Georgetown Security Law Brief

Obama lifts ban on Guantánamo transfers to Yemen

05/24/13:  The Miami Herald reports President Barack Obama is lifting his self-imposed ban on transferring Guantánamo Bay detainees to Yemen, where a leadership upheaval has improved the country's security but not eliminated a terrorist organization trying to recruit jihadists. Lifting the ban is a step toward Obama's goal of closing the Navy-run prison in Cuba since nearly 100 of the 166 terrorist suspects held there are from Yemen and have had nowhere to go even if they had been cleared for transfer. Obama wouldn't send them home and no other country was welcoming them, and their hopelessness after a decade or more of imprisonment had contributed to a hunger strike at the detention facility that helped reignite the long-stalled effort to close it. But Obama's decision is not without risk - detainees who have been released to Yemen in the past have joined terrorist fighters in the Arab nation. The security concerns prompted Obama to suspend transfers to Yemen in January 2010 after a Nigerian man attempted to blow up a US-bound flight on Christmas Day 2009 with explosives hidden in his underwear on instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen.

Commentary: The 4 key points of Barack Obama's counterterrorism speech

05/23/13:  Foreign Policy provides the cliff notes version of today's speech on counterterrorism: On closing Guantanamo: The president will reiterate his call to close the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and take up a number of steps to accelerate this process that were recommended this week. Those include: Designating a location in the United States to conduct military commissions to try Guantanamo detainees, lifting his self-imposed moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen, and appointing a State Department and Pentagon envoy to personally oversee the transfer of detainees to other countries. On court oversight of armed drone strikes: The president will not wholly endorse the establishment of new powers for federal courts to oversee drone strikes, but he will tell the public he supports a dialogue about how to constrain the executive branch's ability in this area. On codifying drone policies: The president is expected to discuss a new policy guidance he signed limiting the use of lethal drone strikes to targets who pose a "continuing, imminent threat to Americans" and cannot otherwise be captured. A drone strike will require "near-certainty" that civilians will not be killed, and the president will convey his preference that the US military carry out drone strikes as opposed to the CIA. The end of the war on terrorism: Finally, the president will say that the so-called War on Terror "will come to an end at one point," after the administration's "focused effort" against al Qaeda and its affiliates is won. A White House official added that the president rejects the notion of a "global war on terror," noting that terrorism is a tactic that can never be completely rid from the world.

 

New database tracks 11,000 global rendition flights

05/23/13:  Phys.Org reports a new University-hosted database has tracked over 11,000 flights by more than 120 aircraft linked by past investigations to renditions. It also contains details of over 50 private companies contracted for or by the CIA in relation to rendition flights. The database is the latest addition to the Rendition Project, an online project designed to analyse the global system of rendition, secret detention and torture initiated by the US. The new database will enable users to search for, and visualise, underlying data contained within the Rendition Project via an interactive map showing rendition flights. Flight data underpinning the database is collated from over 40 separate sources. Launched in May 2012, the Rendition Project is part of wider research to collate and analyse huge amounts of data on the global rendition system. It is led by Dr Ruth Blakeley, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Kent's School of Politics and International Relations, and Dr Sam Raphael, Lecturer in Politics at Kingston University. They work closely with Reprieve, a UK-based legal action charity which has led the way in investigating secret prisons and representing victims of rendition and torture. The Rendition Flights Database, produced in collaboration with The Information Lab, a company specialising in this type of web tool, can be viewed here.

Guantanamo wi-fi shut down after Anonymous threat

05/21/13:  The BBC reports the American military has turned off its wi-fi service inside the prison at Guantanamo Bay following threats by the hacker collective Anonymous. Access to social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, from military computers has also been blocked because of the threat. Anonymous had threatened to "disrupt activities" at the base, in solidarity with the prisoners on hunger strike. It launched "Operation Guantanamo" on Saturday, 18 May. At the end of April, 100 of the 166 Guantanamo Bay inmates were staging a hunger strike over conditions in the jail and their ongoing imprisonment. The Anonymous three-day campaign began on the 100th day of the strike. The group used social media to encourage others to send "twitterstorms, email bombs and fax bombs" in order to raise awareness of the protest. Protests were also staged outside the White House and the prison itself. The phone numbers of the White House and various military command centres were also posted on the Anonymous website. No disruption had been reported so far, Lt Col Samuel House told the Associated Press news agency.

Obama to speak on legality of drone program

05/20/13:  The Washington Times reports President Obama will discuss the legality of his administration’s secret drone program and other counterterrorism practices during a speech Thursday, a White House official said. Mr. Obama’s speech will be an attempt to fulfill his State of the Union pledge to be more “transparent” with the public about the controversial drone program that has become the centerpiece of the White House's efforts to combat terrorism. The official said Mr. Obama would also use Thursday’s address at the National Defense University to discuss efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. The president had vowed to renew those efforts despite being thwarted in his attempts to close the prison during his first term. Civil liberties groups and an unusual coalition of Democratic and Republican lawmakers have criticized the White House for keeping most details of the drone program secret. Particularly concerning for these critics has been the administration’s rare use of drones to kill American citizens overseas. The administration is expected to increase its use of drones and other counterterrorism techniques as the war in Afghanistan winds to a close at the end of 2014 and the vast majority of US troops return home.

Obama renews call to close Guantanamo

05/01/13: The Washington Times reports President Obama Tuesday vowed to redouble his efforts to close the US detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.  “I don’t want these individuals to die,” the President said of detainees currently on a hunger strike.  “Obviously, the Pentagon is trying to manage the situation as best as they can.  All of us should reflect on why exactly are we doing this.  Why are we doing this?”  He decried the US policy of holding the suspects without trial “in a no-man’s land” in perpetuity.  “That is contrary to who we are, it is contrary to our interests, and it needs to stop.”  Congress has blocked efforts to move detainees to the United States, even though the Government has tried and convicted other terrorism suspects on US soil without incident.

Extra medics in Guantanamo Bay for hunger strike

04/30/13:  The BBC reports the US has reinforced medical staff at Guantanamo Bay to try to handle a spreading hunger strike by prisoners at the detention facility. About 40 nurses and other specialists arrived at the weekend, camp spokesman Lt Col Samuel House said. He said that 100 of 166 detainees were now on hunger strike, with 21 of them being force-fed through a tube. The inmates are protesting against their indefinite detention. Most are being held without charge. The hunger strike started at the US facility in Cuba in February and has grown rapidly in recent weeks. Although such actions are frequent at Guantanamo, the current protest is one of the longest and most widespread. Violence erupted at the prison on 13 April as the authorities moved inmates out of communal cellblocks where they had covered surveillance cameras and windows.

UN expert says Bahrain canceled visit in torture Inquiry

04/25/13:  The New York Times reports a United Nations expert who was due to visit Bahrain next month to look into reports that the authorities there have abused and tortured protesters in detention said on Wednesday that the Bahraini government had effectively canceled the trip. Bahrain’s decision “does not enhance transparency with regard to the situation in the country, nor demonstrate a commitment to redress impunity regarding any violations,” said the expert, Juan E. Mendez, in a statement released in Geneva. Mr. Mendez is based there as the United Nations’s special rapporteur on torture. The cancellation follows a week of clashes between the police and opposition demonstrators in Bahrain, mostly in villages outside Manama, the capital. They were timed to coincide with a Formula One auto race in Manama, which attracts international media attention. The race took place on Sunday without incident, but the protests signaled a simmering challenge to the ruling Al Khalifa family. Mr. Mendez had been scheduled to meet a number of key government ministers and officials during a visit that had been discussed since September 2011. An independent commission of inquiry reported late that year that some detainees in Bahrain had been tortured to death and others subjected to physical and psychological abuse to extract confessions or as punishment. The commission and the UN Human Rights Council recommended a number of reforms; Mr. Mendez said in a telephone interview that his visit would have given him an opportunity to see how much the Bahrain government had done to implement them.

Despair drives Guantánamo detainees to revolt

04/25/13:  The New York Times reports in the early afternoon quiet, guards in camouflage fatigues walked the two-tiered cellblocks of Camp Six, where the most cooperative of the 166 terrorism suspects held in the military prison here are housed. From a darkened control room, other guards watched banks of surveillance monitors showing prisoners in white clothing — pacing, sleeping or reading — in their cells. But the relative calm on display to visiting reporters last week was deceiving. Days earlier, guards had raided Camp Six and locked down protesting prisoners who had blocked security cameras, forbidding them to congregate in a communal area. A hunger strike is now in its third month, with 93 prisoners considered to be participating — more than half the inmates and twice the number before the raid. “They are not done yet, and they will not be done until there is more than one death,” said a Muslim adviser to the military, identified as “Zak” for security reasons, who fears there may be suicides. Only one thing, he predicted, will satisfy the detainees: if someone is allowed to leave. The spark for the protest is disputed. Detainees, through their lawyers, say that when guards conducted a search of their cells on Feb. 6, they handled their Korans in a disrespectful way. Prison officials dispute that. But both military officials and lawyers for the detainees agree about the underlying cause of the turmoil: a growing sense among many prisoners, some of whom have been held without trial for more than 11 years, that they will never go home.

Military says hunger strike by detainees is growing

04/20/13:  The New York Times reports the number of detainees at the wartime prison here deemed to be on a hunger strike by the military spiked again on Friday, to 63. Defense lawyers contend that an overwhelming majority of the 166 prisoners have been participating in the protest. Still, the official count of 63 was an increase from 52 on Wednesday. On April 12, the eve of a briefly violent predawn raid by guards who forced prisoners living in communal cellblocks into lockdown in individual cells, there were 43 participating. Military officials told reporters this week that the detainees who had been living in the communal cellblocks, who previously had complied with rules, had been increasingly unruly amid the hunger strike. They had covered surveillance cameras and refused to go into their cells for daily lockdowns that enabled guards to enter the recreation yards and common space. A Muslim cultural adviser to the military who has worked here since 2005, identified only as “Zak” for security reasons, told reporters on Thursday that the military had given the prisoners time to start complying with the rules again, but the prisoners refused. The timing of the raid, he said, was chosen because officials feared it was possible that a detainee would die.

Guards, prisoners clash at Guantanamo; no "serious injuries"

04/15/13: The Hill reports prison guards at Guantanamo Bay clashed with detained terrorist suspects on Saturday, leading to shots being fired.  The commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo ordered the transfer of detainees from “communal to single-cell living” at Camp 6 “to ensure the health and security of those detainees,” according to a statement.  The transfer was ordered after detainees covered surveillance cameras, windows and glass partitions, restricting the guards’ ability to observe them.  Some detainees, however, resisted the move, and guards fired shots.  The military’s statement said there were no “serious injuries” to guards or detainees.

Pentagon accused of data breach in Gitmo ship case

04/11/13:  The Miami Herald reports the lawyer for a man accused in an attack on a US warship said Wednesday that a Pentagon computer server failure resulted in the loss of a large cache of documents used by military tribunal defense lawyers. Richard Kammen, a member of the team representing an alleged senior al-Qaida figure facing a war crimes tribunal at the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, also said officials mishandled more than 500,000 defense lawyer emails and appear to be monitoring their Internet searches as they prepare their cases. Kammen, an Indianapolis defense lawyer appointed to defend Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, has urged a military judge to cancel a hearing at Guantanamo next week because of the alleged breaches of attorney-client privilege and the server failure. The motion remains under seal until authorities review it for potential classified information. The lawyer said in an interview that the court needs to establish the extent of any breach of the attorney-client privilege. This is not the first time that tribunal defense teams have alleged improper monitoring. In February, proceedings in the case of five men charged in the Sept. 11 attacks were thrown into disarray after lawyers discovered microphones apparently disguised to look like smoke detectors in the rooms where they meet their clients. The military said it would disconnect the devices but said they had not been used to eavesdrop or record meetings between prisoners and their lawyers. Kammen said he was uncertain when the server failure occurred, but said it involved about 7 gigabytes of data, or many thousands of pages of documents. He said information pertaining to his case and others was recovered but defense teams still need time to review files to make sure nothing was lost or changed. The emails were turned over to prosecutors by mistake after the Court of Military Commissions Review asked for certain prosecution emails and hundreds of thousands from the defense were turned over as well, Kammen said. The defense cannot prepare their case if they suspect their work is being monitored by the prosecution, he added.

Italy Abu Omar rendition: Col Romano pardoned in CIA case

04/06/13:  The BBC reports Italian President Giorgio Napolitano has pardoned a US Air Force colonel convicted in absentia over the rendition of an Egyptian imam in 2003. Joseph Romano was one of 23 Americans tried and sentenced by Italian courts over the CIA-led operation to abduct a cleric known as Abu Omar. The Egyptian said he was flown to his home country and tortured there. Mr Napolitano's office cited what it said were changes to US security policy undertaken by President Barack Obama. It said Mr Obama had "immediately after his election, put an end to an approach to the challenges to national security... considered by Italy and the European Union not compatible with fundamental principles of rule of law". It added that the Italian president "hoped to provide a solution to an affair considered by the United States to be without precedent because of the conviction of a US military officer of Nato for deeds committed on Italian soil". The statement said the decision to pardon Col Romano was inspired by the same principle that Italy hoped to see used in the case of two Italian marines facing murder charges in India over the shooting of two fishermen.

Officer tied to tapes’ destruction moves up CIA ladder

03/28/13:  The New York Times reports a CIA officer directly involved in the 2005 decision to destroy interrogation videotapes and who once ran one of the agency’s secret prisons has ascended to the top position within the CIA’s clandestine service, according to current and former intelligence officials. The officer, who has been serving in the position in an acting role for several weeks since the retirement of her direct boss, is one of a small group of candidates being considered to take over the job permanently. The decision about whether to keep the officer in the job presents a dilemma for the new CIA director, who said that he was opposed to the brutal interrogation methods used by the spy agency in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks. The promotion of the officer, who spent years working inside the agency’s Counterterrorist Center and once was in charge of a so-called black site, played a role in developing the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, was first reported by The Washington Post. Because the officer remains undercover, The New York Times is not disclosing her identity. The officer served as the CIA station chief in London and New York, and the branch of the agency she now leads, the National Clandestine Service, is responsible for all CIA espionage operations and covert action programs. The head of the clandestine service is one of the most coveted jobs in the CIA, and has never before been run by a woman. The destruction of dozens of CIA interrogation tapes, documenting the interrogations of Qaeda operatives Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in a secret CIA detention facility in Thailand, was one of the most controversial episodes of the past decade. The Justice Department undertook an investigation into the matter after the destruction of the tapes was disclosed in late 2007, but no CIA officers were criminally charged.

As Red Cross arrives in Guantanamo, hunger strike grows

03/28/13:  NPR reports the number of detainees on hunger strike at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has grown and Red Cross has moved up a visit to the prison to assess the situation. The Miami Herald's Carol Rosenberg, who covers Guantanamo for the paper permanently, reports the government now says 31 out of 166 captives "meet the minimum criteria to be considered hunger strikers."  Eleven of them were being fed nutritional supplements mostly fed through tubes snaked up a captive's nose and into his stomach. According to Warner, the hunger strike began in February when guards allegedly began to search the prisoners' personal belongings including their Qurans. But the hunger strike is also fueled by what prisoners see as an intractable situation.

US cedes prison to Afghanistan

03/26/13:  The New York Times reports within hours of the American military’s formally transferring all but a “small number” of the Afghan prisoners at the Bagram Prison to the Afghan government, President Hamid Karzai held a friendly news conference with Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday that stood in stark contrast to his recent acrimonious tone toward the United States. The apparent rapprochement, which the Americans worked hard to achieve, was a product in part of policy turnarounds on detention and on the deployment of Special Operations forces in a crucial province. Bagram Prison was the most flagrant symbol of Mr. Karzai’s lack of control. Americans detained several thousand Afghans there, and Mr. Karzai had no power to release them. His effort to wrest the prison from the Americans began in earnest more than year ago, and nearly succeeded at least twice, most recently two weeks ago, a day before Mr. Hagel’s first visit. Each time, American military commanders backed out because of worries that the Afghans might release Taliban prisoners, who would return to the battlefield and endanger American soldiers. This time, despite those concerns, the transfer went forward. The Bagram commander, Gen. Ghulam Farouk Barakzai, said Monday that the Americans had given the Afghans control of a total of 4,000 prisoners in the last year since the transfer began but that a small number still remained in American custody. He would not say how many were being held by the Americans, or for how long.

 

US hands over Bagram prison in Afghanistan

03/25/13: The Washington Times reports the United States has ceded control of its last prison in Afghanistan, the informally dubbed Bagram facility, bringing an end to two years of strained relations and disputes over which country controls prisoners.  The facility, which was initially located on the NATO-controlled Bagram air base, about twenty-five miles outside Kabul, was rebuilt a few miles away and renamed as the Afghan National Detention Facility at Parwan.  US authorities agreed to the transfer a year ago. But the sticking point was the fate of the facility’s most dangerous detainees.  US military forces stayed on to guard about fifty of the prison’s most dangerous inmates.  Afghan President Hamid Karzai and US officials talked over the weekend and struck a final agreement on the prisoners’ transfers.

General tells Congress that Guantánamo needs $170 million for repairs

03/21/13:  The Miami Herald reports as much as $170 million is needed to improve facilities for the troops stationed at the Guantánamo Bay detention center that President Barack Obama has marked for extinction, the top commander of U.S. Southern Command said Wednesday. Gen. John Kelly told the House Armed Services Committee that upgrades to buildings including barracks and the dining hall for the American personnel assigned to the joint task force at the U.S. base in Cuba are badly needed. He described the living conditions at Guantánamo as not quite squalor but “pretty questionable.” “We need to take care of our troops,” Kelly said. Kelly also said, though, that the detainees are living in humane conditions. He attributed a hunger strike that has grown to 25 detainees to frustration among prisoners over the failure to close Guantánamo. The hunger strike has become the largest and most sustained protest there in several years. Obama had pledged to shutter the prison soon after taking office, but Congress opposed, passing a law that prohibits the government from transferring Guantánamo prisoners to U.S. soil and requiring security guarantees before they can be sent elsewhere in the world.

DC Circuit seeks reply on Government's petition for rehearing in war crimes case

03/11/13: SCOTUSBlog reports the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday afternoon asked lawyers for a foreign national convicted of war crimes at Guantánamo Bay to answer the Obama Administration’s plea for a new look by that court at the powers of the military commissions to try terrorist suspects.  The order does not assure that the court will pursue that issue further, but at least it raises the prospect that it could, as a prelude to a likely Supreme Court appeal.  On Tuesday, the Administration asked for en banc review the validity of the convictions of Yemeni national Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al Bahlul.  At the center of the controversy is a ruling by the court last October in a different case that military commissions cannot try offenses that took place before they were designated as war crimes by the Military Commissions Act of 2006.  The DC Circuit held the Act didn’t reach such offenses, concluding that otherwise a serious issue would arise under the Constitution’s Ex Post Facto Clause.  The government counters the offenses previously existed and were simply codified by Congress, and has asked the DC Circuit en banc to revisit its previous ruling.  In 2006, four members of the Supreme Court held in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the crime at issue - conspiracy - was not an internationally accepted war crime, but there was no majority holding on the issue.

Republicans blast New York trial for al-Qaeda spokesman

03/10/13: The Hill reports the Obama Administration’s decision to try former al-Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a relative of Osama bin Laden, in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York has sparked criticism from Republicans, who say he should be held at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp and tried by a military tribunal, not an Article III court.  “Gitmo, a naval vessel, Guam, anywhere other than New York, and anything other than a civilian trial,” said Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.).  Gowdy said a military tribunal would offer distinct advantages over a civilian jury trial, namely that military courts are made up of military officers and don’t require unanimous jury verdicts for conviction, although trials of terrorists have had much more success in regular federal courts than military ones.

US cancels transfer of Bagram prison to Afghans

03/09/13:  New York Times reports a ceremony in which the American military had planned to hand over full control of the Bagram Prison to Afghanistan was canceled Saturday, throwing into doubt an agreement between the two countries on custody of the remaining Afghan prisoners still being held by American forces. The cancellation was likely to be an embarrassment to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, and comes at an awkward time, when the new secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, is on his first visit to the country. There was no official word on why the transfer was canceled, but American officials were known to be upset with Mr. Karzai over remarks he made in a speech on Wednesday in which he criticized the Americans’ slowness on the detention issue and promised to release many of the prisoners as soon as the transfer was complete. The two countries agreed a year ago to transfer all prisoners detained on the battlefield from American to Afghan custody, and Mr. Karzai has made it a cornerstone of his efforts to demonstrate that his government is regaining full sovereignty. But disputes emerged over how the Afghans would handle the prisoners, many of them dangerous insurgents detained during raids by Special Operations units.

Pentagon probing Iraq torture allegations

03/09/13:  The Washington Times reports the Pentagon is investigating allegations linking the US military to human rights abuses in Iraq by interior ministry police units who operated a network of detention and torture centers during the US-led occupation. Earlier this week, the British Guardian newspaper and the BBC’s Arabic language news channel alleged that the United States sent a veteran of controversial U.S. counter-insurgency efforts in Central America during the 1980s to oversee Iraqi police units involved in some of the worst acts of sectarian violence and torture during Iraq's bloody insurgency. The two news organizations report US and Iraqi witnesses implicating US advisers for the first time in these human rights abuses. “As you know the issue surrounding accusation of abuse and torture of Iraqi detainees is a complex one that is full of history and emotion. It will take time to work [out] a thorough response,” Col. Wesley said.

Bin Laden spokesman due in NY court on plot charge

03/08/13:  The Miami Herald reports a senior al-Qaida leader and son-in-law of Osama bin Laden is due in court to face a charge he plotted against Americans in his role as the terror network's top propagandist who lauded the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and warned there would be more. Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, who was born in Kuwait and was a member of bin Laden's inner circle, was captured in Jordan over the past week, authorities said. Abu Ghaith was to appear Friday morning in federal court in Manhattan to enter a plea to one count of conspiracy to kill Americans. There was no immediate response to phone and email messages left with his attorney. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the capture of the international fugitive on Thursday, saying "no amount of distance or time will weaken our resolve to bring America's enemies to justice." The case marks a legal victory for President Barack Obama's administration, which has long sought to charge senior al-Qaida suspects in American federal courts instead of military tribunals at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But it runs counter to demands by Republicans in Congress who do not want high-threat terror suspects brought into the United States. The Department of Justice said Abu Ghaith was the spokesman for al-Qaida, working alongside bin Laden and current leader Ayman al-Zawahri, since at least May 2001. Abu Ghaith is a former mosque preacher and teacher.

 

UN investigator urges US investigation, accountability for Bush-era human rights abuses

03/04/13: Reuters reports a United Nations investigator called on the United States on Monday to publish its findings on the CIA’s program of rendition and secret detention of terrorism suspects during the Bush Administration.  Ben Emmerson voiced concern that while President Obama has rejected practices conducted under his predecessor, there have been no prosecutions.  “Despite this clear repudiation of the unlawful actions carried out by the Bush-era CIA, many of the facts remain classified, and no public official has so far been brought to justice in the United States,” Emmerson said in a report to the UN Human Rights Council, which he will address on Tuesday.  Emmerson has served since August 2011 in the independent post set up by the Council in 2005 to probe human rights violations committed in counterterrorism operations worldwide.

Libyan man offers to settle UK rendition case

03/04/13: BBC News reports a Libyan man suing the British government for its alleged role in his 2004 rendition to Libya has offered to settle the case.  Abdul Hakim Belhaj is also suing former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and a retired MI6 officer.  Belhaj says he wants an apology, an admission of guilt, and nominal damages of one pound ($1.50) from each.  The British government has said it is cooperating with investigations into UK involvement in ex-Libyan detainees’ mistreatment.  Belhaj, who began legal action last year, says he and his wife were detained by US intelligence officers at Bangkok Airport in March 2004.  He was allegedly tortured for several days while his wife Fatima Bouchar, who was five months pregnant, was chained to a wall at a secret prison at the airport.

Palestinians dispute Israeli finding on prisoner's death, protests erupt

02/25/13: The New York Times reports Israel’s Health Ministry said Sunday night that preliminary autopsy findings could not determine the cause of death of 30-year-old Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat, which Israeli officials had at first attributed to a heart attack.  But Palestinian officials said the lack of heart damage coupled with bruising on the man’s chest, back, and neck suggested that he was tortured during interrogation.  “The signs that appeared during the autopsy show clearly that he was subjected to severe torture that led immediately to his death,” said Issa Qaraka, the Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs, at a news conference in Ramallah.  The 4,500 Palestinians in Israeli jails refused meals on Sunday to protest Jaradat’s death, and hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated in several cities and villages in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Judge grants access to secret Guantanamo camp

02/21/13:  NPR reports the judge presiding over the Sept. 11 war crimes tribunal is allowing defense lawyers their first chance to see the secret section of the Guantanamo Bay prison where the accused are held. Army Col. James Pohl granted the defense teams less access to Camp 7 than requested. Lawyers for the five prisoners facing a military tribunal for their roles in the Sept. 11 attacks wanted to spend 48 hours inside the camp. They also wanted multiple visits. Pohl ruled that three members of each team can visit once, for no more than 12 continuous hours. He barred them from interviewing guards. Attorney James Connell called Wednesday's ruling a good start. Camp 7 is so shrouded in secrecy that even its location on the U.S. base in Cuba is classified.

HRW: Mexico security forces colluded in disappearances

02/21/13:  The BBC reports the pressure group Human Rights Watch says Mexico has failed to properly investigate human rights abuses committed by the security forces. The group has documented almost 250 disappearances during the term of former President Felipe Calderon. It says evidence suggests that in more than half of the cases the security forces participated either directly or indirectly in the disappearances. HRW has called on the new government to find the missing. HRW says "state agents participated directly in the crime [of disappearances], or indirectly through support and acquiescence" in more than 140 of the cases they investigated.  In the remaining cases, their researchers were not able to determine whether state actors may have participated. An estimated 70,000 people are believed to have been killed in Mexico since December 2006, when Mr Calderon came to power and declared war on the country's powerful drug cartels. Mr Calderon deployed the army in an attempt to curb the violence, but human rights groups say the levels of human rights abuses against civilians has risen as a result.

Quetta anti-Shia bombing: Pakistan police detain '170'

02/19/13:  The BBC reports Pakistani police say they have arrested 170 suspects after a bomb attack on Saturday which targeted a Shia Muslim area in the western city of Quetta. Security sources said police killed four people, including a bomb-maker accused of anti-Shia attacks. Saturday's bomb ripped through a busy market district, killing almost 90 people and injuring some 169 more. Relatives of the dead are refusing to bury the bodies in protest at what they say is a lack of official action. The authorities have previously been accused of turning a blind eye to the killing of members of the Shia minority.  Now both the security forces and the political leadership appear to be cracking down. But some wonder if there will be sustained action against hard-line Sunni militant groups which were supported by Pakistan's intelligence agencies in the past, our correspondent reports.

 

Polish prosecutors to drop charges in CIA jail inquiry-report

02/19/13:  Reuters reports Polish prosecutors have decided to drop charges against the country's former intelligence chief made during an investigation into allegations the CIA was allowed to run a secret prison in Poland for al Qaeda suspects, a newspaper said on Tuesday.  Despite reports by the European Parliament and the Council of Europe stating Poland hosted a CIA detention centre, Polish officials have repeatedly denied there was ever any such base on their soil.  The government called for an investigation into allegations the country was involved in a CIA operation a decade ago to transport suspected al Qaeda members to foreign facilities where they could be interrogated without the safeguards set out under U.S. law.

Afghan tribal leader is kill on US-led base

02/16/13:  The New York Times reports American Special Operations Forces stopped a tribal leader as he was driving with his brother and 6-year-old son in an area rife with Taliban in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday. A quick examination of his identity documents confirmed that he was a wanted man.  The troops took the man, Mirza M. Khan, and his brother to a nearby base for questioning. According to both the brother and a district official who heard the Special Forces’ account of the episode, the two men were let go — but Mr. Khan was fatally shot as he returned to his car.  A spokesman for the American-led coalition, e-mailed a statement to The New York Times on Friday saying that the episode was under investigation.

 

Guantanamo Bay official reveals hidden microphone in meeting room

02/13/13: The Miami Herald reports a senior official for the Guantánamo Bay prison admitted Tuesday that the Government had placed a hidden microphone inside a meeting room but that he was assured it was not used to monitor the private conversations that prisoners have with their lawyers.  Navy Captain Thomas Welsh, the senior legal adviser to Guantánamo’s commander, conceded the microphone appeared to be intended to resemble a smoke detector in the ceiling of a meeting room for men labeled “high-value"” detainees by the Pentagon and held in a special top security camp.  “I agree with your point that it was not recognizable, it was not readily identifiable,” Welsh said on cross-examination by a detainee’s lawyer.  The admission came during a pretrial hearing.

Former Italy intelligence chief jailed in rendition case

02/12/13:  Reuters reports a court jailed Italy's former military intelligence chief for 10 years on Tuesday for the kidnapping of an Egyptian Muslim cleric in an operation organized by the United States. An American former CIA station chief was earlier this month given a seven-year jail sentence after imam Abu Omar was snatched from a Milan street in 2003 and flown to Egypt for interrogation during the U.S. "war on terror". Milan appeals court judges sentenced Niccolo Pollari, former head of the Sismi military intelligence agency, to 10 years and jailed his former deputy Marco Mancini for nine years.  Former Rome CIA station chief Jeffrey Castelli and two other American officials were convicted in their absence and are unlikely to serve their sentences.

9/11 suspects' lawyers fear government eavesdropping at Guantanamo

02/11/13: The Miami Herald reports lawyers for the five Guantánamo Bay prisoners charged in the September 11 attacks want to know if government officials have been eavesdropping on their private conversations with the defendants.  The evidence for any such listening, the subject of a hearing scheduled to start Monday, is circumstantial.  At a hearing January 28, the sound system in the Guantánamo courtroom was suddenly cut.  The judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, later revealed that a government official following the proceedings from outside the courtroom intervened to prevent the potential release of classified information.  Pohl later said the information was not classified; he ordered the government to disconnect any equipment that could unilaterally cut the sound and released a transcript of the censored remarks.  But the incident has made defense counsel concerned about possible monitoring.

US simulates mass-migration scenario at Guantanamo

02/11/13: The Miami Herald reports soldiers, sailors and Homeland Security officials came to Guantánamo Bay this weekend to simulate a humanitarian-relief crisis inspired by the tens of thousands of Haitians and Cubans who overwhelmed the base in the 1990’s.  The exact nature of the scenario is classified, and only Pentagon-approved photos of the exercise will be released.  That’s because nobody wants news about it to touch off a real, live Caribbean exodus.  The intent, say organizers, is not to encourage anyone in the Caribbean to get on rafts to reach this Navy base in southeast Cuba, but to be ready in case it happens.  One thing they’ll rehearse is registering 1,000 migrants in a single day, and if history is any guide, the actors should cram inside the processing tent, desperate, undocumented and disorganized.

Pakistan Supreme Court again considers military’s secret detentions

02/08/13:  The Miami Herald reports a year ago, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered the country’s military to produce seven men who’d been held in a secret prison after the civilian terrorism charges against them had collapsed.  Poor investigations by intelligence agencies and police and low rates of convictions by the courts have prompted the military to take justice into its own hands. That’s resulted in the abduction of suspected extremists by intelligence agents, extrajudicial killings, and the trampling of due process.  On Monday, the Supreme Court again takes up the case, which originally involved 11 men who’d disappeared around late 2007 into the hands of military intelligence agents. Four, however, died in custody in unexplained circumstances. The remaining seven men are being held in “internment centers” that were established under a sweeping law passed in 2011.  In a court hearing last month, the authorities admitted holding 700 suspected militants in those centers. Human rights activists believe the actual figure is much higher.

Court urged to reverse ruling on terror

02/07/13:  The New York Times reports the Obama administration on Wednesday urged a federal appeals court to overturn a sweeping ruling by a district judge that blocked the government from enforcing a statute related to the indefinite detention without trial of terrorism suspects.  Appearing before a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, Robert M. Loeb, a Justice Department lawyer, said a lawsuit challenging the statute should be dismissed because those who brought it — including a former reporter for The New York Times, Christopher Hedges, who interacts with terrorist groups for his reporting, and several supporters of the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks — had no real-world risk of being detained.  The provision authorizes the detention of people who are part of or “substantially supported” Al Qaeda or “associated forces.” When Congress enacted it, lawmakers said the statute merely reaffirmed, and did not expand, the existing detention powers granted a decade earlier in the authorization to use military force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Report: CIA renditions aided by over 50 countries

02/06/13: CNN reports a human rights watchdog group claims as many as fifty-four countries participated in the overseas detention and rendition programs overseen by the CIA in the years following the September 11 attacks.  The Open Society Justice Initiative’s report says 136 people were subjected to the process of rendition – the transfer of a terror suspect by the United States to a third country for interrogation – or held in so-called “black site” prisons in third countries run by the CIA.  The CIA secretly held detainees in Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Romania, and Thailand in addition to Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.  The findings were derived from public sources, including documents from US and foreign governments, inquiries from the European Parliament and Council of Europe, findings from human rights investigations and news reports.

Report says 54 countries helped facilitate CIA rendition program

02/05/13:  The New York Times reports some 54 countries helped facilitate the CIA’s secret detention, rendition and interrogation program in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a new human rights report that documents broad international involvement in the American campaign against Al Qaeda.  The report, to be made public Tuesday by the Open Society Justice Initiative, a rights advocacy group, is the most detailed external account of other countries’ assistance to the United States, including things like permitting the CIA to run secret interrogation prisons on their soil and allowing the agency to use their airports for refueling while moving prisoners around the world.  The report identifies 136 people who had been held or transferred by the CIA, the largest list compiled to date, and describes what is known about when and where they were held. It adds new detail to what is known about the handling of both dedicated Qaeda operatives and innocent people caught up by accident in the global machinery of counterterrorism.

Panetta: US could have gotten bin Laden without torture

02/04/13: Reuters reports Leon Panetta, who as CIA director oversaw the US operation that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, said Sunday the job could have been done without resorting to torture.  The outgoing Defense Secretary said there had been many pieces to the “puzzle” solved to find bin Laden, who was responsible for the September 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.  “Yes, some of it came from some of the tactics that were used at that time – interrogation tactics that were used,” said Panetta, who headed the CIA from 2009 until he became Defense Secretary on July 1, 2011.  “I think we could have gotten Bin Laden without that.”  Panetta did not elaborate on how this might have been done, but said most of the intelligence had been obtained without “enhanced interrogation.”

Guantanamo defense lawyers request 48-hour visits

01/30/13: The New York Times reports defense lawyers for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others accused of involvement in the September 11 attacks asked a military judge in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Tuesday to let them stay in prison with their clients for 48-hour periods every six months.  Military said the defense should be allowed only a single two-hour visit.  The requested visit was one of several issues raised at a pretrial hearing that focused on information that could become a central focus if the defendants are eventually convicted and face the possibility of a death sentence.  Defense lawyers urged the judge overseeing the case, Army Colonel James Pohl, to allow them to document their clients’ lives and behavior in custody.  Such information could help them develop mitigating arguments against execution.

Analysis: Who decides the laws of war?

01/27/13: The New York Times today features this piece by Charlie Savage discussing Brigadier General Mark S. Martins, the chief prosecutor of the military commissions system who is leading the case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantánamo Bay detainees accused of aiding the September 11 attacks.  General Martins is currently involved in a dispute with the Justice Department as to whether to defend a past conviction by those tribunals on a charge of conspiracy after that charge was invalidated by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a separate case.  The dispute involves the thorny question, which has vexed national security law going back to the decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld in 2006, as to whether conspiracy to commit a war crime is a standalone offense under the laws of war.  On the other hand, Benjamin Wittes at Lawfare argues the dispute between General Martins and DOJ has less to do with substantive questions about the laws of war and as more about tactical legal positions.  Both pieces are worth a read.

Former CIA agent Kiriakou get 30 months for name leak

01/25/13:  The BBC reports a former CIA agent who leaked a covert officer's name to the media has been sentenced to 30 months in prison.  John Kiriakou, 48, pleaded guilty in 2012 to violating an intelligence law. No-one had been convicted under the statute in 27 years.  He admitted passing on the name of a former officer who was part of the interrogation of detainees, including alleged waterboarding.  Defence lawyers argued that Kiriakou was a whistleblower.  US District Judge Leonie Brinkema rejected that argument, and said she would have given him a longer sentence if she could.  A plea deal required the former agent be sentenced to 30 months.

Pakistan holding 700 suspected militants without charge - Attorney General

01/24/13:  The International Herald Tribune reports Attorney General Irfan Qadir on Thursday disclosed for the first time that security agencies are holding at least 700 people indefinitely without trial in connection with the “war on terror”.  Qadir told the Supreme Court the suspects were arrested in the semi-autonomous northwestern tribal belt, where the army has been fighting militants for around a decade.  He said none of the suspects could be freed until the end of operations in the tribal belt, and declined to say how long they had been in custody.  “There are about 700 people detained in the tribal areas and they cannot be released until the ongoing military operation in those regions concludes,” Qadir told the court.  “The detained men can be handed over to authorities only after the operation is halted in the tribal regions.”  The Supreme Court is investigating the fate of seven Adiala prison inmates who have been held without trial since 2007 even though a judge ordered their release in May 2010.

UN report: Torture in Afghan prisons is 'widespread'

01/22/13:  The BBC reports the United Nations says torture in Afghan prisons continues to be widespread despite its recommendations in a similar report in 2011.  More than half of the 635 detainees interviewed by UN investigators said they had been ill-treated or tortured.  The Afghan government says the claims are exaggerated, the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says.  Nato's force in Afghanistan, ISAF, has suspended the transfer of detainees to facilities named in the report.  The report, by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama), focused on detainees in facilities run by both national and local police forces and the intelligence services, the NDS, between October 2011 and October 2012.

Pakistan to release all Afghan Taliban detainees: minister

01/18/13:  Reuters reports Pakistan plans to release all Afghan Taliban prisoners still in its detention, including the group's former second-in-command, an official said on Friday, the clearest signal yet that it backs reconciliation efforts.  "The remaining detainees, we are coordinating, and they will be released subsequently," Jalil Jilani, Pakistan's foreign secretary, said at a news conference in Abu Dhabi. Asked if the former Taliban number 2 Mullah Baradar would be among those to be released, he said: "The aim is to release all," without elaborating further.

US military stops sending detainees to some Afghan prisons on rights fears

01/17/13:  The New York Times reports the American military has suspended the transfer of detainees to some Afghan prisons out of concern over continuing human rights abuses and torture, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said Wednesday in response to questions about the subject.  In addition, the American-led coalition said that it had asked the Afghan government to investigate allegations of torture by Afghan Local Police units that have been trained and advised by American Special Operations forces.  The moves were a setback on detention issues that have created tension between the countries, and on years of international efforts to promote humane treatment of prisoners. And under American law, the torture allegations could also set off significant financial aid cutoffs to parts of the Afghan security forces, which play a crucial role in plans for an American withdrawal that are based on handing over responsibility for security to the Afghans as early as this spring.

US to give spy drones to Afghans, Karzai says

01/15/13:  The New York Times reports President Hamid Karzai announced Monday that the United States would give Afghanistan its own fleet of aerial surveillance drones and would speed up the handover of detainees held by American forces. It was his first public comments since returning from a visit to Washington.  Mr. Karzai said repeatedly that the meetings in Washington had yielded nearly everything his country hoped for, including the promised end to raids conducted by foreign forces in Afghan homes and villages. He and President Obama held a joint news conference on Friday announcing an accelerated turnover of security responsibility to Afghan forces next year, the end of foreign raids by spring and the handover of detainees still under American control.  That last issue in particular has been a sore point after the continued American detention of some suspected insurgents despite an agreement that the Afghan authorities would take full control of detention.

US-born Taliban fighter wins prison prayer lawsuit

01/12/13:  The Washington Times reports an American convicted of fighting alongside the Taliban must be allowed to pray daily in a group with other Muslim inmates at his high-security prison in Indiana, a federal judge ruled Friday.  Barring John Walker Lindh and his fellow Muslims from engaging in daily group ritual prayer violates a 1993 law that bans the government from curtailing religious speech without showing a compelling interest, U.S. District Judge Magnus-Stinson ruled.  The judge blocked the prison from enforcing its ban on daily group prayer, but she noted that her ruling does not prohibit the prison from taking less restrictive security measures.

Commentary: Don’t Close Guantánamo

01/11/13:  The New York Times published an article by Jennifer Daskal arguing that we should keep Guantánamo open.  Guantánamo in 2013 is a far cry from Guantánamo in 2002. Thanks to the spotlight placed on the facility by human rights groups, international observers and detainees’ lawyers, there has been a significant, if not uniform, improvement in conditions.  The political reality is that closure of Guantánamo is unlikely to happen anytime soon, and if it did, it would do more harm than good. We should instead focus on finding places to transfer those cleared to leave the facility and, more important, on defining the end to the war.