Thursday, February 28, 2019

LGC Newsletter – February 2019

Guantánamo Bay
Former Canadian prisoner Omar Khadr, 32, brought a case before the Alberta youth court on 26 February 2019, seeking to have his bail conditions, which impose restrictions on his everyday life, lifted. Khadr was convicted at Guantánamo in 2010 in a secret plea deal on the charge of allegedly murdering a US serviceman when he was 15 in Afghanistan. Returned to Canada in 2012 to serve the rest of his sentence there, he was released from a maximum security prison by a youth court in 2015 on the basis of a number of bail restrictions, many of which have been relaxed over the past few years but which still require him to seek permission to travel in Canada and deprive him of a passport, among other things. Effectively, had he remained in jail, Khadr’s sentence would have expired over 5 months ago. Although Canada apologised to Khadr and reached an out-of-court settlement with him over its failure to protect his human rights, he remains subject, in Canada, to a ruling made by the highly controversial Guantánamo military tribunal, with evidence obtained from torture used to try him. Khadr asked the court to order his release and declare his sentence to have expired by having the judge place him under conditional supervision for one day and then declare his sentence served. The judge hearing the case said she will rule on the case in March. According to his lawyer, Nate Whitling: “The bail order does interrupt the ticking of the clock but practically speaking, the guy has served his sentence now.” and, in the meantime, his appeal in the US, pending which he was released on bail, has not advanced “even an inch”.
 

Extraordinary Rendition:
A second case has been brought against Lithuania at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg by a Guantánamo prisoner, Saudi Mustafa Al-Hawsawi, who is currently facing trial with four other men suspected of involvement in the September 2001 attacks in New York. The Lithuanian government has decided to challenge the case, and consistently denies the existence of any CIA torture prisons in its territory. Concerning Al-Hawsawi, it claims: “We have no tangible or reasonable evidence whatsoever that the person could have been in Lithuania”, and that “the suspected building in Antaviliai, in the outskirts of Vilnius, had been "an intelligence support center" and that the suspected planes had transported communication equipment rather than people to Lithuania”, even though Lithuania previously lost a case at the court whereby it was fined for having colluded in CIA torture through running a torture facility. It is currently appealing that judgment made last year.
Lawyers and NGOs acting for Al-Hawsawi previously urged the Lithuanian government to include him in its investigation into secret CIA torture prisons in the country, ongoing since 2015. However, refusal by the district court in Lithuania in 2016 to grant him the victim status that would allow his inclusion in the investigation led lawyers to take the case to the Strasbourg Court.
According to the NGO Redress: “Mr. al-Hawsawi was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and was held in secret detention in the CIA’s rendition, detention, and interrogation programme until September 2006.
During this time he was severely tortured and now suffers from a number of serious medical conditions, including rectal prolapse, anal fissures, and Hepatitis C, a condition he did not have previously.
The United States Senate Torture Report – the most comprehensive examination of the CIA’s Torture programme – indicates that while Mr. al-Hawsawi was held in Lithuania he required emergency medical care, which was delayed because he was denied access to a local hospital.
Throughout his three and a half years’ secret detention– including the time he was detained in Lithuania – Mr. al-Hawsawi was not allowed access to a lawyer or to independent monitors (such as the International Committee of the Red Cross).
He was tortured and detained outside the protection of the law in conditions that amounted to enforced disappearance.

Lawyers for fellow defendant in the September 2001 case, Ammar Al-Baluchi, have claimed that the makers of the film Zero Dark Thirty were given detailed information about his torture in a secret CIA prison, information that has been denied to his lawyers. According to his lawyers, “they were stunned to see the portrayal of his torture, including beatings, suspension from manacles and waterboarding, in the Oscar-winning 2012 film. The lawyers discovered that in the CIA’s year-long cooperation with the film-makers, the agency shared details of Baluchi’s torture at a secret prison, or black site, which they had been told were too secret to be divulged.”
This disclosure was made as part of a new film by The Guardian on the Guantánamo military tribunals: https://www.theguardian.com/law/video/2019/feb/22/the-trial-inside-guantanamo-with-911-suspect-ammar-al-baluchi-video
On 27 February, lawyers for Al-Baluchi brought a case before the federal courts to have the death penalty aspect of the case against him at Guantanamo removed, on the basis of the torture he has suffered and that almost seven years after the charges were brought against him (and four others), no trial date has been set. If successful, the case could see his trial before the military commission at a later stage invalidated.

LGC Activities:
The February Shut Guantánamo! demo took place on 7 February. The March demonstration will be at 12-2pm on Thursday 7 March outside the US Embassy, 33 Nine Elms Lane, SW11 7US. Further details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/287164098647551/

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