LGC Newsletter – July 2023

Guantánamo Bay

 

Yemeni prisoner Al Hamza Al-Bahlul, 53, the only prisoner serving a life sentence at Guantánamo Bay, had an appeal turned down by a federal appeals court to have his life sentence “for conspiring to commit war crimes as a propaganda chief for Al Qaeda and an aide to Osama bin Laden” reconsidered by a new military jury. His case has already been appealed several times with earlier appeals striking “down two of the three crimes for which Ali Hamza al-Bahlul was convicted in 2008. His lawyer, Michel Paradis, had argued that a new sentencing jury should be assembled at the base to hear evidence and arguments on whether his remaining conspiracy conviction deserved a lesser sentence. Mr. Paradis also sought reconsideration of the sentence because, a year after Mr. Bahlul’s trial, Guantánamo’s military commission system was overhauled to explicitly prohibit the use of evidence “obtained by the use of torture or by cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that the sentence should stand and that the prisoner’s lawyers brought up the question of torture too late in the appellate process”.

“Mr. Bahlul’s legal team is likely to seek full appellate court review before deciding whether to appeal to the Supreme Court. This is Mr. Bahlul’s sixth case before the civilian appeals court, including one in 2014 that overturned two other convictions on charges of providing material support for terrorism and solicitation of others to commit war crimes.” He is the only prisoner still at Guantánamo whose case was heard during George W. Bush’s administration.

“A United Nations human rights investigator who visited the prison this year mentioned Mr. Bahlul in a report that condemned conditions of the detention operation. As the only convict at the prison, he is kept “in isolation, raising serious concerns of solitary confinement in contravention of international law,” according to the report by Fionnuala Ni Aolain, who is serving as the U.N. special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights. Ms. Ni Aolain said a prison policy letting him socialize with other detainees four hours a day has been implemented inconsistently and arbitrarily.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/26/us/guantanamo-al-qaeda-recruiter.html

 

Pre-trial hearings set to be heard in July and August in three cases (Al-Nashiri (USS Cole bombing), the Bali bombing case and Nashwan Al-Tamer (Abdul Hadi Al-Iraqi)) have been cancelled. In the Bali bombing case, a new judge, Lieutenant Colonel Wesley Braun from the US Air Force, will hear the case when pre-trial hearings are resumed, scheduled now for October. In Nashwan Al-Tamer’s case, he was one of five prisoners who reported to have contracted Covid-19 in July. The US military said that the illness was not serious in any of the cases.

 

LGC Newsletter – November 2022

 Guantánamo Bay

Lawyers from the US Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) have filed a petition for a “status conference” in the habeas corpus case of Somali prisoner Guled Hassan Duran, who has been held at Guantánamo since 2006 after being detained in secret CIA torture facilities since 2004. He filed the habeas case, to know the reasons he is being held, in 2016, and the case is pending various motions later filed on the disclosure of evidence. A year ago, the periodic review board cleared Duran for release, however current US laws block the transfer of any prisoners to Somalia, a country currently being frequently bombed by US drones. No safe third country has yet been found for him and such transfers are unlikely under the system in place under President Joe Biden. At the same time, unresolved long-term health issues that cannot be adequately dealt with at Guantánamo are also causing him great suffering, including a recent period of hospitalisation. If granted, this would allow the parties (Duran’s lawyers and the US government) to discuss where the case is with a judge and what steps should be taken next.

 

Iraqi prisoner Abd Al-Hadi Al-Iraqi, who pleaded guilty to war crimes relating to attacks on US allied soldiers in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, underwent emergency surgery on his spine earlier this month, his sixth operation since 2017: “A neurosurgical team fixed screws, added titanium cages and removed rods inserted into Mr. Hadi’s back in a lengthy operation on Nov. 12, according to a court filing by a prison doctor. The prisoner required blood transfusions during the procedure and suffered an unintended tear in his spinal cord. The doctor described the tear as a “common complication” and said a neurosurgeon plugged it with a muscle graft, suture and seal.” His sentencing has been postponed until 2024 and any plans for him to serve his sentence elsewhere will have to include long-term medical provision, a growing issue for the remaining 35 prisoners. It is not known whether the surgery on 12 November was successful and whether he has regained feeling in his lower back.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/23/us/politics/guantanamo-prisoner-surgery.html

LGC Newsletter – May 2022

Guantánamo Bay

In a pre-trial hearing in early May in the capital case of Abd Al-Nashiri, accused of involvement in an attack on a military vessel in the Gulf of Aden in 2000, CIA torture architect, contract psychologist Dr James Mitchell, testified how “how he and his partner in building the CIA interrogation program, Dr. Bruce Jessen, conducted three waterboarding sessions of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri over multiple days in November 2002 in an effort to stop what the Bush administration believed was “a second wave” of terrorist attacks to follow those on Sept. 11, 2001.” They stopped as the victim was too small in size to continue; at the time, Al-Nashiri weighed only 120 lb. Providing more of the kind of confessional testimony that should be used in his own war crimes trial, “Mitchell said that al Nashiri began providing useful intelligence in subsequent interrogation sessions at Location 3, leading the interrogation team to “taper off” from what the CIA referred to as its “enhanced interrogation techniques,” or “EITs.” For al Nashiri, Mitchell said these techniques also included sleep deprivation, slapping, periods of confinement in a box and a process of being repeatedly pushed hard against a wall known as “walling.” According to his testimony, Mitchell based the techniques on those he used as an instructor in the Air Force’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape, or SERE, program, which puts trainees through abusive situations to prepare them for capture by hostile forces.

“Mitchell said Monday afternoon that al Nashiri would crawl into the confinement box to get away from the bright lights in his cell that were on 24 hours a day.

“Nashiri actually liked being in the box,” Mitchell said.”

In the same hearing, another Guantánamo prisoner, Yemeni Abd al Salam al Hilah, who has been cleared for release, was due to give two days of testimony against Al-Nashiri, however on the morning of his testimony, he refused to attend court. Attending the following day, he stated “he had “nothing to hide” but was concerned that the government would “manipulate” his answers and use them against him. His voice rising at times, al Hilah said that both he and his family have suffered during his 20 years in U.S. custody.

“Lyness [al Hilah’s lawyer] rose to say that his client’s statement was a “clear invocation” of his right against self-incrimination. [Judge] Acosta agreed and decided that the deposition would not go forward. He recessed the commission until the next hearing, scheduled to start July 25”.

https://www.lawdragon.com/news-features/2022-05-03-architect-of-cia-interrogation-program-testifies-to-repeated-abuse-of-uss-cole-suspect

Former British resident, Ugandan Jamal Kiyemba, who was released from Guantánamo without charge or trial in 2007, has been charged and faces trial for alleged membership in 2021-2022 of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel group designated a terrorist organisation in Uganda, along with others. He has been remanded in custody pending investigation. He denied the charges.

https://observer.ug/news/headlines/73623-ex-guantanamo-bay-inmate-remanded-to-luzira-prison-over-adf-terror-links

 

LGC Newsletter – July 2021

 Guantánamo Bay

The chief prosecutor in the case of five men accused of involvement in the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York City has announced his surprise retirement. Army Brigadier General Mark Martins, who has held the position for over a decade, had previously delayed his retirement and was due to remain in the position until 2023. His retirement makes a trial in the case “appear increasingly unlikely.” A message sent to the families of the victims of the attacks stated that he was stepping down "in the best interests of the ongoing cases." His retirement is effective as of 30 September.

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/10/1014885606/chief-guantanamo-prosecutor-announces-surprise-retirement-before-9-11-trial-star

 

Moroccan prisoner Abdullatif Nasser is the first prisoner to be transferred from Guantánamo by the Biden administration. He was repatriated to Morocco where he was reunited with his family in time for the Eid festival on 20 July. Nasser was cleared for release in July 2016. There are currently 39 prisoners held at Guantánamo, 10 of whom are cleared for release.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/19/guantanamo-bay-prisoner-biden-admin-first-transfer

 

Pre-trial hearings have now resumed at Guantánamo Bay following a delay of over 18 months due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with one held in the case of Nashwan Al-Tamir (Abdul Hadi Al-Iraq), on 13-14 July. It consisted mainly of questions put to the new judge in the case and concerning the defendant’s ability to participate in the proceedings. For details of the proceedings, please see:

https://www.lawdragon.com/news-features/2021-07-21-military-commissions-resume-on-guantanamo-amid-biden-closure-plans-and-pandemic-uncertainty

On 27 July, a brief hearing was held in the case of Majid Khan, who has been awaiting sentencing for almost a decade. In this brief hearing, the prosecution and defence also put questions to the new judge concerning his ability to deal with the case but did not object to his appointment.

 

 

UN Special Rapporteurs raised further concerns this month over the safety of men released by the Obama administration to the UAE under a secret agreement. Concerns were raised about the potential forced repatriation to Russia of Ravil Mingazov, who along with 18 Yemenis, has essentially been detained with limited access to family, lawyers and medical care since arriving in the UAE. The Russian authorities informed Mingazov’s family of his potential repatriation. Other Russian prisoners sent home have been subject to further persecution including torture, arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killing.

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=27255&LangID=E

While the Special Rapporteurs in their statement “welcome[d] the [UAE] Government’s decision not to repatriate these [18] Yemeni nationals” they had raised concerns about in October 2020, it has now been reported, according to their families and the Yemeni government, that 6 of these men were returned to Yemen in late July. After transfer from Guantánamo to the UAE, the men remained in detention. Concerns have been raised about the risk to the men in being returned to an active war zone. The men have yet to be released to their families, but the Yemeni authorities said they will continue to monitor them after release, which is more likely a request of the US than the UAE. The UAE is not the first state to repatriate former prisoners after having accepted them. In 2018, Senegal sent two prisoners back to their native Libya where, upon arrival, they promptly disappeared.

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-middle-east-africa-yemen-d77ecfc5cc02de4bd49618765eda0777

 

LGC Activities

The August monthly Shut Guantánamo! protest is on Thursday 5^th August at 12-2pm outside the US Embassy in Nine Elms (Nine Elms Lane, SW11 7US, nearest underground: Vauxhall).  https://www.facebook.com/events/346316563824547/ If you require more details about this event, please email us at london.gtmo [at] gmail.com

LGC Newsletter – April 2021

 Guantánamo Bay

Under plans devised by the Trump administration, the US military has closed the secretive Camp 7 at Guantánamo Bay that once housed alleged high-value prisoners who were not allowed to have contact with the outside world. The camp was dilapidated and suffered frequent power cuts; rather than renovate it, it was decided that it should close inside. All of the remaining 40 prisoners are now housed in camps 5 and 6.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/guantanamo-bay-closed-detention-camp-b1826720.html#comments-area

 

Iraqi prisoner Nashwan Al-Tamir lost a case before a federal appeals court to have the charges against him dismissed and the judge presiding over his case disqualified due to a conflict of interest. One of the last prisoners to arrive at Guantánamo following capture in 2006 and torture at CIA black sites, he was charged in 2014 with terrorist offences and faces a life sentence. The judge in his case presided over it while seeking employment elsewhere, a conflict of interest, for which he did not recuse himself. Instead the US government has offered to have the court decisions made reheard by another judge which the appeal court agreed with and thus his claims were denied.

https://www.jurist.org/news/2021/04/guantanamo-detainee-loses-bid-to-dismiss-charges-and-disqualify-judge-over-conflicts-of-interest/

 

President Biden has announced that he plans to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, although not US involvement, by 11 September this year. Whether or not his government is able to achieve this remains to be seen and will have an impact on the prisoners at Guantánamo, given that the ongoing war there is the rationale for keeping Guantánamo open.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/13/biden-withdraw-troops-afghanistan-september-11

Lawyers for some prisoners have used this as a basis for new legal action to challenge their detention https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/us/politics/afghanistan-war-guantanamo-prison.html

However, in ongoing similar legal proceedings started under previous presidents, lawyers for the Biden administration, in the case of Ali v Biden, decided to broadly uphold the position of the Trump administration that Guantánamo prisoners should not have full due process rights, and thus the ability to challenge their detention in court meaningfully.

https://www.justsecurity.org/75828/biden-teams-litigation-tactics-on-guantanamo-undercut-biden-policy-to-close-the-prison/

It should also be recalled that in 2014, former President Obama also called for US troops to be removed from Afghanistan, yet seven years on, they remain there and Guantánamo is still open.

 

At least 32 of the remaining 40 Guantánamo prisoners are reported to have been vaccinated against Covid-19.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/ap-source-guantanamo-prisoners-now-covid-19-vaccine-77170045

 

The US Supreme Court has decided to hear a petition by Guantánamo prisoner Abu Zubaydah to discover the identities of agents who tortured him while in secret CIA detention in Poland as part of an ongoing investigation there. His lawyers also want to question the architects of the CIA’s torture programme, former contractors James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. The US government refuses to disclose this information claiming it falls under state secrets. The case will not be heard until October at least.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/26/us-supreme-court-to-hear-palestinian-guantanamo-prisoner-case

His lawyers have also said that they have filed a complaint with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention against the US and 6 other states concerning his ongoing detention without charge or trial. His lawyers hope that the complaint will find that the US is obliged to release him, even though the CIA has previously said that he will never be released.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/30/guantanamo-detainee-abu-zubaydah-to-file-complaint-with-un-agency

Abu Zubaydah currently also has a claim against the UK government for disclosure of what it knew about his torture and abuse by the CIA in the UK courts.

 

Extraordinary Rendition

In early April, the Biden administration removed sanctions on staff of the International Criminal Court (ICC) imposed by his predecessor Trump, imposing visa restrictions and freezing their assets in the US. However, the Biden administration disagrees with the court’s against the US and Israel. In a statement upon lifting the sanction, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “We continue to disagree strongly with the ICC's actions relating to the Afghanistan and Palestinian situations. We maintain our longstanding objection to the Court’s efforts to assert jurisdiction over personnel of non-States Parties such as the United States and Israel. We believe, however, that our concerns about these cases would be better addressed through engagement with all stakeholders in the ICC process rather than through the imposition of sanctions.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/02/icc-sanctions-reversed-biden-478731

The UK government’s controversial Overseas Operations Bill 2021 has received royal assent and will soon become law. However, this only happened after the government dropped clauses that would shield UK military personnel from prosecution against involvement in war crimes involving torture, genocide or crimes against humanity. More recently it has had to back down on a blanket ban on prosecutions for war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The government argued but failed to prove that it needed to protect military personnel against “vexatious claims”. While many claims have been made, very few come to trial and even fewer result in prosecutions. The law will prevent civil claims being brought after 6 years in the context of foreign wars.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/overseas-operations-bill-uk-government-drops-bid-shield-soldiers-war-crimes-prosecutions

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.

LGC Newsletter – September 2020

Guantánamo Bay

In a unanimous decision, a federal appeals court upheld the indefinite decision of Yemeni “forever prisoner” Abdulsalam Al Hela, 52, ruling that Guantánamo prisoners do not have due process rights. His defence argued that the “evidence against him relied on anonymous hearsay and that he never joined or supported Al Qaeda or any other terrorist group.”

This decision could affect the case of five prisoners accused of involvement in attacks on New York City in September 2001, who are currently awaiting trial, as it has long been held, since the 2008 ruling in Boumediene v Bush, that prisoners can only challenge their detention through habeas corpus. The decision can be appealed. Al Hela’s lawyer, David Remes said: "Due process is one of the most fundamental constitutional guarantees, and to rule that it simply does not apply to Guantanamo detainees contradicts those most fundamental values that the due process clause exists to protect”.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/us/politics/guantanamo-detainees-due-process.html https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/defense-expected-ask-review-courts-ruling-against-due-process-gitmo-detainees

 

Colonel Stephen Keane has been appointed the new judge in the case of the five prisoners accused of involvement in attacks on New York City in September 2001 after the previous judge, the fourth in the case which is still at pre-trial stage after almost a decade, announced in March he was leaving the case to retire. “No hearings in the case have been held at Guantánamo since February, in part because of a complicated two-week quarantine requirement for newcomers to the base to safeguard its 6,000 residents. (Forty of them are prisoners and 1,500 of them are soldiers assigned to the wartime prison.)”.

One of his first orders has been to cancel all hearings in the case until next year, due to the restrictions, and delay the start of the trial until at least August 2021.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/us/politics/military-judge-guantanamo-bay-911-trial.html

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/30/918454831/trial-of-sept-11-defendants-at-guant-namo-delayed-until-august-2021

 

A federal appeals panel has refused to delay a court-ordered, independent medical examination of Saudi prisoner Mohammed Al-Qahtani, “to decide whether he should be repatriated to psychiatric care in Saudi Arabia.” “Justice Department lawyers have warned that the first use of a mixed medical commission — one doctor from the U.S. Army and two from a neutral country chosen by the International Red Cross and approved by the United States and Saudi Arabia — would be disruptive and unleash more requests by other prisoners.”

“Lawyers for Mr. Qahtani, and a psychiatrist who was consulted on the case, made a novel argument for enacting an Army regulation that includes medical-repatriation provisions of the Third Geneva Convention for prisoners of war. Their position is that Mr. Qahtani can only be effectively treated in his homeland.

"Most claims of torture of Guantánamo detainees center on what happened in the C.I.A. prison network before their transfer to military custody. But leaked documents show that Mr. Qahtani was subjected to two months of continuous, brutal interrogations at Guantánamo’s Camp X-Ray — sleep deprivation, dehydration, nudity and being menaced by dogs — while under the care of military medics from the same prison operation that provides his medical care now.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/us/politics/court-guantanamo-outside-health-review.html

 

Extraordinary Rendition

In early September, the Trump administration announced sanctions against the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is investigating alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan as part of an investigation into war crimes by all parties in that country. The US is not a member of the ICC and does not consider itself to be affected by it. Nonetheless, it has placed sanctions on Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and the head of jurisdiction at the court Phakiso Mochochoko; they were added to the “Treasury Department's "Specially Designated Nationals" list. The designation freezes any assets they might have in the U.S. or subject to U.S. law.”  https://www.npr.org/2020/09/02/908896108/trump-administration-sanctions-icc-prosecutor-investigating-alleged-u-s-war-crim

 

Court documents in the case brought by the family of Harry Dunn, who was killed after his motorcycle was hit by the car of Anne Sacoolas, “wife of Jonathon Sacoolas, an operative for the CIA”, who was allowed to return to the US and avoid prosecution, have revealed that around 200 US personnel working in the UK have benefited from a bulk diplomatic immunity deal under the war on terror. Sacoolas claimed diplomatic immunity from prosecution, after she fatally hit Mr Dunn while driving the wrong way on the road, near RAF Croughton in Sussex. “The documents show that, in 1995, 2001, and 2006, Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials made a case to ministers to extend diplomatic immunity – including providing immunity from criminal prosecution – to an estimated 200 staff working at the RAF Croughton base in Sussex” and “The heavily-redacted documents include a ministerial submission from 2006 which identifies the base’s role in ‘war on terror’ operations as a reason for granting bulk immunity. This 2006 submission to ministers notes the “increased demands brought on by the global war on terrorism and the war in Iraq” and raises a concern that granting bulk diplomatic immunity to multiple US staff would provoke a “possible read-across by the media to rendition flights”.”

https://www.scottishlegal.com/article/bulk-diplomatic-immunity-conferred-on-us-personnel-in-britain-court-documents-reveal

 

Controversial new legislation that will allow immunity from prosecution for British military personnel for potential war crimes, including torture, committed overseas passed its second reading in parliament. “The bill, which will end the right to bring legal cases against British soldiers for alleged offences that are more than five years old, has been criticised by senior military figures and human rights groups, who say it will damage Britain's reputation abroad and act as a "licence to torture".”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/government-british-troops-immunity-prosecution-human-rights-b674479.html

At the same time, the Conservative Party launched the covert human intelligence sources bill “allowing confidential informants working for MI5 and the police to break the law […] amid a row about whether committing crimes such as murder and torture should be explicitly banned”.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/sep/24/uk-set-to-introduce-bill-allowing-mi5-agents-to-break-the-law

 

LGC Activities:

The LGC is saddened by the death of long-term activist John Lloyd who was a regular at our monthly demonstrations outside the US Embassy and at demonstrations organised by the Guantanamo Justice Campaigns and other organisations. He and his banners offering a poignant reminder of the wrongdoing of the US and UK governments will be very much missed.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/29/john-lloyd-obituary

 

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.