Below are the last 30 press items posted to the British Arab Lawyers Association article wire. For more, visit the Archives.
Reuters: U.S. judge: Guantanamo evidence must be made public
A federal judge rejected on Monday a U.S. government request to keep secret the unclassified evidence that it says justifies the continued imprisonment of more than 100 Guantanamo Bay prisoners.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan ruled the government cannot keep the documents known as factual returns from public disclosure and must seek court approval to keep specific information secret.
“Public interest in Guantanamo Bay generally and these proceedings specifically has been unwavering,” Hogan wrote. “Publicly disclosing the factual returns would enlighten the citizenry and improve perceptions of the proceedings’ fairness.”
US military plans tribunal session at Guantanamo
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The U.S. military is planning a tribunal session at Guantanamo Bay next week to resolve an internal dispute involving the attorney for a Canadian detainee, the lawyer said Tuesday.
Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, who was recently fired and then reinstated, said a military judge scheduled the hearing for Monday to address his status as the lead attorney for Omar Khadr, the last Western prisoner held at Guantanamo.
NY Times: Obama After Bush: Leading by Second Thought
President Obama’s decisions this week to retain important elements of the Bush-era system for trying terrorism suspects and to block the release of pictures showing abuse of American-held prisoners abroad are the most graphic examples yet of how he has backtracked, in substantial if often nuanced ways, from the approach to national security that he preached as a candidate, and even from his first days in the Oval Office.
Media Line: Shi’ites Plan to Take Saudi Clerics to Int’l Court
Shi’ites in Egypt and Iraq are planning to take Saudi clerics to an international court for incitement to violence against the Shi’ite minority.
The Al Al-Beit institution in Cairo and Baghdad are joining efforts to press charges against 22 Saudi clerics, accusing them of issuing fatwas, religious decrees, that label the Shi’ites as infidels and incite to violence against them.
AP - Prosecutor: Stress no excuse for Iraq slayings
PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) — A prosecutor on Wednesday told jurors the slaying of an Iraqi civilian family, incuding a teen daughter who was raped, was a “planned, premeditated crime,” and asked the panel to convict an ex-soldier of crimes that could bring him the death penalty.
“This was a crime that was committed in cold blood,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Ford said in closing arguments in the federal trial of former Pfc. Steven Dale Green, 24, of Midland, Texas.
Defense attorneys argued for a conviction on lesser charges, which would eliminate the possibility of the death penalty.
Guardian: Army officer denies destroying evidence of torturing Iraqi cvilians
An army intelligence officer in a regiment whose soldiers are accused of torturing and killing Iraqi civilians threw laptop computers containing official documents over the side of cross-Channel ferries, the high court heard yesterday.
Captain James Rands, of 1st Battalion the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, described how he felt it was “crucial” to destroy a computer which had broken. “I did this by throwing it over the side of a cross-Channel ferry in 2006,” he said.
Rands had taken pictures of the dead for identification purposes, then downloaded the images on to his personal computer. He transferred the photographs to a second laptop and then deleted them. He then bought a third computer. “I destroyed the second laptop by the same means at a later date,” he said, adding that he had “a lot of work documents” on the computer. “It made sense to ditch it in the same way.”
LA Times: “Tortured by the Past”
When Bush administration lawyers wrote their memos authorizing extreme interrogation tactics at Guantanamo, they had to conjure up horrible images: Prisoners gagging and sputtering as their interrogators reproduced the sensation of drowning. Human heads slammed repeatedly into walls. Insect-phobic prisoners cowering in fear in 8-by-10-foot cages.
Guardian: “I never believed the US would turn on its torturers so swiftly”
The world is watching as America attempts to come to terms with the abuse it unleashed in the aftermath of 9/11 and trying to digest the full implications of last week’s extraordinary events. With a wide-ranging Spanish criminal investigation into torture at Guantánamo threatening to embarrass the US, Barack Obama decided to declassify legal memos sent under the Bush administration in the hope the country would move on. The opposite has happened. Ever more documents set out in meticulous detail the full extent of the cruelty: who was abused by whom, how they did it and what was done. The truth has been revealed in stark detail, from the number of times waterboarding was used to the legal deliberations that led to it. By Tuesday, President Obama had raised the possibility of US war crimes trials and far-reaching inquiries, developments that were unthinkable a month ago.
Ben Macintyre: ‘24′ is fictional. So is the idea that torture works
It is Day 6, between 10.00 and 11.00 in the hectic schedule of the television series 24, and a normal day at work for Jack Bauer of the Counter Terrorism Unit. “People in this country are dying, and I need some information. Now are you are going to give it to me, or do I have to start hurting you?” Inevitably, he does. A few lurid torture scenes later and the terrorist confesses, the civilised world is saved for another hour or so, and Jack, played by Kiefer Sutherland, is hurtling towards his next violent confrontation with the forces of evil.
This is the central plot of 24, in many respects the only plot of 24, a brilliantly constructed, wildly popular, strikingly timely series based on a single premise that also happens to be untrue. 24 is fiction, and so is the notion that torture produces results.
As the torture debate rages in the US, the only defenders of extreme interrogation methods are those who have been involved in authorising them, and they rely exclusively on the Bauer defence: pain and fear are effective tools for extracting information, and therefore necessary.
Bloomberg: Coercive Interrogation Was Common in Iraq, Senate Report Says
April 22 (Bloomberg) — Forced nudity, stress positions and police dogs were commonly used by military interrogators to intimidate prisoners at the Abu Ghraib military prison in Iraq, a Senate panel has concluded.
The newly declassified Senate Armed Services Committee report said coercive techniques, later described by military investigators as abuse, were authorized for military interrogations in Afghanistan and at Abu Ghraib, the prison made infamous by photos of naked prisoners standing near barking German shepherd dogs that first appeared in April 2004.
Should CIA “Black Sites” be Preserved as Evidence?
Leon Panetta, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has been asked by lawyers of one Guantánamo Bay detainee not to dismantle the secret prisons used to interrogate suspected terrorists. The counsel for Abd al-Rahim Hussain Mohammed al-Nashiri argued in a letter to Panetta dated April 13 that the secret facilities should be preserved “ until such time as we have an adequate opportunity to document” the undisclosed locations where al-Nashiri was confined and tortured. The CIA has admitted that al-Nashiri, who is accused of plotting the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, was subjected to waterboarding while in CIA custody. But because videotapes depicting his torture have already been destroyed by the agency, al-Nashiri’s attorneys believe the only remaining relevant evidence may exist at the three secret sites where he was held until being transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006. Panetta announced on April 9, 2009, that the CIA would “decommission” the CIA secret facilities, but he did not explain the details of what that means.
Guardian: Obama releases Bush torture memos
Barack Obama today released four top secret memos that allowed the CIA under the Bush administration to torture al-Qaida and other suspects held at Guantánamo and secret detention centres round the world.
But, in an accompanying statement, Obama ruled out prosecutions against those who had been involved. It is a “time for reflection, not retribution,” he said.
Guantanamo detainee: Abuse continues under Obama
A prisoner at Guantanamo Bay claims Barack Obama’s promises to end the abuse of inmates have not been followed through at the notorious United States detention centre.
Mohammad al-Qurani, from Chad, telephoned al-Jazeera from inside the camp to say he had been subjected to almost daily beatings from the guards, who used tear gas when he refused to leave his cell.
Al Jazeera: Guantánamo captive called us to protest guards’ treatment
A Guantánamo detainee used his prison camp telephone privileges to ring up a reporter with the Middle Eastern news network al Jazeera and complain that he had been abused by prison camp guards, the U.S. military and network said Tuesday.
Mohammed el Gharani, whose attorneys say he was captured at age 14, in Pakistan, got the phone privileges in Camp Iguana, a transitional holding site for detainees awaiting release.
Guantánamo Attorneys Urge Panetta To Preserve CIA Black Site Evidence
Attorneys for detainee Abd Al-Rahim Hussain Mohammed al-Nashiri today sent a letter to CIA Director Leon Panetta requesting that the CIA “black site” buildings, interrogation cells, prisoner cells, shackles, water boards and other equipment be preserved for inspection and documentation. Al-Nashiri, who is now detained at Guantánamo, was held in the secret CIA prison facilities from 2002 to 2006. Director Panetta has ordered the closure of CIA black sites, but al-Nashiri’s attorneys are concerned that the CIA intends to destroy the sites – including the buildings and the equipment used to interrogate and torture al-Nashiri and other detainees – and in doing so destroy evidence of his mistreatment.
Telegraph: MI5 and MI6 face 29 new allegations of torture in foreign prisons
MI5 and MI6 are facing claims that they systematically colluded in the torture of 29 terrorism suspects during interrogation in foreign prisons, it can be disclosed.
A campaign group representing prisoners detained for terrorism has compiled reports from a large number of detainees and former detainees who claim that the security and intelligence services were aware of their torture and mistreatment and did nothing to stop it.
Mercury News: Tape: Marine “tormented” by killing of Iraq prisoner
A Marine sergeant charged with murdering an Iraqi prisoner told investigators that he is tormented by the 2004 shooting in Fallujah and wants to forget the incident, according to a tape recording played Wednesday at the serviceman’s court martial.
Guardian: “Miss Universe’s fun day out - at Guantánamo Bay”
The 240 people who live in very basic lodgings on the southern tip of a sunny Caribbean island may wish to reconsider the less-than-rosy opinion they have of their surroundings.
No less an authority than Miss Universe has visited Guantánamo Bay and pronounced the infamous US detention centre a “relaxing, calm, beautiful place”.
According to a blog posting that will strike fear into the hearts of diplomats in Caracas and Washington, the beauty queen - who is also known as Dayana Mendoza from Venezuela - visited the facility last week with her friend, Miss USA, Crystle Stewart.
AFP: Top Bush advisor denounces Spanish torture probe
A former top US government advisor who faces possible indictment in Spain for his role in establishing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp described the case against him as “outrageous.”
Douglas Feith — a key advisor in president George W. Bush’s Pentagon — told Fox News that moves before a Spanish court to indict him for facilitating torture were an effort to “intimidate US government officials.”
Morung Express: The ICC and the Gaza war: Legal Limits, Symbolic Politics
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) appears to be taking a serious interest in allegations of war crimes committed in the Gaza war from 27 December 2008 to 19 January 2009. At the same time, the testimonies of Israeli soldiers are adding weight to the evidence of war crimes. In fact, it is unlikely that the ICC can have jurisdiction over the situation. Nonetheless, the idea of considering what has happened in terms of individual criminal responsibility rather than state responsibility may open the way to a more fertile debate in Israel and beyond.
BBC News: New support for West Bank outpost
An unauthorised settlement in the West Bank, illegal even under Israeli law, appears to be benefiting from state funding, the BBC has uncovered.
A road is being built from the established settlement of Eli, near the Palestinian city of Nablus, leading east to the illegal outpost at Hayovel.
Settlement expansion is a major barrier to an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
NY Times: “Mr. Obama and the Rule of Law”
As much as it needs to happen, we never expected President Obama to immediately reverse every one of President George W. Bush’s misguided and dangerous policies on terrorism, prisoners, the rule of law and government secrecy. Fixing this calamitous mess will take time and care — and Mr. Obama has taken important steps in that direction.
But we did not expect that Mr. Obama, who addressed these issues with such clarity during his campaign, would be sending such confused and mixed signals from the White House. Some of what the public has heard from the Obama administration on issues like state secrets and detainees sounds a bit too close for comfort to the Bush team’s benighted ideas.
The Penninsula: Many detainees in Guantanamo innocent - Official
SAN JUAN: Many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by US forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said yesterday. “There are still innocent people there,” Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, said. “Some have been there six or seven years.”
“Iraqi lawyer goes to court in Minnesota”
Six years to the day after his family watched a barrage of American bombs fall near his home in Baghdad, Saad Al Shamary is a world away in Minneapolis. The Iraqi lawyer is learning how the U.S. judicial system works so he can incorporate those lessons into reforms for Iraq’s courts.
“I’m learning a lot,” Al Shamary, 41, told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Friday.
He left his wife and three children behind to spend 10 months in the Twin Cities. While here, he’s serving as a judicial extern in the chambers of Hennepin County District Court Judge Lloyd Zimmerman.
Israel’s dirty secrets in Gaza
Israel was last night confronting a major challenge over the conduct of its 22-day military offensive in Gaza after testimonies by its own soldiers revealed that troops were allowed and, in some cases, even ordered to shoot unarmed Palestinian civilians.
Bloomberg: CACI Must Face Suit Alleging Torture at Abu Ghraib
CACI International Inc., the provider of intelligence-gathering services for the U.S. government, must face a lawsuit by four former detainees who say they were tortured at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee in Alexandria, Virginia, denied the company’s motion to dismiss the detainees’ claims, which allege violations of U.S. law including torture, war crimes and civil conspiracy.
U.S. Senator Graham: Rule of law vital in Iraq
The war in Iraq will not be won on dusty roads or in bustling market places. The real battle is being fought on the moral high ground.
That’s the message U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham shared Monday at The Citadel with cadets and a panel of military and law experts. The seminar on military legitimacy and leadership focused on U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Wash Post Editorial: “The Truth About Torture - An independent panel must ferret out the facts.”
THE ALLEGATIONS are familiar, yet some of the details are sickeningly new. Senior al-Qaeda prisoners held in secret CIA prisons were made to stand for days in painful positions and deprived of solid food for just as long. Interrogators wrapped suspects in plastic, doused them with cold water and slammed them headlong into walls. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was allegedly shackled with his arms above his head for days at a time, leaving lasting scars.
LA Times: Lawyers group targets ex-Bush administration official
In an attempt to win sanctions against a former top Bush administration official over brutal interrogations of prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, a lawyers group deployed a strategy Monday that worked against Presidents Nixon and Clinton.
Former Defense Department General Counsel William J. Haynes II is the first of several former policymakers the National Lawyers Guild wants reprimanded, suspended or disbarred for their roles in detainee abuse, said Carlos Villarreal, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Area guild chapter that filed a complaint against Haynes with the State Bar of California.
Reuters: U.S. balks at freeing Guantanamo detainee: Britain
The United States and Britain remain at odds over what could be the last case of a British-connected detainee at Guantanamo prison, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said on Friday.
Smith, in Washington for talks with U.S. officials, said Britain seeks the return of Guantanamo detainee Shaker Aamer. Aamer is a Saudi citizen who had lived in Britain and has a British wife and four children in London.
