memorial day 2022 part 2

 

memorial day 2022

 

Under the Torture Convention statements made while tortured should not be used....

 I have been a little slow to get this up but I was glad to see my senator (Durbin) and senator Leahy push Biden on what he is going to do about the men at Guantanamo who were tortured and made statements. The bottom line is that those statements should not be used.

This is from their statement and press release:

Durbin, Leahy Seek Clarification of Administration's Position on Use of Torture-Derived Evidence

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, are calling on the Biden Administration to uphold U.S. obligations under the Torture Convention by putting an end to the repeated efforts by Guantanamo military commission prosecutors to use evidence derived from torture.  Guantanamo Bay military commission prosecutors again argued in court that evidence obtained through torture can be used in the capital case against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is currently being held at Guantanamo.  In a letter to Attorney General Garland, Defense Secretary Austin, and Secretary of State Blinken, the Senators argue that, despite the Administration’s pledge to “eradicate torture in all its forms,” the military commission prosecutors are not adhering to U.S. obligations.

READ THE REST HERE.

Musical interlude --for our friends in Ukraine....

 

TO SAEED'S MOTHER AND THE MOTHER OF ALL THE DISAPPEARED

 I am not sure if my client's mother is still alive. I hope she is and I hope she will welcome Saeed with open arms.

From Roger Fitch and Our Friends Down Under at Justinian

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When tiring of Trump's unpunished crimes, we can reflect upon those of George Bush, and one of Mr Bush's greatest crimes, official government torture, is back in the news. 

In March, the supreme court decided Zubaydah, accepting the government's "state secrets" claim which blocked the testimony of CIA contractors accused of torture.

Captured by the FBI and CIA, Abu Zubaydah was the first to endure the CIA's "Enhanced Interrogation" (Gestapo "verschärfte Vernehmung"), a program for the systematic torture of "war of terror" prisoners. 

 Zubaydah spent four-and-a-half years in CIA torture camps operated at sundry sites including Thailand, Poland and Lithuania (both paid damages), and Guantánamo. He's been held now for 20 years.

The FBI agents John Kiriakou, who led the capture of Zubaydah, and Ali Soufan, who first interviewed him, opposed the takeover of the case by the CIA, who sent Zubaydah to Thailand for "interrogation" by  James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. 

Water-boarding began, Zubaydah nearly died, and no productive intelligence was derived. Nevertheless, water-board torture continued under the new camp director, Gina Haspel. 

Later, when Zubaydah was held in Poland, the morbidly-curious CIA agent Alfreda Bikowsky made an unauthorised visit just to see him being tortured. 

Where are they all now? John Kiriakou is out of prison (another story) and blogging on Zubaydah. Ali Soufan heads the Soufan Group security consultancy, and sponsors Fordham Law's Center on National Security, and Mitchell and Jessen aren't testifying in Poland's investigation, thanks to the supreme court.

Gina Haspel, since rewarded as Trump's CIA director, advises King & Spalding clients on cybersecurity.

Scheuer: torture team

And Alfreda Bikowsky? Since retiring, the Agency's "Queen of Torture" has been hawking beauty products and life advice for a living. The fabled red-haired member of the Agency's torture team, now married to the equally-odious torture team member Michael Scheuer, recently gave an unrepentant interview to Reuters. 

Is this a great country, or what? 

READ THE REST OF FITCH HERE

Andy Worthington discusses my client

 Historian Andy Worthington has long chronicled the lives of the men that have been held at Guantanamo. In fact, his book The Guantanamo files- was a must read for all of the Guantanamo attorneys as we worked through our cases and tried to learn as much as we could about our clients. We all had our own copies and a couple extra copies could always be found at the "secure facility" - the place where we worked on the classified aspects of our clients' court cases. Today, Andy again focuses on my client, Saeed Bakhouch. Andy, with his vast resources was the one to let me know a week or so ago that Saeed had finally been cleared for release. It is only appropriate that he be the one to tell this story. Read it here.