Tag: Detainees (page 8)

A federal judge in California dismissed a lawsuit filed against a San Jose flight company that alleged the company aided the CIA in transporting detainees to secret overseas prisons. The Court agreed with the Bush Administration that the suit could jeopardize state secrets. The opinion is here (pdf).

U.S. District Judge James Ware in San Jose said he had no authority to decide whether, as three current prisoners and two freed inmates alleged, Jeppesen International Trip Planning colluded with the CIA to violate their rights. The suit instead must be dismissed at the outset because its subject is a secret program that cannot be examined in a public proceeding, Ware said.

Public and confidential declarations filed by CIA Director Michael Hayden show that "proceeding with this case would jeopardize national security and foreign relations," Ware said.

This is the third suit by Ghost Air detainees that has been dismissed.

Yesterday, we noted that the U.S. will be seeking to execute six detainees at Guantanamo. Today, the AP reports that those executions may take place at Guantanamo, thanks to a 2006 Military Order (available here. (pdf)

Any executions would probably add to international outrage over Guantanamo, since capital punishment is banned in 130 countries, including the 27-nation European Union.

Conducting the executions on U.S. soil could open the way for the detainees' lawyers to go to U.S. courts to fight the death sentences. But the updated regulations make it possible for the executions to be carried out at Guantanamo.

That, of course, is what the Bush Administration wants: No oversight. As former Navy lawyer David Sheldon says, [More...]

Bump and Update: The blogs are joining in the opening of the ACLU's "Close Guantanamo" campaign.

• Daily Kos
• AmericaBlog
• Second Life
• West Virginia Blue

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On the eve of the 6th anniversary of detainees arriving at Guantanamo Bay, the ACLU has commenced its "Close Guantanamo" campaign.

Guantanamo will forever be a stain on our national legacy. It must close. Please, join the ACLU in this historic and important campaign. Wear orange on Friday. [More...]

A federal judge in Washington has refused to order an investigation into the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes showing coercive techniques.

A federal judge yesterday declined to order a special review of the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes, saying that there is no evidence the Bush administration defied court orders and that Justice Department prosecutors should be allowed to proceed with their own investigation into the matter.

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. said in a three-page ruling in Washington that a group of inmates held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "offer nothing to support their assertion that a judicial inquiry" is necessary into the tape destruction. He said neither of the detainees whose interrogations were taped and later destroyed has an apparent connection to the prisoners who were demanding the review.

The Justice Department says it's investigating the destruction of the tapes of interrogations of two detainees, as has the House Intelligence Committee. But, the star witness for the House investigation is refusing to testify without immunity.

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Abdul Razzak,a 68 year old Afghan detainee at Guantanamo, has died of colorectal cancer. He was undergoing chemotherapy.

Razzak is the only detainee to die of natural causes -- the other four deaths were suicides.

Razzak was diagnosed in September, and began receiving chemo in October. The Pentagon insists he's a jihadist. From AFP News:

U.S. authorities alleged that Razzak conducted an escort mission for Osama bin Laden and was involved in attempts to assassinate Afghan officials. He denied the accusations.

Here's the summary of evidence against him from his Classified Review Hearing (pdf.) He said he worked with American intelligence, safeguarded the officers, stood guard over them and escorted them "all over the mountains." He wanted to help them with security.

He also said he was a nurse and worked at a hospital for two years, getting the assignment from the Red Cross. He also worked in security for the Afghan government. He told the hearing officers the Taliban had been brutal to him. They jailed him three times. He said he opposes the Taliban and those responsible for September 11. The hearing officers said he was cooperative and educated.

Razzak insisted he was framed by a man named Pasha Khan, and that Khan's nephew, Jan Baz turned him in for a reward.

The hearing officers thought he was being repetitive in his comments. That's what people do when they think they're innocent and no one's listening, they repeat themselves. A quick review of the transcript shows him to be very intent on clearing himself. Now, he'll never get the chance.

With the return of ten Saudi detainees this week, the population of Guantanamo Bay now stands at 275.

Those repatriated to Saudi Arabia have received financial help from the government to rebuild their lives, and many have been allowed to go free.

...The United States agreed to return the men with the understanding that Saudi Arabia will mitigate that risk, partly through a state program to reintegrate former detainees into civilian life, said Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Defense Department spokesman.

Hopefully the rest will go home soon and Gitmo will be closed. May it always be remembered as an internment camp. As Christopher Brauchli wrote in 2003:

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Australian David Hicks, imprisoned since 2001 when he was captured in Afghanistan and sent to Guantanamo, has been released from an Australian jail. He's free.

One catch: His transfer agreement with the Government says he cannot speak to the media for one year.

Hicks refused to speak to the media directly for fear of being sent back to Guantanamo Bay. Under his plea deal, Hicks agreed to remain silent about his time in custody and treatment and also forfeited any right to appeal his conviction. He agreed not to speak with the news media for a year from his sentencing date.

"It is my intention to honor this agreement as I don't want to do anything that might result in my return there," Hicks said in the statement.

While Hicks is now free, he's still got strict conditions attached to his liberty:

The magistrate ordered Hicks to report to police three times a week and obey a curfew by staying indoors at premises to be agreed on by police. Other restrictions include that he not leave Australia or contact a list of terror suspects. The restrictions will last for one year.

The House of Representatives today passed a bill outlawing harsh interrogation methods.

The measure, approved by a largely party-line vote of 222 to 199, would require U.S. intelligence agencies to follow Army rules adopted last year that explicitly forbid waterboarding and require interrogators to adhere to a strict interpretation of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war. The rules, required by Congress for all Defense Department personnel, also ban sexual humiliation, "mock" executions and the use of attack dogs, and prohibit the withholding of food and medical care.

President Bush said he'd veto the bill, which now goes to the Senate. In related news, the ACLU wrote the Senate today (letter here, pdf)listing ten reasons why a special prosecutor should be appointed to investigate the CIA's destruction of interrogation tapes.

The Washington Post has a disturbing revelation:

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

Who were they? [More...]

The CIA's destruction of hundreds of hours of videotapes of detainee interrogations could put several prosecutions at risk.

Officials acknowledged on Friday that the destruction of evidence like videotaped interrogations could raise questions about whether the Central Intelligence Agency was seeking to hide evidence of coercion. A review of records in military tribunals indicates that five lower-level detainees at Guantánamo were initially charged with offenses based on information that was provided by or related to Mr. [Abu]Zubaydah. Lawyers for these detainees could argue that they needed the tapes to determine what, if anything, Mr. Zubaydah had said about them.

Think: Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh. I'm wondering whether it could also result in reversals of the convictions of Zacarias Moussaoui and Jose Padilla.

The known detainees whose interrogation videos were destroyed are Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Undoubtedly, more will come to light as the investigation proceeds. I won't be surprised if interrogation tapes of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh were also destroyed. In that case, they might be deprived not only of potentially exculapatory information by Zubayah but of their own statements for use at their upcoming military commission trials.

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Meet Majid Khan.

The first of the so-called high value Guantánamo detainees to have seen a lawyer claims he was subjected to “state-sanctioned torture” while in secret C.I.A. prisons, and he has asked for a court order barring the government from destroying evidence of his treatment.

The request, in a filing by his lawyers, was made on Nov. 29, before officials from the Central Intelligence Agency acknowledged that the agency had destroyed videotapes of interrogations of two Qaeda operatives that current and former officials said included the use of harsh techniques.

An intelligence official denies that Khan was videotaped.

Mr. Dixon, one of Mr. Khan’s lawyers, said Saturday that the admission that officials had destroyed videotapes of interrogations showed why such an order was needed.

“They are no longer entitled to a presumption that the government has acted lawfully or in good faith,” Mr. Dixon said.

Background on Majid Khan is here and here.

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) has called for an investigation into the destruction of the CIA interrogation tapes (background here):

Today U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) sent the attached letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking him to open an official investigation to determine whether the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes violates the law.

He wrote: "I urge you to investigate whether CIA officials who destroyed these videotapes and withheld information about their existence fiom official proceedings violated the law. . . CIA Director Hayden asserts that the videotapes were destroyed 'in line with the law.' However, it is the Justice Department's role to determine whether the law was violated."

You can read his letter here (pdf). Also check out Marcy (Empty Wheel) and Marty Lederman at Balkanization on Michael Hayden's letter