Seton Hall report on three of the deaths at Gitmo

Click here for the comprehensive report.

Click here for Scott Horton's interview of Prof. Denbeaux

For the cliffnotes version I am pasting this in from the press release (the bottom line is that there are still many unanswered questions):

The three detainees were each reported to have been found hanging in his separate cell shortly after midnight on June 10, 2006. According to the government’s own autopsies, each detainee had been hanging unobserved for a minimum of two hours. The deaths went unnoticed despite the constant supervision of five guards who were responsible for only 28 inmates in a lit cell block monitored by video cameras. According to Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), each detainee should have been observed a minimum of once every 10 minutes by the guards. Despite clear violations of the SOP, no guards were ever disciplined.

CAMP IN DISARRAY

Buried in the investigation are details of a camp in total disarray. According to Professor Mark Denbeaux, Director of the Center for Policy & Research, the investigation shows “guards not on duty, detainees hanging dead in their cells for hours and guards leaving their posts to eat the detainees’ leftover food.” During initial investigation interviews immediately following the deaths, those guards on duty were warned that they were suspected of giving false statements and were even read their Miranda rights. These guards were also ordered to not write out sworn statements, even though SOPs demanded they should.

COVER UP

Professor Denbeaux commented, “An investigation was promised. The promised investigation was a cover up. Worse still, given the gross inadequacy of the investigation the more compelling questions are: Who knew of the cover up? Who approved of the cover up, and why? The government’s investigation is slipshod, and its conclusion leaves the most important questions about this tragedy unanswered.”

Taking the military investigation’s findings as truthful and complete, in order to have committed suicide by hanging, the detainees had to:

1. Braid a noose by tearing up their sheets and/or clothing
2. Make mannequins of themselves so it would appear to the guards they were asleep in their cells
3. Hang sheets to block the view into the cells, in violation of SOPs
4. Stuff rags down their own throats
5. Tie their own feet together
6. Tie their own hands together
7. Hang the noose from the metal mesh of the cell wall and/or ceiling
8. Climb up on to the sink, put the noose around their necks and release their weight, resulting in death by strangulation
9. Hang dead for at least two hours completely unnoticed by guards

Seton Hall Law student, co-author of Death in Camp Delta, and former Sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division, Paul W. Taylor added: “We have three dead bodies and no explanation. How is it possible that all three detainees had shoved rags so far down their own throats that medical personnel could not remove them? One of the dead detainees was scheduled for release from Guantanamo Bay in 19 days. Instead he died in custody.”

The American public and the families of the dead deserve to know the truth.”

YES WE CAN.....but we won't (Updated)

Someone sent me an email questioning whether or not I was really wary of Obama from the beginning or whether I was not now just jumping on some anti Obama bandwagon.... I have jumped on bandwagons in the past when I realized I made a mistake... but this was not one of those times.

Read here for my post regarding Obama in early "08.

THIS THING CALLED THE CONSTITUTION....

Remember it?

Well it is coming into play again... lets see where it takes us.

You see we have been holding men without charge for years, torturing them and forcing confessions....but one of those men illegally held actually had an indictment against him in NY the whole time we were holding him.

We (the US Government) ignored it and held him and tortured him and now we decided to go ahead (six years later) and try him....sigh.

His attorneys filed this... suggesting to the court that maybe this is just a bit illegal.

read more here ...what you will learn is that our government is still protecting the details of his torture and that somehow our justice department doesn't see anything wrong with holding someone for years on end (maybe forever) without charge... and when they finally do get around to the charges they think we should just sit tight and accept it....kind of like the good old soviet union....

except they didn't have our constitution.

YES WE CAN.....but we won't

I don't agree with everything Michael has to say...I for one never loved the guy....but click on the title for more.

--

Pardoned White House Turkey Slays Nine

digg

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) - In a potentially embarrassing situation for the Obama White House, a turkey pardoned by President Obama earlier this week went on a three-state killing spree on Thanksgiving Day, killing nine.

While authorities were still piecing together the motivation behind the recidivist fowl's homicidal rampage, a chorus of Republican critics complained that pardoning the feathered killer was symptomatic of the Obama administration's misguided policies.

"First they close down Guantanamo, then they let killer turkeys run free," said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH). "Next thing you know they'll put this turkey on trial in New York."

Latest Gitmo News

There has been some things happening related to the Gitmo detainees that is of interest. First, the Supreme Court is looking at the issue of whether the US Government is free to torture people...as long as it is not on our soil.... Click here for more on the story. Also newsworthy is that the Algerian Government acquitted two men who were released back to Algeria from Guantanamo after seven years at the hellhole. That is good news for some of the Algerian men still being held at Guantanamo who fear going home because of the threat of further persecution. Read more on this story here. Daphne Eviatar also updated the sad story of the prisoner who died at Guantanamo earlier this year. Seems there is an ongoing investigation related to whether the man died of medical neglect. Read more about that here. Finally one more detainee had his habeas petition entered: Congrats to attorneys Buz Eisenberg and Jerry Cohen...(Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed (ISN 311) v. Obama , 05-cv-1347(GK)) .

Appealing the Stays (Updated)

Click on the title to read about a little reported fact From AP: that most of the men that have been cleared for release by the Obama Administration have had their habeas cases "stayed".... in other words, the Judges are refusing to hear their petitions for habeas corpus. Apparently when the "king" says..."don't worry I am taking care of things" the constitutional right to a habeas hearing (upheld by the Supreme Court inBoumediene) disappears. Many of the men have been cleared since the spring and with the threat of their habeas petitions dissolved the Obama Administration has dragged their collective feet in releasing the men.

Shame on the Judges and on the Obama Administration, although I would not expect the Administration to care about such things, I do expect the judges to do their duty

Click on the title for more.

I have updated this article to make clear that the source of this story is the AP article and not any "protected" information I may or may not have.

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under at Justinian

JUSTINIAN...

Roger Fitch Esq • November 13, 2009

Our Man in Washington

Gitmo closure looms … FBI releases documents on extraordinary rendition … Rendition lawsuits bogged down in US courts … All’s well that ends well for Ali Al-Marri

The Congressional Research Service has a report out on the legal issues involved in closing Guantánamo.

CLICK ON THE TITLE FOR MORE....

Uighers in Palau

Click on the title for a transcript from the "Dateline" interview with the four Uighers who arrived in Palau earlier this month and their attorneys.

Government trying to cut plea deals

As the January deadline approaches for closing Guantanamo alot of us our wondering just what the heck is going on with this transparent government of ours? Only a handful of men have left the place since Obama became president...and many of those that have left can thank certain Judges who ordered their release, as opposed to the Obama administration. The vast majority of the men, some of whom have been cleared for release for literally years continue to sit and wait for something to happen. Now we learn from Dafna Linzer at Propublica that the Government is trying to cut plea deals with many of the men....even though they have little or no evidence of wrongdoing for those men. I guess it might make it look good to some if the men leave Gitmo having been found guilty of something... as opposed to the reality, that many of the men have sat there for all of these years despite the fact that we have no evidence of any wrongdoing.

Click on the title for more of this story...

Andy Worthington on Democracy Now

On Democracy Now! Andy Worthington Discusses the Forthcoming 9/11 Trials and “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (Video)

13.11.09

I was delighted to be invited to discuss Guantánamo on Democracy Now! this morning, just an hour after the story first broke that the Obama administration is preparing to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other prisoners to the US mainland to face trials in federal court for their alleged involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

As I explained to Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, this is good news to the extent that the whole of the “War on Terror” – with its egregious human rights violations – was supposedly justified as being necessary for the pursuit and capture of those responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and although I believe that the government will be able to avoid having to dwell on the fact that Mohammed and his co-defendants were all tortured in secret CIA prisons if the Justice Department is able to produce any evidence whatsoever of their involvement in the attacks, I explained to Amy and Juan that I was deeply disappointed to hear that it is expected that other prisoners – including Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri, another CIA prisoner, who, like Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, was subjected to waterboarding, a form of controlled drowning – will not face a federal court trial, but will, instead, be put forward for trial by Military Commission.

As I have explained at length over the last two and a half years (and as the Commissions’ former prosecutor, Morris Davis, explained in a op-ed for the Wall Street Journal this week), the revival of the discredited Commissions, which struggled in vain to establish their legitimacy over the course of seven years, demonstrates only that the administration lacks the courage to trust the federal courts, and, as a result, is prepared to endorse the existence of a second-tier judicial system to be used in cases where it fears that the evidence will not be strong enough to secure a conviction.

I count myself fortunate to have had this interview scheduled on the day that such an important story broke, but was also glad that there was time to discuss – and show clips from – my new documentary film “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash), which I have been showing in New York, Washington D.C. and the Bay Area over the last week, and which was the initial spur for my appearance on the show.

Appealing the Stays

A little reported fact is that most of the men that have been cleared for release by the Obama Administration have had their habeas cases "stayed".... in other words, the Judges are refusing to hear their petitions for habeas corpus. Apparently when the "king" says..."don't worry I am taking care of things" the constitutional right to a habeas hearing (upheld by the Supreme Court in Boumediene) disappears. Many of the men have been cleared since the spring and with the threat of their habeas petitions dissolved the Obama Administration has dragged their collective feet in releasing the men.

Shame on the Judges and on the Obama Administration, although I would not expect the Administration to care about such things, I do expect the judges to do their duty

Click on the title for more.

Will they meet the NOV. 16 deadline?

On Monday the Obama administration is supposed to announce its plan for the 215 men still at Guantanamo. According to the administration they will have reviewed all of the files at least once by that date and they will know which men should be set free, which will be tried and which they just don't know what the heck to do with. The last public accounting was that about 50 were to be tried, 80 had been cleared for release and approximately 90 they just couldn't figure out. It will be interesting to see if they make the Monday deadline and if so where those numbers are at... Click on the title for more.

More on what is going on in the Supreme Court

Kiyemba II has now been filed in the Supreme Court. This is an issue that is of vital importance to both of my clients (and many other men at Gitmo) as it asks the Court to rule on whether or not my clients (and I) are entitled to 30 days notice before they are moved out of Guantanamo. The 30 days notice gives us time to petition the lower Court if in fact the Government/military intends on transferring the men to a place where they could face torture....I guess I mean, another place where they could face torture....sigh. Click on the title for more from scotusblog.

Obama's Guantanamo

Although the conditions of confinement for Mr. Al-Ghizzawi have improved over the course of this year there are many men at Guantanamo for whom things have not improved. Those are, for the most part, the men in Camp 5. Click on the title to read about their conditions.