Tag: guantanamo (page 16)

The Washington Post reports that the Bush Administration says it is unlikely that trials of any of the Guantanamo detainees will take place before Bush leaves office.

Nearly seven years later, however, not one of the approximately 775 terrorism suspects who have been held on this island has faced a jury trial inside the new complex, and U.S. officials think it is highly unlikely that any of the Sept. 11 suspects will before the Bush administration ends.

Though men such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, are expected to be arraigned in coming months -- appearing publicly for the first time after years of secret detention and harsh interrogations -- officials say it could be a year or longer before worldwide audiences will see even the first piece of evidence or testimony against them.

All three presidential candidates, Hillary, Obama and McCain have promised to close Guantanamo. [More...]

All three presidential hopefuls have said they will close Guantanamo. The LA Times examines how it could be done.

Officially, Pentagon officials say there are no plans in hand to move suspected terrorists to the United States if the new president orders it. No official orders have been given to Southern Command, which oversees the prison, to prepare for its shutdown. Such orders would trigger a formal planning process.

But unofficially, midlevel officials watching the campaign pronouncements have begun working on plans -- including examining other sites and estimating the work that would be involved in moving detainees -- in case the next president orders a shutdown.

Possibilities: The military prison at Leavenworth, KS and the South Carolina naval brig.

The detainees would gain greater legal rights if moved to the U.S. [more...]

Attorney General Michael Mukasey was in London speaking to a group at the London School of Economics. After his speech, and speaking for himself only, he said he he personally opposed the death penalty for the 9/11 detainees at Guantanamo. He gave an analogy.

"I kind of hope they don't get it," Mukasey said after a speech at the London School of Economics. "Because many of them want to be martyrs, and it's kind of like the conversation … between the sadist and the masochist."

"The masochist says hit me and the sadist says no, so I am kind of hoping they don't get it," he said.

Mukasey noted that the military commission trials at Gitmo are being conducted by the Defense Department, not the Justice Department, although DOJ is cooperating with them.

Law professor Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy is outraged at Mukasey's comments. I'm not. [More...]

The Canadian press is doing a good job of covering the pre-trial hearings underway this week at Guantanamo. As I wrote Sunday, one pertains to Canadian Omar Khadr, now 21, who was captured at age 15 and has been held ever since. The defense is targeting Omar's interrogations and scored a partial victory today in getting the judge to order that correspondence between the U.S. and Canada about Omar be turned over.

The other hearing is that of Afghan Mohammed Jawad. Jawad was 16 when he was captured. His hearing yesterday did not go smoothly.

The military's 90 page document outlining charges against all charged detainees is here(pdf).

The ACLU is monitoring the hearings. In related news, (no link yet, received by e-mail) the ACLU is filing a lawsuit today "to force the government to release un-redacted transcripts in which 14 prisoners now held at Guantánamo Bay describe abuse and torture they suffered in CIA custody."

The Defense Department is instituting a new policy for the Guantanamo detainees. They will be allowed to phone home -- once every six months for an hour.

The Bush Administration thinks this demonstrates "commitment to maintaining the health and well-being of Guantanamo detainees." More likely, it is intended to boost the image of the gulag before the Supreme Court decides the next case on the detainees' rights.

Reactions from some of their defense lawyers: [More...]

Via McJoan at Daily Kos, I see that the Pentagon announced today that William J. Haynes, II has resigned as the chief counsel of the Department of Defense.

As we noted last week, Haynes is the guy who told Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo, that the Administration couldn't handle any acquittals in the military commission trials. Haynes was responsible for oversight of the tribunal process.

Haynes was also a Bush judicial nominee for the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. He was widely opposed, in no small part for his hand in the Bush Adminsitration's much-criticized military interrogation policies. Democrats refused to confirm him. Here's more on his failed confirmation hearing.

One more: People for the American Way: Keep Haynes Off the Federal Bench. The Pentagon announcement says he's going back to private life. That's a relief.

A must-read today: Russ Tuttle reports on the planned Guantanamo military commission trials in The Nation:

Now, as the murky, quasi-legal staging of the Bush Administration's military commissions unfolds, a key official has told The Nation that the trials are rigged from the start. According to Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guantánamo's military commissions, the process has been manipulated by Administration appointees in an attempt to foreclose the possibility of acquittal.

This is mind-boggling: Pentagon Chief Counsel William Haynes told Davis there can be no acquittals: [More...]

A new report (pdf) by the Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research finds:

• More than 24,000 interrogations have been conducted at Guantánamo since 2002.

• All interrogations conducted at Guantánamo were videotaped. Thus, many videotapes documenting Guantánamo interrogations do or did exist.

• The Central Intelligence Agency is just one of many entities that interrogated detainees at Guantánamo.

The press release on the report is here. [More...]

Yesterday, we noted that the U.S. will be seeking to execute six detainees at Guantanamo. Today, the AP reports that those executions may take place at Guantanamo, thanks to a 2006 Military Order (available here. (pdf)

Any executions would probably add to international outrage over Guantanamo, since capital punishment is banned in 130 countries, including the 27-nation European Union.

Conducting the executions on U.S. soil could open the way for the detainees' lawyers to go to U.S. courts to fight the death sentences. But the updated regulations make it possible for the executions to be carried out at Guantanamo.

That, of course, is what the Bush Administration wants: No oversight. As former Navy lawyer David Sheldon says, [More...]

What do we have here -- show trials just in time for the November elections, to help out the Republican nominee? (hat tip to reader Scribe.)

Military prosecutors will seek the death penalty for six detainees at Guantanamo.

Update: The ACLU says the system is flawed.

Via Sebastian Meyer: The U.S. reasoning for the 6 death penalty cases sought in Guantánamo is based on the Geneva Conventions, the very document the U.S. claims does not apply in this case.

Update: The Center for Constitutional Rights which represents one of the six designated for execution is challenging the validity of military comissions and use of torture evidence in death penalty cases.

The D.C. Court of Appeals today upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit for damages filed by four Britons who had been detained at Guantanamo. Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal Al-Harith had sued Donald Rumsfeld and other top military officers for ordering torture and religious abuse during the two years they spent at Guantanamo before being sent back to Britain. The trial court dismissed all of the claims except the one over religious discrimination. The appeals court dismissed that as well.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought the suit on behalf of the men, reports:

More....

Bump and Update: The blogs are joining in the opening of the ACLU's "Close Guantanamo" campaign.

• Daily Kos
• AmericaBlog
• Second Life
• West Virginia Blue

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On the eve of the 6th anniversary of detainees arriving at Guantanamo Bay, the ACLU has commenced its "Close Guantanamo" campaign.

Guantanamo will forever be a stain on our national legacy. It must close. Please, join the ACLU in this historic and important campaign. Wear orange on Friday. [More...]