Update on Released Algerian and Gossip about other releases...

I reported last week about the release of two men from Guantanamo but I had scant information about Algerian Mammar Ameur. I have now received more information from his counsel. Mammar (ISN 939) was housed in Camp IV and had been cleared for transfer since Nov. 4, 2005. He is now home with his family.
Those paying attention should be shocked that this man has sat in the hell hole we call Guantanamo for three years awaiting our inept State Department to get around to his release.

In other news it seems that the government is trying to get rid of as many men as possible as soon as possible. Notices (under seal) are flying left and right on the court web service. Why are they under seal? Because our courts have allowed this administration to get away with abusing this process.... the notices are advising the court that a transfer is under way. If counsel is lucky and has an order in place to let them know about the transfer they can try to step in and stop the transfer if it is to a country that might treat the client the same or worse than the US... BUT some of the judges have refused such an order...sigh.

SERE Interrogation Procedures now available...

One of the most important documents of the U.S. torture program has just become publicly available for the first time. This is now posted on the website of the new documentary, Torturing Democracy (via Counterpunch). This document clearly specifies that the abusive interrogation techniques to be used at Guantanamo [JTF GTMO] are based upon the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape [SERE] program. The document is notable for its documentation of the extent to which abuse was bureaucratically standardized for routine use.

Justice department killing efforts to resettle Uighers

So there you have it: A judge ordered 17 Uighers to be released into the US just over a week ago and to stop that release the Justice department filed an emergency stay with the Appellate Court saying that the men are too dangerous to be settled in the US.... and at the same time the State department is attempting to ask other countries to take the men. So what do you think? Does anyone really think that a country is going to take someone that we are saying is to dangerous to live in the US?

I personally have traveled to several countries to try to find a new home for my client Mr. Al-Ghizzawi. In my attempts to convince countries to take my client I have had to prove to them that my country is engaged in bold faced lies when they talk about how dangerous my client is. For me it is not hard to show the lie since Mr. Al-Ghizzawi was found NOT to be an enemy combatant by the military until the state department stepped in (that would be Matthew Waxman now a professor at Columbia law school) and said it was too embarrassing to have him found innocent because that would mean we have held him wrongly for all of these years.... At Waxman's coaxing they changed Al-Ghizzawi's designation to enemy... but even when I can prove the truth our arrogant state department has refused to back down and help resettle Mr. Al-Ghizzawi...
I actually had a European country willing to take Mr. Al-Ghizzawi just over a year ago. There was only one precondition.... the US had to ask this country to take him. Bush's arrogant man in the state department, Mr. Bellinger, refused to ask.... Bellinger announced they would only turn Al-Ghizzawi over if that country asked the US to turn him over and refused to ask the country to take him. I guess asking showed weakness... like maybe we needed help.
For those interested in such things Bellinger is number 2 on my list of lawyer war criminals... Waxman remains number one.

CLICK ON THE TITLE TO READ THE NEW YORK TIMES STORY ABOUT HOW THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT IS MAKING IT VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO RESETTLE THESE MEN