Carol: Welcome back to the Gitmo beat!

The Military has decided not to illegally ban one of the top Gitmo reporters who reports on all things Gitmo.

Click on the title for the story from the Miami Harold about the reinstatement of Carol Rosenberg.

Click here for a further discussion from emptywheel.

CAROL, WE ARE VERY HAPPY YOU WILL BE BACK AT GITMO, keep up the good work.

Another Habeas Win- UPDATED

It was just pointed out to me that the scorecard now reads 37-13...the Government has one less win because of the Circuit Court's reversal in Bensayah (discussed here).

Tip of the hat to Roger Fitch.

You Can Run But You Cannot Hide (updated)

Last month I reported on the complaint filed against James Elmer Mitchell, one of the architects of the CIA torture program. I am happy to report that the American Psychological Assn has now filed a letter supporting the complaint against Dr. James Mitchell. I hope to have a link to that letter shortly.

On a separate but related note the Center for Justice and Accountability filed a complaint against one of the other masterminds of the CIA torture program Dr. John Leso. Details here.

Thank You PEGS for the link.

Another Habeas Win

Today Judge Friedman issued an order granting the writ to Yemeni Hussain Salem Mohammad Almerfedi, ISN 1015. The merits hearing in his case occurred on March 3-5, 2010. Judge Friedman ordered that an unclassified version of his opinion is to be provided to him by July 22.

The scorecard is now 37 habeas wins, 14 losses.

Congrats to Brian E. Foster and the Covington team.

Plea deal for Gitmo detainee

Yesterday the military announced that it reached a plea deal with one of the Guantanamo detainees. When I read the announcement I knew it stunk to high heaven but it wasn't until last night that I went and read as much as I could find on Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi....

I don't have time to link to the NY Times database right now but you can go to it yourself and paste in his name and do a search....probably wikipedia has links too. It is shameful that this is an example of what our government calls a "war crime."

Roger Fitch at Justian has more here.

Canadian Court coming through for Khadr?

I will try to have a link to this decision later today but the Federal Court of Canada issued an Order yesterday which suggests that they may be getting close to restoring an earlier order requiring the Government of Canada to request Omar Khadr's repatriation from gtmo....stay tuned.

Thanks to PEGC we now have a link to the decision. CLICK ON THE TITLE

Happy 4th continued....

Happy 4th........

On the eve of the 4th ....

I would like to share a few items out there in the news that you might not have seen from some of the websites that I look at regularly.

First, from Pruning Shears: Why looking back matters

Next, from emptywheel: Keep your Declaration of independence right next to your assassination cards

From Scotusblog: an interesting piece on the DC Circuit trying to stop a DC District Court judge from doing her job: Major fight brews on munaf

From Informed Comment (where you can find out more in depth analysis of all things mideast):

Steele blames Obama for Afghanistan

From the Talking Dog: More from the department of "Duh"

And finally from No Comment: a little piece about the country that we broke ties some 234 years ago....Britain moves forward on torture probe...

Seems even the Brits understand that looking back matters.

Finally a DC Circuit opinion helpful to detainees (Updated)

Today the DC Circuit released a declassified version of an opinion from last week in which they reversed a decision by Judge Leon denying the Great Writ. In trying to explain the decision I made a leap that was not correct...... Bensayah was one of several Algerians being held and the Government's case was primarily one suggesting that he was suspicious and that should be enough to hold him: The Government claimed Bensayah had ties to an al-Qaeda operative (but now the Government has given up on the theory that the accused operative was actually connected to al-Qaeda) and Bensayah used fake id's to travel (on occasion) because his Algerian passport had expired and he couldn't go back to Algeria. The Government apparently rested much of his case on the ties to the al-Qaeda operative but more recently the government has backed off substantially on its allegations regarding that other individual....so the bottom line was that Bensayah was being held because he allegedly had ties to someone no longer considered to be connected to al-Qaeda and that he didn't have a current passport so he used fake id's ...on occasion. Of course when Judge Leon ruled the Government had not yet acknowledged that the other individual had no connection to al-Qaeda. Anyway it is nice that the DC Circuit has decided not to rubber stamp every Government win in the district court (fortunately there are not many Government wins.....)

Thanks to Mark Fleming and the Wilmer Hale team for this great victory.

CLICK ON THE TITLE FOR THE LINK.......

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under at Justinian

Roger Fitch Esq • June 21, 2010

Supreme Court wonderland

In a decision the NY Times called disgraceful,
the Supreme Court denied certiorari to the Canadian Maher Arar in his civil damages case against US officials who rendered him to Syria as he transited JFK airport in 2002.

Arar was tortured there for 10 months.

The Canadians exonerated Arar, paid him millions in damages and apologised for their role in his rendition. The US, however, refused to take any action.

The Mounties are now investigating the US

Arar’s lawyer, David Cole (pic), has more to say.

CLICK ON THE TITLE FOR MORE........

You Can Run But You Cannot Hide

Since our president thinks that holding certain criminals responsible for their crimes distracts us from the future it is important that we the people do everything we can to hold those men and women responsible for their actions....In that vein is the attached complaint to the TEXAS STATE BOARD OF EXAMINERS OF PSYCHOLOGISTS regarding the conduct of one Dr. James Elmer Mitchell.

Click on the title for the complaint.

Thank you Charles Gittings at PEGS for this posting.

The "sideshow"

Last week the judge in my remaining clients case reluctantly recused himself in a most injudicious order. For some reason the judge, who sat on my recusal motion for months, decided that my motion...as opposed to the conduct of the DOJ was the real problem.

The talking dog has more here:

http://www.thetalkingdog.com/archives2/001460.html

NEW ACLU DOCUMENTS FROM FOIA REQUEST

Yesterday the ACLU received documents from the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice in response to a FOIA request on Bagram, particularly those that pertain to early Bush era global detention and release policy/including criteria for Gitmo transfers (2002-2004). This chilling phrase in the 2004 “Global Screening Criteria for Detainees” policy is actually similar to ones that I have seen being used in unclassified documents related to my own clients: commanders could “only transfer to Guantanamo those [enemy combatants] whose exploitation require[d] the specialized capabilities available at Guantánamo.”

You can find the documents here: http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/2010_06_08_DOJ_Release.pdf. There is an index at the beginning of the PDF.

CLICK ON THE TITLE FOR SOME of the interesting points highlighted by others....

Experiments in Torture

Experiments in Torture by Physicians For Human Rights is the first report to reveal evidence indicating that CIA medical personnel allegedly engaged in the crime of illegal experimentation after 9/11, in addition to the previously disclosed crime of torture. In their attempt to justify the war crime of torture, the CIA appears to have committed another alleged war crime—illegal experimentation on prisoners.

Click on the title to read the report......

And click here to read Scott Horton's take ....