NEWS:
Guantánamo Bay:
Nine prisoners have had their status reviewed by the Guantánamo Periodic
Review Board (PRB) this month.
The first was Afghan prisoner Karim Bostan, 46, on 3 May. Bostan has
been held at Guantánamo since 2003 and has never been charged or tried. His
lawyer claims he would just like to return to his family and business in
Afghanistan whereas the US military claims he might have led an Al Qaeda cell
in an attack in Khost in 2003. No evidence of this has ever been produced. The
US military has nonetheless found him to be highly compliant and cooperative
while held at Guantánamo but he has provided no useful intelligence.
The next hearing was on 5 May for Yemeni Sanad Ali Yislam Al Kazimi, 46,
who was arrested in 2003 by the UAE authorities. The US claims he was a
bodyguard for Osama bin Laden and had joined an Al Qaeda cell in the UAE that
smuggled explosives. He has never been charged or tried.
On 10 May Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu, 42, the
only Kenyan national held at Guantánamo had his review hearing. He has been
held there since 2007. Accused of involvement in Al Qaeda operations in East
Africa, including bombings in Kenya in 2002, he was arrested by the Kenyan
authorities and handed over to the US. At Guantánamo, he has been highly
compliant and has served as a cook for other prisoners. He has never been
charged. His lawyers said that he would like to return home to his fishing and
diving business.
Yemeni prisoner Abd Al-Salam Al-Hilah, 48, had
his review hearing on 12 May. A businessman, due to his influence and links to
key tribal, political and intelligence figures in various Middle Eastern
countries, including the former Yemeni president, Al-Hilah’s continuing
detention is considered to relate more to his value as an intelligence asset
than as a threat. On a business trip in Egypt in 2002, he was kidnapped and
rendered to Afghanistan and arrived at Guantánamo in 2004.
On the same day, Al-Hilah saw a motion he
had filed to see the evidence the US government holds against him shown to him
dismissed, as well as the factual basis for its allegations against him.
Yemeni Muhammed Rajab Sadiq Abu Ghanim had
his review on 17 May. Another alleged Bin Laden bodyguard, he was detained and
sold to the US trying to escape to Pakistan in late 2001. He claims he was
working for a charity in Afghanistan, whereas the US claims he was part of a
terrorist organization. He has been held at Guantánamo since 2002 and the
allegations have never been proved or resulted in charges. He has been a
compliant prisoner and according to his lawyers the time he has spent in
Guantánamo has exposed him to American values and culture and given him a
greater appreciation of Americans.
39-year old Saudi Jabran al Qahtani had his
review hearing on 19 May. He was arrested by the Pakistani authorities and sold
to the US in 2002. An electrical engineer, the US claims he used his skills to
support terrorist organisations when he went to Afghanistan in 2001. His
lawyers claim he was young and naïve at the time. He had no prior military or
combat training. He has never been charged at Guantánamo.
On 24 May, 35-year old Algerian Said bin
Brahim bin Umran Bakush has his hearing. He was arrested along with Abu
Zubaydah in 2002. He has not shown a great interest in being released and has
asked not to be returned to Algeria, fearing arrest if he is returned there.
On 26 May, 43-year old Algerian Sufiyan Ibu
Muhammad Barhumi had his review hearing. According to the US military, he was radicalized
in London in the 1990s and then illegally fled to Afghanistan for weapons
training so he could go and fight in Chechnya. He claims that he only wanted to
fight in Chechnya and has no problem with the US. He wishes to return home to
his mother in Algeria.
Yemeni Shawqi Awad Balzuhair, 34, is the eighth prisoner to have his
review this month on 31 May. The US claims he is a low-level militant who has
offered little information even though he has been highly compliant at
Guantánamo.
Three more such review hearings are scheduled for the first half of
June.
Over the past month, only one prisoner has found out the result of his
status review: on 19 May, Afghan prisoner Obaidullah was
cleared for release. He was kidnapped from his home in Afghanistan in 2002. He has
never been charged or tried and it is not clear whether Afghanistan will make
efforts to repatriate its remaining prisoners at Guantánamo.
The Obama administration has reported that
up to two dozen prisoners – almost the total (28) currently cleared for release
are due to be transferred in the next two months, although none has been
cleared for actual release yet.
On 5 May, the first anniversary of former
prisoner Omar Khadr being released on bail – his first taste of some form of
freedom as an adult and since 2002 – he celebrated by having some of his bail
conditions removed or relaxed. In light of Khadr’s recent engagement to be
married, he had his nightly curfew removed and can change his permanent address
with one week’s notice to his bail supervisor. He also no longer needs court
permission to travel within Canada; he can do so with the approval of his bail
supervisor. The judge also “ruled that Khadr can have
unfettered contact with his mother when he travels to the Toronto area later
this month to spend time with his family. However, there are still restrictions
in place regarding contact with one of his sisters, who is currently being
detained in Turkey over issues with her visa.”
In a statement Khadr made to the court, he
wrote: “I have no anger towards anyone and I have been
getting on with my life. I am proud and happy to be a Canadian citizen living
in Canada.” In the statement, he said he had finished his exams to become an emergency
medical responder and is working towards certification; he is also close to
obtaining the equivalent of a high school diploma.
In the meantime, no progress has been made in
Khadr’s appeal case against his 2010 military commission conviction. Nonetheless,
on 24 May, Khadr lost a case in the US to have one judge removed from his
appeal case due to the fact that he is serving as a civilian judge in a
military commission review court but works as a civilian lawyer at the same time.
Khadr’s lawyer stated this was unconstitutional. The judge hearing this case refused
to consider the dismissal but said that it raised important questions that the
US government and Congress must consider about the appointment of civilian
judges in military cases.
A military nurse who was suspended from his
position after refusing to force feed hunger-striking prisoners at Guantánamo
has been allowed to return to work. The case took two years to resolve and he
is currently working at a navy facility in New England. There are currently a
handful of prisoners still on hunger strike.
Ahead of pre-trial hearings in the case of 5
men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks in New York in 2001, which
resumed on 30 May after a 3-month break, lawyers for key defendant Khalid
Shaikh Mohammed, on 11 May, demanded that the military judge and the entire
prosecution team be removed from the case as important classified evidence has
been destroyed. They also asked for the proceedings to be put on permanent hold
due to breaches of the constitutional rights of the defendants with respect to
the death penalty case against them.
At the current 5-day
hearing, which started on 30 May, 42 motions have been filed by the defence and
will focus on the treatment of the prisoners in secret CIA-run prisons around
the world. There is a possibility that two other prisoners, unrelated to the
case, may be called to testify about conditions in these prisons, including Abu
Zubaydah, who has not been seen since 2002. During the first day of the
hearing, one of the defendants asked for his entire defence team to be removed.
One of the defendants, Mustafa
al-Hawsawi, was allegedly tortured in Lithuania, which the Lithuanian
government denies. Its investigation into the country’s running of torture
facilities for the CIA has not been thorough. His lawyer in Lithuania has thus
filed a petition for him to be given victim status so that his lawyers can have
access to the case file. She has also requested the investigation to be expanded.
Another prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, has a case pending against Lithuania at the
European Court of Human Rights. He and another prisoner previously won a case
against Poland at the European Court of the torture they faced at a secret CIA
prison there in 2003.
Prior to the pre-trial
hearing, on 12 May, lawyers for another defendant, Ammar al-Baluchi,
requested that Juan Mendez, the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, be given
access to Camp 7, where he and other prisoners who were subjected to years of
abuse in CIA secret prisons, are held away from other prisoners and with limited
access to the outside world. Mendez has consistently demanded access to the
prisoners at Guantánamo Bay but has refused to take the ‘trip’ journalists get
excited about whereby they are permitted to view the prisoners like zoo
exhibits and without access to the prisoners and to be able to interview them.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/12/guantanamo-camp-7-torture-ammar-al-baluchi-un
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/12/guantanamo-camp-7-torture-ammar-al-baluchi-un
Another pre-trial hearing
was briefly held on 16-17 May in the case of Abd al-Hadi Al-Iraqi. The case has
now been set back until 11 July. During the hearing he told the court he wants
to be known by his real name: Nashwan al-Tamir, with his lawyers claiming that
the other names that have been used have been given to him erroneously. The
change of name caused some confusion in the court; his lawyers seemed to
suggest that the wrong name had been deliberately ascribed to accuse Al-Tamir
of offences possibly carried out by someone else with those names.
During the hearing, al-Tamir also maintained
his claim that he wants a civilian lawyer, which he has been denied, as he is
not facing the death penalty.
The Islamabad High Court has accepted a
petition to consider ordering the Pakistani government to seek access to
prisoner Ghulam Ahmed under the Vienna Convention, but has set the hearing back
by one month. The petition also asks for actions against former president
Parvez Musharraf who sold Ahmed to the US.
http://dailytimes.com.pk/pakistan/30-May-16/ihc-accepts-plea-seeking-pakistanis-release-from-guantanamo
http://dailytimes.com.pk/pakistan/30-May-16/ihc-accepts-plea-seeking-pakistanis-release-from-guantanamo
Extraordinary Rendition:
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lost
a lawsuit calling for the full release of the 2014 Senate Intelligence
Committee report into CIA torture. In December 2014, a redacted executive
summary of the report was released – 500 pages of the 6000 page document.
The judgment by the European Court of Human Rights ordering the Italian government to pay compensation to rendition victim Abu Omar, who was snatched from the streets of Milan in 2003 and rendered to torture in Egypt, is now final as the authorities did not appeal the decision. In February 2016, the Court found Italy guilty of having violated Omar’s human rights when it cooperated with the rendition to torture and failed to provide him with adequate legal relief afterwards.
LGC Activities:
The May Shut
Guantánamo demonstration was on Thursday 5 May. The June demonstration is on 2 May
at 12-1pm outside the US Embassy and 1.15-2.15pm outside Speaker’s Corner, Hyde
Park, opposite Marble Arch and is a special demonstration in solidarity with
Mauritanian prisoner Mohamedou Ould Slahi where we will be reading from his
best-seller written inside Guantánamo, Guantánamo Diary as this date coincides with his periodic review
board hearing:
The LGC was interviewed as part of a news feature
on Russia Today about prisoners cleared for release through the periodic review
board system. https://www.rt.com/usa/344141-guantanamo-prisoner-cleared-release/
The LGC will have
details available very soon of its plans to mark International Day in Support
of Victims of Torture on the afternoon of Sunday 26 June. Please watch this
space!
The LGC
(@shutguantanamo) is continuing to hold weekly #GitmObama Twitter storms to
raise awareness about Guantánamo prisoners every Monday at 9pm BST. The pastebin
is available http://pastebin.com/zpx5F7ab
which is updated weekly with the latest information and tweets to raise
awareness about Guantánamo. Please join us online if you can!
