Friday, May 31, 2019

LGC Newsletter – May 2019


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.
 
Spanish former prisoner Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, who was released in 2004 to his home in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta is currently on trial in Spain for his alleged involvement in running and being a member of a terrorist cell recruiting for ISIS and particularly seeking to enlist minors. He is on trial with two other men following his arrest in 2016, although charges were not brought until later. He was tried and convicted of membership of a terrorist organisation in 2005 upon his return from Guantánamo but the 6-year sentence he was given then was overturned by the Spanish Supreme Court and he was subsequently released.


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.