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 – May 2017

NEWS:

Guantánamo Bay

Pre-trial proceedings continued in May in the case of five men accused of involvement in attacks on New York in September 2001. As part of the proceedings, another prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, who was severely tortured as part of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition programme but faces no charges, was due to give evidence on 12 May of the abuses the men claim they face at the secretive high security Camp 7 where they are all held, away from other prisoners and most of the prison guards. He was the first person to be subjected to waterboarding by the CIA and has successfully prosecuted Poland before the European Court of Human Rights for its role in his rendition and torture. Lawyers for one of the defendants, Ramzi bin Al Shibh, have tried for over a year to get Abu Zubaydah to testify about life at the camp to support “al Shibh’s claim that somebody is intentionally harassing him with noises and vibrations to disrupt his sleep. The military denies any sleep-deprivation program is happening, but both the prison and captives consider Zubaydah a respected, well-behaved block leader.”

Abu Zubaydah decided not to testify as he would not be allowed to talk about the torture he faced in CIA custody for years before arriving at Guantánamo Bay in 2006. Had he testified, it would have been the first time he would have spoken in public since he was kidnapped in Pakistan in 2002. As he would not be given a fair chance to discuss the issues he wants or talk about the abuse he has faced, he decided there would be no benefit in testifying.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article151572317.html

As part of the pre-trial hearings, lawyers for the five defendants argued that the tribunal was not legitimate and that the case against them should be dismissed as it is contrary to the international law of war. A variety of claims were made against the legitimacy of the charges in a war situation and whether the court has jurisdiction to hear the case; the men face the death penalty if found guilty. Prosecution lawyers defended the legitimacy of the court and the judge has yet to rule on these motions which go to the very heart of the legitimacy of the court.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article151389447.html

Saifullah Paracha, 69, the oldest prisoner held at Guantánamo, has had his second bid to be cleared for release by the periodic review board rejected. The former international businessman offered to retire upon release and close his businesses; his plan is to return to Pakistan and spend his time with his family. Aged almost 70, his health is declining and he has never been charged since being kidnapped by the US in 2003. The board decided that his “continued refusal to take responsibility for his involvement with al-Qaida” was the reason for this continued detention. He is considered a very compliant prisoner but his lawyer argues that he cannot show remorse for things he maintains he did not do. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article151705882.html

The Spanish Supreme Court upheld the 11.5-year sentence given to former Moroccan prisoner Lahcen Ikassrien for having led a terrorist cell in Madrid that allegedly raised funds for ISIS. He was sentenced in September 2016 along with eight co-defendants.

http://www.iustel.com/diario_del_derecho/noticia.asp?ref_iustel=1165299

Former Moroccan prisoner Younes Chekkouri was given a five-year sentence by the Criminal Court in Rabat on 3 May on charges related to terrorism. He was charged upon his return to the country in 2015 and was only released from prison in Morocco on bail in February 2016. His lawyers plan to appeal the conviction and sentence.

http://www.medias24.com/MAROC/Quoi-de-neuf/173100-Cinq-ans-de-prison-ferme-pour-un-Marocain-ex-detenu-a-Guantanamo.html

Sabir Mahfouz Lahmar, a former Algerian prisoner arrested in Bosnia in 2001, who was released and allowed to settle in France in 2009 with his family, was one of six people arrested in the French city of Bordeaux on 29 May on claims of being part of a recruitment ring for the Islamic State militant group. He was later charged with association with a terrorist organisation and is being held on remand. Given that he is a former Guantánamo

prisoner, he is suspected of having influenced people to go and fight in Iraq and Syria.

Lawyers in the ongoing case of Yemeni prisoner Hamza Ali Al-Bahlul, who was convicted by a military commission in 2009 and later won his appeal to have his conviction quashed twice, have taken the case to the Supreme Court and are asking the court to settle the issue of the validity of the jurisdiction of the military commissions: whether or not they have the power to hear the alleged war crimes cases brought before them.

Lawyers are also asking for clarity on this point in the case of Abd Al Nashiri, who is currently facing a military commission trial. His lawyers have already asked the court whether his offences can be classed as war crimes when they relate to alleged actions in the 1990s, before the war on terror started; the court replied that it was a legitimate question but one that should be considered after his trial is complete.

https://www.justsecurity.org/41548/supreme-court-guantanamo-military-commission-appeals/

LGC Activities:

The May Shut Guantánamo! monthly demonstration was on 4 May. In addition to our regular, monthly demonstration outside the US Embassy and Hyde Park, the LGC also joined a number of other actions to raise awareness of the ongoing plight of 41 men held at Guantánamo for over 15 years. We joined the London May Day march on 1^st May and the vigil on 17 May to welcome the release of Wikileaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning from jail in the US following her pardon.

LGC Newsletter – October 2016

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.

https://www.aclu.org/news/mohamedou-slahi-released-guantanamo-after-14-years-without-charge-or-trial

 

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.

https://news.vice.com/story/guantanamo-abu-zubaydah-never-go-free

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.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article107451907.html#storylink=cpy

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.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article107845622.html

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.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article107872842.html

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.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/10/17/alleged-uss-cole-bombing-mastermind-wants-gitmo-war-court.html

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.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ex-guantanamo-inmates-seek-evidence-former-us-official-1959316764

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.

https://www.justsecurity.org/33726/todays-en-banc-d-c-circuit-ruling-al-bahlul/

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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/us/guantanamo-shawali-khan-detainee.html?_r=0

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.

http://www.dw.com/en/former-guantanamo-inmate-ends-hunger-strike/a-36125550

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.

https://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/appellate-court-reinstates-abu-ghraib-torture-lawsuit-against

LGC Activities:

The October Shut Guantánamo demonstration was on Thursday 6 October. The November demonstration is replaced by our special evening demo on Tuesday 8 November outside the US Embassy at 6-8pm to coincide with the US presidential election: http://londonguantanamocampaign.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/8-november-unfinished-business.html   

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!