LGC Newsletter – December 2020
Guantánamo Bay
Yemeni prisoner Said Salih Nashir, 46, is the only prisoner who has been cleared for release by the periodic review board throughout the Trump presidency. In the 18 years Said Salih Nashir has spent at Guantánamo, he has never been charged or tried. The decision recognised his “low level of training and lack of leadership position in Al Qaeda or the Taliban” and while his lawyer considers this progress in a long process, it is unclear if and when he will be released. Five other prisoners were cleared for release by the previous Obama administration but remain at Guantánamo. Only one prisoner has been released – to further detention in Saudi Arabia – by the Trump administration.
While the media and NGOs have expressed optimism over the election of Joe Biden who will become US president in January 2021 and the possibility of Guantánamo closing as a result, his team has yet to make any comments on what his policy will be with respect to the extralegal detention centre which enters its 20th year on 11 January 2021.
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/26/950360626/will-biden-shut-down-guantanamo-bay
At the same time, outgoing President Donald Trump has used his final month in power to issue pardons for allies and war criminals, including four security guards from private military contractor Blackwater, convicted of the deaths of 14 Iraqi civilians, including two children, in Baghdad in 2007 in a massacre, when as part of a “armoured convoy […they] opened fire indiscriminately with machine-guns, grenade launchers and a sniper on a crowd of unarmed people in a square in the Iraqi capital”. One was given a life sentence and the other three sentenced to 30 years in jail. Blackwater was created by Erik Prince, brother of former Trump education secretary and close ally, Betsy DeVos.
Extraordinary Rendition
International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, has said she is dropping the preliminary inquiry into alleged British military war crimes in Iraq, “even though she found a reasonable basis to believe they committed atrocities”. A full investigation was never carried out and the ICC has “concluded that British authorities had examined the allegations”. The allegations include claims of murder, wilful killing, torture and rape. UK investigations have led to the majority of claims being dismissed.
LGC Activities:
The London Guantánamo Campaign will hold a special day of protest via social media on Monday 11 January 2021 to mark the nineteenth anniversary of the opening of the Guantánamo Bay detention centre on 11 January 2002 and ahead of the inauguration of the new US president. Please check out our website for further details of how you can get involved via Facebook and Twitter.
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