Guantánamo Bay
Pre-trial hearings continued in early May in the case of five men
accused of involvement in terrorist attacks in New York City in September 2001.
During the hearings, the defence team called for unfettered access to the full
2014 US Senate report on CIA torture to use as evidence of the torture of their
clients. The prosecution claimed the defence teams have already had sufficient
disclosure of information about the CIA programme; currently a 500-page
executive summary is available in summarised and redacted form of the 6000-page
report. Some of the defence lawyers initially did not attend, due to concerns
over the safety of lawyers and their ability to do their work unhindered.
The week’s hearings were further complicated
when the judge announced on Thursday (2 May) that he would be stepping down
from the case to take up a new job “commanding the Marine Corps Embassy
Security Group in June.” He joined the Guantánamo case as judge in August 2018.
Later in May, it was announced that CIA
contractors, psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who designed the
CIA’s torture programme, are being summoned to testify at the next pre-trial
hearing of this case. Defence lawyers have asked for them to attend as
witnesses to answer questions about the programme and the ordeal their clients
went through before arriving at Guantánamo along with dozens of other former
and present CIA officers. James Connell, a
lawyer for Ammar al Baluchi, one of the five Guantanamo prisoners facing trial
by military commission for their alleged roles in the attack, stated: “This
will be the first time Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen will have to testify in a
criminal proceeding about the torture program they implemented.”
With the next hearing scheduled for late June,
it is not clear who will preside over the hearing with the previous judge
stepping down in June and the new judge, retired US Navy judge Christian L.
Reismeier only having been confirmed publicly in the post on 28 May.
For the past five years, some lawmakers in the
US have tried to have a clause included in the National Defense Authorization
Act, passed each year to authorise defence spending, allowing Guantánamo Bay
prisoners to be released to the US mainland for emergency medical treatment. With
the bill for the coming year to be passed as an act later in the summer,
members of the Senate Armed Services Committee have approved a small clause in
the draft law that could allow prisoners to be transferred for medical
treatment in exceptional cases. Currently, some medical treatments are
expensive or impossible to provide at Guantánamo. The clause would still need
to be approved by the rest of the Senate and the version drafted by Congress.
As the prisoner population grows older, healthcare is becoming an increasingly
important issue, especially for the military personnel whose job it is to care
for them.
Two prisoner reviews were held on 21 May to decide whether prisoners
can be cleared for release. For Libyan prisoner Mustafa Faraj Muhammad Masud
al-Jadid al-Uzaybi it was his fourth such review in the past few years and the
third for Malaysian prisoner Mohd Farik bin Amin. Neither man attended the
hearing as prisoners continue to boycott the process which offers them no
prospect of release.
Extraordinary Rendition
Police in Scotland have been urged to continue their investigation
into claims that the CIA used Scottish air space to refuel planes during the
illegal transfer of prisoners as part of its extraordinary rendition programme.
As part of a six-year investigation which has recently ended and the report
produced has been handed over to prosecutors, investigators sought to obtain a
copy of the full 2014 US Senate report on CIA torture but this was never granted.
LGC Activities:
The May Shut Guantánamo! demo took place on 2 May. There is NO Shut
Guantánamo! demo in June as the LGC will join the Guantánamo Justice Campaign
to form a ‘Close Guantánamo’ bloc on the Together Against Trump demonstration
on 4 June, meeting on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Field at 11am.
