News is out about a 2007 secret report by Red Cross officials who visited the 14 "high-value" detainees transferred to Gitmo after stays in CIA secret black hole prison.

The 14 detainees, who had previously been kept in isolation in CIA prisons overseas, gave remarkably uniform accounts of abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and, in some cases, waterboarding, or simulating drowning.

Read the details about Abu Zubaydah and the others. The take-away from the report: [More...].

The Obama Administration has blown its first chance to signal change from the Bush Administration in the treatment of detainees.

In a case brought by four detainees at Guantanamo alleging torture (details of Rasul v. Rumsfeld here,) the Obama Justice Department has filed a brief arguing that detainees have no constitutional rights and that, even if they did, the Administration officials are immune from liability

In another Guantanamo case, the Justice Department argues in a brief (pdf)that the U.S. has the right to indefinitely hold detainees. The Attorney General's press release is here.

As a smokescreen, the DOJ doesn't use the word "enemy combatent." No one's buying that by not using the term, Obama's taking a different position from Bush.

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President Obama issued an order halting the military commissions trials at Guantanamo. Yet, the judge accepted the latest filing by the five detainees whose trials were halted. The ACLU reports:

In defiance of President Obama’s order halting the Guantánamo military commissions, a military judge accepted a legal pleading filed by the five 9/11 suspects. Judge Col. Stephen R. Henley ordered the immediate public release of the filed document despite the fact that all other legal filings have been kept sealed for months by the military commissions. Remarkably, the judge accepted the pleading from all five 9/11 defendants despite the fact that the competency of two of them has not been determined and their attorneys were not informed.

The New York Times reported on the pleading today. [More...]

The ACLU has been engaged in a long lawsuit seeking to obtain videotapes of CIA interrogations of detainees abroad. Today the Government filed a letter with the court acknowledging that 92 interrogation tapes were destroyed.

"This letter provides further evidence for holding the CIA in contempt of court. The large number of videotapes destroyed confirms that the agency engaged in a systemic attempt to hide evidence of its illegal interrogations and to evade the court's order. Our contempt motion has been pending in court for over a year now – it is time to hold the CIA accountable for its flagrant disregard for the rule of law."

A copy of the letter is here (pdf). An AP report is here.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with the Foreign Minister of Spain and asked him to help the U.S. by accepting some released Guantanamo detainees:

Mr Moratinos said Mrs Clinton had asked him for "help in solving this drama, this unacceptable tragedy of the prisoners at Guantanamo".

His response:

"We are prepared to cooperate. Our teams will make contact to legally study each case on a case by case basis," he told Spanish media.

In addition:

Mr Moratinos said the meeting with Mrs Clinton heralded "a new stage in relations between the United States and Spain is opening that is more intense, more productive".

Well done. It's been too long since we had an effective Secretary of State.

Binyam Mohamed will be flown to Great Britain today, his six year ordeal at Guantanamo and prisons in Morocco, Pakistan and Afghanistan finally over.

Mohamed, who left Ethiopia for Britain in 1994 and studied engineering in London, was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and transferred to Guantanamo in 2004. He was accused by the U.S. of being an unlawful enemy combatant who conspired to commit acts of terrorism. U.S. prosecutors dropped the charges in October.

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The Obama Administration has advised a federal judge that it agrees with former President Bush's position that detainees at the U.S. military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan have no right to challenge their confinement in U.S. Courts.

Last year, the US Supreme Court gave suspects held at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the right to challenge their detention.
Following that ruling, petitions were filed at a Washington district court on behalf of four detainees at Bagram.

The judge then gave the new administration an opportunity to refine the rules on appeals. In a two-sentence filing, justice department lawyers said the new administration had decided not to change the government's position.

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In the fox guarding the hen house department: A report on Guantanamo President Obama requested on his second day in office has been completed.

A Pentagon report requested by President Obama on the conditions at the Guantánamo Bay detention center concluded that the prison complies with the humane-treatment requirements of the Geneva Conventions.

The report is by Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, the vice chief of naval operations.

In related news, Attorney General Eric Holder is setting up a task force to review the cases of the 245 detainees still held at Gitmo. Here's who's on it: [More...]

Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed is being released to Great Britain.

Mohammed's case was a source of tension between the United States and Britain. Britain's High Court said this month that it was reluctantly sealing information related to Mohammed's allegation that he was tortured in Morocco, adding that the United States had threatened to withhold intelligence cooperation with Britain if the information was made public.

....Officials in Britain have said Mohammed faces no charges there and will be released upon his return.

Binyam was arrested in Pakistan in 2002. In 2004, he was flown to Gitmo. Where was he in between? He says Morocco, where he was tortured. The U.S. still refuses to confirm it had him flown to Morocco. Our prior coverage of his case and his torture allegations is accessible here.

Huffington Post has an exclusive interview with Yemen citizen Mohamed Farag Bashmilah:

From October 2003 until May 2005, I was illegally detained by the U.S. government and held in CIA-run "black sites" with no contact with the outside world. On May 5, 2005, without explanation, my American captors removed me from my cell and cuffed, hooded, and bundled me onto a plane that delivered me to Sana'a, Yemen. I was transferred into the custody of my own government, which held me -- apparently at the behest of the United States -- until March 27, 2006, when I was finally released, never once having faced any terrorism-related charges.

He's never gotten an explanation and all of his attempts to obtain documentation have been ignored or rejected. Why is he coming forward at Huffpo today? As part of an effort underway to get President Obama to establish a commission. [More...]

Attorney General Eric Holder will visit Guantanamo Monday.

"We need to have our feet on the ground to really see what is going on down at the facility to see how people are being detained, to talk to people down there about the interrogation techniques that are being used," Holder said. "I think that will be an important first step as we try to resolve the issues that the president has put before me as the chairman of those review committees."

Hopefully, he'll talk to some of the detainees, and not just the interrogators. He could also talk to some of their defense lawyers without even leaving D.C.

And how's this for a dumb way to end a news article? "After 2 weeks on the job, Holder is maintaining his rock star status."

Bump and Update: News analysis is beginning to come in. Check back for the ACLU and CCR reaction. I'll post as soon as I receive them.

Breaking....the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals just issued this opinion (pdf) reversing a trial court judge's order that the Uighur detainees must be released into the United States:

The question is whether, as the district court ruled, petitioners are entitled to an order requiring the government to bring them to the United States and release them here.

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