NEWS:
Guantánamo Bay:
There are currently 60 prisoners held at Guantánamo. The last Mauritanian
prisoner Mohamedou Ould Slahi, 46, was released to his country on 17 October
where he has been reunited with his family and is a free man. Upon his return,
he issued a list of people he would like to thank for their support to free
him. A first video in English has been released by the American Civil Liberties
Union https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_KkkwlLBWY
Ould Slahi is the best-selling author of Guantánamo
Diary which recounts the torture and abuse he faced in US hands up to
2005. He was kidnapped from his home in Mauritania and rendered to Jordan and
then to Afghanistan before arriving at Guantánamo in August 2002. Raped and
beaten, he was one of a handful of CIA prisoners subject to a “special project”
whose torture was approved personally by Donald Rumsfeld. Nonetheless, Ould
Slahi said that he will not be taking action against the US at a press
conference held on 22 October.
Having completed the initial round of prisoner reviews, the
administrative military board has decided to continue classifying a number of
prisoners as “forever” prisoners this month, to be held indefinitely without
charge or trial, although their status can be reviewed again in six months’
time. These decisions are hardly surprising as they include Indonesian “Encep
Nurjaman Hambali” and stateless Palestinian Abu Zubaydah. Although the US
continues to deem them a threat to its security, no charges have been placed
against any of them, yet they are among those who were subject to some of the
most severe forms of torture meted out by the CIA. It is more than likely that
the US does not wish to release them due to the information they could reveal
about its torture programme. The real threat they pose to the US is the one the
US created for itself by acting outside of the law. A number of these
prisoners were victims of extraordinary rendition and were not kidnapped or
arrested in Pakistan or Afghanistan. There are currently 28 “forever prisoners”
at Guantánamo.
Late on 14 October, Mustafa Al Hawsawi, one of the 5 defendants awaiting
military trial for alleged involvement in the September 2001 attacks in New
York underwent rectal surgery to repair damage done by repeatedly being raped
while he was in CIA custody. The wounds inflicted on Al Hawsawi through sexual
torture resulted in a rectal prolapse which caused him to bleed for over a
decade and made it difficult for him to relieve himself or sit with ease, as
noted by observers during pre-trial hearings. According
to his lawyer Walter Ruiz, “When he has a bowel movement, he has to reinsert
parts of his anus back into his anal cavity,” which “causes him to bleed,
causes him excruciating pain.” As a result Al Hawsawi has often chosen to fast
instead. According to his lawyers, he has also suffered other forms of serious
and long-lasting pain and illness due to his time in secret CIA torture
facilities.
A
pre-trial hearing was held on 12-14 October in the case of five men accused of
involvement in the September 2001 attacks in New York. Prior to the hearing,
the trial judge ruled that the government can retroactively seal (i.e. after it
has been given and made public) public war court testimony as “state secrets sometimes slip through Camp Justice’s special national
security screening system.” The judge rejected a challenge brought by media organisations against
a Pentagon transcript from 2015 that blacked-out open court testimony.
During the pre-trial
proceedings, lawyers for the defendants asked to be given their clients’ full
medical records from the time they spent in secret CIA custody, “arguing they
need the details to avert their military execution” and to prepare for trial. However,
according to the prosecution, the defence has been provided with all the CIA
medical records they could find. Part of the pre-trial hearing was to consider
whether or not the disclosure of evidence made by the parties is adequate. The next
pre-trial hearing in this case is set for early December.
A pre-trial hearing was held in mid-October
in the military commission case of Abd Al-Nashiri, accused of masterminding the
bombing of a US naval ship in the Gulf of Aden, off the Yemen coast, in 2000. During
the hearing, Al-Nashiri requested to be allowed to stay at the war court
compound during hearings as being transported from the war court to secret Camp 7
each day makes him feel ill and anti-nausea medicine he is given to deal with the
transport makes him unable to engage effectively with the proceedings. At
this hearing too, issues were raised about the evidence provided and the chief
prosecutor reported that all the evidence that can be given to the defence has
been given to it.
As part of their claim against
Guantánamo chiefs involved in their torture and abuse, former French prisoners
Nizar Sassi and Mourad Benchellali (held at Guantánamo 2002-2005) have asked
for William J Haynes II, who served as general counsel to the US Defence
Department at the time, to be brought before the French courts. In their
application, they said that Haynes was "one of the
main architects of the interrogation and detention policies of the Bush
administration.” In March, former Guantánamo commander retired
General Geoffrey D. Miller failed to attend a hearing he was summoned to in
France in the same case.
On 20 October,
a federal appeals court upheld the conviction of Ali Hamza Al-Bahlul, who was
convicted by a military commission in 2008, even though he had previously won
his whole appeal, and once been acquitted on two of three charges. The US government had
asked for a retrial and although the judges sided with the government’s argument
they could not agree why. The case is likely to now be appealed to the Supreme
Court. A possible verdict there that sees Al-Bahlul’s convictions upheld could
have a negative impact on Omar Khadr’s appeal against his conviction for
conspiracy. The judgment as such will have little impact elsewhere. In the
meantime, Al-Bahlul has been held in isolation from other prisoners over the
past 8 years as his case is volleyed around the US courts.
On 25 October, a court
case filed by a former Afghan prisoner who was released and returned home in December
2014 was thrown out by a federal court; he was seeking a judicial ruling – the case
was brought when he was still held at Guantánamo – clearing him of any claims
of links to terrorism. Shawali Khan continued to pursue his habeas case after
his release as he claims that the allegations of connections to a terrorist
organisation have caused further problems for him. While held at Guantánamo,
evidence against him was used in the case that was kept secret from his lawyers
at the time; his detention was upheld on the basis of that evidence. The government
itself later dismissed the credibility of this secret evidence.
The judge
dismissed the case claiming it was moot as he had been released and that harm
to his reputation was not a serious enough ground for the case. Since his
release, his land has been seized by the Afghan government and he has been
denied medical treatment, issues the court said it could not deal with.
Jihad Dhiab,
a Syrian refugee who was released from Guantánamo to Uruguay has ended his
hunger strike after more than 2 months after it emerged that an undisclosed
third country has agreed to resettle him and his family together. When released
in 2014 he was promised that he would be reunited with his family who live as refugees
in Turkey or are displaced inside Syria. He tried to leave Uruguay when this
did not happen and when he was forced to return to Uruguay he went on hunger
strike.
Thank you to
everyone who took part in our urgent action and signed our petition.
Extraordinary rendition:
On 21 October, an appeal court reinstated a long-running lawsuit against
private military contractor CACI for its role in torture at Abu Ghraib prison. A
lower court had dismissed the case, claiming that the issue was political and
had to be decided by the government. CACI had argued that its liability was not
a legal or prosecutable matter. This is the fourth time the case has come
before the appeal court.
LGC Activities:
The LGC
(@shutguantanamo) is continuing to hold weekly #GitmObama Twitter storms to
raise awareness about Guantánamo prisoners every Monday at 9pm BST. The pastebin
is available http://pastebin.com/zpx5F7ab
which is updated weekly with the latest information and tweets to raise
awareness about Guantánamo. Please join us online if you can!
