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.
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.
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
