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Thread: Military Prosecutors Set To Open Major 9/11 Case

  1. #151
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    Group requests stay for alleged 9/11 plotters

    http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...nP_wAD9583AF80

    2 hours ago

    SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A U.S. human rights group on Monday called for a stay of all war-crimes proceedings against five Guantanamo Bay prisoners charged with orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks until after President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

    Lawyers for the New York-based Human Rights First said they filed the friend-of-the-court brief because military prosecutors are likely to seek another hearing in Guantanamo's highest-profile case before Obama takes over Jan. 20.

    "There is no legitimate reason to expend judicial resources prosecuting a capital case under a system that will be obsolete before the matter can be tried," the group's brief said.

    Obama opposes the military war-crimes trials and has pledged to close the prison on a Navy base in southeast Cuba, which holds 250 men.

    The defendants in the Sept. 11 case wrote a letter on Nov. 4 — the day Obama was elected president — saying they wanted to confess, presumably to plead guilty and face the death penalty. At least two of the men, including the self-described mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have said they want to be executed to achieve martyrdom.

    But the formal confessions were delayed when a judge ruled this month that two of the defendants couldn't enter pleas until the court determines their mental competency. The other three said they would also wait.

    The judge, Army Col. Stephen Henley, has ordered lawyers to advise him by Jan. 4 whether the Pentagon can apply the death penalty without a jury trial.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  2. #152
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    Goodbye to Guantanamo?
    With just four weeks till Obama's inauguration, the Bush administration's military commissions are supposed to be history. So why does the government act like they'll continue past January 20?

    http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...23/guantanamo/

    By Stacy Sullivan

    Dec. 23, 2008 | GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- On December 15, during a pre-trial hearing for a Guantánamo detainee named Ahmed al-Darbi, the military judge presiding over the hearing acknowledged the elephant in the room.

    "The court is aware that on January 20," said Army Col. James Pohl, "a new commander-in-chief will take charge, which may or may not impact on this tribunal."

    Although everyone involved in the hearing -- the judge, the defense, the prosecution, the spectators, the witnesses -- knew that the incoming president might make everything they were seeing and doing moot, but nobody had yet said as much aloud. But with the possible irrelevancy of the Bush administration's military commissions now out in the open, the accused rose to address the issue.

    Holding up an ad created by the American Civil Liberties Union that ran in the New York Times on November 10 urging Obama to close down Guantánamo, al-Darbi said, "Your honor, you mention that there will be a new president on January 20. ... Mr. Obama has said he would like to close this location and I wish that this would happen in his presidency."

    Col. Pohl ordered that the ad be labeled and entered into the courtroom record as an exhibit. He then adjourned the proceedings and announced that the court would meet again on March 2.

    President-elect Barack Obama has long stated that he would shut down the U.S. military detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base when he assumes the presidency next month, and most have assumed that meant he would also put an end to the widely discredited military commissions that the Bush administration set up at "Gitmo" and transfer the cases to U.S. federal courts or military courts-martial. With that in mind, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has instructed his staff to have a blueprint for closing the detention center and the military commissions ready by January 20. Human Rights Watch has been observing the military commissions proceedings since they began more than four years ago, and between December 8 and 15, we were on-site for what were probably the last commission hearings for some of the 17 men the Bush administration has charged with terrorism-related crimes.

    But the machinery at Guantánamo grinds on, seemingly oblivious to what lies ahead. Prior to the last spate of hearings, which included proceedings for five detainees charged in the 9/11 attacks, improvements were made to the newly-constructed $12 million courtroom, built to try the camp's so-called high value detainees. Stadium seating was added to the spectators' gallery. Families of 9/11 victims were flown down to attend the hearings, and a curtain was installed in the tents to shield them from scrutiny. The 100 or so tents erected in Camp Justice, the massive tent city constructed on a former airstrip to house non-governmental organizations, journalists and other visitors to the naval base, were outfitted with telephones (though you could only call from tent to tent, not to the outside world). Someone had bought an iron and a make-up mirror for the women's NGO tent. Most importantly, the prosecution and the defense and the judges also continued to behave as if the commissions will go on.

    On December 12, lawyers for Omar Khadr appeared in a lower-security courtroom, which sits atop a hill with stunning 360 degree views of the Caribbean, to argue that any statements Khadr made to interrogators should be barred from trial on grounds that he was abused and tortured in U.S. custody. Khadr is a Canadian who is charged with killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15, and his trial is set to begin six days after Obama's inauguration.

    The judge, Army Col. Patrick Parrish, heard the arguments and set a date of January 19 for the next pre-trial hearing so remaining outstanding issues could be resolved before the January 26 trial date.

    Although few believe the incoming Obama administration would begin its presidency by putting a Canadian child soldier on trial before internationally infamous military commissions, no mention was made of January 19 being the day before a new president who is likely to shut down the process takes charge. Nor was there mention of January 19 being Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national holiday on which U.S. courthouses, federal offices, banks and schools are closed.

    When asked at a press conference following the arguments about the conspicuous date for the next hearing, one of the prosecutors, Navy Capt. Keith Petty replied, "As far as I understand, Martin Luther King stood for peace and justice and justice never takes a vacation."

    Al-Darbi, whose Dec. 15 hearing could well turn out to be the last to have taken place at Guantánamo, is a Saudi accused of trying to procure a boat for a terrorist attack in Yemen. Although the government claims that al-Darbi has strong ties to al-Qaida dating back to 1996, and that he is the brother-in-law of one of the 9/11 hijackers, much of its case rests on 119 statements al-Darbi gave to interrogators after his 2001 arrest in Azerbaijan and subsequent imprisonment in Bagram and Guantánamo. His lawyers are arguing that none of his statements should be permitted into evidence because Al-Darbi was abused and tortured in U.S. custody.

    At his hearing, the government sought to introduce into evidence a Pentagon-produced video entitled "The al-Qaeda Plan," which it analogized with "The Nazi Plan," a 1945 U.S.-government produced documentary used as evidence in the Nuremberg Trials.

    But because "The al-Qaeda Plan" did not contain any footage of the accused, and because it contained footage of the World Trade Center, East African embassy, and USS Cole attacks -- none of which the accused is alleged to have had any involvement in -- the defense argued that the film was irrelevant. It countered by moving to introduce into evidence the Oscar-winning documentary "Taxi to the Darkside," which told the story of an Afghan taxi driver named Diliwar who died after interrogations, beatings and prolonged suspension in the air by his arms at the U.S.-run Bagram prison in Afghanistan. Al-Darbi alleges that he was subjected to the same treatment as Diliwar while detained in Bagram.

    "We're not trying to turn the commissions into a film festival," said Air Force Lt. Col. Tom Pyle, one of al-Darbi's defense lawyers, "But if they want to issue theirs, we would like to issue ours."

    If the Obama administration shuts down the commissions and transfers the case to a military court-martial or a U.S. federal court, both the prosecution and the defense will have to argue these competing motions all over again. But the judge, Col. Pohl, told both sides they should proceed as if the trial were scheduled to go forward as planned in March.

    Before leaving the base on December 17, the other NGO observers and I debated what we should do with the locker of items we had accumulated over the past few months to make our repeated stays at Guantánamo more comfortable -- the coffee maker, hair dryer, towels, the assortment of sunscreen and bug spray, the masks and snorkels. (When commissions weren’t in process, we often spent time at the numerous beaches on the base, swimming or snorkeling).

    In the end, we decided to pack it all up and bring it home. The government, however, is still proceeding as if there is no question about the future of the military commissions. On December 19, it announced charges against a new suspect, Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi accused of helping to organize the attack on the USS Cole. It also announced that it was dropping charges against another detainee, Abdul Ghani, an Afghan who was accused of planting landmines and other explosive devises against US and coalition troops. But because the charges were dropped without prejudice, the government maintained that it had the option of charging Ghani before the military commissions "at a later date."
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  3. #153
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    Guantanamo lawyer says Gates may have committed perjury
    US appears to ignore findings of British court on detainee's torture

    http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Guanta...have_1222.html

    Andy Worthington
    Published: Monday December 22, 2008

    LONDON -- The announcement Dec. 1 that Barack Obama had retained Bush Defense Secretary Robert Gates was intended to demonstrate the President-elect’s desire for a “big-tent” administration that transcended partisan politics. Gates had voiced his desire to close the Pentagon's notorious Guantánamo Bay prison almost as soon as he took over from Donald Rumsfeld in December 2006, and this and his subsequent stewardship of the Iraq War earned him a place as a trustworthy figure who might bridge the Bush and Obama divide.

    However, a declaration the defense secretary made in a Washington, D.C. District Court filing Dec. 12 during the habeas review of Guantánamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed might make some rethink the trustworthy label. Mohamed’s lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, says that unless Gates retracts his statement, he could find himself accused of perjury.

    Mohamed has said that after being seized in Pakistan in April 2002 and held for three months, he was rendered by the CIA to Morocco, where he was tortured for 18 months.

    His claims of torture were upheld by the British High Court in a review this summer (PDF), which took place after Mohamed’s lawyers sued the British government for alleged complicity in their client’s rendition and torture. Both the British government and the British High Court accepted that Mohamed “has put forward a prima facie case of torture,” Stafford Smith said.

    The court established that Mohamed was “unlawfully rendered from Pakistan to Morocco by the United States authorities,” his lawyers said, and was ”subject to unlawful incommunicado detention and torture during his interrogation there by or on behalf of the United States authorities.” The court also established that Mr. Mohamed was “unlawfully rendered by the United States authorities from Morocco to Afghanistan,” where he was “detained unlawfully and incommunicado” and was “tortured or subject to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by or on behalf of the United States authorities in the ‘Dark Prison.’” -- a secret CIA facility near Kabul.

    At the end of this ordeal, Mohamed said he made a number of false confessions about his involvement with al-Qaeda and a plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in New York as a direct result of his torture in Morocco and at the hands of CIA agents in Afghanistan.

    The Bush administration has never provided any explanation for Mohamed’s whereabouts from July 2002 to May 2004. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Guantánamo prisoners habeas corpus rights. Mohamed’s case was reviewed by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in Washington D.C. District Court.

    Sullivan set a deadline of Oct. 6 for the government to produce exculpatory evidence relating to the case (in other words, any evidence that tended to disprove the government’s claims). When the time arrived, however, the Justice Department dropped the claim about the “dirty bomb” plot.

    At a Oct. 30 hearing, Sullivan said, “That raises a question as to whether or not the allegations were ever true.”

    Sullivan continued to press the government for exculpatory evidence. Although the “dirty bomb” plot claim had been dropped, he ordered the Justice Department to disclose any exculpatory evidence relating to the charge. In order to determine the reliability of Mohamed’s statements, he said he wanted to know how the interrogation sessions were conducted.

    Sullivan also ordered the Justice Department to secure an affidavit from Gates. The defense secretary swore under penalty of perjury that all exculpatory evidence in Mohamed’s case -- including evidence relating to the alleged “dirty bomb” plot -- had been provided to Mohamed’s lawyers.

    “It is the practice of the United States Government, in preparing factual returns in the Guantánamo Bay detainee habeas cases, to provide petitioners all evidence encountered in the development of the factual return that tends to materially undermine information presented in the return to support the petitioner’s classification as an enemy combatant,” Gates said in his declaration.

    “Consistent with this practice, on August 12, 2008, the attorneys preparing the factual return in this case provided Petitioner with evidence encountered in the development of his return that meets this standard,” Gates added.

    He also explained that following Sullivan’s ruling, “all exculpatory evidence reasonably available to the government” relating to the “withdrawn allegations” about the “dirty bomb” plot had been provided “on a rolling basis.” He added that 42 documents provided by the British government had also been handed over. “As a result,” he wrote, “the United States Government has turned over all reasonably available evidence that suggests Binyam Mohamed should not be designated as an enemy combatant.”

    In a letter sent to the Justice Department on Monday Dec. 15 (which has been seen by The Raw Story), Stafford Smith said he was trying to evaluate whether the defense secretary had deliberately perjured himself, or had been misled.

    “I will say that I am extremely disappointed in the declaration that was filed on behalf of Secretary Gates on Friday,” Stafford Smith wrote, adding, “There is no question but that it is false.” He said he couldn't conclude “whether I would categorize Mr. Gates’ statement as outright perjury, or as a misguided consequence of his reliance on an erroneous definition of the legal terms."

    “The vast majority of material (almost the entirety of the substantive evidence) submitted against Mr. Mohamed consists of statements attributed to him,” and therefore "would qualify as ‘exculpatory’ under Sullivan’s order," he said.

    Stafford Smith says it's apparent that a wealth of material has not yet been turned over.

    “Without going into anything that is classified, the Government has at no point in this case even acknowledged that Mr. Mohamed was rendered by the U.S. to Morocco on July 21, 2002, or that he was held there for 18 months, or that he was abused there," he wrote. "Nor has the government breathed a word about the five months he subsequently spent being abused and tortured in the Dark Prison in Kabul.”

    Stafford Smith said his only interest was to secure justice for his client.

    “Both my interest, and that of my co-counsel in the habeas and the military commissions litigation, is to represent our client in the best traditions of US justice,” he wrote. “It pains me to have to say that the government continues to ignore its own obligations, and is risking sanctions.”

    “Nothing has changed," Stafford Smith told RAW STORY last week. "Unless Robert Gates revises his opinions, his declaration will demonstrate that he has been drawn into the defense not of the nation, but of some of the worst excesses of the current administration, involving ‘extraordinary rendition’ and torture, and shameless attempts to cover up all evidence of wrongdoing.”

    Gates could not be reached for comment.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  4. #154
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    Accused 9/11 plotter Mohammed faces a French trial

    http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...khULgD95GF1JG7

    By PIERRE-ANTOINE SOUCHARD – 4 hours ago

    PARIS (AP) — The self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks goes on trial in absentia in France on Monday for allegedly ordering a deadly Tunisian synagogue bombing less than a year after the assault on New York and Washington.

    The proceedings in Paris are expected to highlight the reach and complexity of al-Qaida-linked networks in North Africa, although they are unlikely to directly affect the fate of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is being held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay.

    Also on trial in France are Christian Ganczarski, a German who converted to Islam, and Walid Naouar, the brother of the suicide bomber who drove a propane-laden truck into an ancient synagogue on the island of Djerba on April 11, 2002, killing 21 people.

    Ganczarski and Walid Naouar are charged with complicity in the murders and complicity in attempted murder in the synagogue attack and face life sentences if convicted in the Paris trial, which is expected to last until Feb. 6.

    French investigators say bomber Nizar Naouar, 24, called Mohammed by satellite telephone in Pakistan and received the order to attack on the day of the bombing.

    The prosecution claims that Nizar Naouar also called Ganczarski, and phone taps by German police show that the suicide bomber sought his blessing for the attack. Nizar Naouar's body was never found.

    Prosecutors also say Ganczarski was in contact with top al-Qaida officials, including Osama bin Laden, during trips to Afghanistan and worked with the network as a computer expert.

    Prosecutors say they suspect that Walid Naouar knew an attack was planned and bought the satellite telephone that was found in his brother's home and used for the calls to Pakistan and Germany.

    The synagogue attack killed 14 German tourists, five Tunisians and two French, prompting French judicial officials to open an investigation.

    A statement published a month after the attack in the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Quds said the attack was carried out by the Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Sites, which had also claimed responsibility for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. U.S. investigators have long linked the Islamic Army to al-Qaida.

    After traveling to Saudi Arabia in late 2002 or early 2003, Ganczarski was expelled to Germany. He was picked up at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and has filed a complaint against the French for what he contends was an illegal arrest.

    Mohammed said last month he will confess to masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks, throwing his death-penalty trial into disarray. Mohammed has admitted to interrogators that he was the mastermind of the attacks — he allegedly proposed the concept to Osama bin Laden as early as 1996, obtained funding for the attacks from bin Laden, oversaw the operation and trained the hijackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was born in Pakistan's Baluchistan province and raised in Kuwait.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  5. #155
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    Judge's Order Could Keep Public From Hearing Details of 9/11 Trials

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...=moreheadlines

    By Peter Finn
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Wednesday, January 7, 2009; Page A02

    The military judge overseeing proceedings against five of the men accused of planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks signed an order designed to protect classified information that is so broad it could prevent public scrutiny of the most important trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to lawyers and human rights groups.

    The protective order, which was signed on Dec. 18 by Judge Stephen R. Henley, an Army colonel, not only protects documents and information that have been classified by intelligence agencies, it also presumptively classifies any information "referring" to a host of agencies, including the CIA, the FBI and the State Department. The order also allows the court in certain circumstances to classify information already in the public domain and presumptively classifies "any statements made by the accused."

    Three of the accused, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, are defending themselves and, under the order, anything they say during the course of the trial could be shielded from the public.

    "These rules turn the presumption of openness on its head, making what is perhaps the most important trial in American history presumptively closed to the public and the press," said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch. "If these rules applied in all cases, there would be no such thing as an open trial in America."

    Late Monday, the judge appeared to have second thoughts about the breadth of the order. In an e-mail to both the prosecution and the defense, he invited counsel to file briefs on whether the protective order expands "the definition of 'classified information' and the scope of protective orders generally beyond that provided for in the [Military Commissions Act] and other applicable legal authority?"

    If so, the judge said, he wants to know what "modifications" should be made to the order.

    Prosecutors defended the wording of the order. It "is standard language used in numerous other counterterrorism, counter-espionage or habeas detainee cases in federal court throughout the past nine years," said Col. Lawrence Morris, chief prosecutor for the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions. "In fact, numerous cases have applied far more restrictive language in their protective orders that we did not implement here."

    Asked if Henley would discuss his order, the Office of Military Commissions said it would be inappropriate for a judge to comment on an ongoing case.

    Military and civilian defense lawyers in the 9/11 case declined to comment. They said they are under military court order not to discuss documents in the case until they have been released by the court. The protective order, which was obtained by The Post, had not been made public.

    The case against the 9/11 defendants has yet to go to trial, and it is unclear if it ever will. President-elect Barack Obama has vowed to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay. But he has not said whether he will also abolish the system of military commissions created by the Bush administration or if he will transfer cases to federal court or military courts-martial in the United States, as some of his supporters have urged.

    The protective order states, in part, that "any document or information including but not limited to any subject referring to the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of State, National Security Council, Federal Bureau of Investigation, or intelligence agencies of any foreign government, or similar entity, or information in the possession of such agency, shall be presumed to fall within the meaning of 'classified national security information or document' unless and until the [senior security adviser] or Prosecution advises otherwise in writing."

    The senior security adviser assists the military court in the handling of classified material.

    Defense attorneys and military and civilian lawyers advising the defendants representing themselves want to challenge any evidence gleaned from coercive interrogations at the hands of the CIA. But the defense is required to notify the prosecution of any intention to disclose "classified information in any manner." Defense lawyers said the order, which carries the threat of criminal penalties if it is violated, hobbles any ability to independently investigate the charges against the accused and their treatment by the government.

    "It's a gag order that gives the U.S. government almost absolute control over the disclosure of information about the detention and interrogation of these defendants," said a lawyer familiar with the document, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "If you look at the order in its strictest language, you better not read even the 9/11 Commission report in a court in Guantanamo."

    The document was signed after the Guantanamo Bay court considered motions from the prosecution and declarations by the director and officers of the CIA.

    CIA Director Michael V. Hayden has acknowledged that Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding, an interrogation technique in which a prisoner is restrained as water is poured over his mouth, causing a drowning sensation.

    But the ability to explore even that admission in open court is uncertain under Henley's order. Attempts to corroborate the known actions of the CIA can be classified under the order.

    Mohammed has already alleged in open court that he was tortured, but such claims by the accused may now be considered classified and off-limits to the public. The Guantanamo court is sealed and the proceedings are heard by those in the public gallery after a time-delay that allows the senior security adviser to cut off the audio feed when information thought to be classified arises.

    Pentagon officials have long insisted that trials at Guantanamo would be transparent as well as fair. Prosecutors said they have to balance the desire to be open with the need to protect national security secrets.

    "It is also important to remember that defense counsel, by virtue of their access to the accused in this case, are uniquely situated to credibly comment, confirm, or deny classified information in a public way that risks further damage to national security," Morris said.

    Daskal, however, said: "These rules seem little more than a thinly disguised attempt to classify evidence simply because it might be embarrassing or unlawful. These five men are known to have been tortured and severely mistreated during their years in CIA custody, including the acknowledged waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The claims of torture should be investigated rather than concealed."
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  6. #156
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    Judge's order may prevent public scrutiny of 9/11 trial

    http://www.gulfnews.com/world/U.S.A/10273276.html

    By Peter Finn, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service
    Published: January 08, 2009, 00:00

    Washington: The military judge overseeing proceedings against five of the men accused of planning the September 11, 2001, attacks signed an order designed to protect classified information that is so broad it could prevent public scrutiny of the most important trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to lawyers and human rights groups.

    The protective order, which was signed on Dec-ember 18 by Judge Stephen Henley, an Army colonel, not only protects documents and information that have been classified by intelligence agencies, it also presumptively classifies any information "referring" to a host of agencies, including the CIA, the FBI and the State Department.

    The order also allows the court in certain circumstances to classify information already in the public domain and presumptively classifies "any statements made by the accused."

    Three of the accused, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, are defending themselves and, under the order, anything they say during the course of the trial could be shielded from the public.

    Second thoughts
    "These rules turn the presumption of openness on its head, making what is perhaps the most important trial in American history presumptively closed to the public and the press," said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch.

    "If these rules applied in all cases, there would be no such thing as an open trial in America."

    The judge appeared to have second thoughts about the breadth of the order. In an email, he invited counsel to file briefs on whether the protective order expands "the definition of 'classified information' and the scope of protective orders generally beyond that provided for in the (Military Commissions Act) and other applicable legal authority?"

    The judge said he wanted to know what "modifications" should be made to the order.

    Prosecutors defended the wording of the order. It "is standard language used in numerous other counterterrorism...cases in federal court throughout the past nine years," said Colonel Lawrence Morris, chief prosecutor for the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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    Military force-feeding 10 percent of Guantanamo detainees

    http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Milita...tamo_0108.html

    John Byrne
    Published: Thursday January 8, 2009

    Ten percent of captives at the US Guantanamo Bay prison -- many of whom have never been charged of a crime -- are having their heads velcroed to chairs and forced to take in nutritional supplements by a tube forcibly inserted through their noses by US guards.

    Twenty-five captives who've starved themselves for weeks are being fed through tubes in their noses, the US military admitted Thursday. Thirty detainees are currently on a hunger strike.

    A lawyer for 17 Yemeni men told a Miami Herald reporter Thursday that the hunger strike was partly in response to the US decision to release Osama Bin Laden's driver Salim Hamdan in November. Hamdan was charged with supporting terrorism and was held just shy of his 66-month sentence; many of those on the hunger strike have never been charged with a crime.

    ''They've actually gone ballistic at the fact that Hamdan, who was convicted of supporting terrorism, was released and they, who have been charged with nothing, continue to languish there,'' Washington lawyer David Remes told Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg.

    The Pentagon considers hunger strikers as detainees who've refused nine meals in a row. Detainees are force fed after fasting for 21 days or weight less than 85 percent of their weight upon arrival at the camp.

    "The forced-feeding regime has guards and medical staff strap a captive into a chair, Velcro his head to a metal restraint, then tether a tube into the man's stomach through his nose to pump in liquid nourishment twice a day," Rosenberg writes.

    "A military commission this summer convicted Hamdan, 40, of supporting terror for working as bin Laden's $200-a-month driver in Afghanistan until his capture in November 2001," she added.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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    Ex-gitmo guard who saw 'torture' calls co-workers 'psychotic'

    http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Exgitm...alls_0110.html

    Jeremy Gantz
    Published: Saturday January 10, 2009

    As the Guantanamo Bay detention center reached its seventh birthday this week, a U.S. veteran said he witnessed cell beatings, forced head shavings and interrogation tactics--including sleep deprivation, floor shackles and loud music--while guarding detainees there.

    "It's torture," Chris Arendt, who worked at Guantanamo when he was 19, told the BBC in this video. "It's a means of extracting information that I didn't even believe these people probably had. It's a means of making their lives more miserable."

    Arendt, who joined the U.S. military when he was 17, testified at the Winter Soldier Hearings in Washington D.C. last March.

    Wearing an Iraq Veterans Against the War sweatshirt, Arendt told the BBC that many people he worked with at the camp thought of their Guantanamo posting as "vacation."

    "...This was the opportunity that they'd always wanted, to be violent and awful people...because they are genuinely pyschotic. And for others, it's just a job," Arendt said.

    For years, the Guantanamo prison has inspired global protests against alleged U.S. human rights violations. President George W. Bush has said he would like to close the camp, but his administration has been unable to find countries willing to accept many Guantanamo detainees. President-elect Barack Obama has said he will close the prison and prosecute many Guantanamo detainees in the United States.

    On Thursday, the U.S. military admitted that 25 Guantanamo detainees -- or 10 percent of the prison's captives -- have starved themselves for weeks and are being fed through tubes in their noses. Human rights groups have called the practice of force-feeding hunger strikers "inhumane and unlawful"

    Thirty detainees are currently on a hunger strike.

    In testimony during the Winter Soldier Hearings last year, Arendt said: "There were methods [in place at Guantanamo] to make certain that we got around to torturing these people."

    The U.S. Department of Defense has said its policy is "to treat detainees humanely."
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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    Former Gitmo prosecutor rips military trials, calling interrogators' practices 'despicable'

    http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Former...e_on_0113.html

    Andy Worthington
    1/12/2009

    In a declaration submitted to a Washington D.C. District Court Tuesday, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, a former prosecutor in the Military Commission trial system, delivered perhaps the most blistering attack on the US military's detention program by a former member of the Pentagon's team to date.

    Speaking of the man he was once tasked to prosecute, Vandeveld said prisoner Mohamed Jawad's continued detention is "something beyond a travesty," and urged that Jawad be released given a "lack of any credible evidence."

    Some of this information was revealed in September 2008, after Vandeveld resigned as a prosecutor, complaining that "potentially exculpatory evidence" had "not been provided" to Jawad's defense team, and that his accidental discovery of information relating to Jawad's abuse helped convert him from a "true believer to someone who felt truly deceived."

    Vandeveld's declaration today constitutes the most sustained criticism of the Bush administration's trial system for terror suspects since Col. Morris Davis, the Commission's former Chief Prosecutor, resigned in 2007. Col. Davis said he'd quit because of the politicization of the trial system, attempts to endorse the use of evidence obtained through torture, and the refusal of Pentagon chief counsel William J. Haynes II to accept that any planned trials could end in acquittals.

    Vandeveld's statement, seen by Raw Story, explained that he joined OMC-P in May 2007, and described how, based on his civilian experience as a Senior Deputy Attorney General in Pennsylvania, he initially thought that Jawad's case "appeared to be as simple as the street crimes I had prosecuted by the dozens in civilian life."

    Jawad, an Afghan national, was accused of throwing a grenade at a jeep containing two US Special Forces soldiers and an Afghan interpreter while the vehicle was stuck in traffic in a marketplace in Kabul in 2002. Vandeveld said he initially thought Jawad was guilty because he'd been arrested "almost immediately" by Afghan police officers and had purportedly "freely confessed" to throwing the grenade. In addition, he'd allegedly explained that he'd "claimed sole responsibility for the attack" and "that he would repeat the attack if given the opportunity."

    According to the interrogation report, US soldiers took Jawad to an operating base, where, after initial denials, he "eventually confessed to his role in the attack, this time on videotape recorded by US personnel."

    But as Lt. Col. Vandeveld began to investigate the evidence in Jawad's case, he was shocked to discover that locating relevant documents was extraordinarily difficult. He said the Commissions' prosecution department was in a "state of disarray" and "lack[ed] any discernable organization." He explained that he did not "expect that potential war crimes would be presented, at least initially, in 'tidy little packages,'" such as those that would be "assembled by civilian police agencies and prosecution offices."

    "The evidence, such as it was," he wrote, "remained scattered throughout an incomprehensible labyrinth of databases... or strewn throughout the prosecution offices."

    As a result, Lt. Col. Vandeveld was unable to locate crucial documents, such as Jawad's videotaped confession. Although he explained that it was "difficult" for him "to accept that the US military could have failed so miserably in six years of effort," he began to doubt "the propriety" of prosecuting Jawad.

    Despite these misgivings, Vandeveld said he clung to a belief that the case could be prosecuted "ethically and successfully" until May 2008, when a succession of discoveries led to his dramatic departure.

    The first took place after a new military defense attorney, Maj. David Frakt, was assigned to Jawad's case. While attempting to gather records for Maj. Frakt following a request for discovery, Lt. Col. Vandeveld obtained a copy of Jawad's Detainee Incident Management System records, which log the prisoners' every move. In the records, he discovered that Jawad had attempted to commit suicide Dec. 25, 2003 "by banging his head repeatedly against one of his cell walls." After notifying Maj. Frakt of this incident, Frakt responded by pointing out that the records also "reflected 112 unexplained moves from cell to cell over a two week period, an average of eight moves per day for 14 days."

    After further investigation, Vandeveld and Frakt ascertained that Jawad had been subjected to a sleep deprivation program known as the "frequent flier program." Vandeveld added that Jawad had mentioned this in a hearing at the start of May, but that he had dismissed his claims as an "exaggeration," and explained, "I lack the words to express the heartsickness I experienced when I came to understand the pointless, purely gratuitous mistreatment of Mr. Jawad by my fellow soldiers." He later discovered that, although the program had supposedly come to end in March 2004, it "was carried out systematically on a large number of detainees at least until 2005," and was regarded as being "part of the standard operating procedure at the time."

    Further disturbing revelations followed. Lt. Col. Vandeveld discovered that media accounts and intelligence reports "indicated that at least three other Afghans had been arrested for the crime and had subsequently confessed, casting considerable doubt on the claim that Mr. Jawad was solely responsible for the attack." He also discovered that Jawad may have been acting "under duress" and "may have been drugged by unscrupulous recruiters."

    Lt. Col. Vandeveld then found that Jawad's statement in Afghan custody, which was presented as his "personal confession," could not have been written by him because he was "functionally illiterate." Moreover, when he obtained a summary of Jawad's subsequent US interrogation -- which "required a ludicrous amount of time" to obtain -- he discovered "material differences" between the statements, "causing me and other prosecutors to wonder whether either could be used to establish the truth."

    Further investigation unearthed more evidence of systematic abuse. Vandeveld found a summary of an interview with Jawad, conducted by an agent from the Army Criminal Investigation Division, in which he learned that Jawad "had experienced extensive abuse" while held at Bagram from December 2002 (when two prisoners died at the hands of US forces) to February 2003, which included being "shoved down a stairwell while both hooded and shackled." The agent, who testified at a hearing in Jawad's case last August, explained that Jawad's statement "was completely consistent with the statements of other prisoners held at Bagram at the time, and, more importantly, that dozens of the guards had admitted to abusing the prisoners in exactly the way described by Jawad."

    Around the same time that he found the Bagram statement, Lt. Col. Vandeveld also received a copy of a report by a Behavioral Science Consultation Team psychologist, who had "prepared an assessment of Mr. Jawad's mental condition." He was disturbed to discover that
    The psychological assessment was not done to assist in identifying and treating any emotional or psychological disturbances Mr. Jawad might have been suffering. It was instead conducted to assist the interrogators in extracting information from Mr. Jawad, even exploiting his mental vulnerabilities to do so. This rank betrayal of a supposed healer's professional obligations towards a detainee struck me as particularly despicable.
    Lt. Col. Vandeveld's final disappointment concerned issues relating to Jawad's age at the time of his capture. Initially, Vandeveld was not particularly troubled by the fact that "[v]irtually all the documentation concerning Mr. Jawad from his first year at Guantanamo list[ed] his age as approximately 17 years," because OMC-P had charged Omar Khadr, who was 15 at the time of his capture, and "there seemed to be little concern about the propriety of charging minors as war criminals."

    However, after hearing Maj. Frakt's "repeated assertions that child soldiers are entitled to be treated differently from adults, and that we are obliged by treaty to provide them with opportunities for rehabilitation and reintegration," Vandeveld explained that he became "deeply bothered by the fact that no such opportunities had been afforded to Mr. Jawad, who, no matter what he was alleged to have done, retained his fundamental rights as a human being."

    As a result, Vandeveld "became convinced that Mr. Jawad should not be prosecuted." Aware that OMC-P would be unwilling to drop the charges and that, in any case, the administration "would continue to hold Mr. Jawad indefinitely as an enemy combatant, no matter the paucity or unreliability of the evidence asserted against him," he attempted to negotiate a plea bargain, whereby Jawad would undergo "a short period of additional custody," which would be "devoted to rehabilitating him and preparing him to reintegrate into civilian society."

    His efforts were, however, were rebuffed. He "asked to be permitted to leave the Commissions" and concluded that because it was impossible to certify that discovery had been made in a case as simple as Jawad's, "no Commissions prosecutor could make such representations accurately and honestly" in any other case, and it was "impossible for anyone involved... in the Commissions to harbor even the remotest hope that justice is an achievable goal."

    Since Vandeveld's depature, Jawad's case has continued to crumble. Air Force Col. Stephen Henley recently threw out the alleged "confessions" made after his capture because they were obtained through torture.

    "I think there's a good chance that Jawad's case will be tossed out and that the District Court will order his release," Vandeveld told Raw Story Tuesday. His sentiments echoed the closing words of his declaration.

    "Six years is long enough for a boy of sixteen to serve in virtual solitary confinement, in a distant land, for reasons he may never fully understand," he wrote. "I respectfully ask this court to find that Mr. Jawad's continued detention is unsupported by any credible evidence... Mr. Jawad should be released to resume his life in civil society, for his sake, and for our own sense of justice and perhaps to restore a measure of our basic humanity."

    Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press).
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  10. #160
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    Gitmo war court back for what may be last session

    http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...gv0HQD95Q2VSG0

    By BEN FOX – 5 hours ago

    GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — Military judges in a Guantanamo war crimes court were pressing forward Monday with hearings against five men accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks and a Canadian accused of killing a U.S. soldier.

    Several days of pretrial motions were scheduled to start a day before the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, who has said he will close the offshore prison at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.

    Lawyers and representatives of human rights groups who have come to observe the hearings believe Obama will suspend the military commission system created by Congress and President Bush in 2006 to prosecute dozens of men held at Guantanamo.

    Many observers doubt the U.S. will go ahead with the Jan. 26 trial of Canadian Omar Khadr, who is accused of killing an American soldier with a grenade during a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002, when the Toronto native was 15.

    "This system is discredited and flawed and should not exist one day more, and certainly the signals that we hear from Washington, from the Obama transition team, are that he will act on it as soon as he is in office," said Jamil Dakwar, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who is in Guantanamo this week to observe the hearings.

    Obama's nominee for attorney general, Eric Holder, in his confirmation hearing echoed a major criticism of the commissions: that they lack sufficient legal protections for those charged. He said the detainees could be tried in the United States.

    Those statements make it unlikely that the commission system will go forward, said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, Khadr's Pentagon-appointed lawyer.

    "It is simply unimaginable to think that these proceedings would continue when you have an administration that is on the record saying that so clearly," Kuebler said. "What's very clear ... is that they want to take a different course of action on Guantanamo."

    The Pentagon's chief war crimes prosecutor, Army Col. Lawrence Morris, said he did not know what the Obama administration would do and had to plan as if the commissions would go forward. Still, prosecutors joined with the defense in asking military judges to postpone this week's hearings until after the inauguration. The judges rejected the request.

    In the Sept. 11 trial, a key issue before the court is whether Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni who is accused of being a key lieutenant to the alleged architect of the plot, is mentally competent to adequately participate in his defense.

    His military-appointed lawyers argue they need more information, including testimony from guards and medical personnel who have interacted with him at Guantanamo, to help them determine if he is mentally fit to stand trial.

    Before the court can delve into that issue, however, the judge will consider whether the Pentagon must charge and arraign the men all over again after it withdrew and refiled charges in about 20 cases. The Pentagon described the refiling as a procedural step required to appoint new military jury panel members.

    That same issue must be addressed in the Khadr hearings, which will include a defense request to suppress statements by the Canadian that his lawyers argue were obtained through torture and coercion. The military says Khadr's statements were not the result of torture but of "conversational and non-coercive interviews."
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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