LGC Newsletter – February 2023

 Guantánamo Bay

Majid Khan, who officially completed his sentence following conviction through a secret plea bargain on 1 March 2022, was released to the Central American state of Belize in early February. He has been joined by his family. A survivor of physical, sexual and psychological torture in the CIA’s illegal secret network of prisons worldwide, he is the only “high-value” prisoner to be released and the only prisoner to be resettled in a third country since the Obama administration. Khan, a Pakistani citizen, cannot return there due to safety concerns.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64504846  

 

Two other Pakistani nationals, brothers Abdul, 55, and Mohammed, 53, Rabbani, were repatriated to Pakistan on 24 February. They have returned to their hometown of Karachi, where they were arrested and handed over to the US military by Pakistani officials in 2002. Held at Guantánamo for over 20 years, they were never charged or tried. “The brothers alleged torture while in CIA custody before being transferred to Guantanamo. US military records describe the two as providing little intelligence of value or recanting statements made during interrogations on the grounds they were obtained by physical abuse.” Mohammed Rabbani was allowed to return home with paintings he produced while at Guantánamo, following a recent change in policy allowing prisoners to keep their artwork.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/24/two-pakistanis-leave-guantanamo-after-20-years-without-charges

There are currently 32 prisoners held at Guantánamo.

 

The UN has reported that the special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, undertook a visit to the Guantánamo Bay detention camp and the US on 6-14 February and over the coming months, she will “carry out a series of interviews with individuals in the United States and abroad, on a voluntary basis, including victims and families of victims of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks and former detainees in countries of resettlement/repatriation”. This is the first time that a UN technical expert has been granted access to the facility, after two decades of such requests being made.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/02/un-counterterrorism-expert-visit-united-states-and-guantanamo-detention

The Pentagon has reversed a Trump-era ban, in place since 2017, on released prisoners taking some or all of the artwork they have produced at the prison with them. As a result, Mohammed Rabbani’s lawyers have reported that he has been allowed to take a considerable number of the paintings he produced during his detention with him to Pakistan.

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/art-guantanamo-bay-detainees-2253127

 

Pre-trial hearings took place in February in the cases of Hadi Al-Iraqi, which were mostly administrative and slowed down as the prisoner recovers from surgery last year, and Abd Al-Nashiri, in which the judge continued to sum up what evidence can be considered admissible in the case. Witnesses included former FBI agents who have not been able to find the people who provided them with testimonies in the case in Yemen over 20 years ago.

In an attempt to exclude some of the evidence obtained through the use of torture on Al-Nashiri while in secret CIA detention, one of the witnesses, Dr Sondra S. Crosby, in her testimony, “offered some of the most graphic details made public about the C.I.A.’s shadowy use of rectal feeding on its prisoners, a discredited practice kept secret long after other torture methods had been exposed”.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/24/us/politics/cia-torture-guantanamo-nashiri-doctor.html

Documents and transcripts in the cases can be viewed here: https://www.mc.mil/CASES.aspx

LGC Newsletter – October 2022

Guantánamo Bay

Pre-trial hearings took place this month in the capital USS Cole bombing case involving Abd Al Nashiri. The hearings focused on how much hearsay evidence the judge is allowed to admit in the trial as many witnesses are unavailable for the trial of this attack on a US naval vessel which took place near Yemen in 2000. An FBI agent told the court that 20 years earlier Yemeni eyewitnesses had described the attack to investigators and identified Al Nashiri as being involved. However, “Confronted with the image on cross-examination, the former agent, Ammar Barghouty, said he was mistaken. The eyewitness had identified one of the suicide bombers, not Mr. Nashiri, as the tenant. [of property rented to the bombers]” As they cannot find the 100 or so Yemeni witnesses who provided the information at the time, the judge now has to decide whether FBI agents can testify what they were told instead. Many are now retired. The judge, Col. Lanny J. Acosta Jr., must also decide which of the statements “are reliable enough to be presented to the military jury that will someday hear the death-penalty case.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/29/us/politics/uss-cole-bombing-case.html

Initial pre-trial hearings in the case of Indonesian prisoner Hambali and two Malaysian prisoners accused of involvement in the 2003 Bali bombing were due to take place in late October and early November but have been cancelled by the judge.

 

The oldest prisoner held at Guantánamo, 75-year old Pakistani national Saifullah Paracha, has been repatriated following efforts by the Pakistani government. He was detained in Thailand in 2003 and accused of financing Al Qaeda. In his 20 years at Guantánamo, he was never charged or tried. He was cleared for release by the periodic review board in May 2022. 35 prisoners remain at the facility, including fellow Pakistani citizen Majid Khan, who had served his military commission sentence by 1 March this year but is awaiting release to a safe third country.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/29/oldest-guantanamo-bay-prisoner-released-to-pakistan-ministry

 

LGC Newsletter – March 2015

BRITISH RESIDENTS:

Shaker Aamer’s case was subject to a backbench debate in parliament, which activists have been calling for since at least 2013, on 17 March. During the debate on his plight, the motion ‘That this House calls on the US Government to release Shaker Aamer from his imprisonment in Guantánamo Bay and to allow him to return to his family in the UK’ was passed and a number of MPs made strong, clear statements about Shaker Aamer’s ongoing plight. However, junior Foreign Office (FCO) minister Tobias Ellwood speaking on behalf of the FCO did not answer questions about why Shaker Aamer is still in Guantánamo Bay, what the British government is currently doing or where negotiations stand between the US and British governments. Instead, he prevented any useful debate by putting down the answers to being “intelligence matters” he could not share with the MPs in public.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmhansrd/cm150317/debtext/150317-0003.htm#15031763000001

On the same day, through redacted documents obtained through freedom of information requests in the US, Shaker Aamer’s lawyers at Reprieve obtained documents showing that US officials discussed sending him back to Saudi Arabia while giving assurances to the UK government at the same time.

http://www.reprieve.org.uk/press/us-discussed-sending-guantanamo-brit-to-saudi-despite-promise-to-uk/

To coincide with the debate, a day of action was held with Amnesty International delivering a petition calling for Shaker Aamer’s release and return from Guantánamo to the UK, signed by over 40,000 people

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/marathon-running-birmingham-doctor-go-downing-street-petition-guant%C3%A1namo-detainee

The Save Shaker Aamer Campaign held a colourful demonstration in Parliament Square and before lunchtime a rally was held inside parliament with speeches by MPs such as Caroline Lucas, John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn and by campaigners including Andy Worthington and Dr Dave Nicholls who delivered the Amnesty petition. The debate and rally were attended by Shaker Aamer’s three sons and other family members. He has never met his youngest son.

More on this day of action:

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2015/03/18/uk-government-backs-parliamentary-motion-to-secure-release-of-shaker-aamer/

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/29797-shaker-aamer-hostage-to-the-special-relationship

The cross-party parliamentary group for Shaker Aamer met twice in March. It now has over 40 members, since being set up by John McDonnell MP in November 2014, from all parties. It is currently planning a delegation to visit the US after the general election in May.

NEWS:

Guantánamo Bay:

On 9 March, the US Supreme Court dismissed two appeals by Guantánamo prisoners. In the first case, a Syrian-Kurd Abd al-Rahim Abdul Razak al-Janko, whose release was ordered in 2009 and had been captured while being held prisoner by the Taliban, had his appeal to sue the US government for unlawful detention and torture dismissed and a 2014 judgment in favour of the US government upheld, stating that he cannot sue the US for damages. In the second case, Saudi prisoner Mohammed al-Qahtani, who is still held at Guantánamo, lost a case brought on his behalf by the Center for Constitutional Rights for photos and documents of his torture to be released and made public. The reason was that their disclosure would harm “national security”.

http://rt.com/usa/239085-scotus-rejects-gitmo-appeals/

Although the case of five prisoners alleged of involvement in the 9/11 attacks in New York has been adjourned until 20 April, on 10 April, in the case of one prisoner, Mustafa Al-Hawsawi, Judge James Pohl, overseeing the case, released a two-page order stating, following a request by his defence team, that the court cannot intervene to order medical care for him. While held at CIA secret prisons, he was subject to torture that amounted to rape and as a result has caused him long-term physical problems and continued bleeding, for which he has yet to receive adequate treatment, more than a decade later. When making the request in February, it was the first time his lawyers had spoken about the torture he suffered, following the release of the redacted Senate CIA torture report. His lawyer “specifically cited a reference to an investigation of allegations that CIA agents conducted medically unnecessary rectal exams with excessive force on two detainees, one of them Hawsawi, who afterward suffered an anal fissure, rectal prolapse and haemorrhoids.”

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article15621776.html

On 5 March, Yemeni Saeed Sarem Jarabh, 36, became the latest prisoner to be cleared for release by the periodic review board, bringing the total number of prisoners held but who have been cleared for release to 58 out of 122 remaining prisoners. However, the administrative extra-legal review board ruled that his compatriot Khaled Qasim was not cleared due to his non-compliant behaviour at Guantánamo. A new review has been scheduled for 6 months’ time.

http://news.yahoo.com/yemeni-eligible-release-guantanamo-panel-194628491.html

Omar Khadr, who is currently held at the medium-security Bowden Institution in Innisfail, Canada, had a bail hearing on 23-24 March in Edmonton. His lawyers have applied for bail pending the outcome of his military tribunal conviction appeal in the US and his lawyer Dennis Edney QC and his wife Patricia have offered to take Omar into their own home. Questions about security and legality were raised in the case which is the first of its kind anywhere, where bail is applied in the enforcement of a sentence handed down in another country. If successful, lawyers for Khadr and the Canadian government will return to court to agree bail conditions. The judge reserved judgment and did not give an indication of when she is likely to make her decision. The hearing was very well attended by supporters of Khadr, so much so proceedings were moved to a larger courtroom. Omar Khadr attended on both days too.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/bail-decision-for-omar-khadr-in-hands-of-judge-after-two-day-hearing/article23625092/

Extraordinary Rendition:

The US military released 43 Pakistani prisoners from Bagram this year, who have all now returned home. Only 6 foreign nationals remain there, in US detention - two Tunisians, two Tajiks, an Uzbek and an Egyptian. Their fate will be decided by the Afghan authorities. It is not clear why they remain detained. The identities of the six men have been confirmed by the US.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/854223/us-releases-43-pakistani-detainees-from-bagram-jail/

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/3/16/how-obama-handed-afghanistan-a-prisoner-dilemma.html

On 20 March, a federal judge ordered the release of over 2000 photographs showing the US military abusing prisoners, including at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. The US government has 60 days to appeal and had previously argued that the disclosure of the images could put US military personnel at risk.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/21/abu-ghraib-detainees-photos-federal-judge-rules

http://rt.com/usa/242845-us-detainees-treatment-photos/  

LGC Activities:

The LGC March Shut Guantánamo demonstration was attended by 4 people. The April demo will be on Thursday 2 April: https://www.facebook.com/events/680328588755840/