Amnesty International will be releasing a report later today that accuses the U.S. of torturing ghost detainees, including two Yemeni nationals.

In a report to be released later today, Amnesty International details the stories of two Yemeni men who were both tortured for four days in Jordan before spending 18 months in secret detention. Amnesty says the men are still being held in prison in Yemen at the behest of US authorities, without being charged.

Amnesty believes the men's stories are part of a broader picture of US secret detentions centres around the world.

Australian news is reporting that a third prosecutor scheduled to try the military tribunal proceeding against detainee David Hicks has left the case:

Air Force Captain Carrie Wolf chose to take a reassignment along with other prosecutors. Capt Wolf asked to leave the Office of Military Commissions at the same time as two other colleagues, Major Robert Preston and Captain John Carr.

Earlier this week, the ABC revealed that in March 2004, Maj Preston and Capt Carr requested transfers because they believed the process was "rigged" and pursuing "marginal" cases. Maj Preston was nominated for the Air Force's outstanding judge advocate award last year and Captain Carr has been promoted to major since leaving the military commissions. It is understood Capt Wolf shared her colleagues' concerns and also asked for a redeployment.

An Air Force Judge Advocate General tells ABC it was just a personality conflict. [hat tip to Last Night in Little Rock]

Meet the Scorpions. They interrogate you, and then you die. The Washington Post has reviewed the declassified documents in the case of murdered detainee Iraqi General Abid Hamed Mowhoush.

When Army efforts produced nothing useful, detainees would be handed over to members of Operational Detachment Alpha 531, soldiers with the 5th Special Forces Group, the CIA or a combination of the three. "The personnel were dressed in civilian clothes and wore balaclavas to hide their identity," according to a Jan. 18, 2004, report for the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division.

If they did not get what they wanted, the interrogators would deliver the detainees to a small team of the CIA-sponsored Iraqi paramilitary squads, code-named Scorpions, according to a military source familiar with the operation. The Jan. 18 memo indicates that it was "likely that indigenous personnel in the employ of the CIA interrogated MG Mowhoush."

Then the fun began.

Benyam Mohammed, an alleged accomplice of 'dirty bomb' suspect Jose Padilla, has been around the block. Beginning as a 'ghost detainee' picked up in Pakistan, he spent two and one half years in prisons in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Morrocco and Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon recently declassified his lawyer's 28 page diary of notes taken in interviews with Mohammed describing the torture inflicted on him which the Guardian has obtained and printed today.

In an statement given to his newly appointed lawyer, Mohammed has given an account of how he was tortured for more than two years after being questioned by US and British officials who he believes were from the FBI and MI6. As well as being beaten and subjected to loud music for long periods, he claims his genitals were sliced with scalpels.

....The lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, says: "This is outsourcing of torture, plain and simple. America knows torture is wrong but gets others to do its unconscionable dirty work.

Here's the diary entry describing the slicing of his genitals.

From Monday's New York Times:

As the Pentagon was making its final preparations to begin war crimes trials against four detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, two senior prosecutors complained in confidential messages last year that the trial system had been secretly arranged to improve the chance of conviction and to deprive defendants of material that could prove their innocence.

Defense lawyers, both within the military and private counsel, have been complaining all along about the unfairness of the tribunals. Now that prosecutors have made the same claim, maybe someone will listen. But who, when Bush and the executive branch keep stealing more and more power from the Courts and Congress?

Update: Australian detainee David Hick's lawyer says he's not surprised.

A supervisory FBI agent assigned to Guantanamo wrote a memo to his superiors warning of the illegality of its rendition plans, writes Michael Isikoff of Newsweek in an exclusive.

This memo appears to be the first that directly questions the legal premises of the Bush administration policy of "extraordinary rendition"—a secret program under which terror suspects are transferred to foreign countries that have been widely criticized for practicing torture.

Two Afghans who were released Monday from Guantanamo said yesterday that more than 150 of the prisoners are on a hunger strike "to protest alleged mistreatment and to push for freedom." A Government spokesman and Amnesty International say they know nothing about it.

Neil Koslowe, a Washington-based lawyer for 12 detainees from Kuwait, said several inmates told him during a June 20-24 visit to Guantanamo that there was a ``widespread'' hunger strike over the amount and quality of their drinking water.

Eight of the detainnes are being released this week.

...three Saudis, who were not identified, were handed over to Saudi security, the official Saudi Press Agency said in Riyadh. It did not specify whether the three were detained for questioning, saying only that ``the regular procedures will be applied accordingly.''

Ouch.

Moazzam Begg is a British citizen who was recently released after three years of incarceration, first at Bagram AFB and then at Guantanamo. His nightmare began when he was arrested at gunpoint at his home in Pakistan. Alternet has a transcript of an interview with him. Don't miss it. Here is his description of two inmates whose beating deaths he witnesses. At the end, he also commends some of the other prison guards.

DEEPA FERNANDES: I wonder if you can talk us through what happened to you from when you were picked up from your house in Pakistan to your time in prison at Guantanmo Bay.

MOAZZAM BEGG: Yes. It was three years of my life, so it is very difficult to condense into a few minutes. But, I can try to highlight the most profound parts of my incarceration including being held by the Americans in Kandahar, in Bagram, and ultimately in Guantanamo for 2 years. During my time there, I witnessed things that I would have never perceived the United States would be capable of. With my own eyes, I witnessed the killing of at least two detainees by military police with their own hands.

DEEPA FERNANDES: That is a grave charge. What happened?

In a blow to the Constitution but giving a win to the Bush Administration, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver, can be tried by military tribunal at Guantanamo. The opinion is here.(pdf.)

The decision, by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, reversed a lower court's ruling that abruptly halted the first war crimes trials conducted by the United States since the aftermath of World War II. The appeals judges said the Bush administration's plan to try some detainees before military commissions did not violate the Constitution, international law or American military law.

One of his lawyers says,

"Today's ruling... "places absolute trust in the president, unchecked by the Constitution, statutes of Congress and longstanding treaties ratified by the Senate of the United States."

A new report released by the military shows that the tactics used in the abuse of Abu Ghraib prisoners began at Guantanamo.

Interrogators at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, forced a stubborn detainee to wear women's underwear on his head, confronted him with snarling military working dogs and attached a leash to his chains, according to a newly released military investigation that shows the tactics were employed there months before military police used them on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The techniques, approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for use in interrogating Mohamed Qahtani -- the alleged "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- were used at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002 as part of a special interrogation plan aimed at breaking down the silent detainee

USA Today is reporting that Capt. Leslie J. McCoy, the Commanding Officer at Guantanamo, has been sacked for misconduct, allegedly unrelated to the detainees.

The commanding officer of the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was relieved of his duties Saturday after he was accused of inappropriate management practices, a Navy spokesman said. Capt. Leslie J. McCoy, who had commanded Guantanamo since March 2003, was the subject of an investigation into inappropriate personnel and administrative practices unrelated to the base's detention camp for suspected terrorists.

"His release and reassignment are in no way related to the detainee operations taking place in Guantanamo," said C. Patrick Dooling, spokesman for Navy Southeast Region based in Jacksonville.

Hurricane Dennis wollopped Cuba today, and Guantanamo was affected.

Winds and heaving surf tossed a guard tower into the sea and roared over a razor-wire fence at the U.S. detention camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, on the island's eastern end.