The Political Hostage

You have read about Binyam Mohamed at this site over the years...most recently in relation to the British High Court forcing the release of a seven paragraph summary related to the torture of Binyam while in US custody. I just learned from Andy Worthington that Binyam has started a website.

Click on the title for more.

Inch by Inch....

Binyon Mohamed is a British resident who was held by the US at various black sites until transferred to Guantanamo. The torture he was subjected to included having a razor blade taken to his penis. He was released from Guantanamo and returned back to Britain in 2008. Binyon charged that the British Government was complicit in his torture and sought documentation that the American Govcrnment provided to the Brits regarding his torture. The British Government did not want to turn that information over. Today it was forced to release a summary (which shows that the US was threatening Binyon with sending him back to those who cut up his penis). British Foreign Secretary David Milliband made the following statement today to the house of commons. Also check out Jim Whites article on FDL pointing out that the language used by the British high court including that key phrase in describing the conduct of the US as "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment." That language parallels the language in the Convention against Torture, signed by that left wing president, Ronnie Reagan... Seems we have been formally accused of violating that little law and we are required to do an investigation... Don't hold your breath.

Click on the title for more.

Did I mention things are getting worse?

sigh........

click on the title for more....

Seton Hall's follow up...on the Deaths at Guantanamo

If you are going to spin a tale it is important to keep track of what you already said...our military is good at spinning tales but not quite so good at keeping track of its earlier spins....Seton Hall unravels the contradictions by the Defense Department as the DOD tries to react to allegations raised by Scott Horton and Seton Hall regarding the deaths of three men at Guantanamo in 2006.

Click on the title to review Seton Hall's latest report "DOD Contradicts DOD, An Analysis of the Response to Death at Camp Delta."

I cannot find a working link to the actual response by the DOD but this link will give you a summary and if someone has the actual link to the DOD response please leave it for me in the comments.

DEATH CAMP.... CONTINUED

Although our Government and the press continue to ignore this story Scott Horton has been moving forward with his own investigation. Here is an interview Scott did with Rashid Mesli from the human rights organization Alkarama. Alkarama was contacted by the family of one of the three men that died at Guantanamo that June night in 2006 and asked to help arrange for an independent autopsy of their son Ahmed Ali Al-Salami. Problem was that important body parts were missing...the throat for example.

Next, Scott poses six questions for Michael Baden, former chief medical examiner of New York City, almost as an expert witness, to discuss various aspects of the military's claim that Al-Salami committed suicide, the missing body parts and the autopsy arranged by Al-Salami's family.

Ya think?

Seems that good old fashion interrogations (no, not like the kind done here in Chicago) work better than torture.....

Click on the title for more.

Sweeping it under the rug...

Seems the "justice" department is getting ready to release its report on the authors of our torture policies...primarily Yoo and Bybee... and it also seems that the report that is about to be released has been rewritten in the last few months to downgrade the conduct of the torturers to "bad judgment." Scott Horton has more here.

Fortunately, as Scott points out in the above article, the Spanish are still going ahead with a criminal inquiry regarding this very same conduct by these very same men in relation to the torture of five Spanish citizens at Guantanamo. In going ahead with the inquiry the Spanish Court "concluded that the American Justice Department was not involved in any credible effort to investigate or prosecute torture cases connected with Guantánamo."

MORE ON CAMP "NO"

Scott Horton has more information about the hidden camp at Guantanamo. It has been suggested that this is the camp that has housed several "high value" detainees that the Bush administration claimed to move to Guantanamo in 2006. Where they and others really at Camp No that whole time?

Is this where much of the waterboarding took place?

Click on the title for Scott Horton's latest....and

stay tuned for more....because there is more.

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under at Justinian

Roger Fitch Esq • January 26, 2010

Our Man in Washington

Companies transmogrify into people as US Supreme Court strikes down laws limiting corporate funding of politicians … The deadline has come and gone but Guantánamo remains open for business … New evidence on detainee “suicides” ... The laws of war don’t apply to war

“The country is finished. Its all over. But you know, with a new republic like this, if you missed being here at the beginning, the next best thing is to be here at the end.” Gore Vidal

CLICK ON THE TITLE FOR MORE....

Oh Canada...

Today the Supreme Court of Canada held (9-0) that the Canadian Government violated the rights of Omar Khadr, (the young Canadian man who has been held at Guantanamo since he was 15 years old) by participating in the illegal interrogation methods being used by the U.S.. Unfortunately the Court would not order the Canadian government to make efforts to bring him home... at least not yet.

CLICK ON THE TITLE TO READ MORE

Great News....Gitmo will be closed before the end of 2012

Click on the title for the latest backtracking by the Obama administration....

The Guantanamo Testimonials Project has more on the do-overs

Some of you may recall that my client Al-Ghizzawi was found not to be an enemy combatant back in 2004 at his combat status review tribunal (CSRT) thirty eight other men were also found not to be enemy combatants...that was when Al-Ghizzawi's personal war criminal Professor Matthew Waxman stepped in and came up with the do-overs (although now he is trying to claim that he wasn't responsible for that policy....but he was) new panels (the rubber stamp panels) reviewed the same evidence as the first panel (at least in Al-G's case and most likely in the other cases as well) but overturned the finding of the first panels. The Guantanamo Testimonials Project has been analyzing the CSRT records and reports on some of those findings. Click on the title to read that report.

four released

Three to Slovakia and one to Switzerland. None of them are my clients.

Good riddance....task force

As they slink off into the sunset I would like to make a few observations about the miserable failure formerly known as the "Guantanamo Review Task Force." They closed shop yesterday in what I am sure many amongst them thought was a clever move...using the date Obama promised to close Guantanamo as their date to walk away. In fact, they even tried to pretend near the end, that this was the date they were always planning on ending things…as though this were all part of some great plan.

From the beginning the efforts of this task force were dismal (spending months trying to figure out how to get organize and whining about the lack of files) and when you combine it with the mishaps of the "justice" department you can't help but wonder if they were trying to outdo the old tag team of Killer Kowalski and Gorilla Monsoon back in the 60's, with their antics.

The antics included having the “team” tell habeas counsel that if they would agree to stay their case it would be given a priority review. They forgot to mention that the only real benefit of the review (whether prioritized or not) was for the “justice” department…because it was the justice department that would then take the information from the review and if your client was so fortunate as to be “cleared for release” they used that information to put your case forever on hold…In other words, men who were cleared by the “review team” could no longer pursue their habeas cases and were no longer entitled to have a judge hear their habeas cases….

and to add insult to injury most who were “cleared” (110 according to the “team”) have not, for whatever reason, been released.

So for many of the men at Guantanamo the “team” has had a destructive influence, it once again took the power of Court intervention which we have fought for all of these years and shoved it up the Supreme Court’s ass…while most of the district court judges looked the other way and shrugged their collective shoulders.

For our clients this has meant another year of their illegal detentions, still with no end in sight.

Andy Worthington has more.

So “team” ….don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

Al-Ghizzawi's Personal War Criminal, Matthew Waxman, Tries to Hide

Seems that Professor Matthew Waxman, Mr. Al-Ghizzawi's personal war criminal, the man who decided that Guantanamo prisoners who were found not to be enemy combatants back in 2004 during their Combat Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) and who should have their CSRTs redone by different tribunals (the rubber stamp tribunals) is now suggesting an interesting conspiracy theory... Waxman has told people not to believe that the emails from him....were really from him.

Nice try Matt but we all know you are the one responsible for implementing the redos...you can run but you can't hide...and we will not forget.

Mr. Al-Ghizzawi has spent an additional five years (and still counting) at Guantanamo because of you.

At least thirty eight other men have had similar fates.

Mr. Al-Ghizzawi and the others have had to live with your arrogance and idiocy for all these years...the least you can do is own up to it....maybe even apologize.