000 when Hicks was apparently in action with it - waged a war not just targeting Indian troops in Kashmir, but also rounding up Hindus and Sikhs in the disputed territory and massacring them.

LET militants in 2000 massacred 35 Sikhs in the village of Chittisinghpura.

Since hostilities broke out in earnest in Kashmir in 1989, an estimated 5000 Indian soldiers and paramilitaries have been killed. Estimates are, too, that 80,000-odd civilians have perished, and hundreds of thousands of others have been displaced from their homes.

John Howard yesterday expressed extreme frustration at the time the US is taking to bring Hicks to trial, vowing to press them "almost daily" over the matter.

The US last week began the process of charging Hicks. But US officials have admitted the final charges could be a month away - falling short of an Australian request that the issue be dealt with by the middle of February. And they have admitted a full trial could be as much as a year away.

The Prime Minister said he was reasonably satisfied that the process was now in train, but was concerned about how long it might be before Hicks actually goes to trial.

"Let me, without getting into the weeds of the technical jargon, let me simply say that it has gone on for so long now that we will be pressing the Americans almost on a daily basis," Mr Howard told Southern Cross Broadcasting.

[accuracy]

Key House Democrats Suggest Speedy Trial Or Release Of Most Prisoners
WASHINGTON, Feb. 8, 2007
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/08/terror/main2452243.shtml

AP) Key House Democrats said Thursday they are considering a plan to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by the end of 2008, with the exception of several dozen detainees in the war on terror who would be kept at the facility and tried there.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said he hopes to include the provision in legislation this spring that Democrats also intend to use to try to prevent further increases in troop strength in the war in Iraq.

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2006/09/18/image2020154g.jpg
Quote

“Without closing it, this just plays into the propaganda of the enemy.”
Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va.

Without public notice, Murtha dispatched Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., to the detention center at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay on a one-day trip late last month to recommend ways for closing it. Both men said the prison has become counterproductive as the United States tries to win converts overseas in the war on terror.

“Without closing it, this just plays into the propaganda of the enemy,” Moran said in an interview.

The prison was opened on Jan 11, 2002, and none of the more than 700 prisoners who have entered the facility — suspected of links to al Qaeda and the Taliban — has ever been tried.

Moran said there currently are 393 detainees at the prison, and added he had told Murtha about 80 of are likely to face trial, including 14 whom he described as high value targets.

The Virginia lawmaker said 87 other detainees can probably be released without trial and should go either to their country of origin, or if that isn't possible, to Afghanistan, where they were captured.

Moran said he had recommended requiring the administration to review the cases of the remaining detainees promptly and decide which of them should be held for trial and which should be released.

The facility at Guantanamo Bay has been the subject of extensive political and legal debate, and drawn protests by human rights activists since it was opened. The European Union has urged closing the facility.

The Pentagon recently released new rules to govern trials at the prison, based on a law passed by Congress last year that permits the administration to go ahead with special military commissioners to hear the cases.

Authorities recently drafted charges against three detainees, and they are expected to be formally filed soon. Once that occurs, regulations require preliminary hearings within 30 days and the start of a jury trial within 120 days at Guantanamo Bay.

Moran estimated that it could take five years for all the trials to take place.

He said the rest of the prison population should be out at least by the end of next year. “That is our intent. We feel this is one of the reasons we've lost so much credibility” in the war on terror, he said.

Murtha is chairman of a House subcommittee with jurisdiction over spending on military matters. Moran is a member of the panel.

© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[accuracy]

Have a Nice Flight

Boeing helps CIA fly kidnapped suspects abroad for torture

by Nat Hentoff
February 4th, 2007
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0706,hentoff,75712,2.html



On the Boeing 737 Business Jet, Khaled el-Masri said, "all the people were in black clothes and black masks. They put earplugs in my ears and a sack over my head." After putting chains on his legs, they led him onto the plane. "They threw me on the floor and injected me with something. I blacked out."

—From Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program, Stephen Grey (St. Martin's Press)

http://images.villagevoice.com/issues/0706/hentoff.jpg

Last month, a judge in Milan, Italy, began a hearing on kidnapping charges against 26 Americans, most of them CIA agents, that could lead to the first trial anywhere on the CIA's "extraordinary renditions." Scores of flights to torture chambers have been documented—along with flight logs from European and American official aviation sources—by human rights organizations and in Stephen Grey's extensively sourced book Ghost Plane.

The CIA agents in Italy left behind bountiful evidence of their violations of Italian and international laws. But the U.S. will not extradite them to Italy for doing their duty under special orders from the president on September 17, 2001, orders that gave the agency unprecedented latitude to engage in "clandestine intelligence activity" in the war on terrorism.

This Bush "notification memorandum" is "Top Secret." Vermont senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is striving mightily to get Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to provide him with this further proof of how the administration has been operating—as Dick Cheney advised right after 9-11—"on the dark side."

In any case, the CIA kidnappers under scrutiny in Italy, along with rampantly lawless agents elsewhere, cannot be tried in the U.S. as long as the Military Commissions Act of 2006 is in effect. The president got the Republican-controlled Congress, in that legislation, to give CIA lawbreakers a retroactive get-out-of-jail-free card for their work on "the dark side."

Meanwhile, although the CIA "renditions" are no longer secret—and Ghost Plane writer Grey has recently been talking about them to members of Congress—little has been revealed about the private American airline companies that have been supplying the CIA with the planes to transport the shackled, blindfolded, drugged passengers for interrogation in foreign torture chambers.

But now The New Yorker's Jane Mayer—in her most recent meticulously documented report on the execution of this administration's violations of our own War Crimes Act and the Geneva Conventions—has revealed the complicity of the world's largest aerospace company, Boeing, in some of these CIA kidnappings.

Her investigation, "The CIA's Travel Agent," appeared in the October 30 New Yorker; but oblivious to her disclosures, Boeing has been receiving a celebratory press: "Boeing Takes Lead in Aircraft Orders: Company Tops Airbus for the First Time Since 2000" (Washington Post, January 17) and "Why Boeing's Flying High" (George Will's widely syndicated column, in the January 18 New York Post).

Mayer found out that Boeing has a subsidiary—Jeppesen International Trip Planning, based in San Jose, California—that proclaims it "offers everything needed for efficient, hassle-free, international flight operations . . . from Aachen to Zhengzhou."

A number of American charter airlines—front companies for the CIA—are involved in "renditions," but, Mayer notes, the Boeing subsidiary handles "many of the logistical and navigational details—including flight plans, clearance to fly over other countries, hotel reservations, and ground-crew arrangements."

Consider the kidnapped Khaled el-Masri's account of the CIA flight attendants in black clothes and black masks who took him in a Boeing 737 Business Jet to Afghanistan to be tortured. The flight plans for el-Masri's unforgettable trip were prepared, Mayer reports, by the superbly reliable Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen International Trip Planning.

She quotes a former Jeppesen employee about what Jeppesen's managing director, Bob Overby, said at an internal corporate meeting: "We do all of the extraordinary renditions flights—you know, the torture flights. Let's face it, some of those flights end up that way . . . It certainly pays well."

Overby didn't return any of Mayer's phone calls. When I tried to reach Overby in San Jose, I couldn't even get put through to his office. And Boeing headquarters in Chicago told me it was unaware of that subsidiary. (This was after Mayer's article appeared.)

With ACLU attorney Ben Wizner, Khaled el-Masri is trying to sue the CIA—and Boeing may, in time, be included as a defendant. Federal District Judge T.S. Ellis III would not even start a trial because the government invoked the "state secrets" privilege. But as Wizner said (The New York Times, November 29), the trial would only confirm "what the entire world entirely knows" from reports in the world press. (The case is on appeal.)

As I noted in a previous column, Judge Ellis did moisten his decision dismissing the case in the lower court with crocodile tears, saying el-Masri might have suffered a great injustice, but the judge's hands were tied by the Justice Department's "state secrets" maneuver.

Not incidentally, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice—in her previous post as National Security Adviser—had ordered Khalid el-Masri released in May 2004. Sorry, she said, he had been mistakenly identified as being connected to terrorism. (She did not say who misfingered him.)

Khaled el-Masri, who hasn't been able to get a job since his release, is suing for damages, but primarily, he says, he'd like an apology. He is as likely to get one from the CIA or Commander in Chief Bush as he is from the world's largest aerospace company.

When the CIA is Boeing's client, does Jeppesen supply the black masks too? On January 31, German prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 13 CIA agents involved in the rendition of el-Masri. Involved in the kidnapping, said the prosecutors, was a Boeing plane.

Copyright © 2007 Village Voice

[accuracy]

2/11/2007
By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-02-11-gates-nato_x.htm

MUNICH, Germany — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday that the United States needs to repair its reputation after prisoner abuse scandals in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and tried to defuse criticism from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Gates, speaking to world leaders, defense officials and members of Congress gathered here for a conference, said the detention of terror suspects in Cuba and abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq "have negatively impacted the reputation of the United States." The defense secretary stressed that trials of detainees at Guantanamo Bay would be fair and transparent.

http://images.usatoday.com/news/_photos/2007/01/28/mug-gates.jpg
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates

One of the United States' greatest assets in the last century, he said, has been its reputation as being a champion of the rule of law and human advancement. "We have some work to do in restoring American soft power around the world," Gates said.

The defense secretary also skirted charges made by Putin Saturday that the United States acts unilaterally in foreign affairs and destabilizes the world. Gates criticized Russia for arms proliferation and using its energy resources as a weapon, even as he played down differences between the countries. He said he had accepted an invitation from Putin to visit Russia.

"Let me repeat: there is no desire for a new Cold War with Russia," Gates said at the 43rd Conference on Security Policy.

Other highlights from Gates' speech and the question-and-answer session that followed:

• He disputed Putin's contention that extending missile defense to Europe threatened Russia. The ballistic missile defense system proposed for Europe would provide defense against Iran and other threats, Gates said. Butm, he said, it is "not aimed at deterring Russia."

• Gates told Russia not to worry about the potential expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Eastern Europe. "Russia need not fear law-based democracies on its borders," he said. Putin charged Saturday that NATO expansion there "represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust."

• The secretary warned that failing to build a stable government in Iraq could lead to the spread of terrorism. "If there is chaos in Iraq, every member of this alliance will feel the consequences," he said.

Gates also sought to smooth over conflicts with U.S. allies in Europe and show how he his different from his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld. In 2003, Rumsfeld referred to Germany and France as "old Europe" and said the center of gravity for NATO was shifting to the east.

On Sunday, Gates said, characterizations of "old Europe" are outdated and "belong to the past."

Gates flew to Pakistan, where he planned to meet with President Pervez Musharraf. During his talks with NATO allies, Gates stressed the need to press a military offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Pakistan's neighbor. He said military forces had to be combined with economic development and a counternarcotic effort.

[accuracy]

12/02/2007
By Karen J. Greenburg

The first detainees arrived in Guantánamo four months to the day after the 9/11 attacks. From the opening of Camp X-Ray—the first site of imprisonment, notorious for its tin-roofed open-air cages—to the recently completed permanent prison known as Camp 6, critics have called for its closure. Even President Bush has said, “I’d like to end Guantánamo. I’d like it to be over with.” Yet he refuses to close it because, he says, it holds detainees who “will murder somebody if they are let out on the street.”




It’s time to look at the powerful reasons to close Guantánamo, both the standard ones enumerated below—and also what may be the most compelling, if unspoken, one of all: Guantánamo must be closed because the United States needs to indicate that it has decided to change course. Closing Guantánamo will help to restore America’s standing in the world and in the eyes of its own citizens.


#1 It is a legal no-man’s-land

Guantánamo Bay Naval Base was established as a coaling and naval station under U.S. control in 1903. It has no civilian legal authority (you can’t get a marriage license there, and you can’t be arraigned) and U.S. military authority is limited. According to the Department of Justice, the prison is not indisputably U.S. territory, nor does it necessarily fall under the jurisdiction of any foreign entity.




According to the Church Report—an official investigation of Guantánamo prepared by Vice Admiral Albert T. Church III, a former navy inspector general for the Armed Services Committee—Guantánamo’s uncertain legal footing may have been a fundamental reason the administration decided to use the facility to interrogate al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. “Perhaps most importantly,” the report states, “GTMO was considered a place where [other] benefits could be realized without the detainees having the opportunity to contest their detention in the U.S. courts.”




According to Northwestern University Professor Joseph Margulies, the administration’s legal position rests on “the remarkable claim that the prisoners have no rights because they are foreign nationals detained outside the sovereign territory of the United States.” In 2004, in Rasul v. Bush, the Supreme Court ruled that U.S. courts have jurisdiction in hearing habeas corpus petitions from Guantánamo. Yet through a series of laws and military rulings, the administration has continued to argue that the prisoners do not have the right to contest their detention in a U.S. court.


#2 It violates the Geneva Conventions

Guantánamo is a prisoner-of-war camp that is not labeled as such. From the beginning, the administration took the legal position that the captives brought to Cuba were not prisoners of war, but fell into the vague, newly created legal category of “enemy combatants.”




But according to the International Committee of the Red Cross Commentary to the conventions, no such intermediate ground between civilians and prisoners of war exists: “Every person in enemy hands must have some status under international law: he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention, [or] a member of the medical personnel of the armed forces who is covered by the First Convention. There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can fall outside the law.”




As the camp was being built, military personnel I interviewed said they knew not to use the words “prison-camp,” or “prison.” Why? Under the Geneva Conventions, a prisoner cannot be interrogated, punished, or forced to answer questions beyond rank, name and serial number.

#3 Prisoners are degraded and abused

Abusive treatment of Guantánamo detainees has been documented in lawyers’ notes, FBI memos, statements from released detainees and court affidavits submitted by attorneys representing detainees.




Jumah Al Dossari, a Bahraini detainee who has been incarcerated at Gitmo for five years, wrote to his lawyer, “At Guantánamo, soldiers have assaulted me, placed me in solitary confinement, threatened to kill me, threatened to kill my daughter, and told me I will stay in Cuba for the rest of my life. They have deprived me of sleep, forced me to listen to extremely loud music and shined intense lights in my face. They have placed me in cold rooms for hours without food, drink or the ability to go to the bathroom or wash for prayers. They have wrapped me in the Israeli flag and told me there is a holy war between the Cross and the Star of David on the one hand and the Crescent on the other. They have beaten me unconscious.”




All of what he describes is illegal for the 194 countries that have ratified the Geneva Conventions—of which the United States is one—as well as those that have ratified the Convention Against Torture (which the United States has signed, with reservations).


#4 Prisoners have no way to prove their innocence

Under the Constitution, every prisoner in U.S. custody has the right to legal representation and to due process, i.e. a trial (habeus corpus). Yet the detainees at Guantánamo, though afforded Combatant Status Review Tribunals, cannot have their own counsel at those hearings and have no meaningful way of contesting evidence, some of which is secret. To date, not one individual among the nearly 800 incarcerated at Guantánamo has been charged with a crime recognized under either U.S. or international law. Moreover, the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006 is the latest attempt to strip captives of their right to argue their appeals in U.S. courts.




MCA is currently being challenged in two cases—al Odah v. United States of America and Boumediene v. Bush. Briefs in these cases argue that the Act is unconstitutional and that the retroactive suspension of the detainees’ right of habeas corpus does not apply to pending cases. These briefs focus on the Constitution’s Writ of Habeus Corpus, which states that such rights shall only be revoked at times of rebellion or invasion.


#5 It undermines intelligence efforts

Despite the tens of thousands of hours of interrogation that have taken place at Guantánamo, very little worthwhile intelligence has been extracted. What information is left is now five years old, and it is doubtful that any Guantánamo prisoner has knowledge of a ticking bomb or a current plot.




And while the government maintains that detainees can provide a primer on jihad networks and al-Qaeda’s strategic goals, at this point, the information is likely out of date. Besides, what can be extracted from individuals who, for the most part, were the wrong people to imprison in the first place.




According to a report by Seton Hall School of Law, 86 percent of detainees were arrested by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance and “handed over to the United States at a time when the United States offered large bounties for capture of suspected enemies.”




Moreover, Guantánamo’s very existence has alienated potential inside sources of information. Two years ago, at a Center on Law and Security conference in Florence, Italy, two of Europe’s leading terrorism magistrates pointed out that attempts to infiltrate terrorist cells had become much more difficult in the wake of rising public anger over Guantánamo.

#6 It creates new enemies

Guantánamo has fomented that which it was created to combat—anti-American extremism and jihad.




Guantánamo is just the public face of a global network of “ghost prisons.” According to Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights),the United States has acknowledged 20 detention centers in Afghanistan, in addition to the bases at Bagram and Kandahar; as a prison near the Afghan border in Kohat, Pakistan; and the al Jafr prison in Jordan. This suggests that Guantánamo may have been a smokescreen for more inhumane, less legal incarceration and interrogation practices elsewhere.




According to Armando Spataro, a senior Italian prosecutor known for his work on global terrorism, Guantánamo and the U.S. renditions policy “is extremely damaging to all our efforts to integrate our Muslim communities.” Muslims around the world are asking why there is so little international opposition to the U.S. policy of imprisonment without due process. The collateral damage of Guantánamo—the incarceration of nearly 800 individuals who are denied legal rights, who regularly report being abused and who face a lifetime of imprisonment—is incalculable. It breeds new angers and resentments, and thus new enemies.




Last March, the Department of Defense finally released the names and countries of the detainees. It turned out that many were not captured on the battlefield but picked up elsewhere in the world, in the Gambia, in Pakistan, and even in Europe. In all, persons detained in Guantánamo Bay come from 46 different nations, including Spain, France and the United Kingdom.


#7 … and alienates our allies

At a time when international solidarity is needed to confront the potent and lethal enemy of terrorism, Guantánamo has led to widespread distrust of the United States. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for Guantánamo’s closure. And Justice Lawrence Collins, a British high court judge, has said, “America’s idea of what is torture is not the same as ours and does not appear to coincide with that of most civilized nations.”




Baltasar Garzon, Spain’s most prominent magistrate for crimes of terrorism, has warned, “If we continue along these lines, we are on the road to committing crimes against humanity.”




In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has said, “There is no question … An institution like Guantánamo in its present form cannot and must not exist in the long term.”


#8 It will signal a fundamental change of strategy in the war on terror

Guantánamo is the single most potent symbol in the misguided war on terror. In the wake of 9/11, the United States’ pledge to do everything in its power to protect its people from further harm led to a policy of overreaction. Closing Guantánamo will signal that the United States has emerged from its confusion, and regained a place among civilized nations.




We must no longer act like scared victims, willing to make any bargain with any devil to create the illusion of safety. We must reassert our confidence in the rule and wisdom of law. Enemies must be combatted with legal tools, military prowess and diplomacy—not with illegalities, bullying and walls of silence.




Closing Guantánamo is not about bowing to human rights concerns or even to the law. We must close it as a signal to the world that, even in the face of danger, the United States remains true to its values. Closing Guantánamo is a pledge of allegiance to the American past and to the American future.




Research for this article was contributed by Center on Law and Security Research Fellow Francesca Laguardia.




SOURCE: InTheseTimes

[accuracy]

13 Feb 2007
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21218114-5006301,00.html

A FORMER Adelaide businessman is willing to give up all food from today in support of David Hicks.

The man, who wants to be known only as Mike, is going on a hunger strike for ``as long as it takes'' for Hicks to be released from Guantanamo Bay.

http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5387415,00.jpg
A former Adelaide businessman, known as "Mike", has begun a hunger strike outside St Francis Xavier's Cathedral in the city today in support of David Hicks. He has vowed to stay on hunger strike for "as long as it takes" to get Hicks out of Guantanamo Bay. Picture: BRENTON EDWARDS

Mike, wearing orange, will sit in peaceful protest in Victoria Square from 1pm today. He is encouraging others to sit with him to show support.


``I realised that I am ashamed to be an Australian and I never thought I would say that,'' Mike said.

You can text support to 0412 361 234.

(Please text if you care, i did.--accuracy)

[accuracy]

15th February 2007

US President George W Bush has cleared another hurdle in his plan to prosecute Australian David Hicks and other "enemy combatants" held at Guantanamo Bay.

The president has issued an executive order setting the stage for military trials to go ahead.

The move is a technical step, but necessary for the US government to prosecute Hicks and two other accused terrorists at military commission trials.

Trial proceedings could begin against Hicks at the American military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as early as next month.

"There are hereby established military commissions to try alien unlawful enemy combatants for offences triable by military commission," Bush declared in the order, released to the media by White House officials.

Adelaide-born Hicks, Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni accused of being al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's driver, and Canadian, Omar Khadr, were selected by the US military as the first three Guantanamo inmates to be brought to trial.

US Colonel Morris Davis, the chief prosecutor for the upcoming military commissions, announced earlier this month charges had been sworn against Hicks, Hamdan and Khadr.

Davis has recommended Hicks be charged with "providing material support for terrorism and attempted murder in violation of the law of war".

If convicted, the 31-year-old former jackaroo from Adelaide faces a maximum penalty of life in a US prison.

The president's executive order paves the way for the convening authority for military commissions, Susan J Crawford, to examine Davis's recommended charges.

If Crawford, a former US Court of Appeals judge for the Armed Forces, agrees with Davis' recommendations, Hicks will likely be formally charged.

Hicks then must appear before a military judge within 30 days and a trial will start within 120 days.

The court proceedings are expected to take place in court facilities at Guantanamo Bay, a heavily fortified US military base where Hicks has been in custody for more than five years.

Hicks, 31, was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 and accused of training with al-Qaeda.

AAP

[accuracy]

15th February 2007

United States authorities insist there's nothing to suggest David Hicks' mental health is suffering.

They turned down an Australian request to send in an independent psychologist and instead had their own doctors check on the psychiatric health of the Adelaide-born father of two, who's been locked up in Guantanamo Bay for five years.

The Guantanamo doctor gave Hicks a clean bill of health, indicating there was nothing to suggest the Australian terror suspect was suffering depression or anxiety.

But the conditions he lives under would undoubtedly test the metal of even the most mentally healthy.

During a parliamentary hearing on Thursday, senators were given a rundown of Hicks' surroundings and daily routine in the US military prison in Cuba.

Last December he was moved to Camp Six, described this week as more humane by the US commander in charge at Guantanamo.

Hicks lives in a cell 3.6 by 2.3 metres that receives no direct sunlight, is climate controlled at 25 degrees Celsius and has glass observation panels for prison staff to check detainees aren't trying to commit suicide.

He sleeps on a double bunk bed, but has no roommate, and has a plastic table, a seat and bookshelf in his cell for reading and writing.

But the bookshelf is mostly empty. He has 52 books but is only allowed two in his cell at any one time.

Toilet paper is rationed - he's allowed 30 sheets at a time - because others at Guantanamo have used it to block the toilets and cause flooding.

The Americans describe it as a security issue.

Hicks is kept in his cell for 22 hour stretches. For two hours a day - which can be at any time of the day or night - he is allowed into the exercise yard.

But, for whatever reason, he was refused the privilege 21 times last month, meaning he was in his cell for 24 hours.

AAP

[accuracy]

15th February 2007

David Hicks has been on toilet paper "rations" because some Guantanamo Bay detainees - but not the Australian terror suspect - have been using it to cause flooding.

Rod Smith, a senior consular officer from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), said Australian officials were first alerted to this problem in early November last year.

"Toilet paper is rationed to 30 sheets at a time but additional supplies can be provided as requested," Mr Smith said.

"(The US says) some detainees have used toilet paper to block toilets and cause floods."

American officials described it as a security measure, he said.

But Mr Smith said as far as he was aware Hicks was not one of the detainees causing the flooding problem.

"It is an issue we have taken up with the American authorities," Mr Smith said.

Australia's consul-general to Washington, John McAnulty, raised the toilet paper issue with US authorities in a letter on December 5.

The rationed toilet paper was still a problem late last month when Hicks was visited by his lawyers but, at a parliamentary hearing on Thursday, Mr Smith was unable to say if it was still an issue.

Information from US authorities also disputes claims that Hicks has not been able to use a comb since being transferred to Camp Six last year.

Mr Smith said the US had told Australia that Hicks is allowed to use a comb in the shower room.

Senators were also provided with some details of the personal effects to which Hicks has access.

Mr Smith said Hicks has a library of 52 books at the prison but was only allowed to keep two in his cell at any one time.

The Adelaide father of two spends at least 22 hours in his cell each day.

He is allowed two hours each day for exercise but Mr Smith said he refused to go to the exercise yard 21 times during January.

AAP

[accuracy]

Feb 15, 2007
http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=27415

Rabat (ANTARA News) - A 16th century Marrakesh palace has for the past three weeks been transformed into the infamous American prison camp in Guantanamo Bay to set the scene for a movie being shot there, Moroccan media reported on Tuesday.

South African director Gavin Hood is using the castle as a backdrop for his political "Rendition", starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon and Peter Sarsgaard.

The film tells the tale of a CIA analyst in Cairo who witnesses an unorthodox interrogation of an Egyptian chemical engineer suspected of being a terrorist.

The El Badia palace has, according to a set worker quoted by AFP from Moroccan daily Aujord'hui, been completely transformed to resemble Guantanamo, even featuring Moroccans walking around in the American camp's notorious orange jumpsuits.

The Moroccan part of the shoot is scheduled to last for eight weeks, and will include a scene shot in the seaside town of Essaouira, formerly known as Mogador.

Hood will also take his cast to South Africa and the United States to shoot other scenes for the film. (*)


Copyright © 2006 ANTARA

[accuracy]

By David Bauder
Associated Press
http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070214/LIFE/702140338/1005

This week on Fox's "24" a counter terrorism agent was tortured with a quarter-inch bit drilled into his chest. Earlier this season on the show agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) tortured his own brother by putting a plastic bag over his head.

In previous seasons Jack has cut off the head of a tortured terrorist suspect who had died to send a message and pretended to kill a terrorist's bound and gagged child before his eyes to get him to talk. Even Jack himself has died under torture, only to be resuscitated back to life.

The scenes from Fox's "24" are haunting, but hardly unusual. The advocacy group Human Rights First says there's been a startling increase in the number of torture scenes depicted on prime-time television in the post-2001 world.

Even more chilling, there are indications that real-life American interrogators in Iraq are taking cues from what they see on TV, said Jill Savitt, the group's PR director.

Human Rights First recently brought a West Point commander and retired military interrogators to Hollywood for meetings with producers of "24" and ABC's "Lost" to talk about their concerns about life imitating art. One man in the meeting was Tony Lagouranis, a former U.S. Army specialist who questioned prisoners in Baghdad's infamous Abu Ghraib prison and several other facilities around Iraq. He said he saw instances of mock executions like that in "24." Once, some fellow interrogators asked an Iraqi translator to pretend he was being tortured to strike fear in a prisoner, after they had just watched a similar scene on a DVD.

Television is hardly the only factor at play; Lagouranis said many American interrogators are young, receive little training and are pressured by commanders to quickly extract information from prisoners.

But it's enough of a concern that one professor at a military academy told Savitt that Jack Bauer represented one of his biggest training challenges. Retired U.S. Army Col. Stu Herrington, who learned interrogation techniques in Vietnam and is an expert asked by the Army to consult on conditions at Guantanimo Bay, said that if Bauer worked for him, he'd be headed for a court-martial. "I am distressed by the fact that the good guys are depicted as successfully employing what I consider are illegal, immoral and stupid tactics, and they're succeeding," he said. "When the good guys are doing something evil and win, that bothers me."

Prior to 2001, the few torture scenes on prime-time TV usually had the shows' villains as the instigators, Savitt said. In both 1996 and 1997, there were no prime-time TV scenes containing torture, according to the Parents Television Council, which keeps a programming database.

Recently they found examples on "Alias," "The Wire," "Law & Order," "The Shield" - even "Star Trek: Voyager."

In one "Lost" scene, Sayid Jarrah was depicted holding a knife to the face of one adversary, suggesting that "perhaps losing an eye will loosen your tongue."

Howard Gordon, an executive producer of "24," suggested that a helpless feeling in the nation because of terrorism and the Iraq war may be what creators are reflecting in their shows. There's been a surge in the level of violence tolerated in prime time. "Perhaps at some level it's an expression of our anger and our helplessness," he said.

But Herrington said he's concerned that much of what's on TV is misleading.

Television interrogation frequently works to a ticking clock: someone needs to find out the location of a bomb from a prisoner within the hour or it will explode. That's so rare in real life that it's essentially mythology, he said.



Publication date: 02-14-2007

[accuracy]

EU endorses damning report on CIA

14 February 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6360817.stm

The European parliament has approved a damning report on secret CIA flights, condemning member states which colluded in the operations.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42369000/jpg/_42369098_ciaflight_ap203b.jpg
The EU report said the US had operated 1,245 flights


The UK, Germany and Italy were among 14 states which allowed the US to forcibly remove terror suspects, lawmakers said.

The EU parliament voted to accept a resolution condemning member states which accepted or ignored the practice.

The EU report said the CIA had operated 1,245 flights, some taking suspects to states where they could face torture.

The report was adopted by a large majority, with 382 MEPs voting in favour, 256 against and 74 abstaining.

Vigilance

The final version denounces the lack of co-operation of many EU member states and it condemns the actions of secret services and governments who accepted and concealed renditions.

It is unlikely, the report says, that European governments were unaware of rendition activities on their territory, something the British government, among others, has denied.

"This is a report that doesn't allow anyone to look the other way. We must be vigilant that what has been happening in the past five years may never happen again," said Italian Socialist Giovanni Fava, who drafted the document.

The parliament also called for an "independent inquiry" to be considered and for closure of the US' Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

Human rights campaigning group Amnesty International welcomed the EU lawmakers' vote, but urged member states to carry out independent investigations.

Revealing facts

Although the report has no force in EU law, Mr Fava said during the parliamentary debate that the related investigation, over a year, had uncovered much new evidence.

Many of those taken from EU states were subjected to torture to extract information from them, the report said.

It said there was a "strong possibility" that this intelligence had been passed on to EU governments who were aware of how it was obtained.

It also uncovered the use of secret detention facilities used as the flights made their journey across Europe towards countries such as Afghanistan.

It was not possible to contradict evidence or suggestions that secret detention centres were operated in Poland and Romania, the report said.

'Incommunicado detention'

Centre-right MEPs - the largest group in parliament - have been highly critical of the report, saying it is primarily motivated by anti-Americanism.

EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said the commission would act on the truth, even if it were uncomfortable or unpalatable. But he called for a relaunching of the Euro-Atlantic relationship and said Europe must continue to work with its US partners.

During the course of their investigation, delegations of MEPs travelled to countries including Romania, Poland, the UK, the US and Germany to investigate claims of European involvement in so-called extraordinary renditions.

The governments of Austria, Italy, Poland, Portugal and the UK were criticised for their "unwillingness to co-operate" with investigators.

The report defines extraordinary renditions as instances where "an individual suspected of involvement in terrorism is illegally abducted, arrested and/or transferred into the custody of US officials and/or transported to another country for interrogation which, in the majority of cases involves incommunicado detention and torture".

[accuracy]

February 18, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21245206-2,00.html

BUSINESSMAN Dick Smith has given $60,000 to support the campaign to free Australian terror suspect David Hicks.

Sky News reports the businessman as saying he is angry with the Howard government's neglect of Hicks and plans to give more to help secure a fair trial.

Mr Smith's announcement yesterday came at the same time as the release of a computer generated image of the 31-year-old held at the US military camp in Cuba.

The image shows the strain of five years at Guantanamo Bay.

[accuracy]

By MICHAEL MOSS and SOUAD MEKHENNET
Published: February 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/world/middleeast/18bucca.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/18/world/18bucca.xlarge1.jpg
Laith al-Ani, with his daughter, Al Budur, was recently released by the American military in Iraq after spending more than two years in detention facilities. He was never charged with a crime.


DAMASCUS, Syria — In the early hours of Jan. 6, Laith al-Ani stood in a jail near the Baghdad airport waiting to be released by the American military after two years and three months in captivity.

He struggled to quell his hope. Other prisoners had gotten as far as the gate only to be brought back inside, he said, and he feared that would happen to him as punishment for letting his family discuss his case with a reporter.

But as the morning light grew, the American guards moved Mr. Ani, a 31-year-old father of two young children, methodically toward freedom. They swapped his yellow prison suit for street clothes, he said. They snipped off his white plastic identification bracelet. They scanned his irises into their database.

Then, shortly before 9 a.m., Mr. Ani said, he was brought to a table for one last step. He was handed a form and asked to place a check mark next to the sentence that best described how he had been treated:

“I didn’t go through any abuse during detention,” read the first option, in Arabic.

“I have gone through abuse during detention,” read the second.

In the room, he said, stood three American guards carrying the type of electric stun devices that Mr. Ani and other detainees said had been used on them for infractions as minor as speaking out of turn.

“Even the translator told me to sign the first answer,” said Mr. Ani, who gave a copy of his form to The New York Times. “I asked him what happens if I sign the second one, and he raised his hands,” as if to say, Who knows?

“I thought if I don’t sign the first one I am not going to get out of this place.”

Shoving the memories of his detention aside, he checked the first box and minutes later was running through a cold rain to his waiting parents. “My heart was beating so hard,” he said. “You can’t believe how I cried.”

His mother, Intisar al-Ani, raised her arms in the air, palms up, praising God. “It was like my soul going out, from my happiness,” she recalled. “I hugged him hard, afraid the Americans would take him away again.”

Just three weeks earlier, his last letter home — with its poetic yearnings and a sketch of a caged pink heart — appeared in The Times in one of a series of articles on Iraq’s troubled detention and justice system.

After his release from the American-run jail, Camp Bucca, Mr. Ani and other former detainees described the sprawling complex of barracks in the southern desert near Kuwait as a bleak place where guards casually used their stun guns and exposed prisoners to long periods of extreme heat and cold; where prisoners fought among themselves and extremist elements tried to radicalize others; and where detainees often responded to the harsh conditions with hunger strikes and, at times, violent protests.

Through it all, Mr. Ani was never actually charged with a crime; he said he was questioned only once during his more than two years at the camp.

American detention officials acknowledged that guards used electric devices called Tasers to control detainees, but they said they did so rarely and only when the guards were physically threatened. The officials said that detainees had several ways to report abuse without repercussions, and that all claims were investigated.

Officials declined to give specific details about why they had detained Mr. Ani or why they had freed him.

“He was released because the board that reviewed his case didn’t believe he any longer posed a threat,” said First Lt. Lea Ann Fracasso, a spokeswoman for detention operations, in a written answer to questions. “He was originally detained as a security threat. I don’t have anything more.”

The Detention System

The American detention camps in Iraq now hold 15,500 prisoners, more than at any time since the war began. The camps are filled with people like Mr. Ani who are being held without charge and without access to tribunals where their cases are reviewed, the Times examination published last December found.

Mr. Ani, a women’s clothing merchant, said he was detained in 2004 after American soldiers who were searching for weapons in his six-family apartment building found an Iraqi military uniform in the basement. His joy upon being released in January was short-lived. Days later, he said, a Shiite militia ransacked his home in Baghdad, looking to kill him. He hid, going from house to house, until he could move his family out of Iraq.

Now he is among the estimated 1.5 million Iraqis who have taken refuge in neighboring Syria and Jordan, where sectarian rifts are springing up.

In one area of Damascus, Shiite refugees from Iraq have established a mini version of Sadr City, the Baghdad neighborhood. Sunni refugees, in turn, are forming their own enclaves. In interviews, former detainees seethed with rage at the United States.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/18/world/18bucca.1902.jpg
Scott Nelson/WPN, for The New York Times
A letter written by Mr. Ani to his family from the Camp Bucca detention center in Iraq.

One, a 43-year-old man from Samarra, Iraq, said he was released last year despite having fought American troops.

“I wish to go back to Iraq and fight against the Americans, God willing,” vowed the man, who spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his nom de guerre, Abu Abdulla, for fear of reprisal.

Mr. Ani has other priorities, still exhausted from his detention and preoccupied with finding a permanent home. But he regularly turns his television to a new station called Al Zawra, transfixed by its running montage of videotaped attacks on American troops.

The station is owned by a Sunni, Meshaan al-Juburi, a former Iraqi politician who was indicted last year on charges of embezzling millions of American dollars; he denied the charges and returned to Syria, where he lived before the war. The station has become an information center for the Sunni insurgency and in the process has exasperated American and Iraqi forces. In an interview at his office here, Mr. Juburi said that he opposed Al Qaeda’s use of suicide bombers to kill Iraqi civilians but was soliciting support for Iraqis intent on killing American troops. When the image of a roadside bomb blowing up an American Humvee appears on the large flat screen on his office wall, his eyebrows rise and he urges his visitors to watch, “This is a good one.”

A Nightmare Begins

Mr. Ani’s ordeal began on Oct. 14, 2004, when soldiers brought him in for what he described as desultory questioning.

“ ‘Are you married? How many children? Sunni or Shiite? Which mosque do you pray in?’ ” Mr. Ani said he was asked. “I said I didn’t pray, and they said, ‘Are you not Muslim,’ and I said, ‘Yes, but I’m not praying and going to mosques.’ ”

“They never asked me about terrorism,” he said. “I’m a normal person, just a usual man, and don’t have anything to do with anyone who was fighting against the Americans.”

Mr. Ani spent a total of 44 days at two other American facilities before being sent to Camp Bucca. In all, he said, he was questioned just once at each site.

Mr. Ani said the electric prods were first used on him on the way to Camp Bucca. “I was talking to someone next to me and they used it,” he said, describing the device as black plastic with a yellow tip and two iron prongs. He said the prods were commonly used on him and other detainees as punishment.

“The whole body starts to shake and hurt,” he said. “And you lose consciousness for a couple of seconds. One time they used it on my tongue. One guard held me from the left and another on my back and another used it against my tongue and for four or five days I couldn’t eat.”

In a separate interview, the insurgent from Samarra said such a device had been used on him for speaking out of turn. Ahmed Majid al-Ghanem, 50, a former Baath Party official who was also freed from Camp Bucca and is now living in Syria, said in a separate interview that he witnessed the electric prods being used as punishment on other detainees.

The Times interviewed Mr. Ani at his apartment in Damascus, the Syrian capital, where he sat on a couch with his parents, wife and children. When he demonstrated how he had been held for the electric prod, his 4-year-old daughter, Al Budur, mimicked his actions.

Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, a detention system spokesman, said: “Every use of less than lethal force, to include use of Tasers, is formally reported by facility leadership, ensuring soldiers are in accordance with proper use. Touching a Taser to someone’s tongue is not one of the approved uses.”

Mr. Ani said guards treated him kindly when he arrived at the jail on Nov. 20, 2004. He recalls being given soap, and, when his hands cracked from the cold, a soldier bringing him lotion and socks.

But soon new guards came “who had had special thoughts,” he said. “They were not allowing us to talk. They cut off the salt, gave us food that was not fit for dogs. One guard named David sometimes brought us outside to stay in the sun, or when it was cold. He also didn’t respect our faith, telling us not to pray here, and when we moved not to pray there.”

The detainees also began fighting among themselves. Those who spoke to the American guards were ostracized. Long toilet lines further raised tensions.

One day the guards searched a makeshift prayer area, Mr. Ani said, “and they started to step on the Korans, which fell down.”

“A fight started,” he continued. “There was a huge demonstration. The prisoners started to throw their shoes at the guards, and we started to beat them with empty plastic bottles. The guards shot at us with rubber bullets, but then prisoners were killed and others were injured.”

A Pentagon statement at the time described such an incident in January 2005, saying that four detainees were killed when guards were compelled to use deadly force to quell the riot and that it was set off by a search for contraband. Colonel Curry said an investigation concluded that a detainee leader had fabricated the Koran allegations to instigate violence.

Mr. Ani and other former detainees said there were frequent demonstrations to protest various grievances. Mr. Ghanem said he was released in late 2003 after hunger strikes forced camp officials to review his case and those of others.

Detention officials said they were also fighting radicalization at the camps and were trying to identify and isolate extremists. Former detainees said in interviews that the influence of Islamic extremists was still growing. At Camp Bucca, they said, hundreds of men formed a group called the Brothers. Members shaved their beards and otherwise masked their ideology so they would be placed with other detainees.

Mr. Ani generally slept in a wooden barrackslike structure, with a mattress on the ground and a nail on the wall for hanging clothes. Once, when the guards found an improvised needle that he said was used to repair clothes, he was taken to an isolated cell, where he was kept for 24 days.

“You cannot see the difference between day and night,” he said. “There was no opening, not even in the door.”

Colonel Curry said it was standard to discipline detainees when they did not follow procedure.

Mr. Ani despaired of ever being released. His letter that was printed in The Times ended with, “I hope I can be dust in the storms of Bucca so that I can reach you.”

Dangers Beyond Jail

“I didn’t see any kind of solution for me,” Mr. Ani said after his release. “The only solution was to die,” he said, his eyes welling with tears. “I was hoping to die.”

In releasing Mr. Ani, the American military transferred him to Camp Cropper in Baghdad and gave him $25, which he and his parents used to hire a taxi. Along the way home, they had to dodge Shiite-controlled checkpoints, and just days later, he said, he narrowly escaped capture by a Shiite militia. Mr. Ani and other Iraqis say they believe these militias have found a way to learn when Sunni men are released from jail and then hunt and kill them.

Maj. Gen. John D. Gardner, commander of American detainee operations, said that he had heard such concerns and that he was trying to alter the process of releasing detainees to improve their safety.

Mr. Ani said that for him there was only one way to stay alive: flee Iraq.

He said he was scared and puzzled about his next step. He said he felt that he could not stay in Syria, if only because work was scarce. But he must compete with other refugees for the attention of another host country.

“Until now, I can’t sleep, really,” he said. “Whenever I hear something noisy I stand up. I’m in a very bad psychological situation. I can’t stop thinking of what we should do. I don’t have a future here. How should we live?”

When his uncle put on Al Zawra, the satellite television station, Mr. Ani turned to look at the scenes of Sunni children who had been killed and the attacks on American soldiers.

“I am an Iraqi,” he said. “I love my country. Of course, everyone who is an Iraqi at the moment, we are thinking how can we support our country.”

“The United States through its actions made people hate the Americans much more than before.”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[accuracy]

Assigned to defend a Guantánamo detainee, jag lawyer Charles Swift joined up with legal scholar Neal Katyal and sued the president and secretary of defense over the new military-tribunal system. With their 2006 Supreme Court victory overridden by the Republican Congress, and Swift's navy career at an end, they are fighting on.

by Marie Brenner, March 2007

The whole purpose of setting up Guantánamo Bay is for torture. Why do this? Because you want to escape the rule of law. There is only one thing that you want to escape the rule of law to do, and that is to question people coercively—what some people call torture. Guantánamo and the military commissions are implements for breaking the law. Why build a prison here when there are plenty of prisons in Nebraska? Why is it, when we see photos of Abu Ghraib, we think that it is "exporting Guantánamo"? That it is the "Guantánamo method"?—Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift to the author, January 2007.

He could not even get his client a pair of socks. That realization came to Charlie Swift, a lawyer in the navy's Judge Advocate General's Corps (jag), as he landed in Guantánamo. It was December 22, 2006, a few weeks before the fifth anniversary of the arrival of the first enemy detainees at the American naval base in Cuba. Swift had been a jag defense lawyer for 12 years and was making his 30th visit to Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a diminutive Yemeni who had been held for more than five years. The first time Swift met Hamdan, in January 2004, the prisoner was in shackles. "I am freezing," Hamdan told him. "Can't you get me a pair of socks?" After that, Swift brought Hamdan socks. Sometimes his client was given them, sometimes he was not. Now, nearly three years later, Hamdan was at the center of a landmark Supreme Court case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, held up as a symbol of detainees' rights and the need for the Geneva Conventions, yet he was still mired in legal limbo.

The island, once again, seemed inexpressibly strange to Swift. He always drove past a sign that read honor bound to defend freedom. "This is probably not the best sign for this place," Swift said to himself on one of his first trips. Seeing the rec hall and a McDonald's, he made notes for a future jury summation: "This is the island of misfit toys."

An order had been issued just before he arrived. Hamdan was to be taken to Camp Six, a nether zone on the base, and placed in solitary confinement. His days would be spent in a tiny room kept cold by air-conditioning. Mail from his family in Yemen was withheld for months. Immediately, Swift called Washington to speak to his partner, law professor Neal Katyal. This was the fourth year Katyal had spent his holidays preparing legal briefs on the subject of President Bush's military tribunals. "They've put Salim back into solitary," Swift told him. "That is outrageous," Katyal said. "But what about the notes?" Camp authorities had seized the notes Hamdan took after a recent visit with Swift. Katyal was furious at this violation of lawyer-client privilege.

Through the holidays, Katyal wrote draft after draft of possible briefs for the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. He made phone calls trying to learn what the Department of Defense would include in the new guidelines for Guantánamo it was issuing in January. Swift and Katyal were bogged down in procedural delay. A few months after their decisive victory the previous June, when the Supreme Court had declared the military tribunals illegal, Congress had passed an onerous new law, muting the court's ruling on the no-man's-land of Guantánamo. Now the lawyers were planning a new strategy to take before the appellate court. This time, in addition to going up against the administration, they would be challenging Congress.

From the beginning, Swift had been in an untenable situation. He had been asked, as a military lawyer, to defend enemy combatants—the government's term for the men held at Guantánamo—under rules that, were he to follow them as a civilian lawyer, would be clear ethical violations. On his first trip to see Hamdan, in 2004, he had made a list of these on a legal pad: no right to habeas corpus, no attorney-client privilege, forced guilty pleas for charges never made public, secret and coerced evidence, juries and presiding officers picked by executive fiat, clients represented even if they declined legal counsel. He and Katyal had won their case in the Supreme Court, but had anything really changed?

"We are right back to where we started," Swift said. "When I met Salim Ahmed Hamdan, he was sitting and waiting. Now he is sitting and waiting again. And he is still freezing and does not have a pair of socks." The central question remained for Swift: Could a president hold someone forever without trying him? "What are we defending here?," he asked. "Kangaroo courts where the defendants never knew what they were being indicted for?"

October 15, 2006. The day I meet Charlie Swift, he attempts to sum up the legal morass of Guantánamo. "Justice," he says, "is based on a simple idea: it can happen to you." The line comes out minutes after he arrives at a Starbucks in the suburbs of Maryland, and the intensity of his delivery causes the teenagers making out at the next table to look up. It's a Sunday afternoon, shortly after the announcement that Swift is leaving the navy. A few days earlier, on October 11, The New York Times ran a harsh editorial commenting on the subject:

In 2003, Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift was assigned to represent Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni citizen accused of being a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda—for the sole purpose of getting him to plead guilty before one of the military commissions that President Bush created for the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. Instead of carrying out this morally repugnant task, Commander Swift concluded that the commissions were unconstitutional. He did his duty and defended his client.… The Navy gave no reason for denying Commander Swift's promotion. But there is no denying the chilling message it sends to remaining military lawyers about the potential consequences of taking their job, and justice, seriously.

The Times editorial made it seem as if a navy hero had been slapped down for trying to put a stop to the practices at Guantánamo. On the telephone, Swift was irritated about that. "There is nothing clear-cut about this," he insisted. "It is not black-and-white."

The fog surrounding Guantánamo had seemed to lift on June 29, 2006, when Hamdan v. Rumsfeld—a case scholars have compared to Brown v. Board of Education in its ramifications for this country—was decided in the Supreme Court. The court struck down President Bush's military tribunals, declaring them illegal under long-established U.S. laws, the Geneva Conventions, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In a 73-page opinion, the court said that the administration had established the tribunals without congressional authorization and violated international law. At first, the decision seemed a complete victory for Swift and all the other lawyers in and out of the jag Corps who had been fighting what they considered to be Draconian conditions at Guantánamo.

The victory, however, was short-lived. On October 17, President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, creating a new system of interrogating and prosecuting terrorism suspects and denying the 430 prisoners at Guantánamo and others around the world the right to file writs of habeas corpus. "The constitutional issue could not be more stark," Swift declared. "What they are doing is unprecedented."

read on-
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/guantanamo200703?printable=true&currentPage=all

[accuracy]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/costello-points-the-finger-at-hicks/2007/02/18/1171733612758.html

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/02/19/470davidhicks.jpg
Unfamiliar face … few have seen David Hicks's face in the past five years, but his lawyers say this computer-generated image commissioned by Channel Nine, right, is an accurate reflection of how he looks now. Left, Mr Hicks before he left Australia.

Tom Allard National Security Editor
February 19, 2007

THE federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, says David Hicks could easily have killed Australian soldiers in Afghanistan - even though the US says Mr Hicks fled the battlefield before Australian forces had begun action there.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, said yesterday Mr Hicks could be home before this year's election - as long as his lawyers did not appeal against the military commission process.

Mr Costello told Channel Ten yesterday that Mr Hicks faced very serious charges. "The charges include the fact that he armed himself and prepared himself to kill coalition soldiers - could easily have been Australian soldiers," he said.

However, according to the charge sheet provided by US prosecutors, Mr Hicks left the front line where Taliban and US-backed Northern Alliance fighters were engaged after only two hours, in early November 2001.

US prosecutors say he then told other fighters he was leaving the country, and that he was arrested after three weeks in hiding, after selling his weapon to raise funds to escape to Pakistan.

The full contingent of Australia's SAS troops arrived in Afghanistan in December, and it was several weeks before they began operations.

Indeed, one of the few differences between the first charge sheet produced by US prosecutors in 2004 and the second made public last week is that a reference to Australian troops being possible targets of Mr Hicks was removed.

"They had to do that because they realised there were no Australian forces there fighting at the time," said Mr Hicks's US lawyer, Major Michael Mori.

But Mr Costello said the case against Mr Hicks was "pretty straightforward". "He wasn't on a backpacker tour," he said.

Mr Downer said Mr Hicks would be back in Australia, one way or another, before the election, as long as his trial proceeded quickly.

"It'll be possible to get Mr Hicks back to Australia by the end of the year, either to serve in a prison in Australia or, of course, just to be released, depending on the result of the trial," Mr Downer told the Nine Network.

There has been mounting public concern about the five years Mr Hicks has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay without trial, forcing the Federal Government to press the US for a speedy resolution of the case. The businessman Dick Smith yesterday pledged $60,000 towards Mr Hicks's legal expenses.

Major Mori said it was inevitable there would be further appeals against the military commission system.

Mr Downer was non-committal about what the Government would do if there was a delay but said it would be harder to bring Mr Hicks home if the appeal was instigated by his team.

"If the reason the trial isn't going ahead is that Mr Hicks and his lawyers want to delay the trial for one reason or another - and I make no judgement about that, that is their perfect right - then it's hard to get Hicks out of Guantanamo Bay," he said.

The Greens senator Bob Brown said the Prime Minister was planning to use Mr Hicks to save his own skin as voter reaction to the Australian's continuing imprisonment turned hostile.

"Hicks will come home before Christmas so that Howard can get home before Christmas. It is very tawdry," Senator Brown said. Mr Howard had turned a blind eye to Mr Hicks's mistreatment for five years and his plan to bring him home before the election was "political cowardice".

with AAP

[accuracy]

U.S. rejects investigator's Guantanamo visit request

Reuters
Friday, February 16, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/16/AR2007021600603.html

PARIS (Reuters) - A European investigator probing alleged CIA abuses of detainees said on Friday the United States has refused his request to visit the controversial U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to talk to inmates.

Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty had planned to travel to Guantanamo with Manfred Nowak, United Nations special rapporteur for torture, to question detainees about reports they were earlier held in secret prisons in Europe.

"The U.S. sent a very short reply saying that they couldn't accept his request to visit and talk to inmates," a spokesman for the Council of Europe said.

Over 20 mainly European countries colluded in a web of secret Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) jails and flight transfers of terrorism suspects stretching from Asia to Guantanamo Bay, Marty said in a June 2006 report.

"If I cannot speak freely with detainees -- as I understand from the American reply -- such a visit would be pointless," Marty said in a statement.

"I am disappointed at this refusal by the U.S., an observer to the Council of Europe, but my investigation continues."

© 2007 Reuters

[accuracy]

February 21, 2007

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/02/21/guantanamo_detainees_wideweb__470x324,0.jpg
A shackled detainee is escorted while being transported inside the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.
Photo: AP

Australia's David Hicks and other Guantanamo Bay inmates suffered a significant setback today in an American court.

The US federal appeals panel in Washington DC ruled inmates held at the American military base in Cuba do not have the right to challenge their detention in lower federal courts.

The three judge panel ruled 2-1.

However, instead of paving the way for Hicks to be prosecuted at a military commission trial after five years in US custody, the court decision will likely cause more delays.

It is expected the decision will be challenged in America's highest court, the US Supreme Court.

The court ruling came after US President George W Bush and Congress introduced new legislation last year that stripped detainees' rights to challenge their detention.

Bush and Congress drew up the legislation following the landmark victory by Guantanamo detainees in the Supreme Court last year.

The new legislation survived the ruling.

"Federal courts have no jurisdiction in these cases," Judge A Raymond Randolph and Judge David B Sentelle announced.

Judge Judith W Rogers, who was the dissenting judge, offered hope to Hicks and other inmates if, as expected, their lawyers take the issue to the Supreme Court.

Rogers said the Pentagon had not come up with an adequate option outside the federal courts that Guantanamo inmates could challenge their detention.

"District courts are well able to adjust these proceedings in light of the government's significant interests in guarding national security," Rogers wrote.

Amnesty criticises decision

Amnesty International has criticised the decision by the US appeals court.

The London-based human rights group said in a statement that it "deeply regrets" the decision that the federal courts lacked jurisdiction to hear any habeas corpus appeals from so-called "enemy combatants" at the camp in Cuba.

"The right of all detainees to challenge the lawfulness of their detention is among the most fundamental principles of international law," Amnesty's US researcher Rob Freer said.

"That any legislature or any judge anywhere should contenance such stripping of this basic protection against arbitrary detention, secret custody, torture and other ill-treatment is shocking and must be challenged."

Amnesty said that of the nearly 400 detainees still held at the US-run camp, some have been held for more than five years but none has had his indefinite detention judicially reviewed.

It repeated its claims - denied by Washington - that detainees have suffered "serious human rights violations" and said those held must be either charged with recognizable criminal offences, brought to trial or released.

Meanwhile the US military has announced Adelaide-born Hicks, 31, Omar Khadr of Canada and Salim Hamdan of Yemen would be the first three Guantanamo inmates to be prosecuted via the revamped military commission trial system.

Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 and is accused of having ties with terrorist group al Qaeda and the Taliban.

AAP

[accuracy]

February 21, 2007
From correspondents in London

AMNESTY International has criticised a decision by the US appeals court preventing foreign terror suspects from challenging their detentions at Guantanamo Bay in the US legal system.

The London-based human rights group said today that it "deeply regrets" the decision that the federal courts lacked jurisdiction to hear any habeas corpus appeals from so-called "enemy combatants" at the camp in Cuba.

"The right of all detainees to challenge the lawfulness of their detention is among the most fundamental principles of international law," Amnesty's US researcher Rob Freer said.

"That any legislature or any judge anywhere should contenance such stripping of this basic protection against arbitrary detention, secret custody, torture and other ill-treatment is shocking and must be challenged."

Amnesty said that of the nearly 400 detainees still held at the US-run camp, some have been held for more than five years but none has had his indefinite detention judicially reviewed.

It repeated its claims - denied by Washington - that detainees have suffered "serious human rights violations" and said those held must be either charged with recognisable criminal offences, brought to trial or released.

"One only has to imagine what would happen if another government captured a US citizen and held him indefinitely for years on end while denying him this basic right to challenge his detention," he said.

"The US government should now turn its imagination to fully restoring an indispensable rule of law principle."

[accuracy]

Wednesday, February 21, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070221/ap_on_re_mi_ea/saudi_guantanamo_1

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Seven Saudis released from the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay returned home on Wednesday and were promptly detained to see if they had terrorist connections, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

Their return brings to 60 the number of Saudis freed from Guantanamo, according to The Associated Press' own tally. Another 67 Saudis remain incarcerated at the U.S. military facility on Cuba, a source of tension in U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, a close ally of Washington.

Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz expressed his "great joy" about the seven Saudis' return and "appreciation of the cooperation by the American authorities," the Saudi Press Agency reported.

He added he hoped the remaining Saudi detainees in Guantanamo would return in the near future.

The seven who returned Wednesday were expected to remain in custody until the security authorities had determined whether they were linked to militant organizations.

Five batches of Saudis have returned from Guantanamo, the first arriving in May last year, and all have gone through the same process of being detained on arrival. The kingdom released 30 detainees in December.

Two Saudis died in Guantanamo prison last year in what American officials said were suicides. Many Saudis don't believe that and think the detainees were abused — a claim the U.S. denies.

The United States began using the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in January 2002 for people captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan who were suspected of having links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

Of the 759 people who have been held over the years at Guantanamo, according to Defense Department documents released to The Associated Press, 136 have been Saudis, making them the second- largest contingent of prisoners, behind Afghan nationals.

[accuracy]

Anti-Terror Law Bans Guantanamo Bay Prisoners from Civil Courts

Guantanamo Bay prisoners do not have a right to plead their innocence in American civilian court.

Foreign-born prisoners seized as potential terrorists and held in Guantanamo Bay may not challenge their detention in US courts, US federal appeals court ruled today.

According to the ruling, civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider whether the military is illegally holding the prisoners - a decision that will strip court access for hundreds of detainees with cases currently pending.

"The arguments are creative but not cogent. To accept them would be to defy the will of Congress," wrote Judge Raymond Randolph in the 25-page opinion, which was joined by Judge David Sentelle.

This means a key victory for President Bush's anti-terrorism plan.

The Bush administration has fought to prevent the detainees from having their claims heard in court. At the White House, deputy press secretary Dana Perino called the decision "a significant win" for the administration and said the Military Commissions Act provides "sufficient and fair access to courts for these detainees."

US citizens and foreigners being held within the United States normally have the right to contest their detention before a judge. The Justice Department said foreign enemy combatants are not protected by the Constitution. Attorneys for the detainees immediately said they would appeal to the US Supreme Court.

Though former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld once referred to the Guantanamo detainees as the "worst of the worst," none has been tried and hundreds have been released and sent back to their home countries.

http://www.torontodailynews.com/index.php/WorldNews/2007022102anti-terror-law

[accuracy]

February 26, 2007

Former Family Court chief justice Alastair Nicholson says the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Attorney-General could be charged with war crimes for insisting David Hicks face trial before a US military commission.

Mr Nicholson said the commission was not a properly constituted court and it could not deliver a fair trial to the terrorist suspect.

He said war crimes legislation clearly made that an offence on the basis that kangaroo courts should not be established to try a regime's enemies.

"We are saying it is strongly arguable that they have broken the law because to counsel or procure a person who is entitled to protection of the Geneva convention as Hicks is, a trial of such a person before an illegal tribunal is clearly an offence against the international criminal court statute," he told ABC Radio.

"It is also an offence in Australian law."

Mr Nicholson said that constituted a war crime.

"It is so defined under the relevant legislation," he said.

Adelaide-born Hicks, 31, has been detained by the US at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for five years, after he was picked up in Afghanistan in December 2001.

The US is considering the charges he would face at trial.

Mr Nicholson and five other top lawyers co-signed a legal opinion sent to Mr Ruddock last year, arguing that Government ministers could face charges under war-crimes legislation.

That view was repeated in a letter from senior lawyer Robert Richter, QC, sent to The Age newspaper earlier this month.

Mr Nicholson acknowledged it was unlikely Mr Ruddock would be charged with war crimes by this Government, although it would be potentially open to a future Labor government.


"It is always possible. But my experience is that one government doesn't usually try and single out the misdeeds of another," he said.

"If this Government at this stage was to indicate that it thought the trial process was unsatisfactory and Hicks should be repatriated, I have no doubt that he would be."

AAP

[accuracy]

February 26, 2007

A Sydney courtroom packed with supporters of terrorist suspect David Hicks has been told the Australian Government has no legal obligation to help the Guantanamo Bay inmate.

The Government might have a moral obligation to assist Australian people abroad, but there was no legal basis for a Federal Court challenge to Hicks's incarceration by United States authorities, the Federal Court was today told.

A team of lawyers has launched the action in a bid to force the Government to take steps to bring Adelaide-born Hicks home.

The 31-year-old has been detained without trial at the US naval base since January 2002, following his arrest in Afghanistan.

The action against the Federal Government, federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, seeks declarations and an order that could lead to the release of Hicks from the US military jail in Cuba.

Government lawyer, Solicitor-General David Bennett, QC, told the court a general obligation for the Federal Government to protect citizens abroad "is simply something that the law has never recognised".

The courtroom was packed with supporters of Hicks, who earlier rallied outside the building calling for his release.

Former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mamdouh Habib was also in court to support Hicks.

Speaking outside court, Hicks's Pentagon lawyer Major Michael Mori said he would tell Hicks about today's hearing.

"I came to see and hear the hearing so when I go back and see David next time at Guantanamo I can give him a report on what happened. Obviously this has a direct effect on his freedom," he said.

Major Mori said knowing he had support in Australia was helping Hicks cope with his incarceration.

"He's been in Guantanamo for five years. I don't think he'll ever believe he's leaving until he's back here in Australia," he told reporters outside court.

"I think the support, and knowing that there are people out there fighting for him, helps him get day by day though the time he sits in that cell by himself in solitary 22 hours a day."

Also in court today was entrepreneur and businessman Dick Smith.

While he said he did not support Hicks, Mr Smith said he was helping financially because he was concerned Hicks was not being treated fairly.

"It gets me incredibly angry when I find out that no American can be tried by military commission because it is against their law but an Australian can be tried, and that's not on," he said.

The hearing on whether the Federal Court has jurisdiction in the matter continues before Justice Brian Tamberlin.

AAP

[accuracy]

By Ben Fox
ASSOCIATED PRESS

February 25, 2007
http://washtimes.com/world/20070224-111035-6885r.htm

NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- A TV cameraman is getting an inside view of life at Guantanamo Bay prison, only he is unable to get out and tell the story.
Sami al-Hajj, of the Al Jazeera TV network, was stopped at the Afghanistan border by Pakistani authorities in December 2001, turned over to U.S. forces and hauled in chains six months later to Guantanamo, where about 390 men are held on suspicion of links to al Qaeda or the Taliban.
Mr. al-Hajj, a 38-year-old native of Sudan, has been held in this U.S. military prison ever since.
He is believed to be the only journalist from a major international news organization held at Guantanamo.
Colleagues from Mr. al-Hajj's Qatar-based network and the Sudanese government want to know why he is being held, but the U.S. government is saying little. The military did not even publicly acknowledge holding Mr. al-Hajj until last April, when it released a list of Guantanamo detainees in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Associated Press.
But military documents sketch at least a partial outline of Mr. al-Hajj's experiences at Guantanamo and the U.S. grounds for holding him -- that he transported money between 1996 and 2000 for a defunct charity that purportedly provided money to militant groups, and that he met a "senior al Qaeda lieutenant."
When he appeared before a military review panel at this remote U.S. military base in August 2005, Mr. al-Hajj, citing the advice of his attorney, declined to respond to questions. But he denied any connection to terrorism.
"With all due respect, a mistake has been made because I have never been a member of any terrorist group," he said, according to a transcript released the following year. "I can say without hesitation that I am not a threat to the United States."
During the hearing, aimed at determining whether Mr. al-Hajj posed a threat to the United States or possessed intelligence value, Mr. al-Hajj wore a white jumpsuit reserved for the "most compliant" detainees. An officer told the tribunal that Mr. al-Hajj was leading Islamic prayer sessions and teaching other prisoners English.
His colleagues at Al Jazeera claim his detention is American harassment of an Arabic TV network whose coverage has long angered U.S. officials. Near the entrance to the network's Khartoum, Sudan, bureau a banner saying "Free Sami al-Hajj" hangs alongside his photo.
"He's our colleague, so we're very worried," said Nassef Salah Eldin, an Al Jazeera producer in the Sudanese capital. "We feel it could happen to any of us."
Lamis Andoni, a Middle East analyst for the network who helped organize a campaign for Mr. al-Hajj's release, noted the network's sour relationship with the American government. In April 2003, an Al Jazeera journalist was killed when the network's Baghdad bureau was struck during a U.S. bombing campaign. In November 2001, a U.S. missile destroyed Al Jazeera's office in Kabul, Afghanistan. The U.S. claims both attacks were mistakes.

"When you are targeted once, it could be a mistake," Mr. Andoni said in an interview from Amman, Jordan. "But when you are bombed twice, it's something else."
In an interview in Khartoum, Sudanese Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardi said the holding of the cameraman without charge "is repugnant to all the conventions and principles of international law."
Washington has given Sudan no information about Mr. al-Hajj, Mr. al-Mardi said. U.S. relations with Sudan are strained over the Darfur conflict in western Sudan.
"I consider the information that we obtained from him to be useful," Paul Rester, director of the Joint Intelligence Group at the prison, said in an interview at Guantanamo Bay. Mr. Rester refused to elaborate or even to comment on the charges aired at the 2005 hearing.

The U.S. military says that in the 1990s, Mr. al-Hajj was an executive assistant at a Qatar-based beverage company that provided support to Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya.

[accuracy]

By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD, Associated Press Writer
Sun Feb 25,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070225/ap_on_re_mi_ea/egypt_italy_cleric;_ylt=ArS0zyqaW3rQdIXPJFT9fucLew gF

CAIRO, Egypt - An Egyptian cleric allegedly kidnapped off the streets of Italy by CIA agents in 2003 claimed Sunday that the Americans who abducted him "savagely" tortured him while deporting him to Egypt for interrogation.

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070225/capt.nn10202251524.mideast_egypt_italy_cleric_nn10 2.jpg
AP Photo: Egyptian cleric Osama Hassan Mustafa Nasr, known as Abu Omar, 44, shows a dark scar...

The allegations by Osama Hassan Mustafa Nasr, who also is known as Abu Omar, are likely to intensify criticism of the United States' "extraordinary rendition" program. Italy has indicted 26 Americans and five Italian agents accused of seizing the cleric in 2003.

Nasr told the pan-Arab satellite TV station Al-Jazeera that he "was savagely tortured by the CIA when kidnapped and during my deportation" to Egypt.

He did not provide further details during the live interview. The CIA has repeatedly declined to comment on the case.

Nasr's case is the first criminal trial connected to the rendition policy, in which U.S. agents secretly transferred terror suspects for interrogation to third countries where critics say they faced torture. Nasr was released from an Egyptian prison on Feb. 11 after four years in Egyptian custody.

During the Al-Jazeera interview, Nasr, 44, did not discuss allegations he made last week that Egyptian authorities also tortured him while he was in prison here, but he said he had tried to commit suicide while in Egyptian custody.

"Yes, this happened, but I didn't do this out of my own will because I know what a grave sin it is to kill oneself," the bearded Muslim preacher said. "But I was pushed to do it. I was in a situation where I wasn't able to distinguish between heaven and Earth."

Italian prosecutors say Nasr — suspected of recruiting fighters for radical Islamic causes — was kidnapped from the streets of Milan in February 2003 by CIA agents with help from Italian agents. He was allegedly taken to Aviano Air Base near Venice, Ramstein Air Base in southern Germany, and then to Egypt for interrogation.

Italy has signaled it will not seek extradition of the 25 CIA agents and one U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, but it will likely try them in absentia. The State Department said last week the Bush administration has nothing more to say on Nasr's case.

Nasr on Sunday appealed to the Italian courts to reveal the "secrets of this operation."

A prosecutor in Milan had issued an arrest warrant for him in April 2005 as part of a terrorism investigation. According to Italian officials, Nasr fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia, though Nasr's Egyptian lawyer has denied he visited those countries.

Nasr has said he was innocent and wanted to return to Italy, where he was granted political asylum in 2001, four years after entering illegally.

Italian prosecutor Armando Spataro said Thursday that judicial authorities would like Nasr to testify in the case against the American and Italian agents. But Egypt has not responded to an Italian request for access to Nasr.

Egypt, a close U.S. ally, has kept silent over its role in the case. Nasr was freed in 2004 but was re-arrested after only three weeks after he spoke to a journalist by phone. Egypt never officially acknowledged he was in custody, but Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif acknowledged in 2005 that "people have been sent" to Egypt, without saying how many.

Prosecutors elsewhere in Europe are moving ahead with cases aimed at the CIA program.

The Swiss government has approved prosecutors' plans to investigate the flight that allegedly took Nasr over Swiss airspace from Italy to Germany. In Germany, a Munich prosecutor recently issued arrest warrants for 13 people in another alleged CIA-orchestrated kidnapping, that of a German citizen who says he was seized in December 2003 at the Serbian-Macedonia border and flown to Afghanistan.

Copyright © 2007 Yahoo! Inc

[accuracy]

27th February 2007

David Hicks' military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, has described as "strange and foreign" comments that Australia has no legal obligation to help the Guantanamo Bay inmate.

The US Marine Corp lawyer is in Melbourne to deliver a speech to more than 300 delegates at a human rights conference which marked 30 years of equal opportunity laws in Victoria.

Government lawyer, Solicitor-General David Bennett QC, told the Federal Court in Sydney on Monday that a general obligation for the federal government to protect citizens abroad "is simply something that the law has never recognised".

Major Mori said he was surprised by the comment.

"As an American, that seemed strange and foreign to me," Major Mori told reporters in Melbourne.

"It's frustrating for me to see an Australian being abandoned and being pushed towards a cliff for this system that is not acceptable for Americans."

A team of lawyers has launched legal action against the federal government, federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock and Foreign minister Alexander Downer in a bid to force the government to take steps to bring Adelaide-born Hicks home.

The 31-year-old Muslim convert has been detained without trial at the US naval base since January 2002, the month after he was captured with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Major Mori said he had not met with Prime Minister John Howard nor the attorney-general during this visit to Australia.

He said he was still trying to get an independent psychological examination carried out on Hicks.

"This March will be one year in solitary confinement where he sits in a concrete room with a steel door for 22 hours a day," he said.

"No window to the outside. That's his life.

"You can see him ageing."

Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne Phillip Freier, who was also at the conference, said he was concerned that the United States had "cherry picked" certain parts of the Geneva Convention in regards to prisoners of war and their treatment of Hicks.

"My concern is what is being offered is not a fair system," Dr Freier said.

"Any sportsperson, such as an AFL footballer appearing before a tribunal, will be guaranteed much better procedural fairness than David Hicks or the other people who might appear before these proposed military commissions.

"It seems to me an unacceptable situation for Australians to tolerate."

AAP

[accuracy]

By STEFAN NICOLA
UPI Germany Correspondent

http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20070226-051151-5432r

BERLIN, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said he tried in 2002 to get a German-Turkish Guantanamo inmate released but the U.S. government blocked any of his advances.

Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish national who was born and raised in Bremen, ended up spending four and a half years in the U.S. military prison in Cuba, and was released in the summer of 2006, after Chancellor Angela Merkel intervened with U.S. President George W. Bush.

Fischer first learned about Kurnaz's case when in January 2002 after the man's mother wrote Fischer a letter about her son, whom she feared was captured "by the Americans."

Fischer, who left politics after Merkel took over in late 2005, said although Kurnaz was a Turkish national, his interior ministry felt it should act on the man's behalf because he had spent his entire life in Germany and because the majority of the family lived in Bremen.

"This was not an everyday case. We did what we could," Fischer said Monday before a German parliamentary inquiry tasked with probing whether the German government did enough to get the man released. "But (the U.S. government) blocked heavily when it came to Guantanamo and other human rights cases," Fischer said, referring to talks with his U.S. counterpart Colin Powell.

Fischer said that in those talks he heavily criticized the dubious legal status of Guantanamo, also because "in my opinion it was clear that Guantanamo would come back to hurt the United States," as it undermined Washington's moral superiority over the terrorists.

Fischer said he believed Powell shared that view but was doomed to be silent.

"My U.S. colleague was not really able to lead a discussion," Fischer said. When it came to judging Guantanamo "there was no real difference between Colin Powell and me, those differences were higher up."

At the time, officials in the German foreign ministry were told that if information about Kurnaz was to be forwarded to another government, it would be Ankara, as Kurnaz was a Turkish national. Fischer's office, however, turned out to be the only advocate for Kurnaz in Berlin.

Germany's intelligence circles in Sept. 2002 were granted access to Kurnaz in Guantanamo. A group of three German intelligence agents flew to Cuba to interrogate Kurnaz. After two days of talks, the three Germans and their U.S. counterparts in the Central Intelligence Agency were convinced that Kurnaz had "no extremist ties."

A U.S. agent even said Kurnaz could hope to be part of a wave of inmates to be released soon. When the former German government, at the time led by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, heard that Kurnaz may be released, a top-level meeting in the chancellor's office on Oct. 30, 2002, debated his fate.

The agents' findings were not mentioned in the meeting, former Deputy Interior Minister Claus Henning Schapper said before the inquiry.

Rather, the top officials in the German intelligence and criminal prosecution scene were still convinced that Kurnaz posed a security risk. The prosecution office in Bremen, the northern German city where Kurnaz was born and raised, had started investigating him in late 2002, shortly after Kurnaz had left Germany for Pakistan.

Without informing his mother Rabiye, who was worried that her son could do "something wrong," during his trip, Kurnaz flew to Pakistan on Oct. 3, 2002, less than a month after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and days before the U.S. went to war with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Ahead of the trip, Kurnaz's family members -- who are predominantly secular -- observed that the 21-year-old had become increasingly religious. After a few weeks, Kurnaz was arrested by Pakistani police and turned over to the Americans, who kept him in Afghanistan and a few weeks later transferred him to Guantanamo.

Relying on testimonials from co-workers and acquaintances, the prosecutors came to the conclusion that Kurnaz was radicalized by a Bremen Imam and traveled to Pakistan with the plan to fight the U.S. military in Afghanistan.

With that information in mind (and lacking knowledge about the findings of the three agents), the top-level meeting in the chancellor's office decided that Kurnaz should not return to Germany; the interior ministry was even tasked with finding legal ways to prevent a return.

While the opposition believes the German refusal to take back Kurnaz prolonged the man's stay in Guantanamo, Hans-Georg Maassen, an immigration expert in the interior ministry, said the common belief in the German government was that Kurnaz -- granted Washington was willing to release him -- would be extradited to Turkey.

"There was never the possibility Bremen or Guantanamo, but always Bremen or Turkey," said Maassen, who was also the man who found out that because Kurnaz had spent six months outside Germany, his residence permit had become legally invalid.

Completely clueless of those developments, Fischer's foreign ministry continued to plead Kurnaz's case through diplomatic channels, while the remaining offices saw Berlin had done what was necessary.

The foreign minister nevertheless defended the former government and the security officials, arguing that they had the tough job to secure the country right after the 9/11 attacks. After all, doubts remained whether Kurnaz really was innocent, he added.

Allegations by the opposition that the former government had acted "heartless" in the Kurnaz case and had prolonged his stay in Guantanamo were "factually wrong and politically rotten," he said.

Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc.

[accuracy]

Detainees look to Supreme Court for quick ruling, exit from 'legal black hole'

Feb. 28, 2007

By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4588573.html


WASHINGTON — Foreigners imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay want the Supreme Court to rule quickly on their legal rights, before the justices go off on their summer break.

Lawyers for two men detained nearly five years who face military trials as early as this summer asked the court Tuesday to hear their cases on a rare fast track. Their request was even more unusual because a federal appeals court has yet to rule on whether one of them, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, can be tried by a military tribunal or whether he even has the right to mount their challenge in U.S. courts.

"As the war on terror enters its sixth year, this court's guidance is needed on whether the judiciary can be summarily removed from its traditional role in safeguarding liberty and preserving the balance of power," said the appeal, also filed Tuesday, on behalf of Hamdan and Omar Khadr, a Canadian accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan.

Hamdan is a Yemeni accused of supporting al-Qaida operatives. The Supreme Court last year voided Bush administration plans to try Hamdan before a military commission, but a new law restored those plans and stripped detainees of their right to seek their freedom through the courts.

Lower courts have so far upheld the new law, the Military Commissions Act. In so doing, those courts have created "a legal black hole at Guantanamo," the appeal said.

Other detainees plan to file their appeal with the court by Monday, also asking for expedited review of the Military Commissions Act, which limits their ability to challenge their confinement.

Last week, a panel of federal appeals judges ruled, 2-1, that the nearly 400 detainees remaining at Guantanamo are prohibited from using the U.S. court system.

The court should consider the cases together and quickly, said a team of lawyers led by Neal Katyal, who argued Hamdan's case before the Supreme Court. Doing so would allow the justices to rule, in one decision, on the legality of the jurisdiction-stripping provisions of the military commissions law both for detainees facing military trials and those who have not been charged but are being held indefinitely as "enemy combatants," the lawyers argued.

The lawyers said the uncertainty makes it difficult to prepare for their clients' trials, which could include the use of hearsay testimony and other evidence that normally is not allowed in civilian trials.

"Ordinary criminal trials apply fixed rules in advance. Here, everything about the trials, including the most basic question of all — does the Constitution apply to them — are in doubt," they wrote.

The last time the court acted so promptly was in a 1997 case on the line-item veto in which the justices held a special argument session and rendered a decision by late June.

_________________________________________________

[accuracy]

Abu Ghraib officer seeks new hearing


The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Feb 27, 2007

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/02/apAbuGhraib070227/

The only U.S. military officer charged in the abuse of Abu Ghraib prisoners has requested a new hearing to determine whether he should be court-martialed, the Army said Tuesday.

Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan contends the presiding officer at his Article 32 investigation in October improperly considered written witness statements that were not in evidence before recommending a court-martial. An Article 32 investigation is the military equivalent of a preliminary hearing or grand jury proceeding.

Jordan, who directed an interrogation center at the Iraqi prison in autumn 2003, also asked the court to exclude statements he made to investigators, claiming he was not property warned of his rights.

In those interviews, Jordan denied having seen prisoners abused. The statements are the basis for charges that Jordan lied to investigators about abuses he allegedly witnessed.

A hearing on the motions will be held March 12 at Fort McNair in Washington. Jordan’s trial is scheduled for July.

Lawyers for both sides declined to comment on the motions.

Jordan, a 50-year-old reservist from northern Virginia, is accused of failing to exert his authority as prisoners were stripped naked, photographed in humiliating poses and intimidated by military dogs.

Jordan’s lawyers have said that most of the abuses were committed by rogue military police who weren’t under his command.

Jordan is on involuntary extended active duty at the Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Belvoir, Va. He could be sentenced to 22 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

Eleven enlisted soldiers have been convicted of crimes at Abu Ghraib, and a number of officers who weren’t charged have been reprimanded.

__________________________________________________ __________

[accuracy]

By Mark John
Wed Feb 2-8
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070228/pl_nm/usa_italy_cia_dc;_ylt=ArMPRjcBeVpcP2siXgbKfHuyFz4D

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States will reject any request by Italy to extradite CIA agents for the first criminal trial over controversial U.S. "renditions" of terror suspects, a U.S. government lawyer said on Wednesday.

A Milan judge earlier this month ordered 26 Americans, most of them thought to be CIA agents, to stand trial with Italian spies for kidnapping a Muslim cleric and flying him to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.

"We've not got an extradition request from Italy ... If we got an extradition request from Italy, we would not extradite U.S. officials to Italy," State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger told a news briefing.

Bellinger, in Brussels for meetings with European legal advisers, did not comment on details of the case but said the United States would never hand over a suspect to another country without assurances about their treatment.

He acknowledged widespread concern in Europe about the tactics of the Bush administration in what it calls the "war on terror" but said the risk of legal action against U.S. officials in Europe was harming intelligence cooperation.

"The continuing threat of criminal charges not only harms cooperation on our end but does also cast a pall over cooperation on the European side as well," he said.

"We get assurances from countries that individuals will be properly treated and if we can't get these assurances then we will not turn people over to those countries," he added.

Bellinger's remarks were no surprise and meant the indictees would probably stand trial in absentia on June 8.

THORN IN THE SIDE

Among those indicted for the 2003 abduction are Jeff Castelli, former CIA chief in Rome, former CIA Milan station chief Robert Lady and a former head of Italy's SISMI military intelligence agency, Nicolo Pollari.

Prosecutors say a CIA-led team, with SISMI's help, grabbed terrorism suspect Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, off a Milan street in February 2003, bundled him into a van and drove him to a military base in northern Italy.

Prosecutors allege the CIA flew him from there via Germany to Egypt, where he says he was tortured with electric shocks, beatings, rape threats and genital abuse.

Persistent criticism by European rights groups and lawmakers of U.S. anti-terror tactics and the alleged acquiescence of European governments has long troubled officials on both sides of the Atlantic.

A court in Munich issued arrest warrants last month for 13 suspected CIA agents accused of kidnapping a German of Lebanese descent and flying him to a jail in Afghanistan, where he too says he was tortured.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a senior aide to former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, has also faced a barrage of criticism over charges that he blocked the release of a German-born Turkish man held in Guantanamo Bay prison.

A European Parliament report published this month said that renditions were illegal and had taken place with the collusion of a number of European governments and their secret services.

Bellinger rejected the report as an "unbalanced, inaccurate and unfair" interpretation of acceptable and important intelligence cooperation.

Copyright © 2007 Reuters Limited.

[accuracy]

Friday March 2, 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6451033,00.html


SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - The U.S. military announced Thursday that it has sent home two Afghans and three Tajikistani detainees at Guantanamo Bay, leaving fewer that 400 prisoners at the naval base.

The five men, who were held at the isolated detention center in southeastern Cuba without being charged, were flown out early Wednesday and transferred to the custody of the governments in their native countries, Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand said.

They were cleared for departure by a military review process that assesses whether prisoners have intelligence value or pose a threat to the United States. The military does not provide details about individual cases including the names of those released.

Since the Guantanamo prison opened in January 2002, some 390 detainees held on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban have been released, according to the Pentagon.

Roughly 385 prisoners remain, including about 85 who have been deemed eligible for transfer or release through a series of review processes, according to a Pentagon statement.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007

[accuracy]

March 03, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21317773-1702,00.html

TERROR suspect David Hicks may succumb to the temptation of a plea bargain after years of incarceration at Guantanamo Bay without trial, his father said today.

Terry Hicks was responding today to reports that US military prosecutors have held preliminary talks on a plea bargain with his son's legal team.

"It doesn't matter what I say, it comes down to David," Mr Hicks said.

"He's the one that's got to make up his mind whether he thinks 'take the easy option' or see what happens.

US authorities, he said, "may have gone on a weakening exercise on him to get him into a position where he may have had enough and plead guilty to anything to get out."

The 31-year-old Adelaide-born Muslim convert, who has been in US custody since he was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001, was charged yesterday with providing material support for terrorism and referred to stand trial by a special military commission at the detention camp in Cuba.

But a second charge of attempted murder was dismissed after Judge Susan Crawford concluded there was no "probable cause" to justify it.

Federal Government sources are reported by The Sydney Morning Herald as indicating a guilty plea on the sole remaining charge could secure freedom for the accused terror suspect by taking into account time already served.

But Mr Hicks questioned whether such a result would constitute justice for his son.

"That's not 'free' though is it? When you enter into a plea bargain you're not coming out a free person, all you're coming out is a guilty person that's negotiated a way out," he said.

Mr Hicks said he had not yet spoken to his son's legal team including US military lawyer Major Michael Mori about the possibility of a plea bargain.

"All I know is Major Mori's made a comment 'why plead guilty if you believe you're not?'."

Hicks's supporters contend that the new charge laid against him was only created last year and is being applied retrospectively.

The Australian Government has always refused to bring Hicks home because it says there was no law under which he could have been charged at the time the alleged crimes occurred and it would have to retrospectively create a criminal offence under which to try him.

Yesterday Mr Hicks took Prime Minister John Howard to task over the apparent contradiction during an exchange on regional radio.

Mr Hicks renewed his criticism today, saying Mr Howard's explanation yesterday - that the charge Hicks faces has been on the books since 1994 - was wrong.

"The law he quoted wasn't the one that David's been charged with.

"The one he's charged with now is October 2006. The one John Howard was talking about goes back to 1994 and it's got nothing to do with the one that he's been charged with. He was just trying to give a bit of spin.

"It's been retrospectively done and not only that they've built the law around what they think David's done and then charged him on it.''

[accuracy]

Growing Calls in Australia for Terror Suspect’s Return


By RAYMOND BONNER
Published: March 3, 2007

SYDNEY, Australia, Saturday, March 3 — The decision by the United States military to charge an Australian citizen, David Hicks, with one terrorism-related offense comes as Prime Minister John Howard is under mounting pressure, even from conservatives in his own party, to have Mr. Hicks charged, tried and brought home.

Mr. Hicks is the first detainee from the American base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to be charged under the Military Commissions Act of 2006. But the single charge, of providing “material support for terrorism,” after Mr. Hicks has been held for five years in Guantánamo, has been met with skepticism, disbelief and some anger here, from conservatives and liberals alike.

The charge, which was announced by the Pentagon in Washington on Thursday, represents a substantial reduction in the case the Bush administration has claimed it has against Mr. Hicks, a high-school dropout who was captured in Afghanistan after the American invasion in 2001.

Only two weeks ago, the American ambassador to Australia, Robert D. McCallum Jr., described the Guantánamo detainees as “ruthless fanatics who would kill Australians and Americans without blinking an eye.”

Mr. Hicks was initially charged with conspiracy to commit murder and engage in acts of terrorism, attempted murder and aiding the enemy. That was later reduced to attempted murder and “providing material support for terrorism.”

Now all those charges, except material support, have been dropped, and there is a question if even that will stick. Mr. Hicks’s lawyers argue that material support was not made a crime until 2006, five years after Mr. Hicks trained with Al Qaeda.

The relatively minor, single charge after such a long detention “means they’ve botched it,” said Barnaby Joyce, a federal senator for Australia’s conservative National Party, which is part of the governing coalition. “They’ve completely abused the process of justice.”

Mr. Joyce is one of an increasing number of conservative politicians and others who have joined the Bring David Hicks Home movement, which has gained considerable momentum here in the last few months.

In fact, the case has generated such political outrage that members of Mr. Howard’s own center-right Liberal Party acknowledge that it is hurting the prime minister in his bid for re-election this year.

For nearly five years, Mr. Howard, one of President Bush’s most stalwart supporters, was generally content to allow Mr. Hicks to remain in Guantánamo. But in recent weeks, he has been forced to take account of the strong shift in public opinion around the case, which has become a major irritant in American-Australian relations.

Last month, Mr. Howard raised the Hicks case directly with President Bush in a telephone call, and again with Vice President Dick Cheney when he was here last week.

Whether the charge finally leveled against Mr. Hicks was “the result of my representations to President Bush and Vice President Cheney, I don’t know,” Mr. Howard told Australian journalists on Friday, as reported by the BBC.

It is an issue that Mr. Hicks’s lawyers are expected to explore, for if there was any influence of this kind on the bringing of the charge, it could result in the case being dismissed.

Mr. Hicks’s lawyers are in any case certain to challenge the charge on the grounds that there was no such crime when Mr. Hicks was training with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2001. The United States Constitution prohibits ex post facto laws, but in light of recent laws passed by Congress and various court rulings, it is not certain that Mr. Hicks will be afforded that protection.

The next probable step is that the United States government will try to get Mr. Hicks to plead guilty to this single charge, in exchange for a sentence of time served. That would have him back in Australia soon. Australian officials said this would be acceptable.

The groundswell of support for Mr. Hicks here does not arise because Australians believe that he is innocent, but rather because many here believe he has been denied justice by having been held so long without a regular trial.

“He may well be a rat bag, but even rat bags deserve their day in court,” is how Senator Joyce put it.

“It is about due process of law, the principles we are fighting for in Iraq,” he added in an interview. “In fighting the barbarians, we are starting to imitate the barbarians.”

According to American and Australian officials, Mr. Hicks trained with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but officials have said he did not fire any shots during the war.

Described by one Australian police official as a “lost soul,” Mr. Hicks was a kangaroo skinner in the Australian outback, went to Japan to train horses, and joined the Kosovo Liberation Army, which had the support of NATO in the war against Slobodan Milosevic.

Back in Australia, he tried unsuccessfully to enlist in the army. He joined an evangelical church, but eventually converted to Islam and went to Pakistan. There, he first joined up with Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was not declared a terrorist organization by the United States or Australia until the last week of 2001.

He was picked up by Afghan irregulars and turned over to the American troops for a ransom of several thousand dollars, according to his father, Terry Hicks, a printer by trade.

Mr. Hicks, an online organization, GetUp!, and his son’s military lawyer, Maj. Michael Mori, have campaigned with increasing success to bring the case to light.

Often guided by liberal organizations like the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, which has represented several Guantánamo detainees, Mr. Hicks kept his son’s case alive with stunts, such as standing in a make-shift cage in the center of New York.

GetUp!, which is patterned after MoveOn.org, a liberal online organization in the United States, a few months ago hung a huge sign — “Bring David Hicks Home” — on the side of an office building at the entrance to the famed Sydney Harbor Bridge, which is passed every day by thousands of motorists commuting to work.

To the surprise of the organization, within 72 hours, it collected 150,000 Australian dollars, about $118,000, for the cause. Altogether, it has raised at least $196,500, said Brett Simpson, the organization’s executive director.

Major Mori has made seven trips here, always in his tightly pressed Marine Corps uniform. Initially, Australians were skeptical that a military man would put up a vigorous defense. Since then, he has become something of a folk hero here, drawing large crowds around the country.

Some American Embassy officials sought unsuccessfully to have the Pentagon bar Major Mori from coming to Australia, said an American official who was granted anonymity in order to reveal information that has not been made public.

The combined public relations strategy has recently gained traction. For nearly five years, the opposition center-left Labor Party stayed far away from the Hicks case, as did the Australian news media. In the first nine months of 2006, there were 63 mentions of David Hicks in The Australian, according to the paper’s researchers; in the last five months, there have been 255.

The list of public leaders calling for David Hicks to be given an expeditious and fair trial has grown steadily longer and includes those from the Labor Party.

In January the director of military prosecutions in the Australian Army, Brig. Gen. Lyn McDade, called Mr. Hicks’s detention “abominable.”

“I don’t care what he’s done or alleged to have done,” General McDade, a former prosecutor, told The Sydney Morning Herald. “I think he’s entitled to a trial, and a fair one.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/03/world/asia/03hicks.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5090&en=29b3f68260808d70&ex=1330578000&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

[accuracy]

Kuwait court acquits two former Guantanamo detainees

(Reuters)

4 March 2007



KUWAIT - A Kuwaiti court has cleared two Kuwaitis of charges of belonging to Al Qaeda and ordered the former detainees of the Guantanamo Bay prison freed, a judicial source said on Sunday.


Omar Rajab Amin and Abdullah Kamel Al Kandari, released from the US prison in September after what Kuwait said was mediation by the Gulf Arab country’s emir, have been held since their return.

They were charged with joining Al Qaeda and engaging in activities harmful to relations with a friendly country.

A total of 12 Kuwaitis were among some 500 men held at the US naval facility in Cuba since the U.S.-led war that ousted Afghanistan’s Taleban rulers following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

Kuwait’s supreme court last year acquitted six Kuwaitis formerly detained at Guantanamo of charges of belonging to Al Qaeda, after they were freed and returned home.

Kuwait, a staunch US ally, is a main transit route for American forces going to Iraq and was the launch pad for the 2003 war on Iraq.

[accuracy]

Father hurting Hicks' case: prosecutor

6th March 2007
http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=361735

The father of Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks may become a key prosecution witness in the Australian terror suspect's trial.

Chief prosecutor at the US Office of Military Commissions, Colonel Morris Davis, said he has evidence of Terry Hicks referring to his son as a "terrorist".

Terry Hicks is a vocal supporter of his son and has been a key figure in the campaign to have him released from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and returned to Australia.

Colonel Davis, however, said Terry Hicks referred to his son as a "terrorist" in an interview soon after it became public Hicks had been picked up in Afghanistan in December 2001 and placed in US custody.

"The very first interviews I can find when someone referred to him as a terrorist was Terry Hicks," Colonel Davis told AAP.

"The first time he was interviewed, Terry Hicks described the phone call with David in September (2001) after 9/11 and David was in Pakistan and said he was going to go back to Afghanistan.

"Terry Hicks said he tried to talk him out of it and told him he shouldn't be taking up arms against his own.

"I think his quote was 'He's 26-years-old, he's his own man, and I can't tell him what to do. In our eyes he's a terrorist because he took up arms against his own'.

"I would tend to agree with Terry Hicks."

Asked if Terry Hicks could be called as a prosecution witness or his comments used to bolster the prosecution case, Colonel Davis said: "Possibly".

"I'm not the lead prosecutor in the case so I don't want to commit him to a particular strategy or not, but certainly Terry Hicks has changed his tune considerably since that time," Colonel Davis said.

"But, on day one, he's the first one I can find anywhere that refers to David Hicks being a terrorist."

Hicks, 31, was charged last week with providing material support for terrorism and is expected to appear before the military commission at Guantanamo for a preliminary hearing in late March.

It is alleged Hicks trained with al-Qaeda and fought with the terrorist group when US and Coalition forces invaded Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on Washington DC and New York.

Hicks faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if found guilty.

Colonel Davis said the prosecution was still open to a plea deal and if Hicks did plead guilty he could be back in Australia "walking free" this year.

Colonel Davis said he could be open to a plea deal of 10 to 20 years imprisonment.

If the sentence was the 10 years, and Hicks was sent back to Australia to serve it, Colonel Davis said it was his understanding Hicks's five years jail at Guantanamo could be taken into account.

Colonel Davis said the matter had been discussed with Hicks's US military lawyer, Major Michael Mori.

"In my understanding in talking to Major Mori that there is a strong possibility or likelihood or expectation the Australian government would credit whatever time he spent in Guantanamo once he gets back to Australia they would apply the credit," Colonel Davis said.

"Depending on the length of the sentence, there's a strong possibility he would be parole ready once he got back to Australia.

"I'm certainly no expert on the Australian parole system, but the way it was presented to me, if it was reasonably accurate, it's possible, and I can't say it's probable or likely, but it's possible he could be back home and walking free by the end of the year."

AAP

[accuracy]

http://www.bartcop.com/close_gitmo-chain.jpg

[accuracy]

Experts Want New Definition of Torture

By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer

Monday, March 5, 2007
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/03/05/national/a130059S83.DTL&type=politics


Prisoners who endure poor or degrading treatment suffer much of the same long-term psychological distress as do captives who are tortured, suggests a study published Monday.


The study was based on interviews with victims of ill treatment and torture while imprisoned in the former Yugoslavia, and experts said the findings underscored the need for a broader definition of torture.


"What is the basis for the distinction between torture and other cruel and degrading treatment? Science should inform this debate," the study's lead author, Metin Basoglu of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College in London, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. The study was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.


Steve H. Miles of the University of Minnesota's Center for Bioethics, who was not involved in the study, said the findings "show that the severity of long-lasting adverse mental effects is unrelated to whether the torture or degrading treatment is physical or psychological."


"The wrongness of these inflicted harms is compounded by the fact that most abused prisoners, including those in the present war on terror, are innocent or ignorant of terrorist activities," Miles said.


The Bush administration has said the U.S. uses legal interrogation techniques — not torture — to gain information that could head off terror attacks. It insists that the U.S. complies with the U.N. Convention Against Torture.


Yet Washington's definition of torture, as interpreted by the U.S. Justice Department after reports of American abuses at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq and Afghanistan surfaced, is fairly narrow.


It excludes mental pain and suffering created by acts that do not cause severe physical pain, such as blindfolding, hooding, forced nudity, isolation and deprivation of sleep or light, the researchers said, citing a Dec. 30, 2004, Justice Department memo. The document also contends that for an act to be considered torture, there must be proof that it inflicts "prolonged mental harm."


"The implications of such a narrow definition of torture have raised serious concerns in the human rights community," said the study. "These findings suggest that physical pain per se is not the most important determinant of traumatic stress in survivors of torture."


The study involved interviews with 279 victims who suffered ill treatment and torture while imprisoned in the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia.


The researchers said they found that aggressive interrogation techniques, humiliating treatment, verbal abuse, threats against a captive's family and being forced to watch an acquaintance being tortured produced much of the same long-term mental trauma as physical torture.


"Sham executions, witnessing torture of close ones, threats of rape, fondling of genitals and isolation were associated with at least as much if not more distress than some of the physical torture stressors," they wrote.


Such experiences were just as likely as physical torture to lead to depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, the study said.


"Ill treatment during captivity ... does not seem to be substantially different from physical torture in terms of the severity of mental suffering they cause," it concluded. "These procedures do amount to torture, thereby lending support to their prohibition by international law."


Shukrije Gashi, a pro-independence activist in Kosovo, was jailed by Yugoslav authorities in 1983 and spent nearly two years as a political prisoner. Strictly speaking, she wasn't tortured, but 2 1/2 decades later it still feels that way, she says.


Gashi was confined to a cramped, unventilated cell and fed small rations of often-rotten food. Allowed to shower just once a month, she endured frequent beatings and verbal abuse.


Today, she still trembles whenever she sees the police. Her ordeal, she says, is "a spiritual burden that stays with you forever."


Gashi copes by writing poetry and running a center for conflict management.


But 24 years later, she still can't erase the indelible memories of what she endured.


"The treatment in prison was horrific," she said. "I remain psychologically burdened. Memories of the violence follow me like a shadow."


___


Associated Press Writer Garentina Kraja in Kosovo contributed to this report.

[accuracy]

US has no case for redefining torture: study

Published: Monday March 5, 2007
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_has_no_case_for_redefining_tortu_03052007.html

Psychological torture, including some of the techniques reportedly used on Guantanamo Bay detainees, appears to inflict the same kind of long-term mental damage as physical abuse, a study released Monday said.

Researchers who evaluated the mental health of soldiers and civilians tortured during the 1990s Balkan wars found that victims of psychological abuse were just as likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression as victims of classic physical torture methods.

The researchers also reported that the torture victims rated some techniques such as stress positions, isolation, sleep deprivation and blindfolding as distressing as most physical torture methods.

"Ill treatment during captivity, such as psychological manipulations, humiliating treatment, and forced stress positions, does not seem to be substantially different from physical torture in terms of the severity of mental suffering they cause," the study's authors wrote.

"Thus, these procedures do amount to torture, thereby lending support to their prohibition by international law," they wrote in the journal of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The investigators said their findings undermine moves by the US government to narrow its definition of torture in order to free interrogators to use certain psychological methods aimed at breaking a prisoner's resistance.

In 2003, lawyers for the US Justice Department and a Pentagon working group report on detainee interrogations made the case for a narrow definition of torture that excludes procedures such as blindfolding and hooding, forced nudity, isolation and other psychological manipulations.

The Justice Department memorandum argued that the scope of the term torture should be limited to those acts which could be shown to result in "prolonged mental harm," according to the study.

The development followed allegations of human rights abuses at US detention facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

However, the authors of this paper said that based on their analysis of the experiences of torture victims from the modern Balkans conflict, the US appears to be drawing a distinction without a difference.

They said their analysis of 279 Bosnian, Croatian and Serb torture survivors showed that the individuals who suffered psychological abuse had the same rates of depression, PTSD, and social and work-related problems as others who had endured beatings, burnings, sexual abuse and other forms of physical punishment at the hands of their captors.

They suggested that the trauma is the same, because regardless of the form of aggression, the effect is to create fear or anxiety in the detainee while at the same time removing any form of control from the person in order to create a state of total helplessness.

"The distinction between torture and degrading treatment is not only useless, but also dangerous," said Steven Miles, professor of bioethics at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in an accompanying editorial in the journal of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The study was written by Metin Basoglu, head of trauma studies at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London, with help from colleagues at the department of psychiatry at the Clinical Hospital Zvezdara in Belgrade.



-------------------------------------------------------

[accuracy]

by Jackie Northam
March 6, 2007
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7725260

The way the Pentagon and White House have responded to failures at Walter Reed — with profuse apologies and by firing a general and a highly placed civilian — is different from how the administration acted after the last major military scandal.

Three years ago, photographs that showed American service personnel sexually humiliating and abusing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison made headlines around the world. The photos damaged the image of the U.S. military and exposed new policies on rough interrogation techniques to public scrutiny.

Despite the enormity of the scandal, the Bush administration was slow to react, and did not hold senior officers accountable, says John Hutson, dean of the Franklin Pierce Law Center and a former Navy judge advocate general.

"Secretary Rumsfeld said at the very beginning that it was a few bad apples. And so that is what we stuck with, a few bad apples," Hutson said. "And sure enough, we prosecuted at court martial a few bad apples, they were low-ranking enlisted personnel. We did not go up the chain of command."

That's in stark contrast to how the Bush administration is handling the scandal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Less than two weeks after The Washington Post detailed the deplorable conditions and inadequate treatment for outpatients at the center, the new defense secretary, Robert Gates, fired Maj. Gen. George Weightman, the commander of the medical center, and forced Francis Harvey to resign from his post as secretary of the army. Gates made it clear that, unlike Abu Ghraib, the blame was not going to fall on just low-ranking personnel in this scandal.

"I don't have very much patience with people who don't step up to the plate in terms of addressing problems that are under their responsibility," Gates said.

The defense secretary's handling of the Walter Reed scandal gives him an opportunity to demonstrate how he will run the Pentagon. Analysts say his approach — and his attitude — is completely different than those of his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, who was criticized for being dismissive. This was evident in Rumsfeld's answer to a U.S. soldier heading to Iraq in 2004 who asked when the Pentagon was going to provide more armor for vehicles.

"As you know, you go to war with the army you have, and not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time," Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld did offer to resign over Abu Ghraib. But President Bush rejected the offer. Several investigations were launched, but no independent inquiries. Retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, former head of the Army War College, says circumstances have changed since then.

"Rumsfeld was dealing in a political climate different than the climate today," Scales said. "Recall now, the 2006 election changed everything."

With Democrats in control of Congress, Hutson says there will likely be more probing hearings about the situation at Walter Reed.

" And that reality may have prompted quick, decisive action because the hearings are going to have a completely different tenor now than they would have had if he had just said, 'Well, it's isolated, it's not a problem,' the kinds of things we heard before," Hutson said.

The reports of shoddy treatment at Walter Reed — long considered a premier medical facility — come as the Bush administration is trying shore up waning support for the war in Iraq. Scott Silliman, a law professor at Duke University and a former Air Force lawyer, says the Walter Reed scandal also has political consequences.

"Walter Reed is clearly a policy issue with political ramifications coming up in this country with the election in '08, and the administration is looking at it in that light," Silliman said. "And making sure that it is seen as taking an extremely aggressive approach towards remedying the situation."

Silliman says the impact of the Abu Ghraib scandal was much greater overseas than in the United States. He says, with Walter Reed, the reverse is true.

"In Abu Ghraib it was those that we claimed to be insurgents or al-Qaida members," he said. "Here we're talking about our own soldiers who are defending us over there. So it impacts the American people quite differently."

Another round of testimony about the conditions at Walter Reed takes place Tuesday.

[accuracy]

Hicks' dad not aware of being called as witness

March 07, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21340117-421,00.html

THE father of Australian terror suspect David Hicks says he's been given no indication that he could be called as a prosecution witness at his son's trial.

Chief prosecutor at the US Office of Military Commissions, Colonel Morris Davis, said he had evidence that Terry Hicks referred to his son as a terrorist when he was first taken into custody by US forces in Afghanistan in late 2001.

Col Davis said that reference was included in an interview Mr Hicks gave at the time and it was possible the Adelaide man could be called as a witness as a result.

The Adelaide Advertiser reported today that the interview with Mr Hicks ran on December 13, 2001.

In it Mr Hicks was quoted as saying: “I think of a terrorist as someone with a bomb strapped to him, but he's a terrorist in our eyes as he's fighting against his own kind”.

But Mr Hicks today said he had gone back over material from that time and he could not recall describing his son as a terrorist.

He said he had not been advised he could be called as a witness and believed the comments from the prosecutor were another attempt to discredit the defence in the lead-up to the military commission hearings.

“I don't give any credence to this,” Mr Hicks told ABC Radio.

“I think it would be pretty hard to give evidence on information that came out in a paper in that era of demonising of David.”

David Hicks, 31, has been charged with providing material support for terrorism and is expected to appear before the US military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for a preliminary hearing in late March.

A more serious charge of attempted murder was dropped last week.

[accuracy]

Australian Guantanamo Detainee's Father Denies Calling Son Terrorist

March 6, 2007
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7006664626

Richard Bowden - All Headline News Staff Writer

Adelaide, Australia (AHN) - The father of Guantanamo Bay detainee and accused terrorist David Hicks has reacted sharply to accusations from the U.S. chief prosecutor that he referred to his son as a terrorist in an interview.
Speaking to reporters, Terry Hicks said, "I think what is happening here is we're going through a discrediting exercise that's coming through the US."

"They've done it with Major [Michael] Mori [Hicks's defense lawyer] the last few days on a few comments that he's made. "Now all of a sudden that's failed - let's try and jump on Terry Hicks's neck."

Some media reports have said the U.S. chief prosecutor's office has indicated it may call Hicks's father as a witness for the prosecution. The Adelaide-born Hicks has been detained at Guantanamo Bay since his capture by Northern Alliance forces in 2002. He was charged with giving material support to terrorists this month.

[accuracy]

Pentagon closes Guantánamo Bay hearings to media

Wednesday, March 7, 2007
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003604964_gitmo07.html

By ROBERT BURNS
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Reporters will be barred from hearings that begin Friday in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for the 14 suspected terrorists who were transferred last year from secret CIA prisons, officials said Tuesday.

Interest in the 14 is high because of their alleged links to al-Qaida. Among them is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. He was captured in Pakistan in March 2003.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2007/03/06/2003604515.jpg
Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

A New York-based human-rights group that represents one of the 14 men accused the Pentagon of designing "sham tribunals." The organization contended that its client, Majid Khan, has been denied access to his lawyers since October 2006 "solely to prevent his torture and abuse from becoming public" and to protect complicit foreign governments.

U.S. authorities say Khan was being groomed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for an attack inside the United States.

"We might expect this in Libya or China, but not America," the Center for Constitutional Rights said in a statement. It said Khan was subjected to CIA interrogation methods that amounted to torture.

Pentagon officials have said any allegations of mistreatment are investigated.

In announcing the hearings, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he could not say which of the 14 would go first or how long the process would take. No word of the hearings will be made public until the government releases a transcript of the proceedings, edited to remove material deemed damaging to national security, he said.

Whitman said the Pentagon is planning to withhold the name of the detainee from the edited hearing transcript, although that will be reconsidered.

The hearings — known as combatant status-review tribunals — are meant to determine whether a prisoner is an "enemy combatant." If the prisoner is deemed an enemy combatant, then President Bush can designate him as eligible for a military trial. The first of these are expected to begin this summer.

News coverage of previous combatant status-review tribunals — there were more than 550 between July 2004 and March 2005 — was not prohibited. But there were restrictions on some information.

Whitman said the hearings for the 14 suspects will be closed to the media to protect national-security interests that could be compromised by the detainees' statements.

In additional to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 14 include:

• Ramzi Binalshibh: Believed by U.S. authorities to have helped plan the Sept. 11 attacks. He was captured in September 2002 in Pakistan.

• Abu Zubaydah: A Palestinian raised in Saudi Arabia, he was believed to be a link between Osama bin Laden and many al-Qaida terrorist cells before he was captured in Pakistan in 2002.

• Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri: He is the suspected mastermind of the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 U.S. sailors in Aden harbor in Yemen.

• Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani: A Tanzanian who allegedly helped coordinate the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The Pentagon opened the Guantánamo Bay prison in January 2002; so far no captives have gone on trial.

In another development: The Senate voted Tuesday to give 45,000 airport screeners the same union rights as other public-safety officers, despite vigorous opposition by Republicans and a veto threat from the White House.

A broad anti-terrorism bill that would put in place unfinished recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission also would give airport screeners the right to bargain collectively. An amendment by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., that would have removed that right was defeated by a vote of 51-46.

The Senate expects to complete work on the bill by the end of the week. The House last month passed a similar anti-terrorism bill that had the same union provision for airport screeners.

Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company

[accuracy]

Russian court hears torture complaints by former Guantanamo inmate

The Associated PressPublished: March 6, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/06/europe/EU-GEN-Russia-Rights-Abuses.php

NAZRAN, Russia: A Russian prosecutor's official told a court Tuesday that a man released from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay then re-arrested in southern Russia was beaten while in police custody — but the abuse was lawful, relatives and a lawyer said.

The comments by Alexander Yevseev, of the Kabardino-Balkariya prosecutor's office, came amid an official investigation into complaints by Rasul Kudayev that he was abused after being arrested in a October 2005 attack by hundreds of young men on police and government facilities in the regional capital, Nalchik.

Kudayev, 29, returned to the North Caucasus region in 2004 after being released from the U.S. military prison without charge. His relatives said he was frequently harassed by police before his arrest following the Nalchik attack.

Relatives complained that he was severely beaten to extract confessions following his arrest, and his lawyer has said that at one point he was unable to walk without assistance, according to U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.

In January, prosecutors opened an investigation into the torture allegations.

Yevseev admitted that there had been violence committed toward Kudayev, but maintained that it was lawful, said Irina Komisarova, a defense lawyer who formerly represented Kudayev and was called to testify Nalchik City Court.

His current lawyer, Magomed Aburbakarov, told the court that Russian was a signatory to international laws treaties banning torture.

Kudayev, who has denied participating in the Nalchik attacks, did not attend the proceedings, which were to closed to journalists. The court gave no explanation for the decision.

Kudayev was one of seven men from Russia and other former Soviet republics detained by U.S. forces in Afghanistan on suspicion of fighting for the Taliban regime. They were released from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2004, and some were briefly jailed upon returning to Russia before investigators said they found no evidence of Taliban involvement.

Other former Guantanamo prisoners have faced harassment or abuse by Russian law enforcement agencies, which critics say are persecuting innocent Muslims in a counterproductive effort to check Islamic extremism.

Like other provinces near war-battered Chechnya, Kabardino-Balkariya is a poor, Muslim region that has been wracked by instability, violence and the growing threat of Islamic extremism, which rights groups say is aggravated by abuses and corruption by the authorities.

[accuracy]

Hicks can take Government to court

March 08, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21346745-1702,00.html

THE federal Government has failed to stop the Federal Court hearing a case by lawyers for David Hicks who are trying to bring the Guantanamo Bay inmate home to Australia.

Federal Court Justice Brian Tamberlin today dismissed a strike-out application from the Government in response to action brought by Hicks' legal team.

Lawyers for 31-year-old Hicks have taken action against the federal Government, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, seeking declarations and an order that could lead to the release of Hicks from the US military prison.

The government lawyers argued the action should be dismissed because Hicks' claim had no reasonable prospect for success.

But Justice Tamberlin today ruled Hicks would get his hearing, ordering the strike-out application be dismissed and the hearing expedited.

"Due to the long history of this matter and because of the great importance of the issues, the matter will be expedited so that it is heard at the earliest possible time," he told the court.

The submissions made by Hicks' lawyers raise "important constitutional questions as to the relationship of the judiciary and the executive, the interaction between the protection of individual liberty and the national interest, and involve questions of foreign affairs," Justice Tamberlin said.

Speaking outside court, Hicks' solicitor John North said the hearing could go ahead in the coming weeks.

"This is a major step forward for David Hicks. We now have a court that will look at his conditions and the fact that he has been put in Guantanamo Bay," he said.

Today's decision comes after Prime Minister John Howard this morning announced Hicks would make his first appearance at a court at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on March 20.

Hicks was charged last week with providing material support for terrorism and faces a maximum sentence of life in a US prison if found guilty.

He has been in US custody since he was captured in Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

Hicks is alleged to have trained and fought with the al-Qaeda terrorist group in Afghanistan.

[accuracy]

Hicks's father plans Guantanamo visit

March 08, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21347292-1702,00.html

THE father of Australian terror suspect David Hicks will travel to Guantanamo Bay next month in the hope of seeing his son before his first court appearance at the US military prison in Cuba.

Prime Minister John Howard today announced Adelaide-born Mr Hicks would be arraigned in a US military commission on March 20 on a charge of providing material support for terrorism.

Terry Hicks said he was apprehensive but determined to see his son before the hearing, after more than two years apart.

Terry Hicks last saw his son in August 2004 during a brief visit to Guantanamo Bay where he has been detained for more than five years.

"It has been a long time between drinks," he said. "I am a little apprehensive.

"I don't know what state David will be in or how he is feeling - hopefully they will give us some time to talk."

Terry Hicks said he had not finalised his travel plans, although another family member would make the 30-hour journey with him.

Mr Hicks, a 31-year-old Muslim convert, has been held without trial since his capture among Taliban forces in Afghanistan in December 2001.

Today, US civilian lawyer Joshua Dratel said Mr Hicks would plead not guilty to the sole charge of providing material support during the arraignment - a move Terry Hicks said he expected.

US prosecutors last week dropped a charge of attempted murder.

Terry Hicks said he doubted his son would plead out the offence in the hope of - what he described as a "dangling carrot" - returning home a free man.

"It is up to David if he believes he is not guilty ... but I have a gut feeling he will not take a plea bargain," he said.

The Australian Federal Court today dismissed a strike-out application made by the Government in response to an action by Mr Hicks' legal team.

Mr Hicks' lawyers allege the federal Government has failed in its duty of care by not applying for the detainee's release.

Terry Hicks said that decision was "a bit of positive" but he remained cautious about the outcome of the case.

"We will just have to now wait for the next step to see what happens there," he said.

[accuracy]

Jury selection begins for Padilla trial

By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer
Mon Apr 16
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070416/ap_on_re_us/padilla_terror_charges;_ylt=AkNR3x7mrjFkyIUcstcpv4 lvzwcF

MIAMI - Potential jurors were questioned about their knowledge of Jose Padilla's link to a purported "dirty bomb" plot as jury selection began Monday for the suspected al-Qaida operative's trial.

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070416/capt.e9068ebc8dae45d39a629e7aaa32b627.padilla_terr or_charges_ny110.jpg
In this Jan. 5, 2006, file photo, Jose Padilla, center, is escorted by federal marshalls on his arrival in Miami. It's been nearly five years since then-Attorney General John Ashcroft declared the United States had thwarted an al-Qaida plot to detonate a radioactive 'dirty bomb' in a major city and had arrested a 'known terrorist,' Jose Padilla. However, as jury selection begins Monday, April 16, 2007 the case against Padilla has no mention of the 'dirty bomb' allegations or purported plots inside the United States. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

The allegations that Padilla, a U.S. citizen held as an enemy combatant for 3 1/2 years, sought to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" inside the United States are not part of the criminal case. But the Bush administration initially accused Padilla of such a plot shortly after he was arrested in May 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

"If I said to you the phrase 'dirty bomber,' what does that mean?" U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke asked one prospective juror.

"Jose Padilla," the man answered.

Others in the jury pool of more than 300 people had definite opinions about a supposed connection between Islam and terrorism around the world.

"I think the religion espouses intolerance of other religions and looks to a situation where they are either going to kill non-Muslims or subjugate them," one potential male juror said.

But another juror said the opposite: "I don't think because somebody's Muslim, it makes them violent."

The exchanges illustrated the challenges of seating a jury to hear the charges against Padilla and co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun, 45, and 44-year-old Kifah Wael Jayyousi. They face life in prison if convicted on charges of participating in a North American cell that supported Islamic extremist causes around the world.

Padilla, a 36-year-old former Chicago gang member and Muslim convert, allegedly was recruited to attend an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan. Critical pieces of evidence include thousands of intercepted phone conversations and an application Padilla purportedly completed in 2000 to become a "mujahedeen" trainee at the Afghan camp.

Padilla was hastily added to an existing case in Miami in November 2005, a few days before a Supreme Court deadline for Bush administration briefs on the question of the president's powers to continue holding him in military prison without charge.

Federal officials claim Padilla admitted involvement and training with al-Qaida during his brig interrogations, as well as the proposed "dirty bomb" plot and another plan to blow up apartment buildings. However, none of that can be used as evidence because Padilla had no lawyer present and was not read his Miranda rights.

In the courtroom Monday, Padilla smiled and waved at relatives.

Jury selection is expected to take about two weeks, and the trial is expected to last about four months.

Cooke ruled that prosecutors can refer to the Sept. 11 terror attacks in a limited way but cannot suggest that Padilla and the others were involved.

Prosecutor John Shipley said there was never any intent to link Padilla and the other defendants to the conspiracy or the attacks that killed about 3,000 people. But he said there will be testimony connecting the defendants to the terror group led by Osama bin Laden.

"They certainly supported al-Qaida, there's no question about that," Shipley said. "We're not going to try them for their specific involvement in 9/11."

Courtroom security was especially tight, including an extra metal detector set up outside the room and a temporary wall erected in the lobby to shield potential jurors and witnesses from the public.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[accuracy]

Patti Smith lashes out at Guantanamo Bay

http://www.ndtvmusic.com/story.asp?id=6280

Rocker Patti Smith said on Friday that her concern for the hundreds of men imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay compelled her to record a song about a former detainee.

"I feel responsible as an American citizen. It's a terrible injustice and I think it will be a stain upon us when history examines this period," said Smith.

Smith's Without Chains focuses on Murat Kurnaz, a German-born Turkish citizen who said he was kept under fluorescent lights for 24 hours at a time and complained of being beaten at the US military detention center in southeast Cuba.

Detainees are held there on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban, many without the opportunity to face trial.

"I'm not really politically articulate, so I try to respond to the things that move me in a humanistic way. I can't imagine people languishing in prison for years while other people are trying to decide what to do," said the 60-year-old.

At the Pentagon, Navy Cmdr Jeffrey Gordon said Guantanamo is reserved for the most egregious terror suspects and insisted that the US military does not hold any detainee for longer than necessary.

Smith sings

In the track, which Smith said will be posted soon on her Web site for downloading, she sings: "For four long years I wasn't a man, dreaming chained with the lights on in another world, a netherworld. Four long years with nothing to say. Thoughts impure at Guantanamo Bay."

Kurnaz, 25, was released in August from the detention center without being charged and flown to Germany.

In October, German prosecutors said they found no evidence linking Kurnaz to Islamic radicals in Pakistan or Afghanistan and formally dropped their investigation.

US officials have maintained Kurnaz was a member of al-Qaida, based on classified evidence.

Kurnaz's New Jersey-based lawyer, Baher Azmy, said that he was shown the classified evidence and found it unpersuasive. He also said it contained a half-dozen statements exonerating Kurnaz.

Smith, who straddled the hippie and punk eras with her 1975 album Horses, is best known for her hit Because the Night, co-written with Bruce Springsteen.

[accuracy]

Egypt – Systematic Abuses in the Name of Security

A pdf file.

http://www.cageprisoners.com/download.php?download=559

[accuracy]

Guantanamo Al-Jazeera hunger strike enters 100th day

Tuesday, 17 April 2007
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/article/170407/al_jazeera_hunger_strike

The International Federation of Journalists has called on the US government to release Al-Jazeera cameraman, Sami al-Haj, who this morning started his 100th day of hunger strike after almost five-years of detention at the Guantanamo Bay.

According to the IFJ Al-Haj was first arrested crossing into Afghanistan with a legitimate visa on 15 December 2001. He was held by the US military at the Bagram base before being transferred to Guantanamo on 13 June, 2002. The IFJ says that since then he has been interrogated over 150 occasions, tortured, and accused of terrorism offences. . IFJ chairman Aidan White said: "Journalists around the world are calling for Sami's release, now his detention is not just a matter of injustice but a matter of life and death." Al-Haj is the only confirmed journalist now imprisoned at Guantanamo, according to the IFJ.

The US has alleged that he worked as a financial courier for Chechen rebels.

Al-Haj's lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, has said there is no credible evidence against his client and that the focus of US questioning has not been alleged terrorist activities but obtaining intelligence on Al-Jazeera and its staff.

Copyright © 2007 Wilmington Media Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

[accuracy]

Australia and US to swap refugees

18 April 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6566619.stm

Australia and the United States have announced a plan to swap up to 200 asylum seekers every year.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39636000/jpg/_39636489_nauru203ap.jpg
Australia has a camp for asylum seekers in Nauru

Migrants held by the US in Guantanamo Bay will be resettled in Australia, while Canberra will send people held in its offshore detention camps to the US.

The move is aimed at deterring would-be refugees by preventing them from reaching their destination of choice.

But critics say the plan could backfire on Canberra, as many refugees around the world are hoping to get to America.

Atlantic exchange

The first asylum seekers to be exchanged are likely to be 83 Sri Lankans and eight Burmese who are being held in Australia's off-shore detention centre on the tiny Pacific island of Nauru.

If they qualify as genuine refugees, they could soon be resettled somewhere in the US.

In return, the Americans will be allowed to send Cuban and Haitian detainees held at Guantanamo Bay (the naval base housing asylum seekers, rather than the prison) to Australia.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41528000/jpg/_41528984_howaf.jpg
Mr Howard insisted the plan would deter illegal migrants

Both Canberra and Washington insist the move will deter illegal migrants.

The hope is that potential refugees might think again about trying to get to the US if there was a chance they could end up in a faraway place like Australia, and vice versa.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard insisted the plan would also deter people smugglers.

"The thing that discourages people from people smuggling is the fact that we make it very plain that people will not be allowed to reach the Australian mainland," Mr Howard told local media.

But critics believe that the plan could backfire on the Australians, by encouraging asylum seekers from Asia and the Middle East who want to build a new life in the US.

An immigration spokesman for the Australian opposition Labor Party, Tony Burke, said the new policy would therefore mean even more boat people arriving on the shores of Australia.

"If you are in one of the refugee camps around the world, there is no more attractive destination than to think you can get a ticket to the USA," Mr Burke said.

"What John Howard is doing is saying to the people around the world: if you want to get to the US, the way to it is to hop on a boat and go to [Australia's] Christmas Island."

Australia has often been criticised by human rights groups for the uncompromising stance it takes on asylum seekers.

Under a policy introduced in 2001, would-be migrants are now intercepted at sea, and are routinely sent to off-shore processing camps in the South Pacific where their refugee applications are assessed.

The tactic is designed to ensure they never set foot on the Australian mainland.

Even if they are deemed genuine refugees, efforts are made to find a third country willing to accept them, although in practice this often fails and they are eventually accepted into Australia.

[accuracy]

To much of the Muslim world, American culture is the culprit

Bruce Ramsey / Times editorial columnist
April 18, 2007
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003670258_ramsey18.html

Recall the lurid photos of Private Lynndie England, United States Army. At Abu Ghraib, she was pulling an Iraqi man on a leash.

Liberals said it was "torture." It violated the Geneva Conventions.

Conservatives, hard-wired to "support our troops," said it was no big deal. Rush Limbaugh compared it to a fraternity hazing. Heh, heh.

"Most Muslims did not view it as a torture story at all," writes Dinesh D'Souza in his book, "The Enemy at Home." To the Muslims, Abu Ghraib was a story of sexual perversion. D'Souza quotes a Muslim businessman in Turkey: "What the female American soldier in uniform did to the Arab man, strip him of his manhood and pull him on a leash, this is what America wants to do to the Muslim world."

Before we say: Nonsense! — we might consider D'Souza's argument. His book makes other claims I set aside, but on the 9/11 question — Why do they hate us? — he argues plausibly that their objection is our spreading of an immoral culture.

We like American culture. We may criticize it, but it is ours and we resent it when others pick at it. When we see that much of the world is drawn to our ways, we think it's good. There is a thought, often not expressed, of an American world — which, as you might expect, may be unwelcome. And because America by global standards has a liberal culture, the strongest resistance is from the world's conservatives. Particularly the Muslims.

I worked with Muslim colleagues for several years on a magazine in Asia. We sometimes wrote about Islamic religion and politics, and had to be careful not to insult Islam. It was not that difficult — not nearly as difficult as keeping on the good side of some of the governments over there. It was not difficult to get along with Muslim colleagues, either. They were all decent people, serious about their religious duties and respectful of the religious duties of Christians.

And they were conservative people. As D'Souza says, they were drawn to American culture in some ways, but wary of Western ideas of easy sex and of a definition of human rights that would undermine the traditional family.

D'Souza goes on to argue that America's political conservatives, who also tend to religious conservatism, should be respectful of ordinary Muslims. And yet in 2004, when American soldiers made pornography of Muslims at Abu Ghraib, American conservatives gave Muslims no support.

In 2005, when a newspaper in Denmark printed cartoons blasphemous to Muslims, American conservatives did it again. They defended the Danes. They supported not only their right to print the cartoons, which was OK, but their decision to print them. Some Seattle-area conservatives posted the cartoons on the Internet. Others wore little Danish flags.

A few years ago, when an artist painted the Virgin Mary and splattered her image with elephant dung, did America's conservatives defend the New York gallery's decision to display it? No. They denounced it as a gratuitous attack on Christians, which it was. Would they defend an attack on Judaism? Never. An attack on Islam? Heh, heh. Freedom of speech!

That says clearly: Our religion counts; yours doesn't.

Right after 9/11, Christians and Jews in Seattle stood in support of the Muslims. It was a fine moment, and it was the liberal denominations that led it. Political conservatives tend toward a bombings-and-beheadings view of Islam. Listen to their radio shows and you can hear it. Their tribalism overwhelms their sympathy. They fail to see that ordinary Muslims are a lot like them. The Muslims are not liberals, and their feeling for God, family and country is about the same. They are outraged when excrement is smeared on their symbols, just as conservatives are.

None of which seems to make any difference.

Bruce Ramsey's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is bramsey@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company

[accuracy]

German Minister speaks out against Guantanamo

19/04/2007
Ireland on-line.
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=216739176&p=zy673988z

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, facing criticism that he delayed the release of a German-born Guantanamo Bay prisoner, spoke out against US practices at the base last night during a rare visit to the Caribbean.

In a news conference with Dominican Foreign Minister Carlos Morales Troncoso, Steinmeier declined to comment specifically on Murat Kurnaz’s five-year confinement but criticised Washington for allowing extended detentions at the base on nearby Cuba.

http://newsfeed.tcm.ie/images/people/guantanamobay16.jpg

“Without a process that conforms with a state of rights and international law, we are not in agreement with keeping prisoners at that base for so long,” Steinmeiner said through a Spanish translator.

Steinmeier faces allegations by German media and a European Parliament report that he and other officials spurned a US offer to free the German-born Turk in 2002.

Kurnaz, 24, was detained in Pakistan in 2001 and held at Guantanamo, where he says he was beaten, housed under fluorescent lights for entire days and kept in solitary confinement.

The ex-detainee was released last year and returned to Germany when a US federal judge found that evidence did not justify his detention and Chancellor Angela Merkel intervened.

Steinmeier has denied knowing of an “official offer” to free Kurnaz and recently defended the actions of former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s government, of which he was chief of staff.

Dozens of European and Latin American diplomats were expected in Santo Domingo this week for a Rio Group conference on Latin American development and rebuilding in Haiti, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.

[accuracy]

Ethiopia: Ethiopia running Guantanamo Bay-like prison –Somali leaders

April 19, 2007 By David Odoki
http://somalinet.com/news/world/East%20Africa/9659

(SomaliNet) Somali leaders have accused Ethiopia of opening a prison like the one that exists in Guantanamo Bay.

Somali deputy prime minister, who is also the minister for public works and housing, Hussein Mohamed Aidid, the former Speaker of parliament, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, and the executive chairman of Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) Sheikh, Sharif Sheikh Ahmad, accused Ethiopia of of opening a prison similar to the Guantanamo Bay Prison.

At a press conference held Wednesday in Asmara by the Somali leaders, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmad read a declaration of 11 provisions to the media. He spoke about the general situation in Somalia, the intervention of Ethiopian forces in Somalia and other problems in the capital.

The declaration underlined that first and foremost the Ethiopian forces should withdraw if national reconciliation is to be achieved as well as peace and stability to be ascertained in Somalia.

Sheikh Sharif said the Ugandan government is supporting the Ethiopian government in operations of disturbing the Somali people.

He said “the so-called peacekeeping force is a ‘Trojan horse’” for the Ethiopian government, underscoring that its silence and failure to take any measures in the face of the war crimes perpetrated against the Somali people by the regime proves such a conspiracy.

(AFP)

© 1998 - 2006 SomaliNet. All Rights Reserved

[accuracy]

Guantanamo to lose two senior lawyers

Apr 22, 2007
http://www.newsobserver.com/114/story/566660.html

WASHINGTON - The general who has been the most public Pentagon face of President Bush's controversial war court at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is retiring, and an activist chief defense counsel is leaving his post soon, too.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hemingway retires at the end of the month as legal adviser in the Office of Military Commissions, which is in charge of the first U.S. war-crimes tribunals since World War II. On the defense, Marine Corps Col. Dwight Sullivan, a reservist and former American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, returns to civilian life in August.

Hemingway's transition comes just weeks after Defense Secretary Robert Gates testified at Congress that, given the "taint" of impropriety at Guantanamo Bay, the war court would lack credibility in some parts of the globe.

A 30-year veteran of the U.S. military justice system, Hemingway was recalled to active duty in 2003 to the second-most senior role supervising the war court. At the Pentagon, he often gave public briefings about the war-court process while other Defense Department officials shielded their identities.

The commissions have so far been closed once by the U.S. Supreme Court, been revised by Congress and yielded one conviction -- last month's plea bargain by al-Qaeda foot soldier David Hicks, 31.

No replacement has been named for Hemingway, who retires May 1, said a Pentagon spokesman for Guantanamo, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, on Friday. Nor has a replacement been named for Sullivan.


All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be published, broadcast or redistributed in any manner.

[accuracy]

Former Guantanamo chaplain shares his story

Muslim was wrongly accused of espionage

Virginia De Leon ;Staff writer
April 24, 2007
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/local/story.asp?ID=186170

He was accused of spying and aiding the enemy.

So James Yee – a West Point graduate, military chaplain at Guantanamo Bay and rising star in the U.S. Army – found himself under arrest in September 2003. For 76 days, he was imprisoned in solitary confinement. He was threatened with the death penalty.

Less than a year later, the military dropped the charges.

And Yee, who retired in 2005 with an honorable discharge, is still waiting for an apology.

"This is my struggle for justice," Yee said during a phone interview from Olympia, where he lives with his wife and 7-year-old daughter.

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Yee, author of "For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire," has been traveling the country to share his experience as a chaplain at Guantanamo and how he became the target of suspicion because of his Muslim faith.

He tells audiences about the stories of mistreatment he heard from Guantanamo detainees. He speaks of his own mental and emotional anguish while imprisoned in a Naval brig. He sheds light on the prejudice that continues to hurt religious and ethnic minorities and the erosion of civil liberties in post-Sept. 11 America.

"This happened to me," he said. "It could happen to anyone."

No official public apology has been given to the former chaplain, who claims his constitutional rights were violated by the very country he served.

The Pentagon's inspector general is still investigating how and why Yee was falsely accused and the subsequent treatment he endured. The investigation was supposed to be finished last October, he said, but it has constantly been put on hold. "I suspect it's because the military does not want to disclose how badly they handled my case," Yee said. "The public has been outraged over what happened to me."

Born in New Jersey to second-generation Chinese American parents, Yee and his four siblings were raised in a Lutheran household and attended church every Sunday. It wasn't until after he graduated from West Point in 1990 that he became interested in Islam.

He learned about the religion from a friend and was immediately drawn to its simplicity. "When I became Muslim, I converted solely based on believing in that simple belief of one God," he told Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly in October 2005.

While serving in the military during the aftermath of the first Gulf War, Yee went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and was moved by the diversity of Muslims who shared the universal experience of hajj.

He ended up leaving active duty to pursue the study of Islam even further. He went to a school in Syria, where he met his wife, Huda. In 2000, he returned to the Army as a Muslim chaplain.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Yee was propelled into the spotlight for his work on educating others about his faith. He was promoted to become the Muslim chaplain for the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, where he advised camp commanders on the religious practices of the detainees, some of whom were suspected Al-Qaida terrorists and members of the Taliban.

Yee also objected to abuses inflicted upon the prisoners.

He soon found himself the target of anti-Muslim sentiment, he said. After being officially recognized twice for outstanding performance, Yee was arrested and charged with several offenses, including espionage and "aiding the enemy."

Terms such as "enemy" and "the war on terror," a phrase often used by the president and other Americans, can be misleading, Yee said during a recent phone interview. By using these terms, people allow injustices – such as the ones committed against him – to continue.

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"Most of the Muslim world perceives this war to be a war on Islam," he said. "It's not only among Muslims, but anti-American sentiment is growing all over the world. … After 9/11, we had the sympathy of the entire world, but we quickly squandered that by implementing these irrational policies."

His experience of being wrongly accused and thrown in prison traumatized his entire family, including his wife, who was led to the brink of suicide, he said.

While his faith in God bolstered him during that time, his faith in military leaders quickly eroded. He remains proud of the fact that he's a West Point graduate and that others in his family have served in the U.S. armed forces, but he no longer trusts those in power.

"I am disturbed that there are people in the military who harbor negative feelings toward religious and ethnic minorities," he said.

Since his book was published in 2005, Yee has earned a master's degree in international studies and has delivered lectures to students, human rights organizations, interfaith communities and others throughout the country. He helped raise money and campaigned for Minnesota's Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress.

"I'm still devoted to American values," he said. "I haven't lost faith in diversity, tolerance and justice – the values embodied in the U.S. Constitution and the core beliefs of Islam."

He hopes to spend the rest of his life promoting those ideals, he said.

[accuracy]

German-Born Ex-Guantanamo Inmate Publishes Memoir

http://www.dw-world.de/image/0,,2245759_1,00.jpg
Kurnaz spent almost five years in captivity

Former Guantanamo inmate and German-born Turkish citizen Murat Kurnaz has published a harrowing account of the time he spent in the notorious US prison.

Beatings, amputations and torture were parts of the excruciating daily routine with which Murat Kurnaz claims to have lived for almost 5 years. The 24-year old German-born Turk was a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay and the subject of a legal battle with the German government of the time, who, according to Kurnaz, failed to secure his release when they had the chance.

His memoir, entitled "Five Years of My Life," which hit German bookstands on Tuesday, paints a disturbing picture of Kurnaz' ordeal.



"I understood a long time ago what this prison was about," Kurnaz said. "They could do with us whatever they wanted."



Kurnaz was arrested in Pakistan shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Kurnaz insists he didn't travel to Pakistan to fight alongside al Qaeda, but rather to work for an Islamic "Salvation Army" to help the homeless, among others. Kurnaz claims he was "sold" to US soldiers by unscrupulous bounty hunters. He was then taken to Afghanistan, where he faced torturous interrogations.

http://www.dw-world.de/image/0,,2455918_1,00.jpg
Kurnaz claims he was even mistreated by German soldiers in Afghanistan

No help from Germany

According to his own account, Kurnaz was left for days to hang by his hands that were tied behind his back and that were attached to electrodes. He hoped in vain that the German authorities would help him out.

"One of the German soldiers came, pulled my head up and asked if I knew who they were," Kurnaz said. "He said they were the elite force, the KSK, and slammed my head on the floor. Later another one came up and kicked me and the group of soldiers started laughing."

http://www.dw-world.de/image/0,,2307443_1,00.jpg
The US was prepared to release Kurnaz from Guantanamo in 2002

Kurnaz was subsequently transported to Guantanamo. In the book, he accuses the US soldiers there of gross maltreatment. He describes how doctors would make unnecessary amputations and how guards would hand out regular beatings. Kurnaz himself spent over a year in solitary confinement, suffering from extreme cold, heat, darkness and oxygen deprivation.


"I never imagined I would come out of it alive," Kurnaz said. "I presumed I could die at any minute. I was often unconscious due to the pain and the cold. My body couldn't take any more."

Personal intervention

It wasn't until August 2006 that the newly elected Chancellor Angela Merkel intervened personally to secure Kurnaz' release from Guantanamo. The US was reportedly prepared to release him as early as 2002, but the Germans were allegedly reluctant to allow him to return to Germany at the time -- a fact that sparked uproar and prompted a parliamentary inquiry.



The question whether Kurnaz did represent a terror threat and whether the government of the time should have done more to free him is the subject of an ongoing investigation. According to former Interior Minister Otto Schily, however, the Social Democratic-Green party government coalition headed by Gerhard Schröder responded adequately to the situation.

http://www.dw-world.de/image/0,,604004_1,00.jpg
Otto Schily said the German government did what it had to do to protect its citizens

"We have a responsibility for the safety of our citizens," Schily said. "And that includes keeping people out of our country who represent a danger to our security. And that was the case with Murat Kurnaz."



Now back in his home city of Bremen, Kurnaz says he just wants to get on with his life. He says the book is not intended to settle any scores, but rather to tell the world how his co-prisoners lost their legs, hands and lives in Guantanamo Bay.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2455819,00.html

© 2007 Deutsche Welle

[accuracy]

Murder charge for Guantanamo Canadian

April 25, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21618211-5005961,00.html

THE US military formally charged a young Canadian prisoner with murder and other crimes today, clearing the way for his trial before the war crimes tribunal at the Guantanamo Bay naval base.

Omar Khadr, 20, was charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiring with al-Qaeda to attack civilians, providing material support for terrorism and spying.

He was captured during a gunfight at an alleged al-Qaeda compound in Afghanistan when he was just 15 and sent to Guantanamo shortly after his 16th birthday. He would face a life sentence if convicted.

The charges accuse Khadr of throwing a hand grenade that killed US Army Sgt 1st Class Christopher Speer during the battle in 2002. He is also accused of conducting surveillance of US military convoys in Afghanistan and planting explosives along their routes.

Prosecutors drafted the charges in February and Susan Crawford, the military judge overseeing the war crimes tribunals at the Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, formally approved them today.

Khadr had faced similar charges in the first Guantanamo tribunal system created by President George W Bush to try suspected terrorists after the September 11 attacks. The US Supreme Court struck down that version of the war crimes court last year, and Khadr is the second prisoner to be charged under the new version created by Congress.

The first, Australian David Hicks, pleaded guilty last month to providing material support for terrorism and will serve a nine month sentence in Australia.

The Australian Government had publicly pressured the United States to formally charge and try Hicks, who had become a political symbol in Australia.

But Canadian government officials have said very little publicly about Khadr.

Today, a spokesman for Canada's ministry of foreign affairs said "Foreign affairs officials have carried out several welfare visits with Mr Khadr and will continue to do so. Mr. Khadr faces serious charges".

The rules require that Khadr be arraigned within 30 days and that his trial begin within 120 days. His lawyers were not immediately available for comment but have said that trying him for crimes allegedly committed as a juvenile violates international law.

Khadr's family was close to Osama bin Laden and his Egyptian-born father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was an alleged al-Qaeda financier killed in a battle with Pakistani soldiers in 2003.

His family had lived in Pakistan but returned to Canada after the elder Khadr's death.

The United States has asked Canada to extradite one of Omar's older brothers, Abdullah Khadr, for trial in the civilian court system on 2005 charges of selling rockets and other weapons to al-Qaeda and conspiring to kill Americans in Afghanistan.

[accuracy]

Court Asked to Limit Lawyers at Guantánamo

WILLIAM GLABERSON
April 26. 2007
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070426/ZNYT02/704260905

The Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to impose tighter restrictions on the hundreds of lawyers who represent detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and the request has become a central issue in a new legal battle over the administration’s detention policies.

Saying that visits by civilian lawyers and attorney-client mail have caused “intractable problems and threats to security at Guantánamo,” a Justice Department filing proposes new limits on the lawyers’ contact with their clients and access to evidence in their cases that would replace more expansive rules that have governed them since they began visiting Guantánamo detainees in large numbers in 2004.

The filing says the lawyers have caused unrest among the detainees and have improperly served as a conduit to the news media, assertions that have drawn angry responses from some of the lawyers.

The dispute is the latest and perhaps the most significant clash over the role of lawyers for the detainees. “There is no right on the part of counsel to access to detained aliens on a secure military base in a foreign country,” the Justice Department filing argued.

Under the proposal, filed this month in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the government would limit lawyers to three visits with an existing client at Guantánamo; there is now no limit. It would permit only a single visit with a detainee to have him authorize a lawyer to handle his case. And it would permit a team of intelligence officers and military lawyers not involved in a detainee’s case to read mail sent to him by his lawyer.

The proposal would also reverse existing rules to permit government officials, on their own, to deny the lawyers access to secret evidence used by military panels to determine that their clients were enemy combatants.

Many of the lawyers say the restrictions would make it impossible to represent their clients, or even to convince wary detainees — in a single visit — that they were really lawyers, rather than interrogators.

Jonathan Hafetz of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, a lawyer who has helped to coordinate strategy for the detainees, said the government was trying to disrupt relationships between the lawyers and their clients and to stop the flow of public information about Guantánamo, which he described as a “legal black hole” before the courts permitted access for the lawyers in 2004.

“These rules,” Mr. Hafetz said, “are an effort to restore Guantánamo to its prior status as a legal black hole.”

The dispute comes in a case in which detainees are challenging decisions by military panels that they were properly held as enemy combatants. The Justice Department’s proposed rules could apply to similar cases that lawyers say are likely to eventually involve as many as 300 of the roughly 385 detainees now held at Guantánamo.

Some of the detainees’ lawyers say the Justice Department proposal is only the latest indication of a long effort to blunt their effectiveness, which they say was evident in statements of a senior Pentagon official early this year. The official, Charles D. Stimson, deputy assistant secretary for detainee affairs, resigned after he was criticized for suggesting that corporations should consider severing business ties with law firms that represented Guantánamo detainees.

Under the current rules, legal mail is inspected for contraband but is not read. The lawyers, who have security clearances, are presumed to be entitled to review classified evidence used against their clients.

There is no limit on the number of times lawyers can visit their clients. Some say that they have been to Guantánamo 10 or more times and that they have needed the time to work with clients who are often suspicious and withdrawn.

Justice Department officials would not comment on the proposal, which is scheduled to be the subject of a court hearing on May 15.

The filing used combative language, saying lawyers had been able to “cause unrest on the base” and mentioned hunger strikes, protests and disobedience. An affidavit by a Navy lawyer at Guantánamo, Cmdr. Patrick M. McCarthy, that accompanied the filing, said lawyers had gathered information from the detainees for news organizations. Commander McCarthy also said the lawyers had provided detainees with accounts of events outside Guantánamo, like a speech at an Amnesty International conference and details of terrorist attacks.

“Such information,” his affidavit said, “threatens the security of the camp, as it could incite violence among the detainees.”

Several detainees’ lawyers involved in some of the incidents denied that they had caused security problems. Neil H. Koslowe, a lawyer at Shearman & Sterling in Washington, called the assertion a “McCarthy-era charge” that was not supported by the evidence.

The dispute over the lawyers’ role is one of the first issues the appeals court in Washington will have to decide as it opens a new chapter of the legal battle over Guantánamo. In 2005, Congress designated that court as the forum for detainees to challenge directly decisions made by the Pentagon’s combatant status review tribunals designating them as enemy combatants.

But many detainees’ lawyers have resisted filing petitions to review those decisions because Congress narrowly defined the arguments the appeals court could consider. The law said the court could review whether a panel’s decision “was consistent with the standards and procedures” set forth by the Pentagon.

Instead, many detainees’ lawyers pursued habeas corpus petitions, using the centuries-old legal proceeding to ask a judge for release from imprisonment. But after a complex trip through the courts, Congress last year passed a provision intended to strip courts of the authority to hear habeas corpus cases involving Guantánamo detainees.

A divided panel of the federal appeals court in Washington upheld that provision in February. And early this month, the United States Supreme Court declined to review that decision. Two justices, John Paul Stevens and Anthony M. Kennedy, said that before the Supreme Court could again consider whether Congress was permitted to strip the courts of the ability to consider the habeas corpus cases, the detainees had to try to complete the appeals court review of their enemy combatant decisions.

As a result, much of the focus in the legal battle is now shifting to the appeals court. Scores of petitions seeking review of the combatant-status rulings are expected to be filed in the coming weeks, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, an advocacy group that has been coordinating the detainees’ lawyers. The May 15 arguments will focus on rules that could apply to all of those cases.

Lawyers say they are pressing ahead with the more limited review process in the appeals court as part of an effort to set the stage for a return to the Supreme Court. Some lawyers said that while they may lose, that would allow them to argue to the Supreme Court that the reviews were so limited that the detainees needed the more sweeping consideration permitted in habeas corpus cases.

But government lawyers, too, are developing new strategies in the wake of the Supreme Court action this month. They say that Congress and the courts have determined that expansive habeas corpus petitions are not available to the detainees.

As a result, they say, rules like those that allowed unlimited visits with detainees are no longer necessary as the detainees pursue the more limited appeals court review.

But, while arguing that detainees have no right to lawyers, the Justice Department filing said the government was giving the Guantánamo detainees enough access to lawyers so that “the court’s review will be assisted by having informed counsel.”

Herald-Tribune newspaper

[accuracy]

Detainee dies at U.S. Army prison in Iraq

April 27, 2007, The Associated Press
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/27/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Detainee-Killed.php

BAGHDAD: An Iraqi detainee at a U.S. Army prison has died from injuries apparently sustained during an assault by other prisoners, the military said Friday.

The detainee — whose name and age were not provided — was pronounced dead at Camp Bucca at 9:54 a.m. Thursday by an attending physician, a brief statement said.

An investigation is pending to determine whether the apparent assault was the cause of death, it said. Afterward, the detainee's family will receive the remains.

In Iraq, the U.S. Army oversees thousands of prisoners at Camp Cropper near Baghdad airport, Camp Bucca in the southern desert, and Fort Suse in the Kurdish north.

Copyright © 2007 the International Herald Tribune All rights reserved

[accuracy]

Detainee calender

http://www.bartcop.com/detainee-calendar.jpg

[accuracy]

A look at Guantanamo Bay terror suspects

Fri Apr 27,2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070427/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/terror_capture_thumbnails

Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. detention center for terror suspects, now houses 15 so-called high-value detainees with the addition of Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi, an alleged al-Qaida operative. The prisoners were all held by the CIA in secret prisons abroad. The other 14 were sent to Guantanamo Bay last September and have since undergone military hearings there to affirm their status as enemy combatants eligible for military trials.

A look at the high-value detainees:

_Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi, one of al-Qaida's most senior and experienced operatives, was transferred from CIA to Defense Department custody in April 2007. He was captured in an undisclosed location in late 2006 as he was trying to return to his native Iraq, where he once served in the military, the Pentagon said. Authorities described al-Iraqi as an associate of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and as someone who may have been targeting Westerners outside of Iraq. Al-Iraqi is believed responsible for plotting cross-border attacks from Pakistan on U.S. forces in Afghanistan and leading an effort to assassinate Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and U.N. officials, the Pentagon said.

_Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, was captured near Islamabad, Pakistan, in March 2003 by Pakistani authorities and CIA officers. He was born in Pakistan's Baluchistan province and raised in Kuwait.

_Ramzi Binalshibh, who is believed to have helped plan the Sept. 11 attacks and allegedly was a lead operative for a foiled plot to crash aircraft into London's Heathrow Airport. He was captured in September 2002 at a house in Karachi, Pakistan, after a shootout.

_Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian raised in Saudi Arabia, was believed to be a link between bin Laden and many al-Qaida cells before he was captured in Pakistan in 2002. At the time of his capture, he was believed to be organizing an attack on Israel.

_Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, also known as Ammar Al-Baluchi, is accused of serving as a key lieutenant to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Pakistan and delivering funds to the Sept. 11 hijackers. He was born in Baluchistan and raised in Kuwait.

_Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian, allegedly helped coordinate the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania before running a document forgery office for al-Qaida in Afghanistan. He was arrested after a gunbattle in Gujrat in eastern Pakistan in July 2004.

_Riduan Isamuddin, an Indonesia native also known as Hambali, is believed to be the main link between al-Qaida and Jemaah Islamiyah, the regional terror group blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people. He was arrested in Thailand in 2003.

_Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, a Saudi, reportedly arranged financing and travel for the Sept. 11 plot participants from his post in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Al-Hawsawi served as a witness in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial, saying he had seen Moussaoui at an al-Qaida guesthouse in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in the first half of 2001, but was never introduced to him nor conducted operations with him.

_Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, a Malaysian also known as Lillie, allegedly helped transfer al-Qaida funds for a 2003 car bombing at a hotel in Jakarta that killed 12.

_Majid Khan, also known as Yusif, was allegedly being groomed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for an attack inside the United States. The Pakistani native attended high school in Baltimore in the late 1990s before returning to Pakistan in 2002. He was at the center of a 2005 trial that accused a young Pakistani man of trying to help the al-Qaida operative obtain fake travel documents to slip past U.S. immigration officials to carry out bombings in the United States.

_Waleed bin Attash, better known as Khallad, was an alleged al-Qaida operative accused of being bin Laden's bodyguard. Authorities say bin Laden selected him as a Sept. 11 hijacker but he was prevented from participating when he was arrested and briefly detained in Yemen in early 2001.

_Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the suspected mastermind of the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and alleged al-Qaida operations chief in the Arabian Peninsula until he was caught in 2002. Nashiri, 41, a Saudi national of Yemeni descent, was allegedly tasked by bin Laden to attack the Cole.

_Abu Faraj al-Libi, a Libyan, was regarded by Pakistani intelligence as a successor to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the al-Qaida No. 3, and became the most wanted man in Pakistan for allegedly masterminding two bombings 11 days apart in December 2003 that targeted President Pervez Musharraf for his support of the U.S.-led war on terror. Musharraf narrowly escaped injury, but 17 other people were killed.

_Mohd Farik Bin Amin, a Malaysian better known as Zubair, allegedly helped Jemaah Islamiyah's operational planner case targets for planned attacks. He is believed to have been tapped to be a suicide operative for an al-Qaida attack on Los Angeles.

_Gouled Hassan Dourad, a native of Somalia, allegedly headed a Mogadishu-based network that supported al-Qaida members in the country.

___

Sources: U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence and AP archives.

[accuracy]

82 Inmates Cleared but Still Held at Guantanamo

U.S. Cites Difficulty Deporting Detainees.

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 29, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042801145_pf.html

LONDON -- More than a fifth of the approximately 385 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been cleared for release but may have to wait months or years for their freedom because U.S. officials are finding it increasingly difficult to line up places to send them, according to Bush administration officials and defense lawyers.

Since February, the Pentagon has notified about 85 inmates or their attorneys that they are eligible to leave after being cleared by military review panels. But only a handful have gone home, including a Moroccan and an Afghan who were released Tuesday. Eighty-two remain at Guantanamo and face indefinite waits as U.S. officials struggle to figure out when and where to deport them, and under what conditions.

The delays illustrate how much harder it will be to empty the prison at Guantanamo than it was to fill it after it opened in January 2002 to detain fighters captured in Afghanistan and terrorism suspects captured overseas.

In many cases, the prisoners' countries do not want them back. Yemen, for instance, has balked at accepting some of the 106 Yemeni nationals at Guantanamo by challenging the legality of their citizenship.

Another major obstacle: U.S. laws that prevent the deportation of people to countries where they could face torture or other human rights abuses, as in the case of 17 Chinese Muslim separatists who have been cleared for release but fear they could be executed for political reasons if returned to China.

Compounding the problem are persistent refusals by the United States, its European allies and other countries to grant asylum to prisoners who are stateless or have no place to go.

"In general, most countries simply do not want to help," said John B. Bellinger III, legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "Countries believe this is not their problem. They think they didn't contribute to Guantanamo, and therefore they don't have to be part of the solution."

A case in point is Ahmed Belbacha, 37, an Algerian who worked as a hotel waiter in Britain but has been locked up at Guantanamo for five years. The Pentagon has alleged that Belbacha met al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden twice and received weapons training in Afghanistan. His attorneys dispute the charges and say he was rounded up with other innocents in Pakistan in early 2002.

On Feb. 22, without explanation, the Pentagon notified Belbacha's lawyers in London that he had been approved to leave Guantanamo. Despite entreaties from the State Department, however, the British government has refused to accept Belbacha and five other immigrants who had lived in the country, because they lack British citizenship.

This month, Clint Williamson, the State Department's ambassador for war crimes, visited Algiers to discuss possible arrangements for the return of two dozen Algerians who remain at Guantanamo, including Belbacha, but no breakthroughs were reported. That country has been slow to accept its citizens.

Zachary Katznelson, a lawyer who represents Belbacha and several other prisoners who have been cleared, said defense attorneys have tried to speed up the process by contacting foreign governments to see if there are any specific obstacles to the return of their clients. In many cases, he said, the prisoners and officials in their home countries are willing to approve the transfer, but the delays persist.

"The holdup is a mystery to me, frankly," said Katznelson, senior counsel for Reprieve, a British legal defense fund. "If the U.S. has cleared these people and they want to go back, I don't understand why they can't just put them on a plane."

Other prisoner advocates said the Bush administration has made its task more difficult by exaggerating the threat posed by most Guantanamo inmates -- officials repeatedly called them "the worst of the worst" -- and refusing to acknowledge mistaken detentions.

Foreign governments have also questioned why U.S. officials should expect other countries to pitch in, given that Washington won't offer asylum to detainees either.

"This is a problem of our own creation, and yet we expect other countries to shoulder the entire burden of a solution," said Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. "There needs to be a worldwide solution here. The U.S. has to bear some of that burden. It can't simply expect its partners and allies to absorb all its detainees."

The 82 cleared prisoners who remain stuck in limbo come from 16 countries in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, according to defense attorneys who have received official notification of their clients' status.

The 17 Chinese Muslim separatists make up the largest contingent. Other countries with multiple prisoners awaiting release include Afghanistan, Sudan, Tunisia, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

The Pentagon has reduced the population at Guantanamo by roughly half since the peak of 680 people in May 2003, generally by sending prisoners back to their native countries. But U.S. officials said progress has slowed because of the complexity of the remaining cases.

Of the roughly 385 still incarcerated, U.S. officials said they intend to eventually put 60 to 80 on trial and free the rest. But the judicial process has likewise moved at a glacial pace, largely because of constitutional legal challenges.

Only two people have been charged under a military tribunal system approved by Congress last year. One of those cases has been adjudicated. David M. Hicks, an Australian citizen, pleaded guilty in March to lending material support to terrorists. He was sentenced to nine months in prison and is scheduled to be transferred to Australia in May to serve his time there.

Defense lawyers for some of the 82 cleared prisoners whose release is pending said Hicks received a better deal than did their clients who were not charged with any offenses. "One of the cruel ironies is that in Guantanamo, you've got to plead guilty to be released," said Wizner, the ACLU attorney. "It's the only way out of there."

Complicating the return process is that virtually all the prisoners at Guantanamo come from countries that the State Department has cited for records of human rights abuses. Under U.S. rules, a pattern of abuses in a country does not automatically preclude deportation there. Rather, U.S. officials must investigate each case to determine whether an individual is likely to face persecution.

The investigations are time-consuming and often meet with resistance from the prisoners' home countries, which can be sensitive to suggestions that they allow torture, U.S. officials said. In cases where there is a risk of mistreatment, U.S. policy is to obtain a written promise from the host government that the prisoner will not be abused and that U.S. officials will be allowed to monitor the arrangement.

"It often takes us months and months, or even years, to negotiate the human rights assurances that we are comfortable with before we will transfer someone to another country," said Bellinger, the State Department's legal adviser.

Human rights groups have criticized the written assurances as unreliable. In March, the New York-based group Human Rights Watch issued a report on the fate of seven Russians who were released from Guantanamo three years ago, asserting that three of the men have been tortured since their return.

The watchdog group urged the U.S. government to find third-party countries willing to take Guantanamo inmates who are judged to be at risk for political persecution. U.S. officials countered that they have tried to do that for years, with virtually no success.

Only one country has been willing to accept Guantanamo prisoners who had never previously set foot inside its borders. Last year, after prodding by the State Department, the Balkan nation of Albania agreed to take five Chinese separatists who belong to an ethnic group known as Uighurs.

The men were captured in late 2001 after they crossed the Chinese border into Afghanistan and Pakistan. Their attorneys said they were mistakenly taken into custody and had not taken up arms against U.S. forces. U.S. officials said dozens of countries refused to grant asylum to the Uighurs for fear of angering China, which considers them terrorists for leading a secession movement in the western province of Turkestan.

Seventeen other Uighurs who were caught in similar circumstances have been cleared for release but remain in Guantanamo because the State Department has been unable to find a home for them. Human rights groups have pressed the U.S. government to offer the men asylum, to no avail.

A senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the Bush administration had considered granting the Uighurs asylum but that the idea was nixed by the Department of Homeland Security. The Uighurs would be rejected under U.S. immigration law, the official said, because they once trained in armed camps and because their separatist front, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, was labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. government in 2002.

Attorneys for the Uighurs said their predicament has been compounded by the Pentagon's unwillingness to say they don't pose a national security risk to the U.S. government or its allies. In announcing that the Uighurs had been approved to leave Guantanamo, military officials made a point of noting that they had not been exonerated and were still classified as enemy combatants.

"It's not a distinction that makes sense at all," said Michael J. Sternhell, a New York lawyer whose firm represents four of the Uighurs. "It's a caveat that the Defense Department is offering to cover itself."

Some human rights advocates said the Bush administration could speed things up by asking the United Nations or another international body for help.

Manfred Nowak, an Austrian law professor who serves as the U.N. special monitor on torture, said European allies and other countries would continue to duck requests to accept released prisoners as long as the U.S. government approaches them separately. An international commission responsible for finding a solution, he said, might carry more weight.

"If the U.S. is willing to do something to close down Guantanamo, then it should be done in a cooperative manner with the international community," Nowak said. "It's a question of burden-sharing. Otherwise, every individual country that the U.S. approaches says, 'Why us?' "

Staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.

© 2007 The Washington Post Company

[accuracy]

Inside Africa's Guantánamo

The only way the US can prop up its client regime in Somalia is through lawlessness and slaughter.

By Salim Lone

04/28/07 "The Guardian" -- -- This is the most lawless war of our generation. All wars of aggression lack legitimacy, but no conflict in recent memory has witnessed such mounting layers of illegality as the current one in Somalia. Violations of the UN charter and of international humanitarian law are regrettably commonplace in our age, and they abound in the carnage that the world is allowing to unfold in Mogadishu, but this war has in addition explicitly violated two UN security council resolutions. To complete the picture, one of these resolutions contravenes the charter itself.

The complete impunity with which Ethiopia and the transitional Somali government have been allowed to violate these resolutions explains the ruthlessness of the military assaults that have been under way for six weeks now. The details of the atrocities being committed were formally acknowledged by a western government for the first time when Germany, which holds the current EU presidency, had its ambassador to Somalia, Walter Lindner, write a tough letter - made public on Wednesday - to Somalia's president, Abdullahi Yusuf.

The letter condemned the indiscriminate use of air strikes and heavy artillery in Mogadishu's densely populated areas, the raping of women, the deliberate blocking of urgently needed food and humanitarian supplies, and the bombing of hospitals. This is a relentless drive to terrify and intimidate civilians belonging to clans from whose ranks fighters are challenging the occupation.

There was a time when security council resolutions were hallowed in most of the world, as for example resolution 242 demanding the return of occupied Palestine territory in exchange for peace. But in our new world order, the powerful decide which UN resolutions are passed, and whether they need to be honoured. So the United States, which was violating the UN arms embargo on Somalia, rushed through another resolution in December that it thought would better serve US goals - and then proceeded to violate that one as well.

The new resolution forbade neighbouring countries from being part of the regional peacekeeping force the security council authorised for Somalia; but Ethiopia went much further and unilaterally invaded, with the covert assistance of the US - which also joined the war by bombing Somalia.

This December resolution actually contravened the charter itself, because it made the security council the aggressor and turned a clearly peaceful situation into war. The resolution linked the Islamic Courts government to international terrorism and mandated peacekeeping force, on the basis of chapter VII of the UN charter, to address the "threat to international peace and security" that Somalia posed - when every independent account, including Chatham House's on Wednesday, indicated that the country was experiencing its first peace and security since 1991.

The resolution paved the way for the Ethiopian invasion that has led to the bitter conflict that many independent analysts, including those at a meeting in Addis Ababa organised by Ethiopia's Inter-Africa Group, had warned would be the inevitable result. A government imposed through force by arch enemy Ethiopia was never going to hold sway.

The long silence and the refusal even now to announce measures that might arrest this slaughter mark the lowest point in the big powers' abdication of the "Responsibility to Protect" mandate - adopted, with British leadership, at a summit-level meeting of the security council two years ago. The world's most impoverished people are now being ripped to shreds with no effort whatsoever to get the perpetrators to desist.

A huge campaign must be launched to press western governments to end this slaughter, which is almost entirely the work of those in control of the country. The European Union warned a month ago that war crimes might have been committed in an assault on the capital last month - in which the EU could be complicit because of its large-scale support for those accused of the crimes. Human Rights Watch has documented how Kenya and Ethiopia had turned this region into Africa's own version of Guantánamo Bay, replete with kidnappings, extraordinary renditions, secret prisons and large numbers of "disappeared": a project that carries the Made in America label. Allowing free rein to such comprehensive lawlessness is a stain on all those who might have, at a minimum, curtailed it.

Work must begin to derail the astounding proposal from the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, which is to be discussed by the security council in mid-June. He would like to mount a UN-sanctioned "coalition of the willing" to enforce peace and restore order in Somalia - in other words, the UN would help Ethiopia and the United States achieve what their own illegal military interventions have failed to accomplish: the entrenchment of a client regime that lacks any popular support. Such an operation is unlikely to succeed in any event, but it could further threaten the turbulent Horn of Africa, which is already teetering on the brink of chaos.

The Somali government is busy crying "al-Qaida" at every turn and offering lucrative deals to oil companies, in a bid to entice greater western support. But this war was lost long ago. In turning to the arch enemy Ethiopia, the transitional government's fate was sealed: the nation will not abide an Ethiopian-US occupation.

Only a political solution will resolve this crisis. Africa must step up to the plate and show spine and leadership in a drive to protect its civilians, and work with Europe and the UN to convince the US to swiftly terminate its latest destabilising adventure.

Salim Lone, who was the spokesman for the UN mission in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, is a columnist for the Daily Nation in Kenya salimlone@yahoo.com

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17618.htm

[accuracy]

NYC Bar chides government on Guantanamo

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
Sun Apr 29,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070429/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/guantanamo_lawyers

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is trying to evade responsibility for problems at the Guantanamo Bay prison by falsely blaming defense lawyers for the trouble, the New York City Bar says.

The group's president leveled the criticism in asking Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to abandon a Justice Department proposal to limit lawyers' access to the nearly 400 detainees.

In a court filing this month, the department said attorney access via the mail system has "enabled detainees' counsel to cause unrest on the base by informing detainees about terrorist attacks."

The mail system was "misused" to inform detainees about military operations in Iraq, activities of terrorist leaders, efforts in the war on terror, the Hezbollah attack on Israel and abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, the department said in this month's court filing.

"This is an astonishing and disingenuous assertion," the association president, Barry M. Kamins, wrote Gonzales.

Kamins said many detainees have been held in solitary confinement for prolonged periods and have lost hope of a fair hearing to demonstrate their innocence.

"Blaming counsel for the hunger strikes and other unrest is a continuation of a disreputable and unwarranted smear campaign against counsel," according to the letter Friday.

Kamins pointed to recent remarks by the former deputy assistant secretary for detainee affairs, Charles Stimson. Stimson resigned after saying he found it shocking that lawyers at many top firms represent detainees held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba.

The 137-year-old New York City Bar, with more than 23,000 members, is one of the oldest and largest lawyers' organizations in the country.

A Justice Department spokesman, Erik Ablin, said the department is reviewing the New York City Bar's letter.

Ablin pointed to the department's court papers that say the proposal on attorney access is well beyond what the Constitution and the law require.

Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, said the military is giving broad lawyer access to many detainees, even though they are accused of having al-Qaida or Taliban links and the U.S. is at war.

Attorney Zachary Katznelson sees the Justice Department proposal as an attempt to seal the facility from critics.

"If we cannot come in, the only news getting out of here will be the government's carefully crafted version, which to my chagrin as an American deviates far too often from the truth," Katznelson said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. He is spending two weeks at Guantanamo Bay to meet with 18 client detainees.

The department wants to narrow the definition of "legal mail" and impose a three-visit rule on the number of face-to-face meetings once a detainee agrees at an initial meeting to let an attorney represent him.

On Thursday, American Bar Association President Karen J. Mathis criticized "arbitrary restrictions concerning the number of times and the ways that lawyers may confer with their clients in Guantanamo." She said such practices at Guantanamo or in a court "would threaten competent representation without at all advancing national security."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear arguments on the department's proposal May 15.

___

Associated Press writer David McFadden in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this report.

[accuracy]

Guantanamo Lawyers Predict More Suicides

Monday April 30, 2007
By DAVID McFADDEN

Associated Press Writer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6597213,00.html

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Lawyers envision more suicides and despair at Guantanamo Bay if the U.S. Justice Department succeeds in severely restricting access to detainees by defense attorneys, virtually the only contact inmates have with the outside world.

The Justice Department has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to limit the number of lawyer visits allowed to three after an initial face-to-face meeting, to tighten censorship of mail from attorneys and to give the military more control over what they can discuss with detainees.

Lawyers for detainees believe that if their visits are limited, detainee desperation will deepen and more will try to kill themselves. On June 10, 2006, two Saudi detainees and one Yemeni hanged themselves with sheets, the first and only suicides since the 2002 opening of the detention center that now holds about 380 inmates.

``Visits by lawyers are one of the few bright spot these men have,'' attorney Zachary Katznelson told The Associated Press from Guantanamo, where he is spending two weeks to meet with 18 client detainees.

Clive Stafford Smith, an attorney for several Guantanamo detainees, said curtailing lawyer visits would likely lead more prisoners to attempt suicide.

``The level of depression is soaring, I am afraid,'' he said over the weekend.

Many detainees are kept in isolation in small cells with no natural light. With no prison sentence having been pronounced - except for one Australian detainee - the detainees do not know when they will get out, if ever. Many have been there for more than five years.

Attorney Stephen Oleskey, who represents six Algerians, said more suicides are ``a real risk'' if the court restricts lawyer-client contacts.

``I've seen firsthand the mental conditions of my clients deteriorate in isolation,'' Oleskey said from Boston. ``And I think the impact of further restrictions would be dramatic.''

Meanwhile, Katznelson sees the move to restrict attorney access as an attempt to seal the facility from critics.

``If we cannot come in, the only news getting out of here will be the government's carefully crafted version,'' Katznelson said in an e-mail Saturday.

It is the attorneys, arriving at the base in southeast Cuba aboard military planes or tiny commuter flights, who provide the world with information about hunger strikes, solitary confinement and other details about the detainees.

Journalists can visit but are barred by the military from interviewing detainees. The Red Cross, which occasionally visits, keeps its findings confidential.

But military commanders at Guantanamo and the Justice Department view the lawyers with suspicion.

Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, told the AP the military has been giving broad lawyer access to many detainees - even though they are accused of having al-Qaida or Taliban links and the United States is still at war.

The mail system was ``misused'' to inform detainees about military operations in Iraq, activities of terrorist leaders, efforts in the war on terror, the Hezbollah attack on Israel and abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, the Justice Department said in this month's court filing.

Barry M. Kamin, president of the New York City Bar, called the assertions ``astonishing and disingenuous'' in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Lawyers for detainees also dismissed the claims, calling them a pretext to deprive detainees of proper legal representation.

``There have been a lot of extreme statements made,'' said Oleskey, referring to U.S. government criticism of legal defense efforts. ``I think it's unfortunate and it should stop.''


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007

[accuracy]

McCain: I'd move Guantánamo detainees to US

Sun, Apr. 29, 2007
By WILL LESTER

Associated Press
http://www.miamiherald.com/416/story/90761.html


WASHINGTON -- GOP presidential candidate John McCain, defending his conservative credentials, said Sunday he is resented by some political activists in Washington while well received by Republicans around the country.

''I'm pleased with the support that I have all over the country from rank-and-file Republicans who are supporting me, who believe in me,'' said McCain, R-Ariz.

McCain is engaged in a difficult balancing act these days.

His defense of the war in Iraq has hurt him with independents who backed his White House bid in 2000. His stands on immigration and campaign finance have raised doubts among some conservatives, still wary of his criticism of evangelical Christian leaders in the 2000 campaign.

He has been running behind former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the polls and has lagged in fundraising.

''My record is very clear. It's very consistent. It's very conservative,'' McCain said.

McCain generally supports President Bush on Iraq, but is questioning the conduct of the war and would have a different approach to fighting terrorism.

''I would probably announce the closing of Guantánamo Bay. I would move those detainees to Fort Leavenworth'' in Kansas, McCain said. ``I would announce we will not torture anyone.''

The senator has called on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to step down. On Sunday, McCain described Gonzales' job performance as ''embarrassing.'' Gonzales has been under fire for his handling of the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys.

McCain made the comments on ``Fox News Sunday.''

------

[accuracy]

Family fears for Guantanamo man

From correspondents in Rabat

May 01, 2007
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21651152-5005962,00.html

THE family of a Moroccan man freed by the US from Guantanamo Bay last week said they feared for his wellbeing today as Moroccan authorities declined to reveal his whereabouts.

Ahmed Errachidi, who spent more than five years at the US detention camp for terrorist suspects in Cuba, has not been heard from since US authorities confirmed four days ago that they had handed him over to Morocco.

"Petitioner Errachidi ... has been released from United States' custody and transferred to the control of the government of Morocco," a US Department of Justice official said in an email to Errachidi's US lawyer dated April 26.

A Moroccan government official said: "It's true he was extradited to Morocco."

But he said he was unable to provide any additional information on the case.

Errachidi, who lived for 17 years in London and worked as a chef at well-known restaurants, including the Hard Rock Cafe, suffers from bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression.

"Ahmed has been mentally ill since the 1990s," said a family member who asked not to be identified. "Either he's smiling and laughing all the time, or he's crying all the time...The question now is: where is he? We're very worried, he needs to take medicine."

The relative said a human rights lawyer presented a written submission to the Moroccan prosecutor's office today seeking information about Errachidi's fate.

"He said simply: "He's my client, and I need to know where he is'", the relative said. "We haven't got a reply."

Errachidi, 41, has a wife and two young sons living in Morocco.

According to the British-based legal charity, Reprieve, which represents him, he was arrested in Pakistan after travelling there in 2001 on a business venture to fund a cardiac operation for his younger son, Imran.

Reprieve said Errachidi had the idea of importing silver jewellery from Pakistan to raise money.

While there, he was affected by television footage of the US invasion of neighbouring Afghanistan and went to try to help refugees from bombing raids, a decision his lawyers said reflected his erratic judgement due to his illness.

Once in Afghanistan, he soon realised there was nothing he could do and that it was dangerous to stay, but he was detained after crossing back into Pakistan.

"The Pakistani authorities told him he would be deported, but after a couple of days, Pakistani officials instead sold Ahmed to the US military for a bounty that was negotiated while he stood by in shackles and a hood," Reprieve said.

The family member said the amount was $US500 ($600).

Reprieve's legal director Clive Stafford Smith wrote in a fax to Morocco's justice minister on Sunday he was willing to travel to Morocco if needed and could supply copious evidence proving Errachidi's innocence.

Chris Chang, an investigator for Reprieve, said the organisation assumed Errachidi was in police custody but had no confirmation.

"We haven't had any news. We're just completely in the dark, to be honest," he said.

[accuracy]

Do secret interrogations continue?

By Nat Hentoff
April 30, 2007
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20070429-100046-4854r.htm

Americans know many details of the firing of U.S. attorneys and Don Imus -- along with the horror at Virginia Tech. But how many are aware that the FBI has been interrogating terrorism suspects -- including an American citizen -- in secret Ethiopian prisons?

On April 5, the Associated Press reported that Ethiopia was under pressure "to release details of detainees from 19 countries... including women and children [who] have been transferred secretly and illegally. An investigation by the Associated Press found that CIA and FBI agents have been interrogating the detainees." As John Sifton, a deeply experienced researcher at Human Rights Watch, said on the national Democracy Now radio and Internet program (April 5), these suspects would previously have been held as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay or the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. But "the Bush administration has shifted gears, and now they have the FBI interrogating people... by local forces, the Ethiopians, the Kenyans... That's why we call it a sort of outsourced Guantanamo." These interrogations purportedly are to weed out al Qaeda conspirators and cells in the Horn of Africa.

The American prisoner, Amir Mohamed Meshal of Tinton Falls, N.J., held since late January, was questioned several times by FBI agents as American officials admit without being charged and without having a U.S. consular official present, or an attorney. But Meshal has a very active and properly indignant attorney in Jonathan Hafetz of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. On April 2, he wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanding that she get the Ethiopian government to release his client. Also, writing to Miss Rice was Rep. Rush Holt, New Jersey Democrat, about his constituent, Amir Meshal: "Our government," Mr. Holt told Miss Rice, "cannot allow an American citizen to be held by the Ethiopian government in violation of international law and our own due process." As of this writing, Miss Rice has not replied to the congressman.

Fortunately, Mr. Holt is chairman of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel. I expect that in addition to finding out why his constituent was outsourced to Ethiopia, the congressman will also ask FBI Director Robert Mueller, CIA Director Michael Hayden and other high-level intelligence officials why they have been directly responsible, in this case of an American citizen, for working with the Ethiopian government to violate international law and the very basis of our system of justice, due process. (If they are not directly responsible, who's running their shops?)

It also would be very useful and indeed necessary if our rule of law is to have credibility at home and in the world to find out from the president and Vice President Cheney how they justify this outsourcing of an American citizen to an Ethiopian dungeon.

Meanwhile, what's happening to American citizen Amir Meshal? In a dispatch from Addis Ababa on April 12, The Washington Post quoted FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko, who "confirmed that there were no charges against Meshal, and State Department officials said the FBI told them that no charges were pending." So, Mr. Meshal was set to be released from the secret prison and flown back to the United States where, unlike Ethiopia, every citizen is guaranteed due process of law.

Not so fast. The same Washington Post story revealed that Mr. Meshal is still imprisoned. (As of this writing, he remains in his cell.) Why? "State Department officials booking his flight discovered that his name had been placed on a no-fly list at the request of the FBI and no airline would take him, U.S. officials said." Then, on Friday, April 13, Mr. Meshal did get out of that lockup to be hauled before an Ethiopian military tribunal. The New York Times on April 14 added: "No news media or members of the public were allowed at the hearing (before the military tribunal), and American officials said that they, too, were barred from attending. Ethiopian officials did not disclose details. Ethiopian Foreign Ministry officials said they were not authorized to talk about it." Did any FBI agent on the scene call Mr. Mueller? Did any American State Department person there try to reach Miss Rice?

Last year, the president said that no one was still being held in CIA secret prisons, although they remain open, as permitted by the Military Commissions Act of 2006. On what authority has (as reported by The Washington Post) "the FBI carried out interrogations of dozens of detainees in Ethiopian secret prisons?"

What of the international treaties against torture and other abuses by which we are bound? What about American citizen Amir Mohamed Meshal of Tinton Falls, N.J.? Has his citizenship been suspended?

Copyright 2007 The Washington Times

[accuracy]

The Sham of the Padilla Trial

by Jacob G. Hornberger, April 30, 2007
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0704p.asp

Jury selection in the Jose Padilla case is now under way in federal district court in Miami, but the trial is nothing more than a sham. Why? Because no matter how the jury rules, Padilla is almost certain to remain incarcerated for a long time.

If Padilla is convicted by the jury, the judge will likely sentence him to serve much of the rest of his life in a federal penitentiary for having conspired to violate federal criminal laws against terrorism.

On the other hand, if Padilla is acquitted, the U.S. military is likely to exercise its post-9/11-acquired power to declare Americans (and foreigners) “enemy combatants” in the war on terror and throw Padilla back into a military dungeon. That is where he was before the government, as part of a clever legal maneuver that was obviously designed to avoid Supreme Court review of Padilla’s request for habeas-corpus relief, converted him from an “enemy combatant” in the war on terror to a federal-court criminal defendant charged with violating federal terrorism laws.

While the military, of course, could decline to exercise its power to retake Padilla into custody after an acquittal by the jury, that course of action is unlikely given the government’s repeated assertion that Padilla is one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists.

So either way the jury rules — guilty or not guilty — the result is almost certain to be the same — Padilla’s stay in jail is likely to be greatly prolonged.

Prior to 9/11, if a criminal defendant, including one accused of terrorism, was found not guilty by a federal jury, he would walk out of court a free man. That was the whole idea behind the right of trial by jury that was guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. However, the government’s post-9/11 “enemy-combatant” doctrine, which was upheld by the conservative Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Padilla’s habeas corpus proceedings, revolutionized our judicial system by giving the military the power to take Americans (and foreigners) into custody as “enemy combatants,” including those who have been acquitted of terrorism charges by a duly selected and impaneled jury in federal district court.

Obviously, the government would prefer that Padilla be convicted by the jury because then the citizenry can simply assume that the federal system is operating normally. No alarm bells would go off, as they would if U.S. military officials carted Padilla out of federal court after a jury announced a verdict of “not guilty.”

If the military should reclaim custody of Padilla after a jury in federal district court has acquitted him, everyone will be able to easily recognize the raw military power that now hangs over the American citizenry, including the power to orchestrate sham criminal justice proceedings in federal district court, ignore federal jury verdicts, and indefinitely incarcerate Americans (and foreigners) accused of terrorism in some military hellhole.

Those who traded away our rights and freedoms for safety after 9/11 would undoubtedly respond to all this with “So what if the military now wields omnipotent power over the citizenry? Security is more important than freedom. Anyway, the military can be trusted not to abuse its powers over the citizenry, and federal officials have promised to restore our rights and freedoms as soon as the terrorist crisis is over.”

Those American ancestors of ours who crafted the Sixth Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, who understood that the biggest threat to the freedom and well-being of the American people was the federal government, and who never would have dreamed of trading their freedom for safety, must be turning over in their graves.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email.

[accuracy]

Enron filmmaker focuses on U.S. torture

Apr 30, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/filmNews/idUSN3046044220070501

By Claudia Parsons

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After examining corruption at energy giant Enron, director Alex Gibney has turned his lens on what he calls the "corruption of American values" in a new film about U.S. torture in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

"Taxi to the Dark Side," which had its premiere at New York's Tribeca Film Festival this weekend, examines the case of an Afghan taxi driver who was mistakenly detained and died after sustained beating by U.S. guards in December 2002.

From there, the film draws a picture of a pattern of abuse it says spread with a "nod and a wink" from the U.S. military base in Cuba to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and then to Iraq, notably to the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

Part of the problem, the film contends, is that there never were written orders authorizing many of the abuses -- a situation that led to prosecution of lowly enlisted soldiers branded "bad apples" while senior officers remain untouched.

U.S. President George W. Bush has repeatedly denied measures approved by his administration amount to torture and the Pentagon has said the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal and other similar cases were isolated incidents.

Gibney said he was pitched the idea of the film by "some very angry lawyers" after his 2005 film "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," which was nominated for an Oscar.

"WORK THE DARK SIDE"

The title "Taxi to the Dark Side" refers to remarks on intelligence gathering by Vice President Dick Cheney just a few days after the September 11 attacks in 2001. "We also have to work the dark side, if you will. We have to spend time in the shadows," Cheney told NBC in the interview shown in the movie.

The film includes interviews with several soldiers prosecuted for beating the taxi driver and a British man detained in Afghanistan and held for nearly two years in Guantanamo who witnessed the death of the taxi driver.

Others interviewed are former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora, whose concerns about torture appeared to be brushed aside, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, and John Yoo, who drafted key memos for the White House on aggressive interrogation tactics in 2001 and 2002.

Gibney said he wanted to tell a balanced story.

"I'm not one of these people who believe there's a few men in a black tower who said, 'This is going to be the way it works,"' he said. "But I think they were reckless and possibly not very bright ... I don't think the people responsible for this really knew what they unleashed."

The film suggests that when Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld authorized certain harsh interrogation tactics for a single detainee at Guantanamo, said to have been a conspirator with the September 11 hijackers, similar tactics spread to Bagram in Afghanistan and from there eventually to Iraq.

"I ended up doing a film about corruption -- corruption of the rule of law and corruption of American values ... What I was most surprised by was just how dark the dark side was."

Reuters/Nielsen

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved

[accuracy]

Supreme Court refuses to bar Guantanamo detainee transfer to Libya

Wednesday, May 02, 2007
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/05/supreme-court-refuses-to-bar-guantanamo.php

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] refused Tuesday to prevent the US military from transferring Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainee Abu Abdul Rauf Zalita to his home country of Libya, rejecting Zalita's arguments that he faced a "grave risk of arbitrary detention, torture, persecution and extrajudicial assassination" after being returned to Libya. In a one-sentence order [PDF text], the Court rejected Zalita's application for an injunction, which was opposed [PDF text; addendum, PDF] by the Bush administration. Solicitor General Paul Clement argued that the Military Commissions Act [PDF text; JURIST news archive] bars US courts from considering Zalita's claims.

Zalita was determined to be an "enemy combatant" in 2005 by a Guantanamo Combatant Status Review Tribunal [DOD materials]. According to Clement's Supreme Court filing, "The unclassified summary of the evidence presented to the CSRT explains that [Zalita] was a member of a known terrorist organization, received weapons training by that group, traveled to Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in December 2001, and then fled to Pakistan, where he was captured."

[accuracy]

Former Guantanamo inmate walks free in Morocco

May 3, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL0338635720070503

RABAT (Reuters) - A Moroccan man sent home from the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay last week was released by local authorities after terrorism-related charges were dropped, a human rights lawyer and relatives said on Thursday.

Ahmed Errachidi, 41, was arrested on his return to Morocco and appeared before a judge on Wednesday on suspicion of preparing and carrying out terrorist acts, lawyer Mohamed Sebbar told Reuters.

"The charges were dropped, he was released last night and he is now back home with his family," said Sebbar. A relative confirmed his release and return home.

Errachidi spent more than five years at the U.S. detention camp for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba before being freed without charge last week. He has a wife and two young sons living in Morocco.

Relatives say he suffers from bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, and needs to take medication regularly.

Errachidi lived in Britain for 17 years and worked as a chef in London restaurants. According to the British-based legal charity Reprieve, which represents him, he was arrested in Pakistan after traveling there in 2001 on a business venture to fund a heart operation for his younger son, Imran.

While there, he was affected by television footage of the U.S. invasion of neighboring Afghanistan and went there to try to help refugees from bombing raids, a decision his lawyers say reflected his erratic judgment caused by his illness.

Once in Afghanistan, he soon realized there was nothing he could do and it was dangerous to stay. He was detained after crossing back into Pakistan.

Pakistani officials then "sold Ahmed to the U.S. military for a bounty that was negotiated while he stood by in shackles and a hood", Reprieve said in a press release on his case.

The U.S. government has repatriated 10 Moroccans from Guantanamo in the past three years, according to lawyers.

They were charged with forming criminal gangs, forgery, illegal migration or belonging to an international terrorist organization but only one was imprisoned.

Three Moroccans remain in the maximum security prison in Cuba.

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.

[accuracy]

http://www.allhatnocattle.net/inmate_dogs_vets.jpg

"Inmate Edward Parent, who is serving a ten-year sentence for a DUI death resulting in a conviction, sits with Chuck, a black Labrador he is training to be a service dog as part of NEADS' Prison Pup program, at the John J Moran medium security prison in Cranston, Rhode Island, in this April 24, 2007 file photo. Dozens of dogs are being trained by prison inmates in a fast-growing program that provides "service dogs" to help U.S. veterans who have lost arms and legs or suffered brain injuries in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Photo/USA-PRISONS/Brian Snyder"

[accuracy]

One in three US combat troops would condone torture: survey

Fri May 4,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070504/pl_afp/usiraqmilitaryhealth_070504174418;_ylt=An300T8q0zV FTekVVMNxWtQZO7gF

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A survey of US combat troops deployed in Iraq has found that one in 10 said they mistreated civilians and more than a third condoned torture to save the life of a comrade, a report said Friday.

The study by an army mental health advisory team found continuing problems with morale and that acute mental health issues were more prevalent among troops with lengthening tours or on their second and third deployment to Iraq.

"They looked under every rock, and what they found was not always easy to look at," said Ward Casscells, the Pentagon's health affairs chief.

For the first time ever, a sampling of soldiers and marines in combat units were questioned on issues of character, and their answers suggested hardened attitudes toward civilians among front line troops:

-- About 10 percent of soldiers surveyed reported mistreating non-combatants or damaging their property when it was not necessary;

-- Less than half of the soldiers and marines would report a team member for unethical behavior;

-- More than a third of all soldiers and marines reported that torture should be allowed to save the life of a fellow soldier or marine.

Major General Gale Pollock, the army's acting surgeon general, sought to make a distinction between soldiers' thoughts about torture and their actions.

"These men and women have been seeing their friends injured and I think that having that thought is normal," she said at a Pentagon press conference.

"But what it speaks to is the leadership that the military is providing, because they're not acting on those thoughts. They're not torturing the people," she said.

The team surveyed 1,320 soldiers and 447 marines between August and October 2006 in Iraq. Although the report was completed in November, it was only released Friday in censored form after its findings began to leak to the press.

The study found that morale among soldiers was worse than among marines, which it said was explained in part by the marines' shorter six month tours.

The team recommended that the army's yearlong tours in Iraq either be shortened, or that soldiers be given 18 to 36 months between deployment to recover.

Instead, the army is moving in the opposite direction, extending tours to 15 months to keep pace with a surge in forces. The army is struggling to allow units a year at home between deployments.

Copyright © 2007 Yahoo! Inc.

[accuracy]

U-S commander in Iraq "greatly concerned" by combat ethics report

http://wkbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=6480643


BAGHDAD The top American commander in Iraq says he's "greatly concerned" by a report on combat ethics.

As General David Petraeus (puh-TRAY'-uhs) describes it, the study showed "a fair proportion" of combat troops in Iraq would not report illegal actions by their buddies -- such as killing or wounding civilians.

Petraeus told the A-P's annual meeting in New York via video hookup from Baghdad that the American military "can never sink to the level of the enemy." The general says he's ramping up educational efforts and also drafting a memo reminding troops to live up to standards.

He told the meeting that past incidents of moral lapses like the Abu Ghraib scandal hurt the military tremendously.


Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[accuracy]

Jailing of journalists in Gitmo, Iraq rapped

Wed, May. 09, 2007
http://www.miamiherald.com/416/story/100937.html

BY NATASHA T. METZLER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Representatives of two journalists detained by the U.S. military said Tuesday the government should charge them or set them free.

U.S. forces have been holding Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein in Iraq for a year. Sami al Hajj, a cameraman for the Middle East television station Al-Jazeera, has been detained since late 2001 and is currently at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

While U.S. officials allege that Hussein took photographs synchronized with explosions, indicating he was at a location ahead of time, Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of the AP, said he was ``simply the unlucky fellow who happened to be the photographer for the world's largest newsgathering organization in a difficult province.''

Carroll said the AP had examined 900 of Hussein's photographs and found no indication that he had been on the scene before attacks occurred.

Paul Gardephe, the lawyer handling the case for the AP, said the military recently acknowledged to him that it has no evidence to support earlier allegations that Hussein was involved in a plot to kidnap two other journalists.

Carroll said, ``The sort of rolling set of allegations that arise and then disappear without the benefit of a trial . . . or any kind of an official court proceeding is what is distressing to all of us here.''

She spoke during a panel discussion in connection with World Press Freedom Day.

Officials have what they believe to be information that links Hussein to insurgent activity, but most of the evidence is classified and will not be released publicly, said Col. Gary Keck, a U.S. Defense Department spokesman.

Hussein's detention is legal under U.N. Security Council resolutions that authorize the Iraq coalition to hold people for security reasons, Keck said. He added that the case has been reviewed several times by coalition and Iraqi officials.

Al Hajj's attorney, Zachary Katznelson, said U.S. officials have offered varying allegations against his client but have never filed charges or presented evidence against him. Al Hajj was stopped at the Afghanistan border by Pakistani authorities in December 2001 and turned over to U.S. authorities six months later.

''If there is any evidence, then let's see it,'' Katznelson said.

The Pentagon said there is classified and unclassified evidence to support his detention, and the unclassified portions have been available to the public.

''While Mr. al Hajj has been given the opportunity to contest his status as an enemy combatant and challenge his continued detention through hearings and review boards at Guantánamo, he has repeatedly declined to do so,'' said Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Defense Department spokesman. ``Instead, he has declined to answer any questions about his alleged role in supporting terror networks.''

The panel discussion was sponsored by the Committee to Protect Journalists and the National Press Club's Freedom of Press Committee.

Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek contributed to this report.

[accuracy]

U.S. to Build Cuba Migrant Center

Wednesday May 9, 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6618312,00.html


SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - The United States, which has been planning for possible waves of fleeing Cubans when Fidel Castro dies, has hired a Florida company to build a temporary complex to hold migrants at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, the military said.

Islands Mechanical Contractors Inc. of Jacksonville, Fla., has won a $16.5 million contract to build a ``migrant operations complex'' at the base, a U.S. enclave in eastern Cuba, the U.S. Defense Department said.

The fenced complex would include showers and laundry facilities and is to be finished by May 2008, according to a Defense Department publication that announces contracts.

The announcement late Monday did not specify the capacity of the complex and a Defense Department spokesman said additional details were not immediately available. Bob Turnage, the president of Islands Mechanical, declined to discuss the project.

The contract announcement did not specify that the complex would be for Cuban migrants, but Navy officials told The Associated Press in January that they were preparing for a potential Cuban exodus because of Castro's health problems and would hold migrants at Guantanamo, where the U.S. also has detained about 380 men on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

Guantanamo was used to hold thousands of Haitian and Cuban migrants in the 1990s. U.S. officials had said they would keep the migrants on the other side of the base from the detainees and would have to increase troop levels to provide additional security.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007

[accuracy]

Murtha: Move trials out of Guantanamo

Thursday, May 10, 2007

By Jerome L. Sherman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07130/784884-84.stm

WASHINGTON -- Pennsylvania's Rep. John Murtha yesterday said he would start pushing the Bush administration to move military trials for high-level terrorism suspects from the controversial detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to the U.S. mainland.

Such a step, he argued, would help improve the nation's image abroad after years of negative publicity surrounding the prison camp, which first opened in January 2002 and now holds about 380 detainees.

"We don't want anybody released who is a threat," Mr. Murtha, D-Johnstown, said after a hearing of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. "But, on the other hand, we have to get them a fair trial."

As the subcommittee chairman, Mr. Murtha is the highest-ranking House member in charge of defense spending, and he has threatened to use his power to cut off funding for Guantanamo, effectively forcing its closure. But he backed off from that stance yesterday, saying it wasn't practical.

Instead, he hopes to address concerns from some legal advocates that the prison is too remote to allow regular access between detainees and their lawyers and that it cannot accommodate a large number of court proceedings.

Defense Department officials, however, seemed cool to the idea of moving the trials or holding detainees in the United States, arguing that new locations would be easier targets for terrorists. "I believe we're holding the right men in the right place for the right reasons, and we're doing it the right way at Guantanamo," said Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris, the prison's commander.

Daniel J. Dell'Orto, a Defense Department deputy general counsel, expressed concern that the legal status of detainees would change if trials were held on U.S. soil. He also warned that the trials could become a "media circus."

Mr. Murtha pointedly probed some of Mr. Dell'Orto's arguments. "We spend more than any country in the world on intelligence, and you're telling me that closing down Guantanamo would cripple our intelligence efforts?" he asked Mr. Dell'Orto.

"If you take away those capabilities, it would cripple our efforts," Mr. Dell'Orto replied.

"You see why I've said I have such a hard time believing the kind of information I get," Mr. Murtha responded. "That's a real exaggeration."

For more than five years, the question of how to handle terrorism suspects caught in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere has hampered the Bush administration, with the Supreme Court twice ruling that detainees have the right to contest their imprisonment.

Congress last year passed a law that prevents detainees from filing such appeals, and, in April, the high court declined to hold a new hearing on the issue.

But concerns about Guantanamo's future haven't gone away. Both President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates have said they would like to close the facility eventually, while some legal groups have said there are serious doubts about the connections between some detainees and terrorist groups.

"I think that Guantanamo should be closed, and it should be closed quickly," said Thomas B. Wilner, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who has represented several detainees. "It's against everything we stand for as a nation."

Defense officials said much of their evidence cannot be made public because of security concerns. "It's a very common thing for these guys to say they're cooks," said Joseph A. Benkert, a deputy assistant secretary of defense for global security affairs.

Some detainees even convinced U.S. officials of their innocence, he said. Since Guantanamo's opening, the government has released about 30 detainees who eventually forged new connections with terrorist groups. The military now has significantly tighter procedures for releasing prisoners.

Of the roughly 380 detainees now being held, about 60 to 80 are likely to face military tribunals over the next few years. About 80 can be released in the near future, but the United States must first negotiate that process with foreign governments.

Afghans, Saudis, and Yemenis make up the top three nationalities among detainees.

Col. Dwight Sullivan, chief defense counsel for the Marine Corps' Office of Military Commissions, said several U.S. sites could safely accommodate trials for detainees, including the Marine base in Quantico, Va.

Mr. Murtha said his office would draw up a list of possible sites.

[accuracy]

Kuwaiti Gitmo Inmates to Be Released

Sunday, May 13, 2007
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=55676

KUWAIT CITY: The United States has decided to release the last four Kuwaiti prisoners in Guantanamo Bay in the coming four months, a new Kuwaiti daily said on Saturday.

Al-Wasat daily, quoting informed sources, said US authorities had informed Kuwait, a staunch ally of Washington, that its remaining citizens in the military base do not constitute any danger to American national security.

The daily quoted the sources as saying the prisoners would be released before the start of Ramazan which begins by mid-September.

The United States has so far freed eight of the 12 Kuwaiti prisoners in Guantanamo. They have faced trial in Kuwaiti courts and acquitted of charges of joining al-Qaeda and fighting US forces under Afghanistan’s ousted Taleban.

About 455 people are currently held at the Guantanamo Bay naval base where the US has detained and interrogated 750 prisoners since early 2002 in its war on terror after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

[accuracy]

Dutch soldiers abused Iraqi prisoners: report

Wed May 16,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070516/wl_nm/dutch_iraq_abuse_dc

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Three Dutch military intelligence officers may have broken interrogation rules in 2003 while questioning prisoners in Iraq, Dutch television program NOVA said.

NOVA said it obtained excerpts of an independent committee's report prepared for the Dutch Ministry of Defense describing the use of head covers and electrodes during questioning.

A committee spokesman declined to confirm or deny the NOVA report, aired late on Tuesday, but added he "had ideas" about how parts of the committee's report may have been leaked.

A Defense Ministry spokesman said the ministry would comment when the committee's report was published in mid-June.

The ministry ordered an independent inquiry last November after a newspaper reported that Dutch military intelligence abused prisoners in Iraq in 2003 by hosing them with water to keep them awake and exposing them to bright light.

Former Major Micha Geeratz, a legal advisor monitoring interrogations in Iraq at the time, told NOVA that unsupervised questioning took place in the Iraqi city of As Sawamah.

"I had the feeling then that things would happen that could not bear the light of day," Geeratz said in the program aired late on Tuesday.

One Iraqi prisoner who complained to British authorities in Iraq about mistreatment had mentioned the use of water, sound, electrodes, and head coverings during interrogations, Geeratz said. He estimated that 5 to 10 people could have been interrogated without supervision.

Former Dutch Minister of Defense, Henk Kamp, has said that in October 2003, two months after Dutch troops first arrived in Iraq, 15 suspects were interrogated by military intelligence and security officers but that no punishable actions had taken place.

But the independent committee was established last November and some politicians drew parallels with the uproar over abuse by U.S. soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Since then, scandals have also erupted in Britain and Germany over the behavior of their troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[accuracy]

Harvard’s Kangaroo Law School

The School for Torturers

By Francis A. Boyle

05/16/07 "ICH" -- -- Not surprisingly, the newly released January 2007 issue of the American Journal of Imperial Law — otherwise known as the self-styled American Journal of International Law but founded and still operated by U. S. State and War Departments’ apparatchiks and their professorial fellow-travelers — just published an article by Harvard Law School’s recently retired Bemis Professor of International Law Detlev Vagts (who only taught me the required course on Legal Accounting) arguing in favor of the Pentagon’s Kangaroo Courts System on Guantanamo despite the fact that they have been soundly condemned by every human rights organization and every human rights official and leader in the entire world as well as by the United States Supreme Court itself in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006).

I am not going to bother to recite here all the grievous deficiencies of the Gitmo Kangaroo Courts under International Law and U.S. Constitutional Law. But suffice it to say that the Gitmo Kangaroo Courts constitute war crimes under the Laws of War, the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, and even the U. S. Army’s own Field Manual 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare (1956). Field Manual 27-10 was drafted for the Pentagon by my Laws of War teacher Richard R. Baxter, who was generally recognized as the world’s leading expert on that subject, which is precisely why I voluntarily chose to study International Law with him and his long-time collaborator Louis B. Sohn, and not with the bean-counter Vagts. For the entire post-World War II generation of international law students at Harvard Law School, Louis Sohn shall always be our real Bemis Professor of International Law and never the False Pretender to that Throne known as Detlev Vagts.

Since those student days I have personally appeared pro bono publico in five U.S. military courts-martial proceedings involving warfare that were organized in accordance with the Pentagon’s Uniform Code of Military Justice (U.C.M.J.) — which still does not apply to the Gitmo Kangaroo Courts despite the ruling by the U. S. Supreme Court in Hamdan that the U.C.M.J. should be applied in Guantanamo — on behalf of five U. S. military personnel who each acted as matters of courage, integrity, principle, and conscience at great risk to their freedom:

1. U. S. Marine Corps Lance Corporal Jeff Paterson, the first U. S. military resister to President Bush Sr.’s genocidal war against Iraq;

2. Army Captain Doctor Yolanda Huet-Vaughn, the highest ranking U.S. commissioned officer to be court-martialed for refusing to participate in President Bush Sr.’s genocidal war against Iraq;

3. Captain Lawrence Rockwood, who was court-martialed by the U.S. Army for trying to stop torture in Haiti after the Clinton administration had illegally invaded that country in 1994;

4. Army Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia, the first U.S. military resister to be court-martialed for refusing to participate in President Bush Jr.’s war of aggression against Iraq; and

5. Army First Lieutenant Ehren Watada, the first U.S. commissioned officer to be court-martialed for his refusal to participate in President Bush Jr.’s war of aggression against Iraq.

As I can attest from my direct personal involvement, each and every one of these five courts-martial under the U.C.M.J. were Stalinist show-trials produced and directed by the Pentagon that predictably and readily degenerated into travesties of justice. These five U.C.M.J. courts-martial involving warfare each proved correct the old adage attributed to Groucho Marx that military justice is to justice as military music is to music. By comparison, the Gitmo Kangaroo Courts will not even be run in accordance with the U.C.M.J. despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan that they should be.

Whenever they are up and running the Gitmo Courts will constitute Stalinist Show Trials as well as Kangaroo Courts, and their preliminary proceedings have already proven them to be Travesties of Justice. Even worse yet, fully-functioning Stalinist Gitmo Kangaroo Courts will quickly become conveyor-belts of death for alleged and already tortured terrorist suspects along the lines of the Texas execution chamber operated by George Bush Jr. when he was the “governor” of that state and tortured to death 152 victims by means of lethal injection. But today under the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, executing persons detained as a result of armed conflict without a fair trial before a regularly constituted court constitutes a grave war crime. To be sure, under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution Professor Vagts has the freedom to advocate war crimes so long as he does not participate in their commission, or incite them, or aid and abet them. But precisely where is that line to be drawn for law professors?

In this regard, the Harvard Law School Faculty currently has at least five professors who have advocated torture and war crimes:

1. Vagts himself, who supported abusing the then recently captured President of Iraq Saddam Hussein despite his being publicly acknowledged to be a Prisoner of War by the Bush Jr. administration itself and thus absolutely protected by the Third Geneva Convention of 1949 and the Convention against Torture;

2. the infamous Alan Dershowitz, a self-incriminated war criminal in his own right. Dersh publicly acknowledged being a member of a Mossad Committee for approving the murder and assassination of Palestinians, which violates the Geneva Conventions and is thus a grave war crime;

3. the Con Law non-entity known as Richard Parker;

4. Another one of my teachers, Waco Phil Heymann. Previously Waco Phil had been Deputy to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, the Butcheress of Waco. Reno ordered the Waco Massacre, while Heymann orchestrated its cover-up and thus earned his well-deserved sobriquet of Waco Phil. All those incinerated women and children!

5. The war criminal Jack Goldsmith who while working as a lawyer for the Bush Jr. administration at both the Pentagon and later its Department of In-Justice did much of the legal spade-work designing, justifying and approving the hideous human rights atrocities that the Bush Jr. administration has inflicted on everyone after 9/11. Goldsmith and his co-felon legal colleague from the Bush Jr. administration Professor John Yoo — now desecrating Berkeley’s Law School where my friend and colleague the late, great Dean Frank Newman had taught Human Rights — are functionally analogous to Nazi Law Professor Carl Schmitt, who justified every hideous atrocity that Hitler and the Nazis inflicted on anyone.

Despite my best efforts to prevent it, the Harvard Law School Faculty and Deans hired the war criminal Goldsmith right out of the Bush Jr. administration knowing full well that he was up to his eyeballs in the Gitmo Kangaroo Courts, torture, war crimes, enforced disappearances, murder, kidnapping, and crimes against humanity, at a minimum. And when Goldsmith’s proverbial “smoking-gun” Department of In-Justice Memorandum was published by the Washington Post, Harvard Law School’s Dean Elena Kagan contemptuously boasted in response about how “proud” she was to have hired this notorious war criminal. Previously Kagan had also publicly bragged that the future of International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School would be in the “good hands” of their resident war criminal Goldsmith. How tragically true! The Neo-Conservative Harvard Law School Faculty and Deans deliberately set out to hire this Neo-Nazi legal architect of the Bush Jr. administration’s bogus and nefarious “war against terrorism” because they fully support it together with all its essential accouterments of torture, kangaroo courts, war crimes, murder, kidnapping, enforced disappearances, crimes against humanity, and Nuremberg crimes against peace.

By contrast, after the terrorist bombing of the Murrah Federal Building by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols in alleged revenge for the Waco Massacre and Cover-up by Janet Reno and Waco Phil Heymann, to the best of my recollection I do not remember that the Neo-Conservative Harvard Law School Faculty and Deans advocated kangaroo courts, torture, war crimes, and racist profiling for America’s White Judeo-Christian Males. Yet after 9/11 the fundamentally White Racist Harvard Law School Faculty and Deans have no problem with inflicting torture, kangaroo courts, war crimes, and racist profiling upon Muslims/Arabs/Asians of Color, which is exactly why they hired the war criminal Goldsmith to teach such criminal practices to their own law students and thus someday turn them into racist U.S. governmental war criminals in their own right. This is because for the most part the Harvard Law School Faculty and Deans have always been viscerally bigoted and racist against Muslims/Arabs/Asians and other People of Color since at least when I first matriculated there in September of 1971.

The Harvard Law School Faculty and Deans are no longer fit to educate Lawyers, Members of the Bar, and Officers of the Court. They are a sick joke and a demented fraud. Groucho Marx would have had a field day with them: Harvard is to Law School as Torture is to Law. The Harvard Law School Faculty and Deans torture the Law. Do not send your children or students to Harvard Law School where they will grow up to become racist war criminals! Harvard Law School is a Neo-Con cesspool.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17714.htm

[accuracy]

Terrorism Suspect Alleges 'Mental Torture'


By Eric Rich

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051500935_pf.html


A suspected terrorist who once lived in Maryland told a military tribunal that he was "mentally tortured" at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was driven to twice attempt suicide by chewing through his own arteries, according to a transcript of a hearing released yesterday by the Pentagon.

Majid Khan, 27, one of 14 "high-value" suspects held for years by the CIA at secret foreign prisons before their transfer to Guantanamo Bay, also said he lost 30 pounds in 27 days during a hunger strike, according to the transcript. In a statement redacted in places by government censors, he complained of mistreatment that ranged from having his beard forcibly shaved and spending weeks without sunlight to the poor quality of the camp's weekly newsletter, it says.

"I swear to God this place in some sense worst than CIA jails," Khan is quoted as telling the Combatant Status Review Tribunal on April 15 as it considered whether to designate him an enemy combatant.

Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, said yesterday that Khan has been "treated humanely" in the custody of the Defense Department.

According to the transcript, Khan, who graduated from public high school in suburban Baltimore in 1999, denied being a terrorist and twice volunteered to submit to a polygraph test. He told the tribunal that he helped the FBI take an illegal Pakistani immigrant into custody in 2002 -- a claim an FBI spokesman declined to comment on yesterday.

U.S. officials allege that Khan, a Pakistani national, took orders from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who is accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and is also a high-value detainee at Guantanamo Bay. Khan was allegedly asked to research how to poison U.S. reservoirs and to blow up U.S. gas stations, and was considered for an effort to assassinate the Pakistani president.

At the hearing, the government cited statements it said were made by two of Khan's family members in 2003. A brother of Khan's allegedly said that Khan was "involved with a group that he believed to be al-Qaeda," and his father allegedly said that Khan had been "influenced by anti-American thoughts."

The government also cited statements it said were made by Iyman Faris, an Ohio truck driver who pleaded guilty in 2003 to supporting a plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge and to launch a simultaneous attack on Washington. Faris said Khan referred to Mohammed as his uncle, according to the documents, and told the government that Khan once spoke of his desire to martyr himself by detonating an explosives vest to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

But Faris disavowed those earlier claims in a statement provided to the tribunal at Khan's request. "That is an absolute lie," Faris wrote of his earlier statements, saying he was coerced or deceived into making them.

Khan's father, Ali S. Khan, also provided the tribunal with a statement disavowing his and his son's earlier statements. "Anything we may have said about Majid Khan was simply out of shock because we only knew that Majid had disappeared and was pure speculation based on what FBI agents in the United States told us and pressured us to say," he wrote.

Majid Khan was detained in March 2003 while staying with a brother in Pakistan. His whereabouts were not officially disclosed until September, when President Bush named him as one of the 14 high-value detainees transferred to Guantanamo Bay.

Gitanjali Gutierrez, Khan's attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, said that Khan's response to the conditions of his confinement show how formidable they are. "He's definitely under a great deal of mental stress," she said. "The idea of indefinite detention is something that the Red Cross identified years ago as being tantamount to torture."

Some of Khan's complaints were less serious than others, including his allegation that he and other detainees are given "cheap branded, unscented soap" and must suffer with a loud fan that "drives us all crazy." He also complained about the condition of athletic equipment.

Damaging information about Khan came from Saifullah Paracha, a Guantanamo Bay detainee who provided a statement to the tribunal at Khan's request. Paracha said that, while in Karachi, he and a man later identified to him as Khan were introduced by Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of Mohammed's who is accused of helping finance the Sept. 11 attackers.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

[accuracy]

U.S. House demands plan for Guantanamo detainees

17 May 2007
Source: Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N17420590.htm

WASHINGTON, May 17 (Reuters) - Shrugging off a possible veto from President George W. Bush, the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday demanded the administration develop a plan to transfer detainees from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The 220-208 vote came on an amendment to a bill authorizing defense programs that the Democratic-led House passed overwhelmingly. The Senate has yet to act, and then the two versions will have to be reconciled.

Earlier this week the White House warned lawmakers not to "micro-manage" the treatment of Guantanamo detainees, saying any bill that blocked the administration from detaining people it has designated as "enemy combatants" could provoke a veto.

The United States is holding hundreds of suspected militants at the prison. U.S. defense officials say 95 percent are connected to Al Qaeda, the Taliban or their associates.

Lawmakers noted that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has suggested Congress should explore with the White House ways to close the prison, while not releasing its most dangerous detainees. Human rights groups have demanded that Guantanamo be closed and detainees charged with crimes or released.

The proposal by Rep. James Moran that cleared the House requires the administration to report on plans to place captives on trial, transfer them to other facilities, or release them.

'LACK OF INFORMATION'

"Whether you like it or not, whether you believe Guantanamo Bay is a blight on our international standing, or whether you believe these detainees should be held and tried in the United States, we should all agree the policy options before the president and Congress should not be limited by a lack of information," the Virginia Democrat said.

Pentagon officials say they plan to try about 80 of the 385 Guantanamo detainees under a military commissions structure set up by Congress last year. Those trials are scheduled to begin this summer. The Pentagon also has about 80 detainees it wants to transfer to other countries. The rest are in legal limbo.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat, pledged to offer another bill soon to restore to Guantanamo detainees rights that Congress limited last year to challenge their imprisonment.

Moran's amendment was denounced by House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, who said Democrats "are leading us down the road to importing dangerous terrorists into our local communities" as Guantanamo prisoners are moved.

Boehner also disparaged the bill's cuts in missile defense programs as "a giant step backwards." The legislation would cut $160 million the administration wanted to develop a missile defense interceptor site in Poland. But it also says that if a deal on the site is reached with Poland before Sept. 30, 2008, the administration can ask again for the money.

The mammoth defense bill authorizes $504 billion for defense programs. It calls for increases of 13,000 Army and 9,000 Marine Corps active duty personnel over current authorized level.

It also allocates $142 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan during fiscal 2008, which starts Oct. 1, but for this to take effect, a partner defense appropriations bill must pass later this year.

Democrats want to wind down the Iraq war, but House leaders decided not to fight that battle on this defense programs legislation. They are negotiating with the White House over whether to approve a separate Iraq war funding bill with money for the current fiscal year.

[accuracy]

Shell-Shocked at Abu Ghraib?

Friday, May. 18, 2007

By ADAM ZAGORIN/WASHINGTON
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1622881,00.html
http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2007/0705/abu_ghraib_dog_0519.jpg
A photograph from Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison.
Polaris

Did the senior U.S. officer at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison suffer a breakdown after a deadly mortar attack, setting the stage for the worst Army abuse scandal in a generation? And did the Army then knowingly use the testimony of a commanding officer who may have been mentally unfit to prosecute subordinates for their roles at Abu Ghraib?


Those troubling questions about Col. Thomas Pappas are being raised in the walkup to one of the final trials stemming from the abuses at Abu Ghraib, which has resulted in a handful of enlisted men going to prison — while top officers, including Pappas, have suffered few if any legal consequences. Under a grant of immunity, Pappas, who has already testified at the courts martial of other subordinates, is scheduled to give evidence in the August trial of his former deputy, Lt. Col. Steven Jordan. Jordan faces six counts and up to 16 1/2 years in prison for alleged cruelty and maltreatment of prisoners, dereliction of duty and other charges. His defense team has already raised questions in court of the mental competence of unnamed prosecution witnesses, one of whom is believed to be Pappas.

Pappas's mental state in Iraq was first publicly questioned in The Lucifer Effect, a best-selling book by Dr. Philip Zimbardo, the Stanford University psychologist and expert on detention who conducted the well-known "Stanford Prison Experiment" — a 1971 simulation in which students were asked to play the role of guards — and who also testified as an expert witness in one of the Abu Ghraib trials. The book claims that Pappas, who ran intelligence at Abu Ghraib, was declared "not combat fit" after he survived a devastating mortar attack on September 20, 2003 — just weeks before the notorious abuses began to unfold. The attack — which killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded others but left Pappas physically unharmed — caused the Colonel to repeatedly exhibit bizarre behavior, the book says, while alleging that his "deteriorating mental condition did not permit him to provide the vitally necessary supervision of his soldiers working in the prison."

Zimbardo told TIME that he was not at liberty to name his source for the allegations concerning Pappas's mental condition. But he said the individual was "a senior U.S. military officer who had been present at Abu Ghraib and was in a position to know what happened." Zimbardo added that he had no doubt about the authenticity of the report. A military lawyer representing Pappas had no comment on the allegations concerning her client's mental condition.

Jordan's defense team has asked the Army to turn over records of mental evaluations of two unnamed prospective court-martial witnesses. One is thought to be Pappas. The other, according to Jordan's lawyer, has admitted to being medically treated for shell shock stemming from his service at Abu Ghraib. This week the judge ordered the Army to locate the mental evaluations, if they exist, and give them to the tribunal for review. It remains unclear who may have actually labeled Pappas "not combat fit", or if the records sought by the court will even address his psychological condition.

Experts on military law say the Pappas situation is murky and likely to require further investigation. If it could be determined that he was unfit or suffered from diminished capacity in Iraq, the next question would be whether Army prosecutors knew, or should have known, about his alleged condition when he was called to testify in earlier cases. More broadly, says Eugene Fidell, a lawyer who is president of the National Institute for Military Justice, "if officers in Iraq above Pappas were aware — or should have been aware — that he was impaired, then they should have relieved him of duty."

The attack that allegedly affected Pappas so deeply took place on the night of September 20, 2003, when mortar shells began to fall on Abu Ghraib. Pappas was holding a conference in a tent outside the main prison building with his driver and his deputy, Lt. Col. Jordan, along with others. The incoming shell killed his driver instantly; another solider died in the attack and several were injured, but Pappas was not hurt.

Several hours later, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, then the top officer in Iraq in charge of detention, encountered Pappas. "His face was completely drawn, no expression, blank, ashen color. He said in a very flat voice 'They killed my driver, the guy never did anything wrong,'" Karpinski told TIME. "He was in total shock. It wasn't anger, it was beyond anger — he just looked lost, he didn't know what to do."

Shortly after that, Karpinski says, Pappas briefed Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the overall U.S. commander in Iraq. "At that point, Pappas just did not seem to be stable, but who could blame him after what he had just been through," says Karpinski, who was demoted after Abu Ghraib but has claimed that she was made a scapegoat in order to deflect blame from higher-ranking officers (She has since left the military.) "He was incoherent, maybe just running on adrenaline, but he would unpredictably shift from one topic to another . . ."

Karpinski found him to be in a similar state at a scheduled weekly meeting that she attended with Pappas and others in Baghdad's Green Zone soon after. "He wasn't making any sense ... he was disoriented. The only thing he could focus on was the memorial service [for those killed in the mortar attack] — on that he had clarity."

According to Zimbardo's book, which relied on interviews with a variety of Abu Ghraib personnel, "Pappas was so affected by this sudden horror [the mortar attack] that he never again took off his flak jacket. . . It was reported to me that he always wore his [flak] jacket and hard helmet, even when showering." Several Abu Ghraib veterans also told TIME that Pappas tried to avoid going outside the prison building, and even moved an exercise bicycle into his quarters to avoid having to move around unprotected areas. But another veteran of the prison, Major David Dinenna, said he did not believe Pappas was impaired, though quite a few other soldiers were suffering from battle stress from the same shelling.

Several Abu Ghraib veterans told TIME that "combat stress teams" were dispatched to the prison to give psychological counseling to shell-shocked U.S. victims of the Sept. 20 attack. It remains unclear whether Pappas received any treatment. But one of his subordinates, intelligence analyst Armin Cruz, who was later accused of abuse at Abu Ghraib, specifically cited the Sept. 20 mortar attack at his plea bargain. Cruz, who struggled unsuccessfully to save the life of a fellow soldier wounded in the attack, claimed he had repeatedly sought and failed to receive treatment for shell shock in its aftermath. At his sentencing, a military judge asked Cruz to explain why he had forced prisoners to strip naked. After a long pause, Cruz said, he had mentally connected the prisoners with Iraqis insurgents who killed two members of his company in the mortar attack one month earlier.

In fact, Abu Ghraib came under regular mortar fire from insurgents, sometimes three or four times a week. The decision to site the facility in a combat zone was a clear violation of the Geneva Convention, experts say, and doing so cost scores of American and Iraqi lives — far more than were killed in the abuse scandal itself.

U.S. military doctrine stresses that those who guard prisoners of war should not be in combat, because the hostility and aggression necessary to fight must be directed at the enemy, not at prisoners. But with Abu Ghraib under threat of mortar fire, many of those stationed there have said they were in a perpetual state of tension and fear, the well-known antecedents to shell-shock, also known as post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

Ken Davis, an Abu Ghraib veteran who has since left the military said the mortar attacks, "made everyone fear the Iraqis, and people stopped telling the difference between the Iraqi enemy shelling us and the Iraqi guys in our prison ... and that's a lot of what led to the abuse." As Karpinski put it: "The mortar attacks changed everything, because they made people angry, like 'we're going to get these guys,' and the prison is filling up with Iraqis — the impetus to seek vengeance went higher."

Whatever the impact of the mortar attacks, there is no question that Pappas, a decorated officer, made many serious mistakes in their aftermath. An Army investigation found that he failed to ensure that soldiers under his direct command were properly trained in interrogation procedures; they did not know, understand or follow the protections for prisoners required by the Geneva Convention. Ultimately, however, Pappas was punished for only two violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He lost $8000 in pay and was called upon to testify against subordinates.

[accuracy]

Suit claims U.S. illegally spied on detainees' lawyers

A civil liberties group seeks records from the NSA's warrantless wiretap program.

By Henry Weinstein, Times Staff Writer
May 18, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-wiretap18may18,1,4308503.story?coll=la-news-a_section&ctrack=1&cset=true

A civil liberties organization on Thursday sued the Justice Department and the National Security Agency in New York federal court, alleging that the government illegally spied on 16 lawyers who have represented detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba.

The suit, filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, demands that the agencies comply with requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act to turn over all records of the NSA's warrantless wiretapping of the attorneys.

The secret eavesdropping program was launched after the Sept. 11 attacks and came to light in December 2005. In January 2006, the center submitted requests for records pertaining to the surveillance of the lawyers, said Shayana Kadidal, a center attorney.

The NSA and the Department of Justice refused to provide relevant documents within the required time, the plaintiffs' attorneys said.

"I am outraged that the NSA and DOJ have categorically refused to say whether they have eavesdropped — without a warrant — on me or other attorneys simply because we have fought for basic due process for men imprisoned without charge or trial at Guantanamo," said New York lawyer Wells Dixon, one of the plaintiffs.

The government had no comment on the lawsuit. U.S. officials have acknowledged the existence of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, saying that it targets telephone calls and e-mails "only when one party is outside the U.S. and there is probable cause to believe that at least one party is a member or agent of Al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization." But they have declined to provide details, saying it would harm efforts in the war on terrorism.

"The government believes … that pretty much all of our post 9/11 clients" have links to terrorism, Kadidal said. "So we think our calls to them fit the narrow category of calls," Kadidal said, "that Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales" told Congress the NSA was targeting.

*

[accuracy]

Three Swedes Freed From Ethiopia

20/05/2007



Three Swedish men have been released by Ethiopia after being detained for five months on suspicion of helping Islamist militants in Somalia.



A spokeswoman for Sweden's foreign ministry said the three men, who were originally arrested in Somalia, were now back in Sweden.




Spokeswoman Nina Ersman said the three had not been charged with any offence.




Ethiopia has said it detained a number of people after its army helped drive Islamists out of Somalia's capital.




Two of the men are Swedish nationals and one has permanent residency status in Sweden. Their names have not been released.




Sweden's foreign ministry had been demanding the release of the detainees for several weeks.




"I would like to express my gratitude to all foreign ministry officials who made this possible," Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said in a statement.



A lawyer for the three men said there had been no notification from Ethiopia that they would be released.




Ethiopia's government said in April that it had detained 41 people from 17 countries after its army helped Somalia's transitional government drive militias allied to the Union of Islamic Courts out of Mogadishu at the end of last year.




Some detainees were deported from Kenya, where many Somalis fled the fighting in Mogadishu.




Ethiopia has defended the detentions as part of its efforts to combat international terrorism in the Horn of Africa.




Human rights groups say US agents have been allowed to interrogate the detainees as part of the hunt for al-Qaeda suspects in the region.



SOURCE: BBC News

[accuracy]

Jailed Terror Suspects Hold Hunger Strike

Isabel Teotonio

Staff Reporter




The Canadian terrorism suspects being held at the Maplehurst Correctional Complex began a hunger strike yesterday after one of their co-accused claimed he was beaten by jailhouse staff, say several relatives.




The incident, they say, began when Steven Chand was allegedly told by a guard that his time in the shower was up. Chand claimed he still had soap in his hair but was pulled from the shower, beaten and dragged, crying and screaming, to his cell.




According to relatives, Chand told his co-accused what had occurred before he was "thrown into the hole," said Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal, wife of one of the accused.




"My husband saw (Chand) being dragged by the hair," she said, recounting what Abdul Qayyum Jamal told her on the phone. "He said (Chand) had a bruise on his head and was asking to see the doctor."




The men were among 18 adults and youths arrested last year, and alleged to be part of a homegrown terrorism cell plotting to bomb several targets in southern Ontario.




Maplehurst staff would not comment.









SOURCE: Toronto Star

[accuracy]

US Government won’t pay compensation to ex-Kazakh prisoners of Guantanamo Kazinform, Kazakhstan

22-5-07

http://www.inform.kz/showarticle.php?lang=eng&id=151768

(I cannot copy and paste the article, so please check out the link-accuracy)

[accuracy]

Naval officer sentenced to six months in prison, discharge

By KATE WILTROUT, The Virginian-Pilot
© May 19, 2007
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=124988&ran=30838

NORFOLK - A Navy lawyer so disillusioned with the government's handling of foreign detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that he sent classified information about 550 men in custody there to a civilian attorney was sentenced Friday to six months in prison and dismissal from the service.

Lt. Cmdr. Matthew M. Diaz was convicted Thursday on four of five charges stemming from his actions in early January 2005, while stationed at Guantanamo Bay.

http://media.hamptonroads.com/media/content/pilotonline/2007/05/diaz-matthew208x153.jpg
Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Diaz

The most serious conviction - violating the Espionage Act by sending classified information to someone not entitled to receive it - carried the possibility of a 10-year sentence.

The four charges carried a maximum 14-year sentence.

"I am very, very happy with the results," Diaz said before leaving the courtroom at Norfolk Naval Station. He began his sentence in the brig Friday night.

The seven-member jury of officers took more than three hours to determine Diaz's sentence - longer than they spent convicting him.

The military justice system doesn't have sentencing guidelines, only maximum punishments, and military juries have wide latitude in imposing punishments.

The sentencing hearing began with emotional testimony from the officer's ex-wife, Melissa Diaz-Reed; their daughter, Anna Marie Diaz; and his current wife, also named Anna Marie Diaz. All three women live in Jacksonville, Fla., where Diaz is currently stationed.

His 15-year-old daughter described her father as her best friend.

"He does everything for me," Anna Marie Diaz said, her voice breaking. "When I have a dance performance, he's always there. When I need help with school, he helps me."

Diaz-Reed and Diaz's wife, who is in nursing school, also offered teary-eyed accounts of how they would suffer if Diaz was sent to prison or kicked out of the Navy.

But the most riveting moments came later, when Diaz offered an unsworn statement and explained his intent when he mailed a list of the so-called "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo to Barbara Olshansky in January 2005.

Olshansky, then a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, had been part of a landmark lawsuit leading to the Supreme Court's decision in Rasul v. Bush the previous year. The court ruled on June 28, 2004, that Guantanamo detainees had a right to challenge their detention in federal court.

Diaz arrived at Guantanamo a week later for a six-month tour as deputy staff judge advocate.

He said the government's refusal to release detainee names didn't comply with the spirit of the Rasul case.

"I felt there was some stonewalling on what they were entitled to by the government," Diaz said, facing the jury. "The Supreme Court had decided, and I felt we were unnecessarily placing obstacles in the way. "

The government released the names of those in custody in 2006 in response to a lawsuit brought by The Associated Press.

Prosecutors argued the names weren't the heart of the case. It was other identifying information from the intelligence database that could have jeopardized national security, they said, such as the country where detainees were captured and the interrogation teams handling them.

"One thing I want to make clear is that this was not about the release of names," lead prosecutor Cmdr. Rex Guinn said after sentencing.

"We think this will send a clear message you can't just release classified information, no matter how good an intention you think you have."

In his 37-minute appearance before the jury, Diaz answered questions from his lawyer. He was self-critical, saying his misconduct "has caused a lot of harm to a lot of people."

He said he could have chosen other options to express his disagreement with the government's handling of the legal issues surrounding Guantanamo Bay.

"I could have gone to the chief of staff, I could have gone to the IG (inspector general)," or to his commanding officers in Guantanamo, Diaz said. "There were a lot of better ways to do this, and I didn't take those better ways."

He also criticized his decision to send the information to Olshansky anonymously, saying he mailed the information off in a goofy-looking Valentine "for selfish reasons."

"I wasn't really willing to put my neck on the line, to jeopardize my career," he said. " So I did it anonymously. I'm disgraced, I'm ashamed. I was an inspiration to my family. I let them down. I let the JAG Corps down. I let the Navy down."

Though Diaz's prison term was far less than maximum, he may be more affected in the long run by losing his job, benefits and retirement.

Military members convicted of certain crimes forfeit their pay and benefits almost immediately. The jury recommended, however, that Diaz receive his pay and benefits for six more months because of his dependents.

Rear Adm. Rick Ruehe, who oversees the Navy's Mid-Atlantic region, must approve the waiver and sign off on the jury's sentence. He cannot impose a longer or harsher punishment but could decide to lessen it.

Even if Ruehe decides not to endorse Diaz's dismissal, his conviction on an espionage charge could trigger a federal provision that would prevent him from collecting a government pension.

Diaz spent more than 20 years in uniform, entering the Army as an enlisted soldier in 1983 as a high school dropout. He earned his GED and most of the credits toward a bachelor's degree while in the Army, Diaz said Friday.

In 1991, he enrolled in Washburn University School of Law in Kansas, and re-entered the military as a member of the Navy JAG Corps in 1995.

[accuracy]

ACLU Welcomes Guantanamo Closure Bill

5/23/2007
http://www.aclu.org/natsec/gen/29864prs20070523.html

WASHINGTON - The ACLU today welcomed Senator Tom Harkin's (D-IA) introduction of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility Closure Act of 2007, a bill that would close the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The bill cuts off funds for everything except sending charged or sentenced detainees to Fort Leavenworth and transferring the remaining detainees to their home countries or other countries that will not torture or abuse them. The bill 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 charge and without knowing the reason for their detention. It will also provide an incentive for the government to finally charge those detainees the government believes are guilty of crimes against the United States.

The bill requires the president to close the facility within 120 days of enactment. Within that time, detainees will be sent either to the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Ft. Leavenworth, KS, or transferred to another country that will not torture or abuse them. The Secretary of Defense can obtain an additional renewal period of 120 days to hold the detainee if the government is preparing charges and has a logistical need for the additional time.


"This administration has turned the Guantanamo Bay prison into a dungeon, and thrown away the key" said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "Locking people up, without ever bringing charges, is not consistent with American values and must stop. Senator Harkin’s bill ensures that criminals or terrorists will be prosecuted but allows other detainees to go home."

Fort Leavenworth is the military's prison specifically designated, designed, and built by the Defense Department to hold national security prisoners. The decision to use Ft. Leavenworth closely tracks a recent statement by Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who said, if elected president, "I would immediately close Guantanamo Bay, move all the prisoners to Fort Leavenworth and truly expedite the judicial proceedings in their cases."

"Senator Harkin’s bill sets a hard deadline for closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and restoring America’s values," said Chris Anders, legislative counsel to the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "It is tough legislation--it requires the government to finally get its act together and start charging and trying anyone alleged to be guilty, and send everyone else back to their home countries or other places that won’t torture or abuse them. The Guantanamo Bay prison violates core American values. It’s time to shut it down and return to the rule of law."

© ACLU, 125 Broad Street, 18th Floor New York, NY 10004

[accuracy]

Senate Moves to Expand Detainee Rights

May 25 2007
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070525/D8PBMN0G0.html

By ANNE FLAHERTY

ASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Democrats are backing a bill that would grant new rights to terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including access to a lawyer regardless of whether the prisoners are put on trial.

The proposal, approved this week by the Senate Armed Services Committee, also would narrow the definition of an enemy combatant and tighten restrictions on the types of evidence used to prosecute and keep a person detained.

The bill is aimed primarily at increasing legal protections for the hundreds of people captured by the United States and held for years on suspicion of terror ties without a trial. Only those selected for prosecution - typically the most high-profile suspected terrorists - are guaranteed legal counsel and other rights when they go to court.

The legislation has raised red flags at the White House as potential veto bait and among congressional Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, who said he was concerned that aspects of the bill may go too far.

"Any changes have to meet the test for me that they will not compromise our ability to wage war," said Graham, R-S.C., in a telephone interview Friday.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, tucked the new detainee measure into a $649 billion defense policy bill for budget year 2008, which begins Oct. 1.

The legislation would affect the roughly 380 detainees currently held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Only two detainees have been identified to stand trial, although the Defense Department says it plans to bring charges against about 75 more. About 80 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are slated for release.

Under the current system, President Bush can detain any individual suspected of engaging in or supporting terrorism. Only those selected for trial are provided lawyers and guaranteed access to evidence used against them.

The others are appointed a military representative and regularly undergo reviews by a panel of military officers to determine whether they still pose a threat to the U.S. The panel is allowed to use hearsay and classified information as evidence - none of which is required to be provided to the detainee.

Although Democrats supported the GOP legislation at the time, many party members - including Levin - said they feared Congress did not go far enough to prevent the abuse of prisoners being held without trial.

Accordingly, Levin drafted the committee bill that would impose new restrictions when reviewing a person's status as an enemy combatant. The measure would assign each detainee legal counsel, put a military judge in charge and require the disclosure of evidence during the reviews.

It also further restricts the use of coerced testimony and hearsay evidence.

Under the current system, coerced testimony is allowed if the statement was acquired before a 2005 ban on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment took effect and if a judge finds it to be reliable.

The new legislation creates a new standard banning coerced testimony regardless of the date it was taken.

In addition, the bill would tighten the definition of who qualifies as an enemy combatant - a step intended to prevent the detention of people unknowingly associated with terrorist groups.

The provisions were described by a Senate Democratic aide, who requested anonymity because details will not be released until after Congress returns from its Memorial Day recess on June 4.

The committee bill was drafted behind closed doors and approved by a 25-0 vote.

Republicans, including Graham and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the ranking minority member on the panel, did not raise any formal objections to the detainee provisions.

But Graham said he probably will try to amend the bill when the Senate debates it on the floor in late June. Graham said he is open to legislation that provides each detainee legal counsel but has concerns that the other provisions could restrict the ability to detain and prosecute terrorists.

"I am open to making the process better," Graham said. But "it has to meet the test that we're in a shooting war."

The bill does not address the issue of habeas corpus, considered to fall under the jurisdiction of the Senate and House Judiciary committees. Under the current system, military detainees are barred from filing habeas corpus petitions to protest their detentions in court.


© 2007 IAC Search & Media. All rights reserved

[accuracy]

British Resident Held At Guantanamo Faces Transfer To Jordan

26/05/2007
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=20448

By: ANDREW O. SELSKY - Associated Press


Jamil el-Banna has been locked up by the United States for nearly five years without being charged -- arrested in Africa, allegedly tortured at a CIA "black site" in Afghanistan, then held at Guantanamo Bay -- all because of faulty British intelligence, his defenders charge.


http://www.cageprisoners.com/art_images/20070526113526.jpg

Now his lawyers have a new worry. The British government told them Friday that el-Banna had been cleared for transfer to his native Jordan, where he says he was tortured before becoming a political refugee in Britain in 1997.




His lawyers decried the move, charging that sending him back amounted to the U.S. outsourcing torture.






"We are going to block his rendition to Jordan," attorney Clive Stafford Smith told The Associated Press. "To be sure, he would be out of (Guantanamo), but it would be from the frying pan into the fire."




Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, refused to discuss el-Banna, who is under indictment in Spain for allegedly joining a terrorist group and who admits associating with Islamic extremists but denies having anything to do with al-Qaida or any other terror activity.




British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently told Parliament that he opposes el-Banna's return to Britain, where the detainee's wife and five British-citizen children live and where -- according to an opposition lawmaker -- official mishandling of intelligence information got him arrested in the first place.




Censored intelligence documents released by Britain to defense attorneys and a transcript of a Guantanamo hearing, both viewed by the AP, trace el-Banna's story:




His troubles started after a British MI5 intelligence officer visited his home near London one overcast morning in October 2002 and tried to get him to become a paid informant.




El-Banna, who is of Palestinian origin, was comfortable in Britain, repairing cars for sale at auction and performing faith healings while raising his family. But after the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S., British spies were interested in him because of his associations with radical Muslims.




Abu Qatada, a Muslim cleric described by a Spanish judge as Osama bin Laden's "spiritual ambassador in Europe," had been el-Banna's neighbor in Pakistan, where el-Banna worked in the early 1990s for a Saudi charity helping Afghan refugees.




In Jordan, el-Banna belonged to a radical Palestinian support group linked to Iran and Syria -- which is what got him in trouble with Jordanian authorities.




El-Banna also had spoken with Imad Barakat Yarkas, an alleged al-Qaida cell leader later jailed in Spain, and he was among hundreds of Muslims who regularly attended sermons in Abu Qatada's London-area mosque.




But the MI5 officer wrote that el-Banna "did not give any hint of willingness to cooperate with us."




His lawyers confirmed he didn't want to become an informant.




"He had nothing to do with Islamic extremism, and he did not want his life to be one of an informant," said Stafford Smith. "He was quite happy living the way he was living; he did not want their money, and he had four (now five) young kids to look after, who did not need to be exposed to jeopardy."




Unbeknownst to el-Banna, his friend Bisher al-Rawi, an Iraqi living in Britain, was helping MI5 keep tabs on London's Muslim community.




At the time, Abu Qatada was in hiding to avoid arrest under Britain's anti-terrorism laws, and al-Rawi relayed messages between MI5 and the cleric. El-Banna, meanwhile, sometimes drove Abu Qatada's wife and children to the imam's hideout as a favor to al-Rawi, el-Banna's lawyers said.




Al-Rawi also recruited el-Banna on the trip that ended with their arrest in Africa. El-Banna, then on welfare while working under the table, planned to manage a Gambian peanut oil plant, and the MI5 officer assured him he could travel.




El-Banna and al-Rawi were detained at Gatwick Airport the next day, however. According to an MI5 memo written that day -- Nov. 1, 2002 -- "some form of homemade electronic device" found in al-Rawi's bag could have been used in a car bomb.




British authorities released the men three days later and let them go to Africa after deciding the device was simply "a commercially available battery charger that had been modified by al-Rawi in order to make it more powerful."




But their fate was sealed when MI5 sent the Nov. 1 memo to U.S. intelligence and alerted Gambian security, which arrested the two friends and handed them over to the CIA.




An MI5 memo 10 days later noted the men had been released in Britain because the device wasn't so suspicious after all, but that memo was never forwarded to U.S. intelligence, say el-Banna's lawyers and Parliament member Sarah Teather, whose constituents include el-Banna's family.




A lawsuit that defense lawyer Brent Mickum filed April 26 with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia charges that while in CIA custody, el-Banna was interrogated, beaten and subjected to "stress and duress techniques." It alleges he was flown to Afghanistan, where he was tortured in a dungeon-like cell at one of the CIA's "black sites."




Al-Rawi was also taken to Afghanistan, and several months later the two were moved to Guantanamo.




CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano denied abuse would have occurred. "To suggest that CIA officers beat anyone during interrogations -- or, more generally, conduct torture at all -- is simply wrong," Gimigliano told the AP.




Britain's Home Office, which oversees MI5, declined to discuss the case.




El-Banna, who turns 45 on Monday, faced a Combatant Status Review Tribunal at Guantanamo more than two years after his arrest. The hearing was meant to determine whether he was an enemy combatant.




The transcript shows the Pentagon didn't have his name right.




While some evidence presented at the hearing remains secret, an unclassified summary alleged el-Banna is a member of al-Qaida and visited Abu Qatada while the cleric was in hiding.




The summary noted el-Banna is under indictment in Spain for allegedly joining a terrorist group. And it returned to the same dubious British intelligence, adding other errors. The summary said el-Banna "was arrested in Gambia while attempting to board an airplane with equipment that resembled a homemade electronic device."




Two years after police in Britain -- not Gambia -- confiscated the device from his friend, it was left to el-Banna to explain that British authorities had figured out it was just a battery-charger.




"The tragedy is that he is innocent," Mickum said. "Jamil is a tragic pawn in the system ... held in a legal limbo, a legal no-man's land, where he has absolutely no rights and no redress to a court."




Al-Rawi was freed from Guantanamo this March after his help for MI5 was disclosed, but Blair has ruled out British help for el-Banna.




"Jamil and Bisher were sent to Guantanamo because of the same faulty evidence provided by British security services," said Teather, the legislator. "But while Bisher has been brought home, Tony Blair has left Jamil to face mistreatment and indefinite imprisonment at the hands of America."




Confronted by Teather about the case in Parliament last month, Blair said it's important that Britain "not take on responsibility" for Guantanamo detainees who are not British citizens.




"It is always important to remember that there have been real issues about them and their conduct over a period of time," Blair said.




One of those issues is el-Banna's links to Yarkas, the alleged al-Qaida operative jailed in Spain.




Mickum said Yarkas merely hired el-Banna to perform a faith healing on his wife. The United States has not heeded an extradition request for el-Banna submitted in 2004 by Spain, where he would have the right to a trial.




-- AP writers Katherine Schrader in Washington and Mar Roman in Madrid, Spain, contributed to this report.






SOURCE: NCTimes.com

[accuracy]

Child porn gets Abu Ghraib contractor 3 years in prison

Monday, May 28, 2007
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news/policebeat.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2007-05-28-0155.html

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ALEXANDRIA -- A U.S. contractor who worked at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad has been sentenced to more than three years in prison for possessing child pornography. He had obtained it using the prison's computer network.

Ahmed Hasan Khan, 31, of Woodbridge was working at Abu Ghraib for contractor L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. in November 2005 when a network administrator at the prison saw that Khan had been visiting suspicious sites. A search of Khan's laptop computer later found hundreds of child pornography images, including of children as young as 4.

Khan apologized for his actions at Friday's sentencing hearing.

"I let my country down at a time when it needed its armed services the most," he said.

The three-year, five-month sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton was at the low end of sentencing guidelines that called for a term of 41 to 51 months.

It is not clear exactly what kind of work Khan was doing at Abu Ghraib. Court records indicate he held a security clearance that was revoked after the investigation.

[accuracy]

US lawyers ask Yemen to act to repatriate citizens from Guantanamo

By Khaled al-Mahidi May 27, 2007,
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/article_1310024.php/US_lawyers_ask_Yemen_to_act_to_repatriate_citizens _from_Guantanamo

Sana'a - A team of US lawyers representing Yemeni nationals imprisoned at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appealed to the Yemeni government on Sunday to take 'assertive and affirmative' steps to secure the release of its citizens.

'The Yemen government must take assertive and affirmative steps to apply for the release of its citizens,' said Martha Rayner, a lawyer who represents two of more than 100 Yemeni men locked up at Guantanamo.

She told a Sana'a press conference that Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his government should exert visible efforts for the release of Yemeni detainees.

'Of course the United States is to blame for the tragedy of Guantanamo, but the Yemeni government must shoulder some of the responsibility,' Rayner said at the news conference that was attended by detainees' families and other members of the 14-member team of US lawyers.

'They must shoulder some of the responsibility for the shameful number of men who remained at Guantanamo, and they must take responsibility to change that reality,' she added.

Rayner further said Saleh and other Yemeni officials have repeatedly made public remarks that Yemen has been demanding the repatriation of its citizens from Guantanamo.

The New York-based lawyer said Saleh needs 'to back his words with actions.'

She said that a White House press statement, issued at the conclusion of Saleh's meeting with US President George W Bush in Washington early this month, claimed that Saleh voiced his wish that Yemenis would not be released from Guantanamo.

'Our delegation wants to meet President Saleh for many reasons, but most important among these reasons is the need for the president to debunk President Bush's lie, the lie that Yemen has been behind the dearth of repatriation,' she said.

Some 384 men from several countries are still imprisoned at Guantanamo, over one quarter of them are Yemenis. Of the more than 100 Yemeni detainees, only ten have been sent home.

Five of the returning detainees were released by Yemeni authorities while the rest were charged with falsifying identification documents. None were charged with terrorism-related activities.


© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

[accuracy]

Guantanamo detainee in plea for fellow journalist

May 28, 2007
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1848263.ece

An al-Jazeera journalist held in Guantanamo Bay has made an impassioned plea for the release of Alan Johnston, the kidnapped BBC reporter.

Sami al-Hajj, a cameraman for the Arabic satellite network, appealed to the Palestinian group holding Mr Johnston to set him free immediately and unconditionally.

The Times has obtained a copy of al-Hajj’s statement issued from the Guantanamo Bay internment camp in Cuba where he has been on hunger strike for 140 days. Addressing the kidnappers in Gaza, al-Hajj said: “Please, as brothers in one faith, consider this gift that I request of you: That you release Alan Johnston as soon as possible, without conditions.” He added that his prolonged detention without trial by the US “is not a lesson that Muslims should copy”.

Johnston, 45, was snatched in Gaza on March 12 as he drove home from the BBC’s office. A little-known group called Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) claims that it is holding him and has issued a videotape to al-Jazeera that contains foot-age of Johnston’s BBC identity card. The group has demanded the release of Abu Qatada, the radical Palestinian cleric being held at Long Lartin high security prison in Worcestershire, in return for Johnston’s freedom.

Yesterday, a top Palestinian official said that he had received assurances from Jaish al-Islam that Johnston was alive and well. “We have different channels, different contacts to reach these people and I am sure that he is well and he is healthy,” Ghazi Hamad, a spokesman for the Palestinian Government, said in an interview at the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts.

However, there has been no concrete proof of any progress.

[accuracy]

Judge in Padilla case draws praise

By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer

Mon May 28,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070528/ap_on_re_us/padilla_judge;_ylt=AhzxL1LslpLCnh7zPkrmg0NvzwcF

MIAMI - The trial of suspected al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla is by far the biggest ever for U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke, and she is drawing praise for how she has handled the pressure and the complexity of the case.

Appointed by President Bush in 2004, Cooke has the least experience on the bench of any federal judge in Florida's southern district. But those in legal circles say that has not been an issue.

"Judge Cooke seems to be handling a very difficult, extremely high-profile case very well," said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who has closely followed the case. "The judge in this type of case is under enormous pressure because every action is so closely scrutinized by the attorneys, the press and the public."

Padilla and two co-defendants are accused of being part of a support cell for Islamic extremist groups involved in violence around the world, with Padilla allegedly attending an al-Qaida terror training camp.

Testimony in the trial of Padilla and co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi is scheduled to resume Tuesday, with the jury likely this week to begin hearing FBI wiretap intercepts.

Before she became the district's first black woman federal judge, Cooke, 52, acquired broad legal experience. She was an assistant U.S. attorney and county attorney in Miami, was Florida's chief inspector general under former Gov. Jeb Bush and served as a federal magistrate judge in Detroit.

Cooke also worked in legal aid services and the public defender's office in Detroit after getting her law degree from Wayne State University in 1977.

Born in Sumter, S.C., Cooke grew up in Detroit where her father was a funeral director and her mother a public schools administrator. She graduated from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in 1975.

The diplomatic skills she learned there may have helped her in this case. Padilla's entry in 2005 brought a whole host of complications, including defense claims that he was tortured while he was held at a Navy brig as an enemy combatant and that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder because of it.

Siding with federal prosecutors, Cooke would not permit the torture allegations to become part of the case and found Padilla mentally fit to stand trial. She also refused to dismiss the charges on claims that his lengthy detention violated constitutional speedy trial rights, ruling that what happened to Padilla before he arrived in Miami was irrelevant.

Padilla, a 36-year-old U.S. citizen, was initially accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" inside the United States, but those allegations are not part of the Miami indictment.

Cooke has also frequently ruled for the defense, including an order early on that Padilla not be brought to her courtroom in chains and shackles. She dismissed the most serious charge in the indictment — conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas — as duplicative of other charges in the same case, but the charge was reinstated by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after the government appealed.

Defense lawyers say Cooke has shown she would not just follow the government line.

"It showed true courage to rule for the defense in a case like this," said David O. Markus, president of the Miami chapter of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "There is an awful lot of pressure to rule for the government and that would have been the safer course."

Cooke declined to be interviewed, citing the ongoing trial. Federal prosecutors also declined to comment.

Miami defense attorney Neal Sonnett, who like Cooke has taught legal courses at the University of Miami, said he has known Cooke for more than 14 years.

"She is extremely bright, has a thorough understanding of criminal law and is fair to both sides," Sonnett said. "I have enormous respect for her."

____

[accuracy]

Yemen is mum so far on Gitmo repatriation

Tue, May. 29, 2007
http://www.miamiherald.com/416/story/122000.html

BY AHMED AL HAJ
Associated Press

SAN'A, Yemen -- A U.S. attorney representing Yemenicaptives at Guantánamo Bay said Tuesday that her group of visiting American lawyers failed to meet with Yemen's president and several senior officials to convince them to accept the return home of some of those prisoners.

''Yemen refuses to take back its detainees in the Guantánamo Bay, which contradicts official statements that the country was working to get them back,'' said Tina M. Foster, an attorney with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights.

Yemeni lawyer Khaled al Ansi, coordinator of the Yemeni Organization for the Defense of Rights and Freedoms, said that the 15 American lawyers who have been in the country for a week were ``disappointed in failing to meet the president, the interior minister and senior national security officials.''

But the lawyers met with the families of some detainees and assured them that they were still trying to solve the problem, al Ansi said.

According to Foster, after meeting with President Bush during a visit to the United States earlier this, President Ali Abdullah Saleh said he had discussed with the U.S. administration the issue of the detained Yemenis and had called for handing them over to Yemen.

''President Saleh's words should be translated into action . . . words are not enough as there are more than 100 Yemenis in detention and only eight have been returned,'' Foster told The Associated Press.

Foster added that the Yemeni government has rejected U.S. conditions for sending the Guantánamo Yemenis back to their country, which are the same as applied to other countries.

She did not elaborate on those conditions.

However, Foster said the lawyers managed to meet with Yemen Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al Kerbi and Human Rights Minister Huda al Ban.

In December, six Yemenis were released from the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay. Last June, the body of a Yemeni and two Saudi Arabians who committed suicide at the prison were sent to their homelands.

Yemen, the ancestral land of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has largely allied itself with the United States in the war on terror. About 380 men are being held at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base on suspicion of links to al Qaeda or the Taliban.

[accuracy]

Shrinks and the SERE Technique at Guantanamo

By Stephen Soldz

05/29/07 "ICH" -- -- The Defense Department (DoD) has just declassified a report from their Inspector General (OIG) looking at the various investigations that the Department has conducted into repeated claims of detainee abuse--a.k.a. "torture" and "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment"--banned by international and United States law. The report documents that the various DoD "investigations were, individually and in total, inadequate:

Allegations of detainee abuse were not consistently reported, investigated, or managed in an effective, systematic, and timely manner. Multiple reporting channels were available for reporting allegations and, once reported, command discretion could be used in determining the action to be taken on the reported allegation. We did not identify any specific allegations that were not reported or reported and not investigated. Nevertheless, no single entity within any level of command was aware of the scope and breadth of detainee abuse.

SERE

Perhaps the most important information in this report, however, is that it provides further documentation that psychologists were central to the development of the abusive interrogation paradigm developed at Guantanamo and migrated to Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons. In particular, the OIG provides concrete evidence that techniques developed in the US military's SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) program to help US troops at high risk of becoming POWs evade capture and resist breaking under abusive interrogations were systematically imported to Guantanamo and, less systematically, to Iraq and Afghanistan. As the report describes:

"DoD SERE training, sometimes referred to as code of conduct training, prepares select military personnel with survival and evasion techniques in case they are isolated from friendly forces. The schools also teach resistance techniques that are designed to provide U.S. military members, who may be captured or detained, with the physical and mental tools to survive a hostile interrogation and deny the enemy the information they wish to obtain. SERE training incorporates physical and psychological pressures, which act as counterresistance techniques, to replicate harsh conditions that the Service member might encounter if they are held by forces that do not abide by the Geneva Conventions." (p. 23)

As part of the SERE program, trainees are subjected to abuse, including sleep deprivation, sexual and cultural humiliation, and, in some instances, waterboarding, described by one SERE graduate thus:

"[Y]ou are strapped to a board, a washcloth or other article covers your face, and water is continuously poured, depriving you of air, and suffocating you until it is removed, and/or inducing you to ingest water. We were carefully monitored (although how they determined these limits is beyond me), but it was a most unpleasant experience, and its threat alone was sufficient to induce compliance, unless one was so deprived of water that it would be an unintentional means to nourishment.

Former Air Force officer and now psychoanalyst Eric Anders described his SERE training experience thusly:

"I remember a variety of sadistic abuses, often in the form of mind games and humiliation. It was a horrible experience, but I imagine it might have prepared me to be in the position some of the Iraqi prisoners have unfortunately found themselves in."

Central to SERE is the role of psychologists. A psychologist is required to be present during certain aspects of the process, such as waterboarding as a "safety officer," to stop the training if (s)he perceives the trainee is being overly-traumatized.

In 2005, the New Yorker's Jane Mayer reported evidence that interrogators at Guantanamo were being trained in SERE techniques; they were "reverse engineering" the resistance techniques in order to figure out how to break down detainees. While Mayer reported suspicions, direct evidence of SERE involvement at Guantanamo was lacking for another year, till, in July 2006 Salon's Mark Benjamin, in Torture Teachers reported documentary evidence that SERE was, indeed, taught at Guantanamo. In addition to documentary evidence that SERE techniques were taught at Guantanamo, Benjamin pointed out the similarities between what is done to US troops during SERE training and what was done to US detainees:

"There are striking similarities between the reported detainee abuse at both Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib and the techniques used on soldiers going through SERE school, including forced nudity, stress positions, isolation, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation and exhaustion from exercise."

Michael Otterman, in his marvelous and very disturbing new book, American Torture, put together then extant evidence of SERE reverse-engineering. Though the use of SERE techniques at US detention facilities was hardly in doubt after the reporting of Mayer, Benjamin, and Otterman , it was not clear until the OIG report whether the use of the techniques was intentional or inadvertent, a result of widespread exposure to them by US personnel during training.

The new OIG report resolves this question, containing as it does official admissions that SERE was, indeed systematically taught at Guantanamo and in Iraq.

"Counterresistance techniques taught by the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency [the agency responsible for SERE training] contributed to the development of interrogation policy at the U.S. Southern Command. According to interviewees, at some point in 2002, the U.S. Southern Command began to question the effectiveness of the Joint Task Force 170 (JTF-170), the organization at Guantanamo that was responsible for collecting intelligence from a group