(20 Nov) More advice for Obama-by Andy Worthington. The notion that prisoners can be "too dangerous to release but not guilty enough to prosecute" is another hallmark of the Bush administration' s disdain for the law, but this, too, has been embraced by enthusiasts for a new policy of "preventive detention." The rationale is, however, also unjustifiable.
http://counterpunch .org/worthington 11202008. html
Prisonors with no evidence against them (and there are many) and children such as Omar Khadr should be released asap. Legit prisonors have the right to a fair trial. Guantanamo and other locations of barbarity should be closed immediately and prisonors processed on US soil.
David, is that Moazzem Begg you are referring too? I beleive is is living in the UK.
This mantra of mine was given to me by an ex-Guantanamo resident who I was speaking to. He is a powerhouse of the campaign in the UK.
In My humble opinion the only fair way of dealing with Bush, Blair and all associated cronies is to give them the justice they have denied to others and then sentence them for thirty years to have to listen to all the stories of of all those they have harmed...played at full volume to prevent them sleeping for long stretches of time...then and only then might they glimpse some of the harm they have caused in this world.
Once we have Guantanamo closed we need to move onto the other illegal concentration camps they have set up round the world...and lets see if we can trace the 20,000 missing and possibly kidnapped 'disappeared' people....and lets for the love of God release detainee 650 and get her treated.
First, I want to see these people the helll out of there and that place closed down for good.
Those who are not returned to their countries of origin should be brought to the US. Anyone afraid of that is an idiot. We should use existing laws and systems to deal with them. Very few of them are, in fact, serious criminals anyway.
In fact, I feel that the US owes these people some form of compensation for holding them in this kind of circumstance with torture, inhumane conditions, no access to counsel, etc., regardless of what they may have done. This is not the way to treat any prisoner.
The US used to be respected around the world. Now we have sunk to the lowest of the lows. We cannot criticise anyone for their treatment of people, because we have become the very thing we used to abhore.
I cannot tell you how much I despise Bush and his minions. I think they should be prosecuted for war crimes, for violating the Constitution.....
A US judge has ruled that five Algerians held in the US prison facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for almost seven years had been illegally detained and must be freed.
Richard Leon, a US district judge in Washington DC, said the US government had "failed to show by burden of proof" that the five men had allegedly planned to go to Afghanistan to fight US-led forces there.
However the judge did find that a sixth Algerian man, seized alongside the other men in Bosnia-Hercegovina in 2001, had been legally detained.
The ruling follows the first hearings under a landmark US supreme court ruling in June - based on a case brought by lawyers for Lakhdar Boumediene, one of the Algerian men - that gave Guantanamo prisoners the legal right to challenge their continued detention.
The June ruling said that inmates in Guantanamo Bay had the right to know under what charges they were being held and what the evidence was against them.
Thursday's decision marks a fresh embarrassment over the camp for the Bush administration and comes after Barack Obama, the US president-elect, pledged to close the prison camp after taking office in January.
The White House said later on Thursday it disagreed with the court's ruling
and that the Justice Department was reviewing the decision on the five
Algerians.
"This ruling does demonstrate the need for Congress to enact
procedures that allow these petitions to be adjudicated in a way that is fair to
the detainee but that allows the government to present its case without
imperiling national security," said Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman.
Controversial cases
The US government had accused all six of the men of planning to travel
to
Afghanistan to join the al-Qaeda network and fight against US-led forces
in the country.
About 250 people are still
believed to be
held at the camp
[GALLO/GETTY]But
their lawyers say there is no evidence the men ever would have ended up ona
battlefield or posed any threat to the US.
Michael Ratner from the Centre for Constitutional Rights, who acted as a legal advisor to the men, told Al Jazeera he was overjoyed by the verdict.
"This is a huge huge decision. Not only for those five men but for how it showed that the US government was off the chart in what it was doing to people."
Ratner said he hoped that the decision would lead to similar rulings in other cases involving Guantanamo detainees.
Judge Leon said the allegation against the men was based on a single source and that he did not have enough information to judge the source's reliability or credibility.
However the judge ruled the government did provide enough evidence that one of the detainees, Belkacem Bensayah, had planned to take up arms against the US in Afghanistan.
Boumediene and the other five men were initially detained by US authorities on suspicion of plotting to bomb the US embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in October 2001, and transferred them to Guantanamo in January 2002.
However the Justice Department has reportedly since dropped the embassy bombing accusations.
Last month, US district judge Ricardo Urbina also ordered the release of 17 Chinese Muslims, members of the Uighur ethnic group, after the government acknowledged they were not enemy combatants.
About 250 prisoners are still being held at the US naval camp in Cuba on suspicion of "terrorism" or links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban. Most were detained during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 after the September 11 attacks in the US.
Most have been held for years without being charged and many have complained of abuse, and the camp remains one of the most controversial aspects of the Bush administration's so-called war on terror.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/11/2008112017273323533.html
Obama to fulfil promise and shut Guantanamo
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
As one of his first acts in the White House, Barack Obama is preparing to move hundreds of detainees from Guantanamo Bay prison to the US where they will be given legal hearings, trials or face yet-to-be-established special terrorist courts.
Mr Obama has a long-standing commitment to shut down Guantanamo, which has become a symbol of injustice for human rights campaigners, and a lightning rod for anti-US criticism since it opened eight years ago. Closing the prison, which is on a part of Cuba leased to the US, will bring to an end one of the most poisonous legacies of the Bush administration while sending a signal that the "war on terror" is under more enlightened management.
During his election campaign, Mr Obama described Guantanamo and the CIA's secret prisons around the world as a "sad chapter in American history". Other aspects of Mr Bush's "war on terror" will also demand Mr Obama's urgent attention such as yesterday's revelation by the New York Times that the US military has, during the past four years, conducted up to a dozen secret raids in Pakistan and other countries not at war with the US. Mr Obama has previously said he would approve such raids against enemies such as Osama bin Laden if there no other option was available.
Mr Obama's plans for Guantanamo inmates should see most detainees, against whom there is little or no evidence, being released to their home countries after years in legal limbo. Others will face prosecution in US criminal courts. One problem for those courts will face is deciding whether evidence from anonymous intelligence sources or obtained without any legal process can be taken into account. Some Guantanamo inmates suffered torture or other abusive treatment at the hands of CIA interrogators either at the prison or after they were picked up in security sweeps in Afghanistan or Pakistan. A few have been through the controversial military commissions process, from which even prosecutors have resigned. The US Supreme Court has several times rebuked the Bush administration for its handling of the detainees.
Kept in isolation in harsh conditions, a number of inmates have become mentally and physically ill. At least four men are believed to have committed suicide inside Guantanamo and others have endured force-feeding after going on hunger strike.
Of the estimated 255 inmates still held at the prison, fewer than 49 are acknowledged to be hardcore suspects and fewer than a dozen are believed to have had a role in attacks or plots against the US.
Mr Obama's legal advisers say the worst cases may be sent before a new court, which will handle the most sensitive national security cases.
His outline plan has the backing of many legal scholars but Republicans will strongly oppose bringing terrorism suspects to the US. Many Democrats oppose the creation of a new court system on US soil that will have fewer rights for suspects than at present.
Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor who is acting as a legal adviser to the Obama team, said at the weekend that "theoretical" plans for Guantanamo would now become more focused because closing the prison is a top priority. But he also predicted that transferring suspected terrorists to US soil will be a cause of controversy.
"I think the answer is going to be, they can be as securely guarded on US soil as anywhere else," Mr Tribe said. "We can't put people in a dungeon forever without processing whether they deserve to be there."
Mr Obama has already indicated that existing civilian and military court-martial systems provide "a framework for dealing with the terrorists" and the incoming administration is expected to consider those before setting up a completely new legal system.
"It would have to be some sort of hybrid that involves military commissions that actually administer justice rather than just serve as kangaroo courts," Mr Tribe said
Lawyers representing clients at Guantanamo Bay such as Marc Falkoff point out that only a dozen or so detainees are know to be avowed terrorists and say that it would be wrong to set up an entirely new legal system to deal with suspects. Mr Falkoff described the proposals from the Obama team as "a solution in search of a problem".
"Most of the detainees are goat herders, or Arabs who volunteered to help the Taliban, but they are not hardcore terrorists. The real problem is getting their home countries to accept them back."
link