LGC Newsletter – December 2020

 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.

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/11/945565473/u-s-clears-for-release-long-time-guantanamo-inmate-never-charged-with-a-crime

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.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/13/guantanamos-last-inmates-detect-a-glimmer-of-hope-after-19-years-inside

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.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/23/trump-pardons-blackwater-contractors-jailed-for-massacre-of-iraq-civilians

 

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.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/9/icc-prosecutor-drops-probe-into-alleged-uk-war-crimes-in-iraq

 

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.

LGC Newsletter – June 2020

Guantánamo Bay

On 4 June, a military judge ruled that Guantánamo military judges can reduce the prison sentence to be given to Majid Khan, who pleaded guilty in 2012 “to delivering $50,000 of Qaeda money that helped finance the 2003 bombing of a Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, that killed 11 people, and plotting other, unrealized terrorist attacks.” His sentencing has been delayed since then as in his plea bargain he agreed to act as witness against prisoners to get a more lenient sentence. Under his “plea agreement, his sentence is to end in 2031. But the judge could shorten that if he decides Mr. Khan should get credit for having been tortured.” The evidence against Majid Khan, 40, was obtained through severe torture he was subject to during three years of CIA detention at various sites around the world, following his kidnapping in 2003 in Pakistan: “During his time in the C.I.A. black sites, Mr. Khan says, he was hung from his wrists and kept naked and hooded to the point of wild hallucinations. He was held in darkness for a year, isolated in a cell with bugs that bit him until he bled. A Senate investigation disclosed that in his second year of C.I.A. detention, the agency “infused” a purée of pasta, sauce, nuts, raisins and hummus into his rectum because he went on a hunger strike.”

No date has been set for sentencing, even though Majid Khan has given his witness statements. This ruling may have an effect on other cases where defendants have been tortured at CIA black sites, such as the five men awaiting trial for their alleged involvement in attacks in New York City in September 2001.

“The chief defense counsel, Brig. Gen. John G. Baker of the Marines, cast it as a watershed decision. “It is about time that we see a means to hold the government accountable for the reprehensible torture of Mr. Khan and other commissions defendants in a court a law.” he said. “While it may seem obvious that being tortured by government actors should have some effect on a defendant’s ultimate sentence, the prosecution has disagreed every step of the way.””

https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/torture-can-be-considered-sentencing-guantanamo-prisoners-judge-rules

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/05/871126166/guantanamo-judge-rules-tortured-prisoner-could-get-reduced-sentence

Uzair Paracha, who was convicted in a federal court in relation to this case in 2005, for supporting terrorism, was exonerated and released earlier in 2020.

https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=5706

Extraordinary rendition:

A judicial review into the decision by former Prime Minister Theresa May’s government not to hold a judge-led inquiry “into the involvement of British intelligence in torture and rendition following 9/11” brought by two MPs and an NGO found that 15 more potential cases of “torture or rendition involving British intelligence at the height of the “war on terror” were examined last year in a secret Whitehall review”. The files emerged in “a witness statement made by an MI6 officer known only as AA as part of disclosure proceedings” and “might require further investigation.” The hearing held on 9 June was to decide whether the judicial review should be heard in secret: “The government argues that because the charity and the two MPs are not victims, there is no need for them to hear the detail of the case in open court” but no judgment has yet been made on this matter, with the applicants seeking open justice.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/09/whitehall-held-secret-review-15-possible-cases-torture-or-rendition

On 11 June, Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing sanctions and visa restrictions on International Criminal Court (ICC) officials carrying out an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan, including those committed by the USA (CIA torture and rendition and others), after the ICC appeals chamber authorised the investigation in March. The order extends to their family members too. In announcing the order, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the ICC a “kangaroo court”, with Pompeo making it very clear that impunity for human rights violations and war crimes by its agents is US state policy. The ICC has condemned the sanctions, calling them "unacceptable attempt to interfere with the rule of law".

https://www.defenseone.com/politics/2020/06/trump-sanction-icc-officials-investigating-alleged-us-war-crimes-afghanistan/166084/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53012783

LGC Activities:

With the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the London Guantánamo Campaign’s monthly Shut Guantánamo! demonstration will be held virtually at 12-2pm on Thursday 2 July. To take part, please email a photo/video of your banner to us at london.gtmo@gmail.com before 12pm on 2 July or share your picture/video to our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/London-Guantánamo-Campaign-114010671973111/ or via Twitter (or just a message – some possible messages available through the link below) @shutguantanamo between 12 and 2pm on Thursday 2 July. More details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/949045892185085/

   

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.