LGC Newsletter – September 2023

 Guantánamo Bay

Pre-trial hearings continued in the case of prisoners accused of involvement in the September 2001 attacks in New York City. The number of defendants has fallen from five to four after a judge found that Saudi prisoner Ramzi bin al-Shibh is unfit for trial, “after a military medical panel found that sustained abuse had rendered him lastingly psychotic”. He remains in detention but only his co-defendants remain on trial.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/22/cia-abuse-rendered-9-11-defendant-unfit-for-trial-us-military

Ahead of the hearings resuming, in ongoing plea bargaining between the prosecutors and lawyers for the defendants, the Biden administration rejected a set of proposed conditions for the plea deal made by the men, which would include medical care for physical and mental trauma afflicted during their time in CIA custody and no solitary confinement. In March 2022, prosecutors offered a deal to avoid the death penalty in the case if the defendants pleaded guilty to their alleged roles in the attacks. However, Biden’s decision to reject these conditions could make such a deal harder to reach. The US administration has generally not engaged with the plea bargain proposed, leaving the matter to prosecutors and the defence to decide on. Some families of the deceased would like to see a trial for the five accused men rather than a plea bargain.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/us/sept-11-trial-plea-biden-guantanamo.html

 

On 15 September, a group of UN experts issued a statement warning against the expulsion of former Russian prisoner Ravil Mingazov from the UAE, where he was resettled but not released in 2017, to Russia, where he would be at risk if repatriated against his will. The experts called for his immediate release: “We call on the Governments involved to observe their international obligations, honour the diplomatic assurances provided for resettlement, and take into account the substantiated risks to Mr. Mingazov’s physical and moral integrity, if repatriated against his will.”

“Mr. Mingazov is a victim of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment during and prior to his detention at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba and was arbitrarily detained by the United States for nearly 15 years. Given these past violations and his extended and indefinite arbitrary detention at an undisclosed location in the UAE, he remains profoundly vulnerable to further serious violations of his human rights.”

“The United States is obliged to continue to ensure Mr. Mingazov’s rights are being respected, including through his release in line with the terms of the diplomatic assurances, and reparation and remedy for serious violations of international law, including extraordinary rendition, torture, and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and arbitrary detention experienced while in the custody of the US Government. As a victim of torture, Mr. Mingazov has rights that do not end with his transfer to another country.”

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/09/uae-and-usa-un-experts-warn-against-refoulement-ex-guantanamo-detainee-and 

 

The case of two Malaysians and an Indonesian prisoner accused of involvement in the 2002 Bali bombing has been severed, with one Malaysian prisoner, Mohammed Farik Bin Amin, no longer being tried with the other two defendants in the case, which suggests that a plea deal may be pending and/or that Bin Amin may testify against his co-defendants. “Late in the Obama administration, the government nearly struck a plea deal with Mr. Bin Amin in which he would have been repatriated to Malaysia to serve out most of his sentence. But the deal collapsed amid concerns that he would not remain imprisoned for the full term, in part because Malaysia might not recognize the tribunals system as legitimate. A conviction of Mr. Bin Amin through a guilty plea would fit a strategy at the military commissions system of trying to use that approach to resolve charges against detainees formerly held at secret C.I.A. prisons known as black sites. Such cases are complicated by the fact that the agency tortured the prisoners before transferring them to military custody, and by the heavy presence of classified information.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/01/us/politics/guantanamo-bali-bombing.html

In addition, the Malaysian Home Minister reported having met the US special representative for Guantanamo affairs, Tina Kaidanow, during a trip to the US to discuss the release and repatriation of the two Malaysian prisoners, in whose case a 2025 trial start date has been proposed. He confirmed that the Malaysian government is seeking to have the two men returned to the country.

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/kl-pushing-to-get-two-malaysians-released-from-guantanamo-bay-home-minister

 

LGC Newsletter – January 2021

 Guantánamo Bay

Prior to the inauguration of new US president Joe Biden, the Pentagon took action to prevent an order being enforced that was made by a federal judge in March last year to allow Saudi prisoner Mohammed Al-Qahtani to have an independent medical examination. The purpose of the examination is to determine his mental health, which was poor when he was captured and arrived at Guantánamo, in order to determine whether it would be better for him to return to Saudi Arabia for psychiatric care. Due to the torture Al-Qahtani suffered in US detention, worsening his schizophrenia and mental health problems, charges against him were dropped and he remains held without charge or trial for over a decade. No independent medical examination has ever taken place at Guantánamo. However, Army Secretary Ryan D. McCarthy, before leaving office, “signed a two-page memorandum on Monday excluding detainees at Guantánamo from the regulation that was the basis of the court order”. As a result the Justice Department asked for the judge’s order to be thrown out. Joe Biden could reverse this decision. He has yet to take any action over Guantánamo. There are concerns that if Al-Qahtani’s examination goes ahead and he is repatriated, other prisoners may bring similar claims. On the other hand, an independent examination would reveal more about the torture he experienced.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/15/us/politics/guantanamo-prisoner-health-torture.html

Signalling that there is likely to be little change at Guantánamo under Biden, on 21 January, the Pentagon “announced plans to move ahead with a military trial for three men held at Guantánamo Bay who are suspected of involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings”. The trio, from Indonesia and two from Malaysia, are having charges brought against them in this case for third time and a first hearing has been set for 22 February. The Indonesian faces 8 charges and the Malaysians 9 in total. All three were victims of extraordinary rendition and were kidnapped in 2003 and tortured at various CIA secret prisons around the world before arriving at Guantánamo Bay in 2006. Their countries have resisted their repatriation and Obama, in his attempts to empty the detention centre, tried to have the Indonesian, known as Hambali, released for trial to Malaysia where he would face the death penalty. The current charges, however, are non-capital and include conspiracy, murder and terrorism.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/22/bali-bombings-us-to-move-ahead-with-trial-of-suspects-held-in-guantanamo

Extraordinary Rendition

Guantánamo prisoner Abu Zubaydah is suing the British government (Foreign Office, Home Office and Attorney General) over claims that MI6 were involved in his torture interrogations that emerged in a parliamentary report by the Intelligence and Security Committee in 2019, which stated that in spite of being aware of his torture and illegal detention, the intelligence services kept sending questions to be put to him by their US counterparts up until 2006 at least. Following the 2019 report, a police investigation was launched as it provided sufficient evidence.

Abu Zubaydah was kidnapped in 2002 and tortured at various secret CIA prisons around the world before arriving at Guantánamo in 2006, where very few people have seen him or had contact with him. His family believed he was dead for many years. His case was used to capture and implicate dozens of other foreign nationals in Pakistan but the US stated that it knew he was innocent by at least 2006. Nonetheless he has remained at Guantánamo since without charge or trial. He has successfully sued Poland and Lithuania for their roles in his ordeal.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9168851/Guantanamo-Bay-prisoner-sues-British-government-claiming-MI6-complicit-torture.html

 

LGC Activities:

The London Guantánamo Campaign held an online day of protest on Monday 11 January 2021 to mark the nineteenth anniversary of the opening of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. Thank you to everyone who took part and contributed to our Twitter storm.