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'Dirty Move': Pentagon Chief Ditches Plea Deals With Tortured 9/11 Defendants
One lawyer warned it will not only "push 9/11 victim family members over an emotional cliff," but likely lead "prosecutors to resign and defendants to seek dismissal of all charges for unlawful command influence."
Aug 03, 2024
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday withdrew plea agreements the Pentagon had reached with three men accused of planning the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and detained in Guantánamo Bay, the American military prison in Cuba infamous for torture.
"I have determined that... responsibility for such a decision should rest with me," Austin wrote to Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, the convening authority for the legally dubious Guantánamo Bay military commissions. "Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements that you signed on July 31."
The U.S. Department of Defense confirmed Wednesday that Escallier "entered into pretrial agreements" with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. The Pentagon did not share details of the deal, but it was reported that in exchange for ruling out the death penalty, the suspects agreed to plead guilty and spend the rest of their lives in prison.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which has represented detainees at the prison, stressed that the deals were not only "a substantial step toward ending military commissions and the extralegal nightmare of Guantánamo," but also "inevitable because the 9/11 case was never going to be tried" through a process that has "never provided justice or accountability for anyone."
Others had also emphasized that point. U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on social media Wednesday that "after all these years, the victims of 9/11 and their families deserve justice and closure. The Bush administration's disastrous decision to torture detainees and set up untested military commissions made a fair trial impossible."
As The New York Times reported Thursday:
Valerie Lucznikowska, whose nephew was killed in the World Trade Center, said she had been to the Guantánamo Bay prison several times to watch pretrial hearings, but had stopped going out of frustration with the legal process.
"The plea agreements should have been done a long time ago," she said. "The system has not worked for a long time."
Ms. Lucznikowska belongs to the group September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, many of whose members oppose the death penalty. Her own opposition was both moral and practical, she said.
"If the death penalty stayed as the prime object of the trial, there was no way it would come to a conclusion within my lifetime," she said.
She added: "Guantánamo Bay prison is a stain on America. How are we going to get rid of the stain? We're not going to. But let's get it over with."
However, other relatives of victims and U.S. lawmakers, as well as the union representing New York City firefighters, had criticized the agreements. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) even launched an investigation into "what involvement the White House had in negotiating and/or approving the recently announced plea deal."
After the Pentagon's Friday announcement, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows released a statement calling out Austin for canceling deals that, while "not the justice originally hoped for," had "offered a path to finality, and a modicum of justice and accountability for the crimes of 9/11."
"That the secretary has now overreached and undertaken direct oversight of the 9/11 commission is cause for enormous concern," the group said. "While we understand there are family members who are opposed to plea agreements, the reality stands that the 9/11 accused were tortured and several were sodomized. If any entity is at fault for the inability to prosecute this case with a slam dunk, it's the torturers. Because of the torture, the 9/11 accused will not be put to death. And any administration official or member of Congress who says otherwise is either uninformed, or politically pandering."
"The men who perpetrated the death of thousands on September 11th; men who have never uttered a word of remorse, should be justly punished. But what happened this week to 9/11 families is emotional whiplash," the group continued. "We will recover. We have been working for justice for the death of our loved ones for 23 years. Our larger concerns today are for this country, for the future of our children and grandchildren when legal principles are compromised. We ask that Secretary Austin meet with the 9/11 prosecution team, learn the deep complexities and flaws in the case, and come to his own conclusion that pretrial agreements will provide the finality and accountability we all deserve."
J. Wells Dixon, a senior staff attorney at CCR who specializes in challenging unlawful detentions at Guantánamo, decried the "dirty move" by Austin and accused him of "robbing victim family members of their only chance for justice and accountability for 9/11."
The Pentagon chief's "astounding decision" will not only "push 9/11 victim family members over an emotional cliff," but likely have legal consequences, Dixon warned. "Wait for prosecutors to resign and defendants to seek dismissal of all charges for unlawful command influence."
Daphne Eviatar, director of Amnesty International USA's Security With Human Rights program, similarly said Saturday that "this is a terrible development. The victims of the 9/11 attacks deserve accountability for the horrendous crimes committed after waiting more than 20 years."
"The defendants, who were brutally tortured and mistreated by U.S. agents and then detained without trial for more than 20 years, deserve a fair judicial resolution of their cases," Eviatar argued.
"The death penalty should have been taken off the table long ago," she added. "It is shameful for the defense secretary after all these years to intervene now to prevent the resolution of this case, at a time when the United States should be making every effort to acknowledge, account for, and finally end the abuses of the post-9/11 'war on terror.'"
John Knefel, a senior writer at Media Matters for America, also responded critically to Friday's news, saying that "this development is 100% in alignment with the history of Gitmo in general and the military commission system specifically—ad hoc, arbitrary, capricious. A repulsive apparatus, and one wholly fitting of U.S. empire."
This post has been updated with comment from Amnesty International September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.
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'Scathing' Report From UN Expert's Historic Visit Revives Calls to Close Guantánamo
"It is well past time to demand the closure of the prison, accountability from U.S. officials, and reparations for the torture and other ill-treatment that the detainees have suffered at the hands of the U.S. government," said one campaigner.
Jun 26, 2023
Human rights advocates on Monday renewed their calls for the swift closure of the U.S. prison at Naval Station Guantánamo Bay in Cuba after a United Nations expert released the findings from her historic trip to the infamous facility.
The prison was established in 2002, after then-President George W. Bush launched the War on Terror in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. On the campaign trail and since taking office, President Joe Biden—who is seeking reelection next year—has indicated he wants to close the facility. His administration was the first to allow a visit by a U.N. expert earlier this year.
Irish attorney and law professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the U.N. special rapporteur (SR) on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, focused on three key topics: "the rights of victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the rights of detainees at the Guantánamo detention facility, and the rights of former detainees."
"The Biden administration needs to get out of its own way on Guantánamo closure."
Allowing U.N. access to the prison "is an important signal from the United States government to the international community that the Guantánamo detention facility is on a path to de-exceptionalism," her report states. "It opens the possibility to address the profound human rights violations that have occurred there and the irreparable harms to the lives and health of the 780 Muslim men who have been detained there, including 30 men who remain."
"For many of the detainees she spoke with, the dividing line between the past and the present is exceptionally thin—for some nonexistent—and their past experiences of torture live with them in the present, without any obvious end in sight including because they have received no torture rehabilitation to date," the publication continues, adding that despite improvements since 2002, current conditions amount to "ongoing cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, and may also meet the legal threshold for torture."
According to the report, which was released on the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture:
In every meeting she held with a detainee or former detainee, the SR was told with great regret that she had arrived "too late." She agrees. At the time of her visit only 34 detainees remained at the site. It is evident that the horror and harms of extraordinary rendition, arbitrary detention, and systematic torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment inflicted over time occurred in part because of an exceptional and international law deficient legal and policy regime; the permeation of arbitrariness across subsequent detention practices; and the lack of international law compliant domestic oversight and accountability...
The SR reaffirms the right to remedy and reparations for victims of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, underscoring that such rights encompass preventive and investigative elements, as well as the right to access justice, remedy, and reparation. The U.S. government is under a continued obligation to ensure accountability, make full reparation for the injuries caused, and offer appropriate guarantees of nonrepetition for violations committed post-9/11. The world has and will not forget. Without accountability, there is no moving forward on Guantánamo.
The document also praises the U.S. government, saying that "it is a sign of a commitment to international law that the visit occurred, was highly cooperative, constructive, and engaged at all levels of government, and is reported upon."
In its formal response, the U.S. government said it provided Ní Aoláin with "unprecedented access" and her team with "detailed information both prior to her visit and in response to her questions." The statement notes the "significant progress" the Biden administration has made in reducing the Guantánamo population, highlights ongoing military commissions and transfer efforts, and reaffirms the president's intention to close the facility.
The statement also stresses that while the administration is reviewing the U.N. expert's recommendations, the government "disagrees in significant respects with many factual and legal assertions" in her report, and claims that the U.S. is committed to "safe and humane treatment" for Gitmo prisoners, who "receive specialized medical and psychiatric care."
Pointing to Ní Aoláin's report, Center for Victims of Torture policy analyst Yumna Rizvi said Monday that "the government is obligated to provide rehabilitation, and the detainees are entitled to it, but the government is continuing to choose not to meet its obligation."
"It has an opportunity to do so, and to lead as an example, especially as the largest contributor to the U.N. Voluntary Fund for the Victims of Torture," Rizvi added. "However, the U.S. continues to turn its back on what is right. The government's response to the report is a denial of the existing reality as it relates to medical care of detainees. The government must address these issues immediately before the worst possible outcome occurs, the responsibility of which will fall squarely on its shoulders."
Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard—a former U.N. special rapporteur—said the "scathing" U.N. report highlights "the urgent need for President Biden to finally close the detention facility at the Guantánamo Bay military base, and to end the unlawful practice of indefinite detention without charge or trial."
"It is well past time to demand the closure of the prison, accountability from U.S. officials, and reparations for the torture and other ill-treatment that the detainees have suffered at the hands of the U.S. government," she argued. "There remains a shocking lack of access to justice for those currently or previously detained—and many have complex and untreated healthcare needs as a result of their ill-treatment."
"The military commissions created for Guantánamo Bay detainees, including those alleged to have planned or assisted the September 11 attacks, have been a complete failure through which the United States government has intentionally skirted U.S. and international law and abused the rights of those still imprisoned at the facility—jeopardizing the rights of survivors and families of victims of the attacks to receive justice," she added.
Wells Dixon, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights and council to several Gitmo detainees, similarly declared that "the Biden administration needs to get out of its own way on Guantánamo closure."
"It makes no legal or policy sense for the government to continue to fight in court, to detain men it no longer wants to detain, in a prison it has said should be closed, in a war that has ended," said Dixon. "It also makes no sense to continue contested military trials that have failed to achieve justice or accountability for anyone."
September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows welcomed that "in issuing her report on Guantánamo, the special rapporteur stated unequivocally that, 'Torture was a betrayal of the rights of the victims of the 9/11 attacks.'"
"For families and survivors to ever receive a measure of judicial resolution, the fact that the 9/11 accused were tortured must be legally acknowledged," the organization asserted. "The U.S. government must now, more than two decades after the attacks, end the 9/11 military commission at Guantánamo, accept guilty pleas from the 9/11 defendants, and provide victims and survivors with the information and accountability they have so long sought."
Former Guantánamo prisoner Majid Khan, who was freed in February, said Monday that "I survived and have forgiven my torturers, and I am moving on with my life in Belize. But I still wait for an apology, medical care, and other compensation."
"I appreciate all the support that Belize has provided me, but responsibility lies with the U.S.," he said. "It would mean a lot to me. I also ask other countries to follow the example of Belize and offer safe refuge to other Guantánamo detainees approved for transfer, including men such as Guled Duran who was never charged with any wrongdoing. It is time to close Guantánamo."
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UN Human Rights Expert to Conduct First-Ever Visit to Guantánamo Bay Prison
"It's hard to exaggerate the importance of this visit more than two decades since Guantánamo was open to hold detainees beyond the reach of the law," said one ACLU official.
Feb 01, 2023
For the first time ever, a United Nations human rights and counterterrorism expert will visit the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a U.N. office announced Wednesday.
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said Irish attorney and law professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin—the U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism—will visit Guantánamo as part of a "technical visit to the United States" from February 6-14.
In addition to visiting the prison, OHCHR said Ní Aoláin will "carry out a series of interviews with individuals in the United States and abroad, on a voluntary basis," including victims and relatives of those killed in the 9/11 attacks and former Guantánamo detainees in countries where they have been repatriated or resettled.
Human rights advocates welcomed the development.
"We commend the Biden administration for agreeing to let a U.N. human rights expert visit Guantánamo, finally ending a shameful U.S. government moratorium that sought to establish a prison outside the reach of law," Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, said in a statement.
\u201cFirst-ever visit by a UN human rights expert to Guantanamo. It\u2019s hard to exaggerate the importance of this visit more than 2 decades since Guantanamo was open to hold detainees beyond the reach of the law. Let\u2019s hope it signals real movement towards ending this shameful atrocity.\u201d— Jamil Dakwar (@Jamil Dakwar) 1675275471
"International human rights norms and institutions are integral to preventing the torture, indefinite detention, and unfair trials that now symbolize Guantánamo globally," Shamsi added. "It should never have taken two decades, but we're encouraged to see the basic principle of U.N. rights officials' independent access to all sites of detention and detainees respected at long last by our country."
Since it was first opened in January 2002 by the George W. Bush administration in the early months of the so-called War on Terror, Guantánamo, or Gitmo in U.S. military parlance, has imprisoned 779 men and boys. Many of them were tortured, and only a handful were ever charged with any crime. According to retired U.S. Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson—who served as chief of staff to Bush-era Secretary of State Colin Powell—Bush, along with Dick Cheney, his vice president, and Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense, knew that most Gitmo prisoners were innocent, but kept them locked up for political reasons.
Although then-Presdident Barack Obama—under whom President Joe Biden served as vice president—signed executive orders meant to close Guantánamo and end torture, he was blocked by Congress from implementing the former policy, while torture continued at Gitmo during his tenure.
"International human rights norms and institutions are integral to preventing the torture, indefinite detention, and unfair trials that now symbolize Guantánamo globally."
Hundreds of Guantánamo detainees were released during the Bush and Obama administrations, with a relative handful freed under Biden. Today, 35 men remain locked up at Gitmo. According to the Pentagon, 20 of them are cleared for release while nine—including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—have ongoing cases before military commissions from which numerous prosecutors have resigned amid allegations of rigging to secure convictions.
September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, an activist group, said in a statement that it "deeply appreciates the willingness of the special rapporteur's office and the Biden administration to work together to make her visit to Guantánamo possible."
"As 9/11 family members, we remain gravely concerned about the absence of justice within the military commission system," the group added. "We welcome the commitment of the special rapporteur to the human rights of victims of terrorism and we hope that her work can inform a path forward to judicial finality for family members, the accused, and all those affected by 9/11 and its aftermath."
Biden—whose former press secretary said closing Guantánamo is "our goal and our intention"—has been criticized for failing to do so two years into his administration and 21 years after the prison opened.
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