LGC Newsletter – October 2020

Guantánamo Bay

The latest judge in the case of five men held at Guantánamo Bay, after years of torture and secret detention at CIA facilities around the world and accused of involvement in attacks on New York City in September 2001, has quit after just two weeks in his new job. Col. Stephen Keane was given the post on 17 September and quit on 2 October, “citing a series of potential conflicts that could make him appear biased.” He was the fifth judge in the case, which was set to go to trial in January 2021 but is still at pre-trial stage almost nine years after the defendants were charged and almost two decades after the events took place. During his two weeks in the post, he made two important orders, one to cancel all hearings until 2021 and the other to delay the start of the trial until at least August 2021.

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/02/919694781/new-9-11-judge-at-guant-namo-quits-after-two-weeks

A new judge, Air Force judge Lt. Col. Matthew McCall, was appointed on 16 October, however the prosecution quickly protested due to his lack of experience – less than two years – as a military judge and called him unqualified to hear the case. The rules for military tribunals require the judge to have at least two years of experience. He has ordered an extension for litigation deadlines by 30 days, although the protest is still being considered.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/us/politics/guantanamo-bay-trial-sept11.html

With recent US government plans and contracts to build new housing units for court staff scheduled for 2022, it appears that the anticipated start of the trial will be in 2022, more than 20 years after the events took place.

In the other capital case of Abd Al-Nashiri, accused of involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden in 2000, the military judge has set the next pre-trial hearing in that case for 15 March - 2 April 2021.

 

Salahidin Abdulahad, one of four Chinese Uighurs who were released from Guantánamo to Bermuda in 2009 has had his British citizenship application blocked by a speeding ticket he was given almost four years ago. Along with the other three, he applied for British citizenship in 2018, so that the men can leave the island, something they were unable to do as they did not have Chinese passports and in applying for them, the Chinese government would have demanded their return to China, from where they had initially fled to Afghanistan. He did not meet the Home Office’s “good character criteria” and has since reapplied. He is hoping with a British passport he can travel to Canada to reunite with his wife and three children who have moved there. He has health problems for which he needs treatment and which make it difficult for him to live alone. The other men have become British Overseas Territory citizens.

royalgazette.com/news/article/20201016/uighur-denied-passport-over-speed-conviction/

 

Following a decision in September in an appeal brought by Yemeni “forever prisoner” Abdulsalam Al Hela, upholding his indefinite decision and ruling that Guantánamo prisoners do not have due process rights, his lawyers have filed a brief asking for a full appeal court “to consider the question of whether the Due Process Clause applies to Guantanamo detainees”.

 

A federal appeals court has refused to consider the appeal of the 2010 war crimes conviction of former Sudanese prisoner Ibrahim Al-Qosi, a former driver for Osama Bin Laden, who was convicted on a single charge of providing material support for terrorism. In another successful appeal at Guantánamo, it was held that this charge did not qualify as a war crime and thus could not be tried by a military commission. His conviction was the first under the revised rules introduced by the Obama administration. The appeal should have been straightforward, however after he returned to Sudan in 2012, his lawyer lost contact with him and no more was heard from him. The US alleges that Al-Qosi went to Yemen and joined Al-Qaida there. It is claimed that he has featured in videos urging support for Al-Qaida, however the videos shown in the US media show a picture of Al-Qosi and audio, without proof it is his voice. Other than these alleged online videos, masterfully and allegedly produced in war-torn Yemen where communications and utilities are very poor, no one has reported having seen Al-Qosi in many years. The media has promoted Al-Qosi from someone convicted of a crime that effectively does not exist to a terrorist mastermind, backed up by the US State Department offering $4 million as a reward for information about him, “calling him an emir of the Qaeda affiliate” [in Yemen].

Nonetheless, lawyers for Al-Qosi in the US filed an appeal against his conviction. However, the court refused to hear the case as the judges said that his lawyers had not provided proof that he had “authorized counsel to pursue these petitions.” as he had had no contact with “any attorney in this case for eight years”. “The general in charge of the military commissions defense teams, Brig. Gen. John G. Baker of the Marines, has said he assigned lawyers to the appeal because, by law, every Guantánamo conviction is entitled to appellate court review.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/us/politics/guantanamo-detainee-appeal.html

 

A group of UN Special Rapporteurs have expressed concerns about the possible repatriation of 18 men (17 Yemenis and one Russian) to their home countries from the UAE where they were resettled. Since their arrival in the country in 2016 and 2017, the men have been held at secret locations with limited access to their families and to medical and legal representation. Now the country is threatening to repatriate them or detain them indefinitely (without charge or trial). One of the three Afghans who were repatriated by the UAE in December 2019 said that he was forced to return to Afghanistan against his will.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/10/1075462

 

LGC Activities:

The London Guantánamo Campaign’s monthly Shut Guantánamo! demonstrations continue online for the present at 12-2pm on the first Thursday of each month. To take part, please email a photo/video of your banner to us at london.gtmo@gmail.com or share your picture/video to our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/London-Guantánamo-Campaign-114010671973111/ or via Twitter at that time.