From Roger Fitch and our Friends Down Under at Justinian....

Ah, the law's delay.

The Libyan Salem Gherebi, one of the first Guantánamo prisoners to file a habeas petition in the United States, has been freed and sent to Senegal.  

Gherebi's case had its roots in the "West Coast" habeasfiled in January 2002 (reported here), and in December 2003, he became the first Guantanamero to triumph in a US appeals court.  

In June 2004, in Rasul v Bush (David Hicks' case), the supreme court confirmed the right of Guantánamo prisoners to habeas hearings, with venue in DC.

The 9^th circuit's decision was vacated, and Gherebi'shabeas was transferred to Washington, where it languished.

Fitch earlier noted the reaction of the 9^th circuit court that heard Mr Gherebi's case: 

"Under the government's theory, it is free to imprison Gherebi indefinitely along with hundreds of other citizens of foreign countries, friendly nations among them, and to do with Gherebi and those detainees as it will, when it pleases, without any compliance with any rule of law of any kind, without permitting him to consult counsel, and without acknowledging any judicial forum in which its actions may be challenged.

Indeed, at oral argument, the government advised us that its position would be the same even if the claims were that it was engaging in acts of torture and that it was summarily executing the detainees (emphasis added).

To our knowledge, prior to the current detention of prisoners at Guantanamo, the US government has never asserted such a ... startling proposition ... a position so extreme that it raises the gravest concerns under both American and international law." 

READ THE REST HERE

RIP Michael Ratner

It is with great sadness that I share the following news from the Center for Constitutional Rights:

May 11, 2016, New York – The Center for Constitutional Rights is sad to release the following statement on the occasion of the passing of the Center’s president emeritus Michael Ratner:

From Attica to Assange, Michael Ratner has defended, investigated, and spoken up for victims of human rights abuses all over the world. For 45 years, Michael brought cases with the Center for Constitutional Rights in U.S. courts related to war, torture, and other atrocities, sometimes committed by the U.S., sometimes by other regimes or corporations, in places ranging from El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and Guatemala, to Yugoslavia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Iraq, and Israel. Seeking to hold Bush administration officials accountable for torture, he turned to filing cases under the principle of Universal Jurisdiction in international courts—in Germany, Spain, Canada, Switzerland, and France. Michael dedicated his life to the most important fights for justice of the last half century.

When Michael decided to take on U.S. policies of indefinite detention at Guantanamo in January 2002, it was not a popular position. With Michael, the Center for Constitutional Rights was the first human rights organization to stand up for the rights of Guantanamo detainees, and Michael was a founding member of the Guantanamo Bay Bar Association, a group that grew to over 500 attorneys from all over the country working pro bono to provide representation to the men at Guantanamo that has been called the largest mass defense effort in U.S. history. Michael acted as counsel in the landmark case Rasul v. Bush, and after two and a half years of litigation, CCR and co-counsel won the first Guantanamo case in the United States Supreme Court.

As an attorney, writer, speaker, educator, activist, and as the President of the Center for Constitutional Rights for so many years, Michael Ratner’s passion was not just for the law but for the struggle for justice and peace. Michael’s work on Central America, Haiti, surveillance, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, whistleblowers, war powers, and Palestine will not soon be matched.

Michael’s leadership and generous spirit have shown the way for new generations of social justice lawyers. He helped found the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, bringing CCR’s style of lawyering, which he helped shape, to Europe, where the legal culture was less familiar with public interest lawyering and filing suits to press for social change. He worked with CCR and the Bertha Justice Institute on programs to educate junior lawyers, working in partnership with front-line organizations around the world and fostering artistic partnerships that bring the issues he championed his entire life to a wider audience. Michael’s legacy is the sea of people he has touched—his family, his clients, his allies, his colleagues, and all of the young lawyers he has inspired. Today we mourn. Tomorrow we carry on his work.
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My friend, the Talking Dog interviewed Michael many years ago: read that interview here........ 

The Talking Dog will be at the Left Forum-Corrected

The Left Forum starts in a couple of weeks (May 20-22). This year it's in New York City and my friend The Talking Dog will be participating in a panel on Guantanamo on Saturday May 21st at noon: Close Guantanamo Now or Move Guantanamo North?
War Criminals Watch has more on that and other panels of interest.
If you have never gone to the Left Forum and you are in the NYC area (or can get there) this is a must event. Past conferences have included talks by: Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, Angela Davis, Harry Belafonte, Naomi Klein, Michael Moore, Cornel West, Bolivian Vice President Álvaro García Linera, Amy Goodman, Slavoj Zizek, Grace Lee Boggs, RoseAnn DeMoro, Marina Sitrin, Nnimmo Bassey, Immortal Technique and Oliver Stone.

The passing of Daniel Berrigan...

There was probably no other activist more influencial in opposing the Vietnam War and inspiring others (including myself) into a life of activism and a dedication to human rights. RIP Daniel.

To the Mothers of the Disappeared.....

Abu Zubaydah.... the Al-Qaeda "leader" who wasn't....

Rebecaa Gordon has written alot about U.S. war crimes and of course one of the worst was our treatment of Abu Z- a man who was said to be the number 2 in Al- Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden's right hand man. We water boarded him almot 100 times- we confined him in a coffin- and we have kept him in solitary confinement for years and years.... and of course he will never be charged with a crime because my country was wrong about who he is (and was). Read more about the war crimes against this man here. And pick up a copy of Gordon's book "American Nuremberg: the U.S. officials who should stand trial for post 9-11 war crimes."

And speaking of war crimes and Osama Bin Laden. Seymour Hersh has a new book out about the hit on Osama Bin Laden. Yes, that too was a war crime- "he was a prisoner of war" and we executed him. Read more about Hersh's book here.

RIP PRINCE

A brief interlude to acknowledge the passing of an artist.
http://mashable.com/2016/04/22/prince-purple-monuments/#EYHGAay5V5q6

JAILED WITHOUT TRIAL FOR LIFE

This article comes from Juan Cole's blog and asks the question "With nine months left until a new president is inaugurated, the question is: Can this country’s signature War on Terror prison ever be closed?"

Detailed breakdown of the Gitmo Stats.....

Reflecting the recent announcement that the PRB has declined to approve for transfer Sharqawi Abdu Ali al Hajj (ISN 1457), a Yemeni whom the government has also referred to as “Riyadh the Facilitator” the following is the latest breakdown of the population.

The prison population remains at 80: 26 are cleared, 44 are awaiting clearance, and 10 are in the military commission system (of those, 7 are in “active” “trial” proceedings while 3 have been “convicted”).

Of the 26 cleared, 21 (80.8%) are Yemenis and 5 are non-Yemenis. 

Of the 44 awaiting clearance, 19 are Yemenis and 25 are non-Yemenis.

PRB Data

The PRB has approved for transfer 20 of the 28 detainees for whom it has issued decisions (71.4%).

Of the 44 detainees who are PRB-eligible and still awaiting clearance:

·         Eight were denied clearance in their initial appearance before the PRB and are in various stages of file review (ISNs 28, 29, 242, 522, 569, 1094, 1457) or have received a subsequent full review (ISN 131);

·         Three have had their initial hearings and are awaiting decision (ISNs 508, 762, 841);

·         18 are officially in the PRB process with (at least tentatively) scheduled hearing dates (ISNs 27, 44, 63, 685, 694, 696, 702, 753, 760, 837, 838, 839, 840, 975, 1453, 1461, 1463, 10025);

·         15 are not yet officially in the PRB process.

For these purposes, a detainee is “officially in the PRB process” when he has received formal notification of the process and has been assigned a PRB hearing date, based on either (a) the detainee appearing (even if only temporarily) on the PRB web page tracking individual detainees’ proceedings, (b) my personal knowledge regarding our PRB-eligible clients, or (c) information provided to me by counsel for other PRB-eligible detainees.

Cleared Detainee Data

15 of the 26 cleared detainees currently at the base were cleared by the Obama Task Force.  The other 11 were cleared by the PRB, which means 9 PRB-cleared detainees have been released.

Specifically, of the 26 cleared:

11 are Yemenis approved for “conditional detention” by the Obama Task Force (ISNs 33, 40, 91, 223, 240, 440, 498, 509, 550, 728, 893)

1 is a Yemeni approved for transfer by the Obama Task Force (ISN 153)

3 are non-Yemenis approved for transfer by the Obama Task Force (ISNs 38 (Tunisia), 257 (Tajikistan), 309 (unknown/UAE))

2 are Yemenis approved for “conditional detention” by the PRB (ISNs 31, 37)

7 are Yemenis approved for transfer by the PRB (ISNs 41, 128, 235, 434, 441, 576, 836)

2 are non-Yemenis approved for transfer by the PRB (ISNs 1045 (Afghanistan), 1119 (Afghanistan))

H/O TO FELLOW GITMO ATTORNEY BRIAN FOSTER FOR KEEPING TRACK OF THIS.

Maybe 9?

I have not seen an official announcement but the general concensus is that nine Yemeni were transferred to Saudi Arabia. One of the nine is the long term hunger striker Tariq Ba Odah. I understand that his health is pretty dire.

With those nine gone here are the latest stats:

The prison population now stands at 80: 26 are cleared, 44 are awaiting clearance, and 10 are in the military commission system (of those, 7 are in “active” “trial” proceedings while 3 have been “convicted”).

Of the 26 cleared, 21 (80.8%) are Yemenis and 5 are non-Yemenis. 

Of the 44 awaiting clearance, 19 are Yemenis and 25 are non-Yemenis.

H/O to fellow gitmo attorney Brian Foster for keeping track of all of this.

More Detainees released?

Unconfirmed reports have 12 detainees transferred to Saudi Arabia. More news to follow.

Health concerns at Gitmo- UPDATED

Last year I wrote about the cancer cluster at Gitmo. After a military defense attorney died from a very aggressive form of cancer concerns were raised about the site where the attorneys and staff stay while at the base as well as their working space. It seems that the attorney was not the only one to be diagnosed with cancer. The staff demanded an investigation and it was learned that hazard waste had been dumped at the site.... of course the military is never wrong and they declined to move anyone and said "everthing is fine...."
Yesterday the marine general for the defense team banned them from living at "camp justice" until further notice, citing health concerns. I will have a link to my earlier post and to an article from yesterday that raises the continued concerns later today.
Stay tuned....

Could it be that one CIA torturer will stand trial??

If so, it will be in Italy not in these United States where torturers are allowed their freedom... Actually even if this particular CIA operative is extradicted from Portugal to Italy she might not stand trial as she never showed up for the original trial and was found guilty in abstentia...
Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Read more here.

oh man, shades of Cully!

Most of you probably don't remember Cully Simpson. I wrote aobut him many years ago here. The short version is that he thought that the attorneys who were representing men at Guantanamo should be attacked and the clients of the big law firms (phew, I escaped that one....) should be put on notice that their attorneys are representing "those people." Poor Cully went down in flames and was forced to resign. He has even reinvented himself of late as some sort of voice of reason regarding the detainees.

Now comes his predecessor..... Douglas Fahl. A county judge from Indiana and a reservist who has been called up for duty. So where is he being sent? To Guantanamo of course--- because the military needs a big strong man to set the record straight and keep these dangerous people at Guantanamo forever--- to keep us American's safe. SIGH.

According to Fahl " “I’ve seen what these guys are capable of doing on the battlefield. It’s always difficult to leave my family for a deployment, but I am honored to be chosen to use my legal skills to make sure these dangerous men don’t return to the battlefield to kill American soldiers or innocent civilians.”

I for one feel alot safer now. LOL. I wonder what poor Fahl will do when he discovers that more than 90% of the men were never near a battlefield. Well the good news is he has already figured out his game plan. According to Fahl,  “GITMO has been described to me as the tip of the spear for legal warfare.” 

Oh man, "legal warfare." 

As I said at the top of this piece--- shades of Cully Simpson--- may Fahl go down in flames as quickly as Cully so that we can all get back to the business of shutting the place down.

READ THE REST HERE

Military hearing deadlines postponed again....

It seems there is a new problem down at Gitmo for the military hearings. The presiding judge continued pretrial hearings that were set to begin next week. The rumor is that it has to do with a justice department investigation into the security breach of one of the defense teams which defense lawyers have called "a gross violation of the attorney client privilege."
There is no word when things will start up again. You can read more here.