LGC Newsletter – December 2019

Guantánamo Bay

Pre-trial hearings resumed in the case of Abd Al Nashiri - accused of involvement in attacks in 2000 on a US naval vessel in the Gulf of Aden - for the first time in almost two years, and with a new judge, after the case was paused in early 2018 following a number of technical and procedural issues and other issues related to the judge in the case which led to many of the decisions and motions he made being thrown out. During the hearing, prosecutors argued that the US government “should be allowed to continue withholding underlying source documents about CIA torture from defense attorneys representing the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, even though a judge ruled that the government process of summarizing those documents “produced deletions that could fairly be characterized as self-serving and calculated to avoid embarrassment.”” Full access for Nashiri’s lawyers to CIA records about his interrogation are a major issue in the case. His defence lawyers have argued that summaries of classified government documents provided to the defence differ “significantly” from CIA cables the National Security Archive at George Washington University obtained earlier this year. Prior to the hearing, the new judge agreed in part with the defence lawyers who then argued that a new procedure should be ordered for the handover of documents to the defence.

https://theintercept.com/2019/12/04/guantanamo-uss-cole-cia-torture/

On 11 December, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit heard oral arguments in the appeal case of Abdul Razak Ali v. Trump, on whether the fact that the detention facility has a periodic review system to clear prisoners for release exempts it from the due process clause in the US constitution, thus rendering ongoing detention for almost 18 years a violation of due process rights. Algerian Abdul Razak Ali has been held at Guantánamo without charge or trial for over 17 years. Currently, many prisoners are refusing to cooperate with the periodic review board as there appear to be few prospects for release.

https://www.justsecurity.org/67702/d-c-circuit-considers-limits-on-guantanamo-detention/

The Paris Court of Appeal ruled on 19 December to uphold the decision by investigating judges to dismiss a case brought by two French former Guantánamo prisoners, Nizar Sassi and Mourad Benchellali, to prosecute US officials for the torture they faced during their detention in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo by the US up to 2005. Their lawyer has stated that the case will be referred to the French Supreme Court. The two men accuse the US of “arbitrary detention”, “acts of torture” that include deafeningly loud music, flashing lights, sleep deprivation and violent interrogations, among others.

https://www.rtl.fr/actu/international/cuba-la-justice-confirme-le-non-lieu-dans-l-affaire-des-tortures-a-guantanamo-7799751988

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2020, the US annual defence spending law, was signed into effect on 20 December and will keep Guantánamo open for at least another year, up to 31 December 2020. It bars the use of funds for the closure of Guantánamo, including to build alternative detention facilities in the US mainland, and prevents the transfer of prisoners to the US mainland for prosecution or medical care.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/12/26/new-law-will-keep-guantanamo-bay-detention-facility-open-least-another-year.html

Ahead of the resumption of pre-trial hearings in the case of five men accused of involvement in attacks on New York City in 2001 for two weeks in January 2020, the judge has ordered the prosecution to find a way “for defense lawyers to challenge in open court an opinion offered by the first commander of Camp 7, a classified prison — that the United States military ran the facility once Mr. Mohammed and the others were transferred to Guantánamo in 2006 from years in C.I.A. black sites” and that it was not run by the CIA. The issue came up in testimony provided at the previous 3-week hearing in November. The judge has said that he will otherwise exclude this opinion. The next hearing is expected to hear evidence from the two CIA contractor psychologists - James E. Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen - who are the architects of the CIA’s torture programme, although they have yet to face trial for crimes against humanity. “The testimony by the psychologists as well as the former prison commander is to help the judge decide whether the defendants voluntarily described their alleged roles in the attacks when they were questioned by F.B.I. agents in early 2007 at Guantánamo, months after their transfer from years in C.I.A. custody. Defense lawyers argue that any confessions the men made were tainted by torture, and they seek to call dozens more witnesses in the pretrial phase.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/26/us/politics/gitmo-911trial-ruling.html

Extraordinary rendition:

In early December, the International Criminal Court in The Hague heard an appeal against a decision by the Office of the Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda not to investigate war crimes in Afghanistan over a short time period in the early years of the war, including the CIA’s war crimes and crimes against humanity, such as illegal detention and torture at secret detention facilities it ran in the country. As well as cases brought by Afghan civilians, lawyers have brought cases by current Guantánamo prisoners such as Abd Al Nashiri.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/afghans-demand-justice-attempt-probe-war-crimes-icc-191204064625131.html

https://www.icc-cpi.int/CourtRecords/CR2019_07304.PDF

LGC Activities:

There was no monthly Shut Guantánamo demo in December as we joined the Guantanamo Justice Campaign at the “No to Trump, No to NATO” demo in Central London on 3 December.

There will be NO monthly demo on Thursday 2 January 2020 either as we will join the Guantanamo Justice Campaign in their event to mark 18 years of Guantánamo on 11 January 2020. Details TBC.