Guantánamo Bay
In a brief filed by the Biden administration at the end of January in the case of Abd Al Nashiri, facing the death penalty for his alleged role in the 2000 bombing of a US naval vessel in the Gulf of Aden, it made an important U-turn on the use of torture bringing it into line, in this military commission, with international law, by categorically rejecting “the use of statements obtained through torture at any stage in the proceedings and promis[ing] that the government will not seek to admit any statements the petitioner made while in CIA custody”. Al Nashiri, who was kidnapped and rendered in the UAE in 2002, has already successfully brought claims for torture collusion against Poland and Romania, where he was held illegally and secretly and tortured, among other countries, before he arrived at Guantánamo in 2006.
The US government has agreed to repatriate Saudi prisoner Mohammed Al-Qahtani, who suffers from severe mental health problems following his torture and detention by the US, to Saudi Arabia for treatment at a specialist facility there. He was cleared for release by the periodic review board and may return to Saudi Arabia in March. His legal team have been calling for him to be released and to receive psychiatric care for a long time. While the board calls for continuing security and surveillance upon release, his lawyers stated: "Despite the severity of his illness, Mohammed has never posed a risk to anyone but himself. In recent years the voices in his head have increasingly told him to harm himself—by doing things like swallowing broken glass and not disclosing it to his doctors—making his transfer out of Guantánamo an urgent matter. We are hopeful that Mohammed's torment will be lessened when he is in the care of trusted psychiatrists who speak his native language, far from the scene of his torture, and where he can receive vital support from his family."
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/08/politics/guantanamo-detainee-saudi-arabia/index.html
The review board also cleared fellow Saudi prisoner Ghassan Al-Sharbi, who was detained in Pakistan in 2002, for release. He has never been charged or tried. A majority (20) of the remaining 39 prisoners are now cleared for release.
Pre-trial hearings in the case of an Indonesian and two Malaysian prisoners due to be held at the end of February and early March were cancelled after prosecutors informed the judge that they could not comply with his order to produce two adequate court Malay and Indonesian interpreters who are security cleared for the hearing. Problems with biased interpreters and/or speaking the wrong language have already marred this case. Prosecutors have also announced that they are seeking to start the trial at the end of December 2023.
