Missing the point at Guantanamo...

"Two recent stories about Guantánamo from two of the country's most respected news organizations highlight just how little attention the American press has paid to the facts about the extralegal prison, and the general lack of understanding about the core legal and Constitutional issues involved." Read the rest of this important article by Tom Wilner here.

Khadr To Appeal Judges stupid ruling....

Read more about the lower court's decision and his upcoming appeal here.

The Torture Doctors...

Scott Horton discusses the report by an expert panel that concluded that the Pentagon and the CIA ordered physicians to violate the Hippocratic Oath. Read his account here. And read the actual report here.

David Hicks fights back....

David Hicks---The Australian man whose only way out of Guantanamo was to plead guilty to a crime that wasn't even a crime when he supposedly did "it" is now trying to clear his name. If there was any justice out there this would not be a difficult job but well- enough with justice, aye? Read about David's lawsuit here. and here.... and here and finally here. Best of luck David.

"Please, we are tired...."

"Either leave us to die in peace ---or either tell the world the truth. Let the world hear what's happening." Those are the words uttered by Guantanamo detainee Shaker Aamer to a CBS television crew. His words are not as amazing as the fact that this was not subjected to the usual U.S. government censorship. Pretty sad that the biggest news is not what Shaker is saying but the fact that we can hear his voice. Anyway---read the rest here.

U.N. Reviews Military Tribunals...

GENEVA, Switzerland, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- Military tribunals, convened outside the civilian justice system, need to conform to basic standards for due process, a U.N. rights official said from Geneva.

Gabriela Knaul, U.N. special envoy on judicial independence, said U.N. member states need to enact tighter principles to govern military tribunals.

"Irrespective of their military status, these tribunals must be an integral part of the general judicial system," she said in a statement Monday. "It is also essential to ensure that military tribunals are compatible with human rights standards, including the respect of the right to a fair trial and due process guarantees."

Amnesty International in June said a military tribunal in Indonesia was being used to shield human rights violators from the rule of law. The rights group said a trial for 12 soldiers accused of the extrajudicial execution of four detainees was a sham.

Human Rights Watch, in a separate statement, said it's "convinced" the use of military commissions to try suspected terrorists at the U.S. Navy's detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is a serious error. It said the justice system there is "substandard."

Knaul did not single out any particular system in her statements. She served as a Brazilian judge before starting service with the United Nations in 2009.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2013/10/29/UN-reviews-military-tribunals/UPI-82601383059792/#ixzz2jE3QVrJC

Khadr's doctor speaks out....

Khadr's doctor, retired U. S. General Stephen Xenakis, spoke out about the treatment of his patient Omar Khadr in Edmonton yesterday. The whole notion that this young man who was arrested at age 15 and had to plead guilty to charges- some of which were not even a crime at the time- to get out of the hell hole commonly known as Guantanamo is beyond the pale. My Canadian friends---Please don't let your country start mimicking the worst of our traits here in the U. S. ---or I guess I should say Please don't let your country continue to mimic our worst traits....
Read more about the good general here.

General and Systematic violation of Human Rights.......

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Monday demanded the United States explain abuses allegedly committed at Guantanamo prison, especially its practice of force-feeding inmates on hunger strike.

“The information we have indicates that there was a general and systematic violation of human rights” in Guantanamo, said Rodrigo Escobar Gil, one of the Washington-based body’s seven commissioners.

The allegations of forced feeding of Guantanamo prisoners on hunger strike constituted “cruel and inhumane treatment,” he added.

Read the rest HERE

ohhhhh Canada....

Shame on you.

Court denies former Guantanamo detainee's transfer

(AFP) – 3 days ago  

Ottawa — A Canadian court on Friday denied former Guantanamo inmate Omar Khadr's transfer from a maximum to a minimum security prison where he might be eligible for parole.

Khadr, now 27, sought to have his detention in a federal penitentiary for dangerous criminals in Edmonton declared illegal.

His lawyer Dennis Edney argued that because Khadr was 15 at the time of his offenses he should be jailed in a more comfortable provincial correctional facility for petty criminals and youth offenders.

But Canada's government opposed the move, calling it an attempt to lessen his punishment.

In his ruling, Judge John Rooke said the case was "not about any determination of the level of punishment," but rather a simple interpretation of legislation on housing prisoners transferred from abroad.

"The interpretation by the CSC (Correctional Services of Canada) that Mr. Khadr should be placed in a penitentiary is the correct statutory interpretation," he said.

The broader implication for Khadr is that it will be harder for him to obtain early release as long as he is classified a maximum-security risk by his jailers.

Edney told public broadcaster CBC that he would appeal the decision.

He noted that the United States and others have deemed Khadr to be a minimum security risk, and "posed no violent threat to anybody."

The lawyer lamented that as long as Khadr is designated a maximum security risk by Canadian authorities "that he will never get out of prison before his time's up."

Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney welcomed the ruling, saying Khadr had "pleaded guilty to heinous crimes."

Khadr was repatriated to Canada in September 2012 after spending 10 years in the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba following his arrest in Afghanistan as a teenager in 2002.

He was sentenced to eight years in 2010 following a military hearing in which he agreed to plead guilty to murder in violation of the law of war, attempted murder, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism and spying.

The murder charge related to a grenade attack that killed a US soldier.

Fed's decide not to oppose habeas petition for Sudan prisoner

Ibrahim Idris has been held for 11 years- he has severe physical and mental illnesses and the government has known this for 11 years. Finally the government has agreed to "not oppose" his habeas petition--Read more HERE.

And congrats to the lawyer team at Debevoise for their hard fought battle.

From My Friends Down Under At Justinian....

ROGER FITCH ESQ • MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

Israel given unfiltered NSA data ... All phone calls in the US are "relevant to terrorism" ... Defence contractor successfully sues torture victims for costs ... NY designates city mosques as "terrorism enterprises" ... US Supremes in need of a code of conduct ... Nixon on judicial appointments ... Roger Fitch files from the town in the process of shutting down 

CONFLATING war with civilian terrorism in order to justify indefinite military detention is still a popular pastime of the US government.

A critical study of America's other Guantánamo - Bagram prison in Afghanistan, which holds non-Afghans - mainly Pakistanis - has been released by the human rights law firm Justice Project Pakistan.  

At the moment, non-Afghan Bagram prisoners have three habeas claims in court in the DC Circuit for the second time.  

There's more here on Maqaleh and other non-Afghans held in Afghanistan, some taken to a war zone for the express purpose of defeating their habeas claims. 

One of the petitioners, the Pakistani Amanatullah, was removed from occupied Iraq to Afghanistan.

According to British courts who heard the case of the similarly-situated Bagram prisonerRahmatullah that's a war crime.  

Scotusblog has more on the DC cases. 

Some prisoners of the US who remained in occupied Iraq - in accordance with the Geneva Conventions - were left to the tender mercy of mercenary interrogators at the Abu Ghraib prison.

A few brought civil suits in the US for their mistreatment. Recently, these plaintiffs unexpectedly lost their suit, based on the trial judge's contentious interpretation of the Supreme Court's recent Kiobel decision (see post of July 2013) on the scope of the Alien Tort Statute.

The triumphant defence contractor CACI International, who provided the contract "interrogation services" at Abu Ghraib, had the chutzpah to counter-sue the torture victims for costs, and they've been granted.

There's background here and here, plus earlier posts on the case here and here. 

READ THE ENTIRE JUSTINIAN POST HERE.

An Update...

Some things that went on last week while I was busy with other things....

Omar Khadr has been moved out of the prison where he was being kept in solitary confinement---now he is in a different prison in Alberta... read more here.

The full D.C. Circuit Court heard arguments yesterday on whether or not it is lawful in this here country to convict individuals of crimes that were not crimes at the time (we in the lawyer biz call those ex post facto laws and our constitution forbids them)...sigh.
Read more here.

And Today's WTF moment

(Reuters) - Using the Wi-Fi connection at Starbucks was a better bet than risking putting confidential defense documents on a glitch-prone Pentagon computer network, a senior Defense Department official testified on Thursday at the Guantanamo trial of five prisoners charged with plotting the September 11 hijacked plane attacks. Read the rest here.

Omar Khadr--another birthday behind bars...

As Andy Worthington reports life has not been good for Mr. Khadr- imprisoned at Guantanamo at age 15 and finally released to Canadian authorities after more than ten years at Guantanamo only to continue being imprisoned north of the boarder in maximum security conditions. Instead of being treated-at most- as a child soldier he was forced to plead guilty to trumped up charges just to get the hell out of Guantanamo. Unfortunately Canada has a right wing government that has tried to emulate GW Bush....sigh. Poor Mr. Harper- he thinks by treating Mr. Khadr as a demon it makes him look tough--I await the day when Canada again becomes the progreesive and caring country of my youth....but I am not holding my breath.

New Filing in the Supreme Court

From Lyle Denniston at SCOTUS:

GTMO and war’s end in Afghanistan

A Kuwaiti national held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay for more than eleven-and-a-half years, who figured in an important Supreme Court ruling nine years ago, is making a new plea for his release — just as soon as the U.S. completes its withdrawal from the war in Afghanistan.  At that point, lawyers for Fawzi Khalid Abdullah Fahad al Odah argued in a new filing Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, the U.S. government will no longer have a legal basis for holding him.

The habeas petition contended that the Supreme Court has allowed detention of prisoners captured in Afghanistan or Pakistan only as long as “armed hostilities” continue for U.S. forces in that region.   With the Obama administration’s planned end of those operations by the end of December 2014, the document contended, al Odah must be sent home to Kuwait.

The document illustrated once more that the American lawyers who provide legal aid to the Guantanamo prisoners — often working without fees — will continue to work out new pleas to challenge the years-long confinement of their clients.   The al Odah filing is the first to be based on the plea that the Afghan war will change the entire legal framework for detention of individuals suspected of terrorist roles.  The government has never faced that claim before.

READ THE REST HERE....