Tag: Guantanamo (page 10)

The AP reports President Obama is considering moving detainees at Guantanamo to a maximum security prison in Michigan that state officials are planning to close or to Ft. Levenworth in Ks.

The facility would include both a courtroom for military tribunal trials and federal criminal court trials and a prison. But, the details also include:

Providing long-term holding cells for a small but still undetermined number of detainees who will not face trial because intelligence and counterterror officials conclude they are too dangerous to risk being freed.

Building immigration detention cells for detainees ordered released by courts but still behind bars because countries are unwilling to take them.

So there are two classes of detainees the Administration plans to keep detained without charges or trial or after acquittal or a court-ordered release. [More...]

President Obama asked his task force to provide a roadmap to closing Guantanamo by today. They didn't. The report has been delayed until the fall . Michael Isikoff reports:

The task force, set up on Obama's second day in office, was charged with preparing a report to the president by Tuesday, July 21, outlining a long-term detention plan for detainees captured in counterterrorism operations after Sept. 11. But continued debate within the task force over the legal basis for holding detainees who are not charged with any crimes—and where to house them once they are moved from Guantánamo—has forced the task force to postpone its report by a "few months," a senior administration official told NEWSWEEK.

The ACLU's response is here. Also being delayed: the task force report on interrogations of "high value detainees."

Navanethem Pillay, a lawyer from South Africa who serves as the U.N.'s top Human Rights offical, criticized President Obama and the U.S. today over the continued detention of Guantanamo detainees:

In her most detailed statement on U.S. detention policy, the South African lawyer criticized President Obama's decision to hold some suspected terrorists in detention indefinitely without a trial. She also called for a probe into officials who participated in torture sessions or provided the legal justification for it.

"People who order or inflict torture cannot be exonerated, and the roles of certain lawyers, as well as doctors who have attended torture sessions, should also be scrutinized," Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement dedicated to victims of torture.

[More...]

Props to Palau, for tentatively agreeing to take up to 13 of the Chinese Uighur muslims from Guantanamo.

It is one of the world's smallest countries, with about 20,000 people scattered over islands of lush tropical jungle. Most work in tourism, construction and farming.

China is not happy. [More...]

Good news out of Guantanamo Bay today: Four of the Chinese Uighurs being held there have been moved to Bermuda where they will live and be free.

Bermuda's prime minister, Ewart Brown, said the men would be allowed to live in the self-governing British territory, first as refugees. Brown said they would be allowed to pursue citizenship and would have the right to work, travel and "potentially settle elsewhere".

Brown said negotiations with Washington over taking in the Uighurs began last month and he had no security concerns because the men had been cleared by US courts.

What a great place to resettle. It's beautiful, clean and, civilized. Major props to the island's Government for accepting them. [More...]

Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih, a 31 year old Yemeni held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002, has committed suicide, according to the AP and Pentagon.

Salih was in the psychiatric ward, being force-fed due to being on a hunger strike. He was down to 86 pounds. No charges had been filed against him.

"Salih was being force-fed in a restraint chair; the other six surviving inmates are being force-fed from bed," Remes said, adding that he didn't think the Yemeni had any legal representation until two lawyers arrived in February. "They were due to see him for the first time in a couple of weeks," he said.

The military says he was found unresponsive in his cell. Suicide or did his body give out? Stay tuned. [Update below]

Via Atrios and Pufferfish, get ready for Rendition Gitmo, the video game.

A SCOTTISH firm is set to make millions from a computer game based on Guantanamo Bay. And they have brought in Moazzam Begg – one of nine British Muslims held in the jail before being released in 2005 – to help them get it right.

[More...]

Omar Khadr's lawyers continued their bickering in court today. The military judge scolded them and praised Canadian detainee Omar Khadr for his good behavior. Khadr has been detained since he was captured in Afghanistan at age 15. He's now 22. (Background here.)

A visibly angry Parrish lashed out at Khadr's lawyers and encouraged the Toronto-born captive to meet with them again during today's session. He commended Khadr for being "well spoken" and warned the lawyers to act in a "professional and dignified" manner. Khadr said it wasn't possible. "They just had a fight this morning," he told Parrish.

Today's hearing was considered an embarrassment for Guantanamo's defence office and the Obama administration, which has asked to have the cases suspended until the fall and pledged to close this prison by January.

But, the Judge made Omar pick between the dueling military lawyers. He wants his own Canadian lawyers, but under the misguided, inadequate military tribunal rules, he can't have them, except in an advisory capacity.[More...]

There's lots of speculation that the Guantanamo detainees may be moved to Supermax at Florence, Colorado, home to the nation's supposedly most dangerous criminals. Not so fast. Right now, there's no room at the inn.

It would probably take the building of a separate facility. Or, the moving of our supposedly most dangerous criminals to prisons in other states.

As for the folks in Florence, many of whom have jobs because of the prison industry there, they have no problem with accomodating the Gitmo detainees:[More...]

A little bit of progress. President Obama will announce tomorrow that one of the Guantanamo detainees will be transferred to New York for trial in U.S. District Court:

Ahmed Ghailani, suspected of taking part in al Qaeda plots to bomb U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania among other crimes, would be the first former detainee at the detention center to face trial in the United States.

They tried and convicted Jose Padilla in federal criminal court. While he was held at a miltary brig rather than Gitmo, it's been done before and can and should be done again when criminal charges are warranted. We need to keep public pressure on the President. It seems to be having an effect.

Lakhdar Boumediene, imprisoned since 2001 when he was captured in Bosnia, has been released from Guantanamo and sent to France. France agreed to take the 43 year old Algerian because he has relatives there.

Boumediene has been on a hunger strike and force-fed since 2006. He's the detainee whose name appears on the landmark Supreme Court decision that held detainees can seek review of their detention through habeas petitions.

Boumediene is the second prisoner transferred to a third-party country by the Obama administration. In February, Binyam Mohamed, a native of Ethiopia who had lived in Britain, was returned to the United Kingdom.

2 down, 238 to go.

Are House Democrats concerned that President Obama is all talk and no action when it comes to closing Guantanamo? Today they rejected his request to include $80 million in funds in a war spending bill, saying they want to see a a concrete plan first.

The House directive was part of a $96.7 billion emergency financing measure for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that the House approved by a vote of 368 to 60, with 168 Republicans joining the Democratic majority in support.

But in a clear rebuke to Mr. Obama, Democratic leaders refused to include the $80 million that the White House had sought for closing the Guantánamo center. On his third day in office, Mr. Obama signed an executive order requiring that the camp be shut by Jan. 22, 2010.

[More...]