LGC Newsletter – May 2024

 Guantánamo Bay

Former Algerian prisoner Saeed Bakhouch was sentenced to three years in prison on terrorism charges in Algeria on 13 May. He is the last prisoner to be released by the Biden administration in April 2023, having never been charged with any crime in his 21 years at Guantánamo. In spite of assurances from the US that he would not face further persecution following repatriation to Algeria, he was detained immediately and held in conditions that his lawyers described as “brutal” and has not been afforded a fair trial.

https://theintercept.com/2024/05/21/guantanamo-algeria-terrorism-prison-saeed-bakhouch/

 

The US Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by Canadian former child prisoner Omar Khadr against his military tribunal conviction, obtained through a plea bargain in order to be released back to Canada. “He had waived his right to appeal when he pleaded guilty in 2010 to charges that included murder. But his lawyers argued that a subsequent ruling by the federal appeals court in Washington DC called into question whether Khadr could have been charged with the crimes in the first place”. Khadr was released from prison in Canada in May 2015, where he was repatriated to serve the rest of his sentence, pending his appeal; “A Canadian judge ruled in 2019 that his war crimes sentence had expired.” Khadr is the only person in the world in over 80 years to be tried as an adult for offences allegedly committed as a minor. His trial was tainted by evidence obtained through the use of torture when he was a minor.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/20/supreme-court-guantanamo-appeal-rejected

 

A 20 May report by NBC states that the Biden administration was close to transferring 11 prisoners from Guantánamo to Oman in October 2023, but changed its mind after the 7 October incidents in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories: “The move was imminent and Congress had already been notified it would take place when it was called off.” This is according to 4 US officials who were aware of the planned schedule for this. No new date has been set for the transfer. The 11 men are reportedly either Yemeni or with ties to the country. It is also reported that the transfer deal is still being discussed and could happen in the future.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/biden-ready-move-11-detainees-guantanamo-october-paused-seven-months-rcna152985

This corroborates a story earlier this year on planned transfers that were stalled: “To be clear, these aren’t JTF’s decisions. It doesn’t take these steps until after the State Department has reached an agreement with a country to repatriate or resettle the men; the Defense Department has provided Congress with details of the transfer (which, by law, the administration must do 30 days in advance of most transfers); and the transfer is imminent.

In other words, it appears these men are continuing to languish at Guantanamo not for lack of a country willing to receive them, but for some other reason. As with most things Guantanamo, Occam’s razor suggests that reason is politics. If so, and absent some other compelling justification (the need to focus on the situation in the Middle East would not be a compelling one, given it is unrelated to Guantanamo transfers and there will always be a crisis to manage) the administration’s decision is as misguided as it is disheartening.”

https://www.justsecurity.org/91153/another-lost-year-on-guantanamo/

The Biden administration has transferred 10 prisoners in the past 3 years, bringing the prisoner population down to 30, the majority of whom are cleared for release. The further persecution in Algeria of Saeed Bakhouch since his transfer to Algeria last year, however, suggests that, decades on, the US government remains sloppy and careless in its handling of transfers, even though by its own admission, upon release, the prisoners are innocent and any claims of risks and threats posed to the US are non-specified and thus objectively non-existent.

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 – 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 – April 2022

 Guantánamo Bay

Algerian prisoner Sufiyan Barhoumi, 48, was repatriated in early April, after spending almost 20 years at Guantánamo. Kidnapped in Pakistan, he was never put on trial, and was cleared for release by the periodic review board in 2016. It took an additional six years to reunite him with his family in Algeria.

There are currently 37 prisoners held at Guantánamo, most of whom have been cleared for release.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-60970825

The last Algerian prisoner held at Guantánamo, Said Bin Brahim Bin Umran Bakhush, has also been cleared for release this month by the periodic review board.

In addition, the youngest prisoner currently held at Guantánamo, Yemeni Hassan Bin Attash, who was handed over to the US by Pakistani security forces in 2002, has been cleared for release. He was 17 at the time and has never been charged. Brother of one of the 9/11 defendants, he was brought to Guantánamo in 2006 at the same time as his brother but has never met him there.

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/4/28/headlines/guantanamos_youngest_prisoner_cleared_for_release_20_years_after_he_was_jailed_without_charges

 

Former Mauritanian prisoner, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, is suing the Canadian government for $35 million for its alleged role in his 14-year detention at Guantánamo. Ould Slahi claims that the Canadian government, “caused, contributed to and prolonged [his] detention, torture, assault and sexual assault at Guantanamo Bay."

“Slahi, a Mauritanian national, lived in Montreal from November 1999 to January 2000, during which time he was investigated by security services. Slahi, 51, is accusing Canadian authorities of harassing him during their investigation, with the stress forcing him to return to Mauritania.

“The core of Slahi's claim is that Canadian authorities shared false information about his activities and otherwise contributed to events that eventually led to his arrest, after which he was transported first to Jordan and Afghanistan, and then Guantanamo Bay, where he spent 14 years imprisoned without charge.”

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/guantanamo-bay-detainee-lawsuit-canada-1.6428886

 

Defence lawyers have visited the now-closed CIA-run camp 7 at Guantánamo where prisoners were held from 2006 to 2021. They have described the conditions they saw as “exceedingly disturbing” and that the prisoners, who were considered “high-value detainees” and had previously spent several years in various secret CIA torture prisons around the world, were held in conditions similar to being “buried alive”. They have called for any sentences given to prisoners held there currently facing trial to be reduced in view of the ordeal of being held prisoner there.

The lawyers “are currently gathering information and evidence, including taking photographs and bringing experts to inspect the now-abandoned site. The attorneys also want anything that the men said while detained at the camp to be excluded from their cases, arguing that the camp was "indistinguishable" from the CIA black sites where detainees were tortured.”

Pre-trial hearings in the 9/11 case involving five prisoners due to be held next month have now been cancelled.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/guantanamo-detainees-cia-camp-reduced-sentences

A pre-trial hearing did, however, take place in the case of Yemeni prisoner Abd Al-Nashiri in the last week of April. Key witnesses in the hearing include CIA torture architect James Mitchell and army torturer Damien Corsetti. Other witnesses include agents who had interviewed another suspect in this same case.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2022/04/27/Cuba-USS-Cole-organizer-hearing-Guantanamo-Cuba/7921651100208/