NEWS:
British residents:
According to human
rights NGO Reprieve, which represents him, Shaker Aamer has reportedly been beaten
at Guantánamo Bay, as part of a new crackdown on prisoners protesting their
detention without charge. The claim comes in letters it received from another
detained client Emad Hassan telling of a new “standard procedure” called Forcible
Cell Extraction [FCE] where a team is brought in to beat prisoners. According
to Reprieve, “‘Forcible Cell Extraction’ or ‘FCEing’ is the process by which a
detainee is forced out of his cell by a group of armed guards, often before
being taken to the force-feeding chair. Mr Aamer has previously described being
beaten by the FCE team up to eight times a day”. Other prisoners have been beaten too.
Guantánamo Bay:
A US court of appeal ruled that it is okay for military guards at Guantánamo
Bay to carry out intimate physical searches of prisoners, which have been used
to prevent them from seeing their lawyers. Intimate searches of the prisoners’
genital area and body cavities before being allowed to meet their lawyers have
been used to intimidate and humiliate prisoners. The practice started at the
height of the ongoing hunger strike in May 2013, with the death of Yemeni
prisoner Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, allegedly from a drug overdose in September
2012, being given as a pretext. Overturning a decision that prevented such
searches, Judge Thomas B. Griffith said, “Although we must not give prison administrators a
free hand to disregard fundamental rights, this case is a far cry from instances
where administrators have acknowledged their intent to extinguish prisoner
rights and acted accordingly. The tenuous evidence of an improper motive to
obstruct access to counsel in this case cannot overcome the legitimate,
rational connection between the security needs of Guantánamo Bay and thorough
searches of detainees.” Similar searches are carried out on prisoners
held in US “supermax” maximum security prisons.
The pre-trial hearing in the military tribunal of Abd Al-Nashiri accused
of involvement in bombings of US and European interests in the Gulf of
Aden in the early 2000s resumed on 4 August. His lawyers asked that the jury
should know what method would be used to execute him if convicted. The prosecution
retorted that the execution method is not a concern for the jury and is not
usually discussed until the trial has started. The actual trial is due to start
in February 2015, however given the various interruptions and stalling of this
kangaroo court procedure, it is likely to start later.
This is the first time that the new judge in this case Air Force Colonel
Vance Spath has overseen the pre-trial hearings. Al-Nashiri’s defence lawyer
Richard Kammen asked for Spath to stand down due to his possible bias or lack
or neutrality as a member of the defence team worked on a separate death
penalty sentence Spath oversaw in 2005, however Spath denied this motion and
remains as the judge.
On 11 August, Spath threw out collateral charges related to a 2002 Al
Qaeda attack on a French oil tanker, the Limburg. This was on the basis that
the prosecution did not produce any evidence about the bombing. The importance
of this charge related to earlier issues concerning whether Guantánamo
military commissions have the jurisdiction to consider alleged crimes that took
place before 11 September 2001. Commenting on the decision, Al-Nashiri’s lawyer
Richard Kammen said “the decision demonstrated the need
to try the case in federal court.”
Pre-trial hearings in the other Guantánamo military commission of five
prisoners alleged to have been involved in the 9/11 attacks in New York in 2001
recommenced on 11 August.http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/08/11/usa-guantanamo-idINKBN0GB1WC20140811
A motion was brought at the court on whether to sever
one of the defendants Ramzi bin Al-Shibh from the case, to allow him to face a
separate trial as certain issues only affect his case, he is not facing all of
the same charges and severing the case into two would allow the other four
defendants to make progress in their case. Although the prosecution wanted to
keep the cases joined, the judge and Al-Shibh agreed to the motion.
Khalid Sheikh Mohamed’s military lawyer Major
Jason Wright is no longer representing him, and has resigned both from the case
and the US army. Having taken on the case in 2011, he was asked in February to
take a 9-month graduate military law course, during which he would be absent
from the case. He asked for a deferral but when this was refused with the
ultimatum that he either take the course and leave the case or leave the army,
he chose the latter course.
Last month, Kuwaiti prisoner Fawzi Al-Odah was cleared for release
following a periodic status review after 12 years of detention without charge
or trial. Nonetheless, on 3 August, the US District
Court for the District of Columbia accepted a US government motion to dismiss a habeas
corpus case he filed in September 2013 calling for him to be released by the
end of 2014 with the then stated end of hostilities and US withdrawal from Afghanistan
by the end of this year, as this is the alleged reason for his detention. Without
hostility in Afghanistan, there would be no basis for his detention. The judge
dismissed the case as the court lacked jurisdiction and as the claim is based
on future events that may not happen. His claim that his ongoing detention was
punitive and not preventative was also dismissed.
British company G4S has been given a $118 million (£70 million) contract
to provide “base support operating services” at Guantánamo Bay. The
controversial outsourcing company currently “faces an
ongoing investigation by the Serious Fraud Office over its involvement in last
year's scandal over the tagging of criminals, in which it and rival firm Serco
admitted charging taxpayers for electronically tagging individuals who were
either in prison or dead.” It has
also been implicated in Palestinian prisoner abuse in Israel.
Reprieve has made a complaint to the Department
for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) as by working there, the company may
contribute to ongoing human rights abuses. “A bulletin issued by the US
Department of Defence stated that G4S's responsibilities would cover
"support vehicles and equipment" and "operating services"
at the base, such as housing and facilities for soldiers and their families.”
The hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay, ongoing now for more than 18
months, has cost over $300,000 just on providing the liquid nutritional
supplements the prisoners are often force fed. Over a dozen prisoners
are reported to still be refusing food and are almost all force fed by nasal
tube.
A military nurse who refused to force feed hunger-striking prisoners at
Guantánamo has been moved from the prison facility and could face court-martial
for his action. Such a move could backfire as it would raise public awareness about
the hunger strike and the methods used to repress it.
Extraordinary Rendition:
“We tortured some folks” was a flippant response given by President
Barack Obama at a press briefing on 1st August. While an admission
that “In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong.
We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks.
We did things that were contrary to our values”, the statement, relating to the
as-yet unpublished Senate torture report shows the US is unrepentant over its
commission of crimes against humanity and that for the CIA, the use of torture
is a fairly standard procedure. In spite of ongoing controversy and debate, no
date has yet been given for when the heavily-redacted report is likely to be
released.
One item that has already emerged from the unpublished Senate torture
report is further details on the use of the island of Diego Garcia by the US
military for torture flights and to run a torture facility in the
British-administered Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. It has emerged
that the UK discussed a US request to house a Guantánamo-style prison with
place for up to 500 detainees there. The request was rejected and the
government is under growing pressure to come clean on what it knew about US use
of the facility.
The US has released a number of prisoners held indefinitely at Bagram,
among them two Yemenis, one of whom is suffering from leukaemia: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-releases-two-yemenis-from-military-prison-in-afghanistan/2014/08/27/ce5af03a-2df2-11e4-bb9b-997ae96fad33_story.html
Nine Pakistani prisoners were also released. However, in spite of having
been held without charge or trial for years, once released over the border,
they were arrested in Rawalpindi and remain held incommunicado by the Pakistani
security services. Lawyers have demanded to know their whereabouts. The Afghan
president Hamid Karzai also expressed concerns about the release of the untried
Pakistanis, questioning whether they still pose a risk to his country. They
apparently did not a risk in the first place, having never been charged or
tried, and detained and released without due process.
LGC Activities:
The August “Shut
Guantánamo!” demonstration was attended by 7 people. The September demonstration
will be at 12-1pm outside the US Embassy and 1.15-2.15pm outside Speaker’s Corner,
Marble Arch on Thursday 4th September: https://www.facebook.com/events/543611135738466/
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