Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) demanded that the Obama administration release information on 600 detainees held at Bagram airbase
in Afghanistan. The request mirrors that made to the Bush
administration seven years before, regarding the men held in Guantánamo
Bay.
Back in September 2005, when I first began researching Guantánamo for my book The Guantánamo Files,
the prison was still shrouded in mystery, even though attorneys had
been visiting prisoners for nearly a year, following the Supreme
Court's ruling, in June 2004, that they had habeas corpus rights.
Researchers at the Washington Post and at Cageprisoners<
Canada
must seek the immediate return of Toronto-born Guantánamo captive Omar
Khadr rather than await the outcome of his U.S. military trial because
American troops mistreated the alleged teen terrorist and Canadian
officials knew about it, Canada's appeals court ruled Friday.
The Federal Court of Appeal's 2-1 ruling, issued in Ottawa, effectively
instructs the Canadian government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to
intervene in the case before Khadr is tried by military commission.
In 2003, at a meeting with a group of senior staff from the US judge advocate general's office (which deals with criminal trials of military personnel), I was told that as a result of decisions taken in the Bush White House, a long American tradition of compliance with the Geneva conventions had come to an end.
Four and a half months ago, 17 unjustly detained prisoners in Guantánamo wrote a letter to President Obama asking for their release. In the secretive world of Guantánamo, however, nothing is straightforward, and it has taken over four months for the letter to be cleared by the government’s censors and sent on to the White House.
Imagine if you were imprisoned for seven years without charge or trial, and then
a judge ruled that the government’s case against you consisted solely of unreliable allegations made by other prisoners who were tortured, coerced, bribed or suffering from mental health issues, and a “mosaic” of intelligence, purporting to rise to the level of evidence, which actually relied, to an intolerable degree, on second- or third-hand hearsay, guilt by association and unsupportable supposition
On Thursday, in a long-anticipated ruling (PDF),
Judge Ellen Segan Huvelle granted the habeas corpus petition of Mohamed
Jawad, an Afghan teenager seized after a grenade attack on a jeep
containing two U.S. soldiers and an Afghan translator in December 2002,
and ordered the government to transfer him to the custody of the Afghan
authorities, who have already stated that he will be released on
arrival.
WASHINGTON - A U.S. judge on Thursday ordered that one of the youngest detainees held at the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison be released for what is expected to be a trip home to Afghanistan.
U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle said she hoped Mohammed Jawad -- accused of throwing a grenade that injured two U.S. soldiers and their interpreter in Kabul in late 2002 -- would be en route home by August 24.
Despite Huvelle's ruling, U.S. attorneys said they might pursue a new case against Jawad.
During the years of incarceration
and abuse in Guantánamo it seemed inconceivable that the notorious US
military prison facility would close any time soon. And yet, within a
day of his inauguration the new US president, Barack Obama, promised the world, in no uncertain terms, that the world's most infamous prison's days were numbered. As of today, that's 190 days – and counting.
I've written several times before
about the amazing quest of Binyam Mohamed -- a British resident
released from Guantanamo in February, 2009 after seven years in
captivity -- to compel public disclosure of information in the
possession of the British Government proving he was tortured while in
U.S.
