THREE MONTHS AND STILL WAITING (Updated)

Sorry I missed the three month anniversary last week. June 12th the US Supreme Court held that the men at guantanamo were entitled to habeas corpus hearings and the lower courts were ordered to get moving....
Not one Habeas hearing has been held and although one judge has scheduled a habeas hearing for October 6th no other judge has even hinted at a schedule.
You have to admit that the department of injustice has been, and continues to be, very successful at one thing and that is getting the courts to do nothing for the men at Guantanamo.
Well shortly after I wrote this the only judge who scheduled an actual habeas corpus hearing (the one set for October6th) has indicated that he will probably grant the governments motion to continue that hearing date.... so much for moving forward with these hearings...

US to finance rehab center for Yemeni prisoners

Rehabilitation centre to be set up for Guantanamo returnees

By Nasser Arrabyee, Correspondent
Published: September 13, 2008, 21:10

Sana'a: A rehabilitation centre for Guantanamo returnees will be
established in Yemen with American support, official sources said.

The centre will aim to receive the Yemeni returnees and work to
reintegrate them back into society.

Around 100 Yemenis are still languishing in the American detention
centre in Cuba, with Yemenis representing the largest number of
some 270 various nationals who remain there.

"Yemen will be responsible for qualifying and rehabilitating the
returnees thoughtfully, culturally, psychologically, whereas the
American government will be funding the establishment and
outfits of the centre," the state-run 26 September newspaper
quoted an unidentified official as saying.

The official did not however say when the 100 Yemenis
will be released from Guantanamo.

WELL RESTED... BUT STILL OUTRAGED

I am back after a two week holiday and I am sorry to report that not much has happened in my absence. Two men were released to Afghanistan. I will post the info on them in the coming days. The government blew off some of the court's deadlines but as usual not much in the way of repercussions for the government. My appeal for my second client Razak Ali was remanded back to the district court without any action taken by the appellate court and of course no action will be taken by the district court(I was asking for his complete csrt record). My appeal for Al-Ghizzawi's medical records is still sitting in the appellate court with no sign that they know or care that the appeal is there. On the good news side Judge Sullivan in the district court held a hearing on medical records for another detainee and he seemed to be indicating that he might be willing to order the government to turn over some medical records. But of course that is only supposition right now and nothing has really happened except that he ordered more briefing.
I head back to the base in another week.

TWO ALGERIANS RELEASED (Updated)

The two men are: Mohammed Al Qadir and Abdulli Feghoul.

Mohammed is the client of Buz Eisenberg who said that his client is very happy to be out of Guantanamo where he has been held without charge for more than six years.

Military Report on Three Dead Men

"I am informing you that I gave away the precious thing that I have in which it became very cheap, which is my own self, to lift up the oppression that is upon us through the American Government," wrote Ali Abdullah Ahmed Naser al-Sullami, of Yemen, a 26-year-old detainee who had been on one of the longest hunger strikes at Guantanamo, ultimately earning him forced feedings through a tube. In a note neatly folded into his shirt pocket, Sullami wrote: "I did not like the tube in my mouth, now go ahead and accept the rope in my neck."

CLICK ON THE TITLE TO READ THE WASHINGTON POST STORY... but in a nutshell the military report blames the guards, not the policy of imprisoning people indefinitely without charge. Twenty-six year old al-Sullami was actually on the list to be released after it was "discovered" he had no connection to terrorists (he of course did not know he was on the list to be released, it was a secret). However being on the list for release does not mean anything anyway as some men have been on the list for four years and are still sitting in solitary confinement under the cruelest of conditions....and when they are released to their home countries our government never admits the mistakes so the men go home as "enemy combatants."

First Detaineed Habeas Hearing set for October 6

A lot of things happening today. We have this from scotusblog:

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, who is
working on what he calls a compressed timetable,
disclosed Thursday that he will hold the first
habeas hearings on a day that he said
seems only fitting  the first Monday in October.
That, of course, is the same day the Supreme Court
returns to work after its
summer recess, some four months after its ruling in
Boumediene v. Bush giving the Guantanamo detainees a
constitutional right to pursue habeas challenges to
heir captivity.

The Boumediene case (it gets its name from
Lakhdar Boumediene, an Algerian, and includes five
others from that country, all of whom had been
living in Bosnia) is back in District Court,
before Judge Leon. Mostly by coincidence,
the judge said Thursday, that will be the case
that comes up first for a week of hearings
in October.

Click on the Title to read the full story...

CCR Victory at International Commission on Human RIghts

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Moves to
Halt Torture at Guantanamo:
Orders Medical Treatment and End to Abusive
Interrogations for Detainee Djamel Ameziane

Commission Issues Urgent Precautionary Measures
in First Petition by Guantánamo Prisoner

August 21, 2008, New York - Late yesterday afternoon,
the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)
issued urgent precautionary measures to protect
Djamel Ameziane, an Algerian citizen held by the
United States at Guantanamo Bay for more than
six years. Mr. Ameziane has suffered various forms
of torture and abuse during his imprisonment,
including extended solitary confinement and a
form of waterboarding, and needs a third country
to offer him protection in order
to leave Guantanamo safely.
Mr. Ameziane is currently seeking resettlement i
in Canada, where he resided for five
years prior to his detention.

Click on the title to read the rest....

Rasul v. Myers Cert Petition

Today lawyers filed a petition for certiorari in 
Rasul v Myers seeking a reversal of the decision
by the DC Circuit.
The petition raises three issues--

1) Whether Guantanamo detainees are "persons"
under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act?
(The D.C. Circuit found they were not).
2) Whether there is a constitutional right for
Guantanamo detainees not to be tortured
and was it clearly established at the time?
(No and no in the D.C. Circuit)
3) Whether torture can be within the scope of
employment of a government official?
(Yes, according to the DC Cir. and
it can be expected in the course of war on terror.

We should know by October 1st whether or not
the Supreme Courthas an interest in weighing
in on this.

Many thanks to the Project to Enforce the Geneva
Conventions  for posting a link to the petition.
(http://www.pegc.us/)

Way To Go Reprieve

Click on the title for the analysis by Reprieve of the decision on Thursday of the British Court in the case of Binyam Mohamed. Clive also summarizes the analysis this way: (a) the US cannot be depended upon to provide fair discovery with respect to Guantanamo; (b) US denials of the rendition and torture of Binyam Mohamed are "untenable"; (c) the UK was complicit in the illegality; and (d) given that complicity and the unreliability of US discovery mechanisms, the UK must provide disclosure itself.

The Open Judgment is at: http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/docs/judgments_guidance/mohamed_full210808.pdfthe Summary of the Open Judgment at:http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/docs/judgments_guidance/mohamed_summary210808.pdf

FROM ROGER FITCH AND OUR FRIENDS DOWN UNDER

Roger Fitch Esq • August 8, 2008

Our Man in Washington

Civil War banditti and jayhawkers are the basis of today’s “material supporters of terrorism”. Be careful – Bush law says it’s a “war crime” to shoot at Americans

The Bush administration has secured a conviction of Salim Hamdan, one of Osama bin Laden’s drivers.

Hamdan was the designated guinea pig in a program to remodel the US constitution and international law.

The ultimate goal? Making a military crime out of unfriendly acts around the world against American interests, as far back as 1996.

Why military? Well, because the president claims the right – if there is a war underfoot somewhere – to keep secrets, deny legal protections and run roughshod over courts, congress and defendants.

He gets to make up the rules, and with rigged trials, including tortured confessions, he always wins.

True, in Hamdan’s case “conspiracy” failed, but five of the specifications for material support succeeded.

The UK Independent has a report on the foreign reaction.

Historian-blogger Andy Worthington has more.

CLICK ON THE TITLE TO READ THE REST....

Scott Horton on the politicing at the military trials....

Military Judge Finds Political Manipulation in Gitmo, Again

By Scott Horton

The proceedings in the Guantánamo military commissions continue, and the professional participants continue to grapple with the poorly disguised efforts of the Bush Administration to fix the outcome. JAG attorneys active in the commissions have frequently cited Thomas W. Hartmann as the source of their concerns. Hartmann, whose civilian job is general counsel to Mxenergy Holdings Inc., the Stamford, Connecticut gas producer and distributor, was handpicked and brought out of the JAG reserves to serve as the Bush Administration’s stage manager for the Guantánamo productions. His formal position is as “legal advisor” to Susan J. Crawford, the convening authority. Crawford, a retired military judge, previously worked for Dick Cheney and is known as a crony of David Addington.

In concept, Hartmann plays a supervisory role over the process in an administrative sense. He is also supposed to review decisions of the commissions and make a recommendation to Crawford before he passes them on to her for finalization and approval. However, according to testimony taken in the Gitmo proceedings, Hartmann played his hand crudely from the outset. He appeared before a Senate committee suggesting repeatedly his belief that torture-induced evidence could be used, and denying that waterboarding was torture. His highly evasive performance caused Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to express disgust.

When the first charges were announced, Hartmann appeared on national television brandishing harsh labels and prejudging cases on which he was slated to exercise an appellate review function—raising questions under professional ethics rules which later fueled challenges against him.

As the cases proceeded, accounts of Hartmann’s bullying and intimidation of other lawyers participating in the process circulated. In the Salim Hamdan case, his involvement drew a challenge, and after the court heard evidence of Hartmann’s improper conduct that included specific allegations that he was jockeying to have cases publicized and tried “before the elections,” he was banned from involvement in the case. Hartmann refused to resign, and protested that he was doing precisely what was called for by his job description.

In the last week, Hartmann faced a second challenge in another case. The former chief prosecutor, Colonel Moe Davis, testified that Hartmann had lobbied hard for the prosecution of an Afghan detainee named Mohammed Jawad, apparently because Hartmann felt the case would play well to an American television audience. Davis was followed by Gen. Gregory Zanetti, who testified that Hartmann routinely bullied other attorneys and was inappropriately aggressive in pushing for prosecution of certain cases that he felt had media value. Zanetti concluded that Hartmann’s behavior was “abusive, bullying and unprofessional. . . pretty much across the board.” Consistent with his public remarks, Hartmann’s actions reflected a particular bias in favor of aggressive prosecution of cases which he feels could be exploited politically to the advantage of the Bush Administration.

The current chief prosecutor, Col. Lawrence Morris, defended Hartmann, stating that the issues raised reflected nothing more than “a superficial personality conflict.” Morris is Hartmann’s direct subordinate. Interestingly, this is the same defense that Hartmann adopted when his conduct became the subject of an internal Defense Department probe.

Now a second military judge, Col. Steve Henley, has ordered Hartmann’s removal from the proceedings, sustaining the accusations raised against him. In an order handed down on Friday, Hartmann was banned from participation in the case, and the defense counsel were advised that they could make submissions in their quest for access to exculpatory evidence directly to Crawford, bypassing Hartmann.

For an attorney to be formally admonished and removed from legal proceedings twice for unprofessional conduct is an extraordinary matter. However, Hartmann is defiant, insisting that his actions are proper. One wonders if the disciplinary authorities of the Connecticut bar are following these developments.

7/28/08 Transfers updated

Two men were not identified that were released on 7/28, they are:

Yakubi, ISN 1165 to Afghanistan (not cleared)

Abdulah Alhamiri ISN 48 to UAE (not cleared)

From Harper's one article of interest (updated)

I guess Harper's didn't want you to see the Khadr article so the link is to the actual transcripts... they are more interesting anyway!

From a February 2003 video recording of an interrogation by Canadian officials of Omar Khadr, a Canadian national accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan and currently held at Guantánamo Bay. In July, Khadr’s lawyers released seven hours of recordings to pressure the U.S. government into returning Khadr to Canadian custody. Khadr was sixteen at the time of the interrogation. . . .

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/2008/07/16/179652.aspx

From the minutes of a Counter Resistance Strategy Meeting, held October 2, 2002, at Guantánamo Bay. The minutes, which paraphrase comments and questions from the meeting, were released June 17 as part of a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on interrogation methods. The meeting began with a presentation about techniques that American soldiers are taught to resist in case of capture, based on the work of the military’s Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) and the Air Force’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) program. At the time, Jonathan M. Fredman was a CIA lawyer. Dave Becker was an officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Lieutenant Colonel Diane Beaver was a staff judge advocate for the Joint Task Force at Guantánamo Bay. The other participants, whom the Defense Department declined to identify specifically, were members of the Guantánamo general staff. . . .

View article...

Waterboarding comes to Coney Island...

I have to say when I first heard about this a few minutes ago I was ready to do something... I am not sure what... to bring attention to the new low in our country. Ahh, but then I read the actual article (education is an amazing thing) . So I suggest you do too.
But just to get you going let me leave you with this quote from the artist “What’s more obscene,” he asks, “the official position that waterboarding is not torture, or our official position that it’s a thrill ride?”

CLICK ON THE TITLE.

Little Boxes made of ticky tacky....

Remeniscent of the early Guantanamo days when the prisoners were placed in cages open to the elements is this piece on the coffin like boxes where we are holding prisoners in Iraq. Makes you proud doesn't it?

Click on the title to go to the actual article or go to Antiwar.com where I saw it first.