July 4th... sigh.

 

Afghani detainee is home now...

 36 men remain. including my remaining client who was cleared for release earlier this year and is ready willing and able to go to his home country of Algeria. The only incentive is reducing the number of detainees and that apparently is not enough.

The afghani who is now home is home because there was a court order -- but even that didnt do the trick until his attorneys and the judge kept on the government by requiring them to come in and explain the progress- repeatedly.

Read about the latest release here.

h/o to Walt.

two things need to be further explained...

In my post about my client's 20 years at Guantanamo I mentioned his black feet and the "socks." Let me explain a little further. It seems one of the torture methods was to soak the socks in a chemical that burned my clients feet and of course caused excruciating pain. His feet were still blackened from that chemical the last time I saw him.

I also want to explain what I meant when I mentioned the court transcript from the "hearing." I said, "if he did not change that too." What I was suggesting was that the judge changed the official transcript from the hearing. I did not say that lightly or facetiously.  The judge actually had the transcript changed - a couple of the more outrageous statements the judge made were taken out of the official transcript. I actually wrote down those quotes during the hearing and wanted to use them in one of my many many motions following the hearing. Both were missing. I filed a motion asking for the recording because the transcript had been altered but the judge said there was no recording. That too was false.

twenty years and still counting....

 

On June 18^th, 2002, my client left for Guantanamo Bay from Bagram airbase. He had been picked up at a guesthouse in Lahore, Pakistan 3 months earlier and spent the three months being tortured at various military sites in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The flight to Guantanamo took 24 hours with a stop somewhere in between where he switched planes. On the plane he was strapped to the floor of in a semi-prone position with no ability to move. He was hooded and bound the entire time. No food, no water, no bathroom. On June 19, 2002 he landed at Guantanamo.

According to my client, “When I arrived at Guantanamo I was sent to a room where a person looked over my body. The person asked what caused the incisions on my back but I told him I was hooded and could not see what was used on me. The person also asked about what had caused my feet to be black and I told him about the socks. I also showed him the other scars on my body. I was not provided any medical attention for my wounds.” The medical records also showed numerous cigarette burns on his body but Mr. Bakhouch was not asked about those. Presumably, the medical staff knew those were caused by cigarettes being snubbed out on his body.

 Mr. Bakhouch has now been at Guantanamo for over 20 years. He has never been charged with anything. He is cleared for release, but who knows when or if that release will actually happen.

 The military does not have an accurate photo of my client. The official photo is of a man who I believe (but I am not 100% sure) was released from Guantanamo very early on. That man was from Saudi Arabia. According to my records, that man was at Bagram at the same time as my client. The information that was gathered by the military about my client was based on interviews with other detainees who were showed the photo of this other man.

I put together all of this information and much much more at my clients “habeas hearing.” I put that in quotation marks because this was not a hearing in the normal legal sense. My client was not allowed to attend and much of the information I learned about his plight was gathered from classified information which I was not allowed to share with my client. I was not allowed to show him the photo of the man the government claimed was my client. I was the only person at the “hearing” that had ever seen or met with my client.

 I do not usually talk publicly about my personal feelings about judges; however, I will break with that tradition in this case. Let me start out by saying that I have great respect for the judiciary, and I know most judges work extremely hard and care a great deal about the independence of their office. Win or lose I respect every judge I have ever been in front of, except for this particular judge. Judge Leon is a sorry excuse for a judge. He made it clear from day one that he was not going to rule for my client no matter what the evidence. He even said at the beginning of the hearing (and I am paraphrasing although the transcript is cleared, and I could look up his actual quote- if he did not change that too) I could just rule now against your client now just because of the guesthouse he was arrested at. I was tempted to let him make that ruling but I wanted to make my record. And when he ruled against my client his ruling was replete with false facts. I filed at least three, maybe four,  motions to reconsider to force him to get the facts right. And when the facts were all (or mostly) corrected the judge was forced to rule consistent with his threat at the beginning of the hearing. Mr. Bakhouch has been held these 20 years because of the guesthouse he was arrested at. That was the only evidence against Mr. Bakhouch and there were many other people staying at that same guesthouse who, like Mr. Bakhouch, had no connection to terrorism.

 And so, Mr. Bakhouch has wasted over 20 years of his life sitting at Guantanamo without any charges ever filed against him, because he was staying at a guesthouse in Lahore Pakistan where another man was arrested that my government wrongly thought was a terrorist.

 If my client should ever be released I will have much more to say about this disgrace but for now this will suffice.

New Photos from the early days of Guantanamo

 I know that not everyone can access the New York Times because of the paywall. But if you are able- this is worth looking at. 

These are photos, just now released, from the arrival of the first men at Guantanamo in January 2002. 

There is of course always good reason why the government withholds photos and information. And no, it has nothing to do with security. It is because of the shameful methods of our treatment of these men and the dishonesty in the reports. 

Imagine if the reports that I saw in relation to my clients could have been shared widely. Not only would I have had the help of others in researching the lies but the ugly lies would have knocked the narrative out of the governments claims that most (or even many) of the men at Guantanamo were terrorists. 

Again, thanks to Carol Rosenberg for staying on this story all of these years.

Of Course She Did....

 Carol Rosenberg reports:

Gina Haspel Observed Waterboarding at C.I.A. Black Site, Psychologist Testifies

WASHINGTON — During Gina Haspel’s confirmation hearing to become director of the C.I.A. in 2018, Senator Dianne Feinstein asked her if she had overseen the interrogations of a Saudi prisoner, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, which included the use of a waterboard.

Ms. Haspel declined to answer, saying it was part of her classified career.

While there has been reporting about her oversight of a C.I.A. black site in Thailand where Mr. Nashiri was waterboarded, and where Ms. Haspel wrote or authorized memos about his torture, the precise details of her work as the chief of base, the C.I.A. officer who oversaw the prison, have been shrouded in official secrecy.

read the rest here.

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under at Justinian

 

SCOTUS hollows out America

ROGER FITCH ESQ • TUESDAY, MAY 31, 2022

US Supreme Court ... Overturning Roe v Wade and other travesties ... Using religious beliefs to alter secular law ... Gutting civil rights remedies ... Looser gun regulations ... The malignant Fifth Circuit ... From Our Man in Washington, Roger Fitch 

"…[I]t's time to discuss religion whether we like it or not, because it's no longer knocking on the door: Sam Alito just sent it in the house with a no-knock warrant and stun grenades that threaten to catch the place on fire" - Thom Hartmann

With Trump gone, the focus in Republican psychopathology has turned to individual supreme court justices, e.g, the ethically-challenged Clarence Thomas, yet one should never forget his fellow-traveller, Sam Alito, because Justice Alito is one angry man. 

There's been an unprecedented leak of Alito's draft majority opinion in the forthcoming abortion decision, Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health, set to overrule Roe v Wade, and the justice's grasp of history has been faulted: resurrecting ancient common law, he applies a legal narrative more consistent with the 17th century than a US history with remedies for "quickening".  

Some see an intellectually-dishonest exercise designed to mask Alito's orthodox, powerful, but legally-irrelevant Roman Catholic beliefs: consider his alarming footnote on a shortfall in adoptable infants. 

It seems a foot in the door for a faith-based system in the US where religiously-defined morality displaces law, a nation where religious adherents become the most sympathetic plaintiffs before a court that intends to use religious belief to alter secular law.

Overturning Roe v Wade is, in this analysis, but one front in a religious war against America, and the draft opinion suggests that the conservative justices don't plan to stop with Roe. The impression that they don't mind being an extension of the Republican Party has lawyers wondering what's coming next. 

Dobbs will have consequences, as many civil rights will be threatened, e.g, same-sex marriage. The leak itself may affect decisions in other cases: e.g, guns and environmental protections..

Most fundamentally, the Dobbs draft endangers the right to privacy first formulated in 1890 by the revered future supreme court justice, Louis Brandeis, and the 1923 decision adopting it. 

Alito: intellectually dishonest

According to law prof Melissa Murray: 

"A decision overruling Roe v. Wade would threaten an entire line of jurisprudence rooted in the 14th Amendment's guarantee of liberty ... [going] back to a 1923 decision guaranteeing parents the right to raise their children free of undue state intervention, and it includes the right to marry, the right to engage in adult sexual relationships and the right to use contraception." 

Besides birth control, medical assistance in pregnancy is in question, even after miscarriages, and creation of life in vitro. 

Sherry Colb believes IVF treatment won't be a problem: for Alito: 

"... women are soil where men can plant their seeds, and soil has no right to uproot the plants that start growing. People who seek IVF, by contrast, do not challenge the role of women in our society. IVF places women in a state of pregnancy, which is where [Alito] wants them."

≈   ≈   ≈

READ THE REST HERE

memorial day 2022 part 2

 

memorial day 2022

 

Under the Torture Convention statements made while tortured should not be used....

 I have been a little slow to get this up but I was glad to see my senator (Durbin) and senator Leahy push Biden on what he is going to do about the men at Guantanamo who were tortured and made statements. The bottom line is that those statements should not be used.

This is from their statement and press release:

Durbin, Leahy Seek Clarification of Administration's Position on Use of Torture-Derived Evidence

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, are calling on the Biden Administration to uphold U.S. obligations under the Torture Convention by putting an end to the repeated efforts by Guantanamo military commission prosecutors to use evidence derived from torture.  Guantanamo Bay military commission prosecutors again argued in court that evidence obtained through torture can be used in the capital case against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is currently being held at Guantanamo.  In a letter to Attorney General Garland, Defense Secretary Austin, and Secretary of State Blinken, the Senators argue that, despite the Administration’s pledge to “eradicate torture in all its forms,” the military commission prosecutors are not adhering to U.S. obligations.

READ THE REST HERE.

Musical interlude --for our friends in Ukraine....

 

TO SAEED'S MOTHER AND THE MOTHER OF ALL THE DISAPPEARED

 I am not sure if my client's mother is still alive. I hope she is and I hope she will welcome Saeed with open arms.

From Roger Fitch and Our Friends Down Under at Justinian

 ≈   ≈   ≈

When tiring of Trump's unpunished crimes, we can reflect upon those of George Bush, and one of Mr Bush's greatest crimes, official government torture, is back in the news. 

In March, the supreme court decided Zubaydah, accepting the government's "state secrets" claim which blocked the testimony of CIA contractors accused of torture.

Captured by the FBI and CIA, Abu Zubaydah was the first to endure the CIA's "Enhanced Interrogation" (Gestapo "verschärfte Vernehmung"), a program for the systematic torture of "war of terror" prisoners. 

 Zubaydah spent four-and-a-half years in CIA torture camps operated at sundry sites including Thailand, Poland and Lithuania (both paid damages), and Guantánamo. He's been held now for 20 years.

The FBI agents John Kiriakou, who led the capture of Zubaydah, and Ali Soufan, who first interviewed him, opposed the takeover of the case by the CIA, who sent Zubaydah to Thailand for "interrogation" by  James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. 

Water-boarding began, Zubaydah nearly died, and no productive intelligence was derived. Nevertheless, water-board torture continued under the new camp director, Gina Haspel. 

Later, when Zubaydah was held in Poland, the morbidly-curious CIA agent Alfreda Bikowsky made an unauthorised visit just to see him being tortured. 

Where are they all now? John Kiriakou is out of prison (another story) and blogging on Zubaydah. Ali Soufan heads the Soufan Group security consultancy, and sponsors Fordham Law's Center on National Security, and Mitchell and Jessen aren't testifying in Poland's investigation, thanks to the supreme court.

Gina Haspel, since rewarded as Trump's CIA director, advises King & Spalding clients on cybersecurity.

Scheuer: torture team

And Alfreda Bikowsky? Since retiring, the Agency's "Queen of Torture" has been hawking beauty products and life advice for a living. The fabled red-haired member of the Agency's torture team, now married to the equally-odious torture team member Michael Scheuer, recently gave an unrepentant interview to Reuters. 

Is this a great country, or what? 

READ THE REST OF FITCH HERE

Andy Worthington discusses my client

 Historian Andy Worthington has long chronicled the lives of the men that have been held at Guantanamo. In fact, his book The Guantanamo files- was a must read for all of the Guantanamo attorneys as we worked through our cases and tried to learn as much as we could about our clients. We all had our own copies and a couple extra copies could always be found at the "secure facility" - the place where we worked on the classified aspects of our clients' court cases. Today, Andy again focuses on my client, Saeed Bakhouch. Andy, with his vast resources was the one to let me know a week or so ago that Saeed had finally been cleared for release. It is only appropriate that he be the one to tell this story. Read it here.

Finally the beginning of the end

 Probably by the time Mr. Bakhouch is actually released he will have passed the 20th anniversary of his arrival at Guantanamo. I will have a lot more to say about this travesty in the weeks and months to come but for now I will just celebrate this small step.

You can look at the barebones release notice here.

h/o to Andy Worthington for getting word to me