More on Destruction of Interrogation Documents

I haven't copied the whole blog but you can click the title above and go to it. There are two interesting things that I didn't catch in the news accounts... one is that the Khadr team sent a letter to the Supremes asking them to consider the handbook with instructions to destroy notes in their up and coming decision (link to the letter near the bottom here) and second is an affidavit from counsel about the handbook if counsel can't get a copy of the handbook to the court. If you want to see the affidavit you will need to click on the title and read the post... the link to the affidavit is at or near the end.

New claim in detainee cases

Monday, June 9th, 2008 4:34 pm | Lyle Denniston | Comments Off | Print This Post

Email this • Share on Facebook • Digg This!

Lawyers for a young Canadian being detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, moved on Monday to complain to the Supreme Court that military officials are encouraging interrogation teams to destroy notes about their activities, suggesting that this raises new issues about the adequacy of Pentagon procedures for deciding who is an enemy and must remain in captivity. A key issue now before the Court in the pending cases on detainees’ legal rights, the letter filed Monday said, is whether the prisoners will have a real opportunity to challenge the reasons for their confinement. That is threatened, it added, by the potential loss of interrogators’ documents. The letter, sent to the Court’s Clerk, can be downloaded here.

Human Rights Watch Report on Conditions at Gitmo

Washington, DC, June 10, 2008) – More than two-thirds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, including many cleared for release or transfer, are being housed in inhumane conditions that are reportedly having a damaging effect on their mental health, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

The 54-page report, “Locked Up Alone: Detention Conditions and Mental Health at Guantanamo,” documents the conditions in the various “camps” at the detention center, in which approximately 185 of the 270 detainees are housed in facilities akin to “supermax” prisons even though they have not yet been convicted of a crime. These detainees have extremely limited contact with other human beings, spend 22 hours a day alone in small cells with little or no natural light or fresh air, are not provided any educational opportunities, and are given little more than a single book and the Koran to occupy their time. Even their two hours of “recreation” time – which is sometimes provided in the middle of the night – generally takes place in single-cell cages so that detainees cannot physically interact with one another.

“Guantanamo detainees who have not even been charged with a crime are being warehoused in conditions that are in many ways harsher than those reserved for the most dangerous, convicted criminals in the United States,” said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch. “Security measures don’t justify locking people in windowless cells 22 hours a day, for months and years on end, with almost no opportunity for human interaction, physical exercise or mental stimulation.”

CLICK ON THE TITLE TO READ THE ENTIRE REPORT