SUPREME COURT WATCH (updated)

Sometime between now and I am told June 23rd (technically it could be as late as June 30th) the Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act.... the law that stripped my clients and the other men being held prisoner at Guantanamo of the writ of habeas corpus. We wait with baited breath. I should mention that I also have pending an original habeas petition for Mr. Al-Ghizzawi that the Supreme Court is apparently holding pending its ruling in Boumediene. In essence I have argued to the Court that regardless of how they hold in Boumediene they (the Supreme Court) has original jurisdiction under the Constitution to decide habeas cases and they should hear Mr. Al-GHizzawi's.This week the Supreme Court will issue opinions on Monday the 9th of June and Thursday the 12th of June. If you click on the title at 10:00 am Eastern time you can read live blogging from SCOTUSBlog as the decisions are read. Today four cases were decided but none had anything to do with GITMO.

FROM ROGER FITCH AND OUR FRIENDS DOWN UNDER

THE LATEST REPORT FROM JUSTINIAN

Roger Fitch Esq • June 2, 2008

Our Man in Washington

Guantánamo unravelling … Bush admin sacks judge mid-trial for being too fair and independent … Canadian Supreme Court finds Gitmo process illegal … Administration planning election year war crimes spectacular … CIA station chief in Milan still on the run

The end of May saw a sensational development in the Guantánamo saga.

The Bush Regime did what even Charles Stuart never attempted: it sacked a judge mid-trial for showing fairness and independence and a disinclination to admit evidence derived from torture – the very thing the White House wants.

The Pentagon claimed that Omar Khadr’s Judge, Peter Brownback, was planning to retire, yet the Toronto Globe and Mail wondered, “why the judge would retire in the middle of an ongoing military tribunal case”.

Everyone seemed to forget that s.949b of the Military Commissions Act forbids “unlawfully influencing” a military judge.

(CLICK ON THE TITLE TO READ THE REST)

More On Detainee Interrogations Abuses

Pentagon Makes Public the 2003 Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogation

The Department of Defense has posted the 2003 Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism (pdf) and comments from the Military Services' Judge Advocates (pdf) today on its Freedom of Information Act electronic reading room.

While much of this information may already be in the public realm, it is important that these documents in full are now directly available to the public through the Pentagon's own website. The Army Judge Advocate General's memo to the Air Force's general counsel (pdf) is exceptionally enlightening. On the first page it states that the Army JAG's "concerns center around the potential Department of Defense (DOD) sanctioning of detainee interrogation techniques that may appear to violate international law, domestic law, or both."

(Thanks to POGO for the links...)

Can we make it 500 next time.... instead of 34??

I reported a few days ago about the 34 men and women who protested against our legal black hole... Guantanamo... outside the U. S. Supreme Court. It was a peaceful protest. These people were trying to bring to the attention of the sleeping masses a serious crime that is going on in our name. Since the Supreme Court is our only institution listening this was clearly the most appropriate place for these individuals to express their frustration with our lawless administration.
80 were arrested and 34 stood trial. These individuals represented themselves without attorneys so they could have the opportunity to speak to the court about the injustice at Guantanamo. They were found guilty. Many have or will spend some time in jail....
These men and women did what they did because they were unable to continue to sit out what is happening to our country... and to the men being held illegally at guantanamo.
Click on the title to read the story of one of those individuals...
And again, to those of you who put your own liberty at risk to bring attention to those being held at Guantanamo and elsewhere... without charge, without trial, without recourse...
I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

NEW SOLICITOR GENERAL NOMINATED

Gregory Garre has been nominated by Bush to be the next Solicitor General after Paul Clement and Thomas Hungar announced almost simultaneously that they were both leaving... Now Paul is gone and Thomas is leaving soon. In 2004 I argued before the Supreme Court in a civil rights case and the solicitors office filed a brief in support of my position and was given argument time. Greg Garre was the assistant solicitor who argued for the office. Greg did a good job and is a nice guy unfortunately he has been just a tad too willing to argue an unrestrained view of executive power... which is too bad... he should remember the Constitution comes before the President.
(by the way I won the case I argued up there unanimously... not bad for a civil rights case!)

This Weeks Hero's

And another heartless judge...
I personally would like to thank each of these men and women for refusing to just sit back and watch....
I hope our next president will pardon each of them and give them medals for their courageous and important actions in trying to bring the plight of the Guantanamo detainees to the attention of the sleeping masses here in the United States... Click on the title for the video (sorry that wapo makes you watch a commercial first).
And when you are finished watching that inspiring video go to their website and thank them for standing up while so many are sitting through the collapse of our government ....

http://www.witnesstorture.org/

Anti-Guantanamo protesters convicted for illegal Supreme Court demonstration
Deirdre Jurand at 12:27 PM ET

[JURIST] A Washington DC Superior Court found 34 members of anti-war activism group Witness Against Torture [advocacy website] guilty Thursday on misdemeanor charges of illegal protesting. Police arrested 71 group members at a protest [JURIST report] in front of the US Supreme Court in January, where they were demonstrating for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison [JURIST news archive]. They were indicted on charges of violating an ordinance barring demonstrations on court grounds. Officials charged 35 protesters, and the Superior Court judge dismissed charges against one for lack of evidence. The defendants, who represented themselves, argued that they were exercising their right to free speech [advocacy press release], but the judge found that they had continued to violate the ordinance despite police warnings. They were scheduled to be sentenced Friday. The Washington Post has more.

At their court appearance [JURIST report], protesters wore orange jumpsuits similar to the ones worn by Guantanamo detainees and some identified themselves using the names of detainees as a way to "symbolically grant the Guantanamo prisoners their day in court" [advocacy press release]. During the trial, one defendant turned his back to the judge and, when arrested for contempt of court, yelled that the judge had committed a crime against justice. The January 11 protest took place on the sixth anniversary of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay teror detention facility in Cuba.

More on the sacked judge at Guatanamo Military Commission (UPDATED)

Click on the title for the update.... seems the military is desperately looking for judges, this particular judge offered to stay on after his term ends at the end of June but the military said "no thanks" and pulled him out early...

Pentagon dismisses judge in Khadr military commission trial
Andrew Gilmore at 10:11 AM ET

[JURIST] The US Department of Defense (DOD) [official website] on Thursday dismissed the military judge presiding over the military commission trial of Canadian Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr [DOD materials; JURIST news archive]. No explanation was given for the dismissal of Col. Peter Brownback [JURIST news archive], but Khadr's defense lawyers speculated that it was was related to Brownback's threat earlier this month to suspend the military commission proceedings [JURIST report] against Khadr until the US government submits daily records of Khadr's detention. Khadr's military lawyers had requested the records to corroborate allegations of abusive treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive]. In November 2007, Reuters reported that at a pre-trial hearing in the Khadr case, Brownback said that the Pentagon was unhappy with his decisions in the case, and that he had "taken a lot of heat" [Reuters report] for dismissing charges against Khadr [JURIST report] in June 2007. Those charges were later reinstated [JURIST report]. AP has more. Reuters has additional coverage.

Khadr, 21, faces life imprisonment for crimes allegedly committed at the age of 15 while fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan. He was charged [charge sheet, PDF; JURIST report] in April 2007 with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism, as well as spying. In April, Brownback ruled [PDF text] that Khadr was not a child soldier when he was captured in Afghanistan. Khadr's lawyers had asked for the case to be dismissed [JURIST report] saying that it violated the Optional Protocol of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child [text], which gives special protection to children under 18 involved in armed conflicts.

Now here is a surprise!

Former Guantanamo prosecutor says DOD punished him for Hamdan testimony
Deirdre Jurand at 10:19 AM ET

[JURIST] The former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay alleges that the US Department of Defense (DOD) [official website] retaliated against him for giving testimony [JURIST report] at the pre-trial hearing of detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan [DOD materials; JURIST news archive] which reflected poorly on the DOD. In an email released Wednesday, Air Force Col. Morris Davis [official profile, PDF] wrote that Pentagon officials denied him a medal for his two years of work on Guantanamo cases for failure to "serve honorably", a justification he says is politically motivated. He also said that he will not cooperate in any future cases and that he fears further punishment by the DOD before his official retirement later this year. The Washington Post has more.

Davis resigned [JURIST report; JURIST op-ed] from his position at Guantanamo Bay in October 2007, saying that politics were interfering with the prosecutions. He testified at Hamdan's pre-trial hearing that DOD officials had pressured him to bring charges against detainees and had told him that there could be no acquittals. Davis also stated that the legal adviser to the Convening Authority [official backgrounder] for Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay, US Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann [official profile], questioned the need for open trials [JURIST report] and pressured him to move forward with military commissions quickly "before the election." A judge disqualified Hartmann from a Guantanamo trial earlier this month, and Hartmann's objectivity has since been questioned [JURIST reports].

Sacking the Judge that isn't following the script

For those of you old enough to remember one of President Nixon's finest hours (and just before impeachment was threatened) ...when he fired the special prosecutor investigating the Nixon administration...click on the title to see how Bush relieved himself of the military commission judge who was just a tad too independent.... last night as you were sleeping...
This was the judge who was hearing the case for the Canadian kid at Gitmo... If you scrowl down just a bit on my blog you will see that the Canadian Supreme Court (earlier this week) ordered that certain documents be turned over to attorneys for this child soldier... I guess you could say the plot is thickening before our eyes... makes you wonder what Bush will do to distract American's from this latest travesty....

In Pursuit of Justice

Human Rights First put this white paper together with the help of pro bono attorneys in regards to the issues involved in pursuing justice in our federal courts... for prisoners being illegally detained. This is an important piece for atttorney's who are representing or thinking about representing these prisoners... and if you are an attorney in the US and not thinking about representing one of these people you should start thinking about it right now....

A kinder, Gentler Torture

While staying at his in-law’s village in Afghanistan in December 2001, Abdul Hamid Al-Ghizzawi, my client at Guantánamo, knew little of Bush and Cheney.
Later, when vigilante thugs turned him over to the Northern Alliance for an American bounty, Al-Ghizzawi knew nothing of Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, Jay Bybee, John Yoo or Matthew Waxman — the man who would become Al-Ghizzawi’s personal war criminal and who is now a professor at Columbia Law School....
(Click on the title to go to In These Times and read the whole article)

So What about the other 99% ??

Guantanamo with 270 prisoners remaining is just the tip of the iceberg. Click on the title to read the blog by Chris Floyd regarding the 27,000 prisoners being held by the US- primarily in Iraq... but also on ships and in various countries willing to share the dirty work with us. As Gitmo lawyer Clive Stafford Smith points out the other 99% of the prisoners are being held without access to lawyers and the media is clearly not interested in investigating this story.

Canadian Supreme Court says Canadian Government's Gitmo actions Illegal

Thanks to Captain Canada for sharing this story (click on title) and to Roger Fitch for the actual link to the Canadian Supreme Court's decision.

http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/cgi-bin/print.pl?referer=http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2008/2008scc28/2008scc28.html

Even though the link goes beyond the page it should work...

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under

Roger Fitch Esq • May 17, 2008

www.justinian.com.au

Our Man in Washington

Guantánamo trials in crisis – legal adviser sacked for wanting torture evidence to be admitted and prosecutors quit in disgust over government meddling. Law of terror correspondent Roger Fitch reports

It looks likely that Salim Hamdan, the notorious bin Laden driver, will be the first to go on trial – if anyone does – before a Guantánamo military commission.

It was, of course, Hamdan’s earlier military commission that the Supreme Court struck down as an unconstitutional fantasy of George W. Bush.

Hamdan is charged with “conspiracy” and “material support for terrorism” for acts predating the war, and neither charge is an offence under the law of war.

In fact, in Hamdan’s own case, a plurality of the US Supreme Court confirmed that “conspiracy” is not a war crime. The “crimes” were in any case created in 2006, long after they were said to have occurred.

click on the title to read the rest....

New illegal charges against gtimo prisoner Muhammed

That to Roger Fitch for bringing this to our attention:

In the most farcical "charges" yet sworn, the Pentagon yesterday charged Noor Uthman Muhammed with conspiracy (not a war crime) to murder (not a war crime) and sundry other acts (not war crimes) between August 1996 and March 2002.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2008/d20080523mohammedsworn.pdf

Now, remember, the Supreme Court in the Hamdan case said nothing that didn't happen in a real theatre of war (eg Afghanistan) during a real war (ie, after September 11, 2001) could be a war crime, and the plurality specifically said that conspiracy is not a war crime.

Conspiracy with whom? Why, with Osama and Zawahari, apparently because he delivered a fax machine to them (in 1999).

What were the acts constituting the "crime" that occurred after September 11, 2001? Why here 'tis:

"On March 28, 2002, Muhammed, along with several other al Qaeda members, attempted to escape from a safehouse in Faisalabad, PAKISTAN, after a raid by local authorities, but was captured during his attempt." (emphases mine)

Got that? He was arrested in Pakistan (not a theatre of war), for acts occurring before, not during, a war, and the element of the "crime" which connects him to the period of war and thus to Al Qaida is that he was arrested, that's right, the act of attempting to escape being arrested!!!

Can anyone doubt that this goes beyond Lewis Carroll, Franz Kafka and George Orwell, to new, uncharted territories?