Guantanamo Bay News Archives

A U.S. military judge has rejected a bid by defence lawyers to dismiss charges against Canadian Omar Khadr because he was only 15 years old at the time of his alleged offences. via CTV.ca

Statements from Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, during a 40-minute exchange with the military judge presiding over his war-crimes tribunal at Guantanamo Bay. The Yemeni detainee spoke through an Arabic interpreter.

_'The Constitution in America is clear. The international law is clear. If you ask me what is the color of this paper, I will tell you the color is white. You say now it is black. I say white, you say black. I say fine, it's black. Then you say fine, it's white. This is the American government.' Read more

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Using his own statements to interrogators to try Osama bin Laden's driver would make a mockery of the protection against self-incrimination that the U.S. war ... via Reuters

The former chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals says convicted Australian terrorism supporter David Hicks would not have been charged if he had had a choice. via The Age

“We have a list of individuals, some of whom are named, that we intend to process against”

Lawyers for former detainees are preparing to sue the British government and intelligence services for alleged complicity in abuse of terrorism suspects by the United States and Pakistan. via Reuters

“Col. Davis and I won't agree on Mr. Hamdan's guilt but we can agree that the system is not going to be full, open and fair”

The former chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals was expected to appear as a defense witness on Monday, called in to testify that the tribunal process was too tainted to provide a fair trial ... via Reuters

“There is nothing inherently wrong with providing information to the public and the press”

The Pentagon announced on Friday that it was suspending its briefings for retired military officers who often appear as military analysts on television and radio programs. via New York Times

“The fact that an act is undertaken to prevent a threatened terrorist attack, rather than for the purpose of humiliation or abuse, would be relevant to a reasonable observer in measuring the outrageousness of the act”

Recent letters from the U.S. Justice Department to Congress state that intelligence agents working on counter-terrorism can legally use interrogation techniques that might otherwise be banned by international ... via WNED.org

"Detainees' Mental Health Is Latest Legal Battle": The New York Times today contains a front page article that begins, "Next month, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was once a driver for Osama bin Laden, could ... via Legal Times

“This is the first time he's had an opportunity to meet someone who can honestly say he represents his well-being”

A defense attorney met with suspected Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for the first time at Guantanamo Bay, but the Pentagon-appointed lawyer said he could not reveal details because of ... via USA Today

“As we worked through the list of techniques, Myers became increasingly hesitant and troubled”

Senior officials bypassed army chief to introduce interrogation methods America's most senior general was "hoodwinked" by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation ... via Buzzle.com

“The use of medication to manipulate a detainee has never been an approved DOD interrogation technique.”

Adel al-Nusairi remembers his first six months at Guantanamo Bay as this: hours and hours of questions, but first, a needle. via MSNBC

Prosocutors in the case against the self-described mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and five of his co-conspirators have amended the charge sheet against the detainees to further ... via American Chronicle

Now, barely six years after the attacks that triggered two wars and sent America's international reputation plummeting, it's time for the comedies. via The New Zealand Herald

“Service is not imminent but watch this space within the next two months”

By MICHAEL SEAMARK and ANDY DOLAN - More by this author Comments Eight former Guantanamo inmates are suing MI5 and MI6 over their 'illegal imprisonment' Eight men freed from Guantanamo Bay are suing the British ... via Daily Mail

“These documents make it clear that the military was using unlawful interrogation techniques in Afghanistan. Rather than putting a stop to these systemic abuses, senior officials appear to have turned a blind eye to them.”

Washington, April 18 A civil rights group has said it has documents from the defence department that confirm the US authorities ignored torture by Special Forces of Afghan prisoners during interrogation. via Nerve News

“It's certainly shocking as we sit here today that Canada is the last Western country to tolerate the detention of one of its citizens at Guantanamo Bay”

Canada asked the United States not to send former child soldier Omar Khadr to Guantanamo after he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002, according to a letter released on Thursday. via News Observer

Investigators have found no evidence that two destroyed CIA interrogation videos contained information relevant to a federal lawsuit or covered by a court order, the CIA told a judge.

The documents filed in federal court Wednesday night were short on details but offered the first public accounting of the investigation into why the videos were destroyed.

U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts demanded the report because in July 2005, he ordered the government not to destroy any evidence related to a case brought by a Yemeni detainee at Guantanamo Bay. Months later, the CIA destroyed two videos showing harsh interrogation techniques used against two al Qaeda suspects. Read more

“You say you gave permission for (redacted) to hit detainees during interrogations; did you have a memorandum or order from your higher headquarters authorizing that?”

Military interrogators assaulted Afghan detainees in 2003, using investigation methods they learned during self-defense training, Pentagon documents released Wednesday show. via Journal Gazette

“Canadian officials have conducted seven welfare visits A... and it is the government's intention to continue these visits”

The Conservative government says it has helped improve Omar Khadr's Guantanamo Bay detention conditions -- but also made clear it has no intention of seeking the Canadian terrorist suspect's repatriation before ... via National Post

“It is not yet achieved, but I am confident”

Afghans wait to talk with their relatives detained at U.S. military base in Bagram through a video conferencing system at the International Committee of the Red Cross office in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, April ... via Athens Banner-Herald

AIUSA members and other activists will gather at the Perpetual Torch of Friendship in Miami's Bayfront Park at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 8, 2008, to experience the cell and urge the Bush administration to ... via Amnesty International USA

“House of War"(Houghton Mifflin), the jails of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are "emblems of a new system of legally dubious incarceration that involved more than eleven thousand detainees held in mostly secret (black site) locations around the world...”

Even if a Guantanamo prisoner is acquitted on all counts at his trial, the Pentagon may still not release him on grounds he might return to the battlefield, according to an article in the April 14th issue of ... via Lotusinthemud

“If they had an opportunity for a fair and open trial, they would take it.”

The U.S. war crimes trials at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp are running into a new obstacle which throws their credibility into doubt: boycotts by the defendants. via MyTELUS

“I am equally critical of that procedure, but who is supposed to fix it?”

KABUL : Dozens of Afghan men who were previously held by the United States at Bagram Air Base in this country and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are now being tried here in secretive Afghan criminal proceedings based ... via International Herald Tribune

“He asked for them [Tuesday] and they brought him an empty box.”

U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO, Cuba -- The U.S. military handed Omar Khadr an empty box when he asked to see a stash of legal papers his defence team had assembled for him, the Canadian terror suspect's chief ... via National Post

“Speed is going to be very, very difficult to accomplish here”

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba : When military officials announced war crimes charges against six detainees for the Sept. via International Herald Tribune

A terror suspect at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appeared before the U.S. military commission Thursday and evoked the name of Osama bin Laden at his arraignment. via The Post Chronicle

“The work of the judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers has been excellent”

A human rights group charged on Thursday that Afghanistan is prosecuting detainees transferred from U.S.-run prisons in arbitrary and unfair trials with little evidence. via Wral.com

“That's when I fully realized we are going to win this war”

Three months ago, Gregory J. Zanetti was a stockbroker and financial advisor in New Mexico. via Magic City Morning Star

“I declare my objection to this court and I will not be present at this trial”

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - A relative of a Sept. 11 hijacker said Wednesday he would boycott his upcoming military trial on terrorism charges, calling the U.S. effort to prosecute Guantanamo prisoners a ... via News Observer

“This man is alleged to have done some very bad things. Personally I have faith in the American people to allow him to have a fair trial”

The self-described mastermind of the September 11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon has been assigned a U.S. military lawyer to defend him in the Guantanamo war court, where he could face execution if ... via WSRS-FM Paxton

Officials with the American Civil Liberties Union say two Boise attorneys will be among 11 lawyers who will defend detainees who face military trials at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. via 2NEWS.TV

“While a handful of countries received persons rendered by the US during this period, no other country is believed to have held as many as Jordan”

The CIA secretly transported at least 14 "war on terror" detainees to Jordan between 2001 and 2004, making it the top "rendition" destination at that time, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. via The Daily Star

Omar Khadr is a Canadian citizen who was a 15-year-old child soldier when he allegedly killed a U.S. serviceman during a firefight in Afghanistan. via National Post

“The Uighurs are not going back to China, but finding places for them is not a simple matter. But we are trying to find places for them.”

The Bush administration argued Friday that when Congress authorized military action against the Sept. via Lexington Herald-Leader

“This is a head-on challenge to the so-called 'enemy combatant”

Huzaifa Parhat has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for nearly six years. Yet, he never took up arms against the United States and there's no evidence he planned a terrorist attack. In fact, his lawyers say he considers the U.S. an ideological ally.

Parhat is one of several Muslims from western China known as Uighurs who were swept up by U.S. forces as suspected terrorists. Now, after years of legal wrangling, Parhat is asking a federal appeals court to consider for the first time what it really means to be an enemy combatant. Read more

“It created a world in which everyone on the ground believed the laws did not apply. It was a law-free zone.”

A newly declassified 2003 Justice Department memo gave US military interrogators broad authority to use extreme methods in questioning al-Qaeda detainees, US media said yesterday. via The Daily Star

Posted on 03/27/2008 7:19:32 AM PDT by Clive There's been so much nonsense dispensed about Omar Khadr and his trial in Guantanamo Bay -- mostly from the likes of the Toronto Star and CBC, and increasingly from ... via Free Republic

“There is some discomfort with what the defense will try to drag out”

LONDON : The Bush administration and the British government are at odds over how to treat one of the last two British residents held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, officials from the countries involved in the case ... via International Herald Tribune

“This standard permits some physical contact”

The Pentagon Tuesday made public a now-defunct legal memo that approved the use of harsh interrogation techniques against terror suspects, saying President Bush's wartime authority trumps any international ban ... via CNN

Military prosecutors have filed war crimes charges against a Guantanamo detainee who was formerly held in a CIA secret prison. via Toronto News.Net