NEWS:
Guantánamo Bay
Lawyers for Guantánamo forever prison Abu Zubaydah have brought a
lawsuit against James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce Jessen for the torture he faced
while held at secret CIA prison in Poland from December 2002 to September 2003.
The two men, currently also facing a lawsuit on behalf of other torture victims
by the ACLU, were private contractors and psychologists who ran a company that
made over $81 million devising and carrying out torture programmes for the CIA.
“The
lawsuit says James Elmer Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen, because of their
role in the interrogation program and their presence at the site, have
information relevant to the investigation being carried out by the Organized
Crimes Division of the Regional Public Prosecutor’s Office in Krakow, Poland.
They are investigating whether Polish officials
facilitated the existence or operation of the CIA black site”. The information
they are being asked to hand over has been requested by the Polish authorities
to help with their investigations.
In January 2016, the US sent two Yemeni prisoners, who were held without
charge or trial, to resettle in Ghana. Mahmoud Omar Bin Atef and Khalid al
Dhuby have since then struggled to settle in the country, where they are not
allowed to work and have been subject to media scrutiny of their lives there.
Both men were cleared for release in 2009 but could not leave Guantánamo for a
further 7 years because of the ban on transfers to Yemen imposed by Barack
Obama in 2010. At the time, the government of Ghana said the men could stay for
two years. Theirs were the first transfers of prisoners to West Africa. Shortly
after their arrival, several Christian organisations protested their presence
in the country, including the Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference and the
Christian Council of Ghana. Two Ghanaian citizens then brought a court case
against the government to challenge the legality of their presence in the
country. On Thursday 22 June, the Ghanaian Supreme Court ruled that the men had
been admitted unlawfully to the country and gave the government three months to
legalise their status. The government has since stated that it is seeking to do
this so the men can remain there. Given the ongoing war in Yemen, it is
impossible to return them to their country of origin and the US is unlikely to
accept them. Yemen is one of the countries subject to Trump’s immigration ban.
One of the men, Mahmoud Omar Bin Atef, is reported to have recently gotten
married. His lawyer George Clarke told Ghanaian media that his client is being
used as a “political football” in view of the fact of recent regime changes in
both Ghana and the US and the two men are being held responsible for a deal
made, irrespective of them, between the previous governments of these two
countries. The Ghanaian response appears to show that no one in Ghana knows how
the government or the judiciary operates or their respective powers.
On 20 June, the Guantánamo war court prosecutor filed charges against
Indonesian prisoner Riduan “Hambali” Isomuddin for his alleged direct involvement in the bombing of a Bali nightclub in
2002 and a 2003 bombing in Jakarta, Indonesia. The charges have yet to be
approved by the Pentagon and thus the case may not go ahead, although the
prosecutors have stated that they will not seek the death penalty. If the case
goes ahead, it will be the first set of charges and prosecution under Donald
Trump.
Hambali was kidnapped in 2003 in Bangkok by the CIA and Thai
authorities. He was tortured there and then transferred to secret CIA torture
prisons in Morocco and Romania before arriving at Guantánamo in 2006. He is
held as a high-value prisoner away from other prisoners and most prison staff. Given
the severe torture he has faced it is unlikely the US will ever release him in
order to hide its own crimes against humanity. The Obama regime tried to
persuade Australia to accept him and charge and try him for the Bali bombing, as
most of the victims were Australian nationals, and then transfer him to
Malaysia to face the death penalty. Indonesia has made it clear that it does
not want him to return there. His charge sheet “alleges he directed three
simultaneous bombings on Oct. 12, 2002 — in a pub, near a dance club and the
U.S. Consulate — that killed 202 people in the lush, Indonesian island tourist
destination of Bali that is popular with Western tourists. Australia suffered
the largest number of casualties, 88 dead, followed by Indonesia with 38. The
charge sheets name all the victims, including seven Americans who were killed
and are the likely basis for prosecuting the case at the U.S. Navy base in
Cuba”. His charges “include terrorism, murder in violation of the law
of war, attempted murder, intentionally causing serious bodily injury,
attacking civilians and civilian objects and destruction of property, in
violation of the law of war”. Given how long it has taken to bring the charges,
the fact that torture was used to obtain the evidence and the
disproportionality of the charges – from alleged mastermind to direct
responsibility for each death – how this case will proceed appears unclear.
An investigation has been launched into claims
that illegal recordings were made of private client-attorney meetings involving
the 9/11 defendants at Guantánamo from September 2015 to April 2017. Defence
lawyers were then warned by a general that privileged communications were at
risk leading to a complaint by the defence lawyers about possible interference
in their work. This is the latest in a number of issues hampering the ability
of the defence lawyers to work with the clients, sometimes undermining their
clients’ trust in them as well.
In April, the 9/11 case military judge
dismissed two of the charges against the five defendants - attacking
civilian objects and destruction of property – claiming that the five year
limitation period to bring such charges had ended and they were no longer
valid. Prosecution lawyers appealed this and the charges have now been reinstated,
on the basis that “During hostilities, a statute of limitations applying a time
limit to prosecute law of war violations is not practicable.”
The judge in the case has also halted next month’s pre-trial hearing in
response to a new policy that could see him having to travel to Guantánamo
along with others attending the military commissions, such as family members,
journalists and defence lawyers, which he claims could affect the proceedings.
In 2015, a video emerged which claims to show former Sudanese prisoner
Ibrahim Al-Qosi speaking as a leader of Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP)
from Yemen and calling for war against the Americans. The video showed a still
image of him and an alleged recording of his voice. Reports of it in the Yemeni
media at the time attributed the Daily Mail as the source of the news, and the
video, which was never formally translated, and eventually withdrawn and
disappeared, has provided the basis for US government and right wing claims of
prisoner recidivism and to legitimise US attacks on Yemen. Al-Qosi’s lawyer
said that he had not heard from him in several years.
Another lawyer is trying to bring an appeal against his conviction. The
court asked her earlier this year to establish a link to him, which it has now
accepted but it has dismissed the US government’s argument that the appeal
should not be allowed as Al-Qosi is an enemy belligerent, stating that “the
Government relies primarily, if not completely, on hearsay” and that
establishing his status is essential for the case to progress, as well as for
the court to consider whether, if he is an enemy belligerent, that his appeal
can be dismissed as his alleged hostility started long after the offences he
was convicted of.
Extraordinary Rendition:
In a lawsuit brought against James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen,
psychologists and CIA contractors who devised and oversaw the CIA’s torture
programme, the ACLU has filed a motion on behalf of three victims to rule that
they played “critical role in designing, implementing, and profiting from the
CIA torture program. Our clients are Suleiman Abdullah Salim, a fisherman from
Tanzania; Mohamed Ben Soud, a Libyan citizen who opposed the Gaddafi regime;
and Gul Rahman, an Afghan citizen who died as a result of his torture.” Through
evidence gathering and testimonies by key individuals responsible for the
programme under oath, new information has emerged to support this motion.
According to the ACLU, “If the court finds that the defendants are indeed
liable for aiding and abetting CIA torture, we’ll be fighting on behalf of our
clients for damages and other liability claims in a trial later this year.”
http://www.dw.com/en/german-ngo-seeks-arrest-warrant-for-donald-trumps-deputy-cia-director/a-39150870
LGC Activities:
The June Shut Guantánamo! monthly demonstration was on 1 June. Our
next monthly demonstration is on Thursday 6 July at 12-1pm outside the US Embassy,
Grosvenor Square, W1A, and 1.15-2.15pm outside Speaker’s Corner, Hyde Park,
opposite Marble Arch: https://www.facebook.com/events/696995943836334/
The LGC marked UN International Day in Support of Victims of
Torture with a vigil in Trafalgar Square. Attended by around a dozen people,
mainly Guantánamo activists, the action was a positive reminder on the
thirtieth anniversary of the UN Convention Against Torture becoming
international law and members of the public welcomed the event and engaged
positively with it and its simple message that torture must end.
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