Gitmo Attorneys File Major New Challenge to Trump’s Guantánamo
Trump’s Blanket Refusal to Release Any Detainee Amounts to
Arbitrary Detention, Lawsuit Says
January 11,
2018, Washington, D.C. – Today, on the 16th
anniversary of the Guantánamo prison’s opening, the Center for Constitutional
Rights (CCR), Reprieve, and co-counsel filed a major challenge to Donald
Trump’s continued detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. The collective
filing, on behalf of 11 men, argues that Trump’s proclamation against releasing
anyone from Guantánamo, regardless of their circumstances, which has borne out
for the first full year of the Trump presidency, is arbitrary and unlawful and
amounts to “perpetual detention for detention’s sake.”
“It’s clear
that a man who thinks we should water-board terror suspects even if it doesn’t
work, because ‘they deserve it, anyway’ has no qualms about keeping every last
detainee in Guantanamo, so long as he holds the jailhouse key,” said CCR Senior
Staff Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei, who represents Sharqawi
Al Hajj, one of the prisoners
participating in today’s filing. “Continuing, still indefinite detention after
all this time is unprecedented and experimental. Another three or seven years
under President Trump may mean a death sentence for men like Sharqawi Al Hajj,
who is in poor health and damaged by past torture.”
The filing
argues that continued detention is unconstitutional because any legitimate
rationale for initially detaining these men has long since expired; detention
now, 16 years into Guantánamo’s operation, is based only on Trump’s raw
antipathy towards Guantánamo prisoners – all foreign-born Muslim men – and
Muslims more broadly. CCR notes that Donald Trump’s proclamation that he will
not release any detainees during his administration reverses the approach and
policies of both President Bush and President Obama, who collectively released
nearly 750 men. Trump’s blanket policy guarantees three, or even seven, more
years of imprisonment unless the courts intervene now.
“President
Trump has said torture works. He’s wrong. Prisoner abuse like waterboarding,
sleep deprivation, dog leashes, sexual humiliation all send us tumbling into
the filth where our sworn enemies live, and it legitimizes their struggle in
the eyes of their followers even as it delegitimizes us in the eyes of the
world,” said Mark Fallon, former NCIS Deputy Assistant Director for
Counterterrorism, who served as the Deputy Commander of the DOD task force
President Bush established to bring suspected terrorists to justice before
Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay, and author of Unjustifiable Means:
The Inside Story of How the CIA, Pentagon and US Government Conspired to
Torture. “Guantanamo Bay serves as a symbol of torture, injustice and
oppression. The prison should be shuttered, the rule of law should be restored
and we should adhere to our obligations to hold those responsible accountable.”
Some of the
men participating in today’s filing have been detained in Guantánamo for nearly
16 years without charge or trial—detention that has spanned three presidential
administrations and five presidential terms. Two of the petitioners have in
fact been approved for transfer, narrowly missing their chance at release in
the final days of the Obama administration.
Reprieve
attorney Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, who represents prisoners at
Guantánamo, said, “Since Guantánamo opened, it’s been clear to all –
including U.S. officials – that the detainees were being held on the basis of
mistakes, faulty evidence, and forced ‘confessions’. The U.S. has had 16 years
to build a case against these men, and yet 28 of 41 prisoners are held without
charge or a trial of any kind – a shocking violation of America’s founding
principles. If the president won’t close Guantánamo, then the other branches of
government must take action instead to finally restore the rule of law.”
Speakers at a
press conference this morning announcing the filing included Ms. Kebriaei; Mr.
Fallon; Center for Constitutional Rights Legal Director Baher Azmy; and habeas
attorney Thomas Anthony Durkin, Partner, Durkin & Roberts, Chicago,
Illinois. Ambassador Lee Wolosky, former U.S. Special Envoy for Guantanamo
Closure, was also present and addressed Guantanamo policy generally. Neither
Ambassador Wolosky nor his law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, is involved
with the court filing, nor is Mr. Fallon.
Also today,
human rights activists, torture survivors, Guantánamo attorneys, 9/11 family
members, and members of diverse faith communities rallied outside the White
House to mark the 16th anniversary and the continued operation of the
Guantánamo Bay prison. Read the coalition press release about today’s rally here.
The Center
for Constitutional Rights has led the legal battle over Guantánamo for 16 years
– representing clients in two Supreme Court cases and organizing and
coordinating hundreds of pro bono lawyers across the country, ensuring that all
the men detained at Guantánamo have had the option of legal representation. CCR
is responsible for many Guantánamo cases in many venues, representing men in
their habeas cases in federal court and before the military commissions and
Periodic Review Boards, the families of men who died at Guantánamo, and men who
have been released and are seeking accountability in international courts.
The Center
for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights
guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights
movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization
committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
Visit www.ccrjustice.org and follow @theCCR.
Reprieve is an international human rights
organization. Reprieve’s media team can be contacted on media@reprieve.org.uk,
or +44 (0) 207 553 8140.
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