An Australian being held without charge at a US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay has become the first foreign terrorist suspect to be given a US military lawyer, the Pentagon announced.
David Hicks will be represented by Marine Corps Major Michael Mori. Hicks will also be given access to an Australian lawyer to act as a legal adviser, said Pentagon spokesman Major Michael Shavers.
Hicks is one of six prisoners at the US Navy base in Cuba whom President George Bush named as possible candidates for trial by a special military tribunal for terrorism suspects.
One other Australian citizen is among the more than 660 men and boys being held there. Up to nine Britons are also being held there.
Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz will make the final decision on which Guantanamo prisoners, if any, will face trial.
The announcement came a day after the Pentagon announced an about-face in the case of a US-born terrorism suspect being held in the United States as an “enemy combatant.” The Defence Department agreed to let Yaser Esam Hamdi meet with a lawyer, a reversal from its previous refusal to do so.
The United States and Australia announced last week they had reached an agreement on how Hicks would be tried before a US military tribunal.
Australian officials said they were satisfied Hicks would get a fair trial and said US officials assured Australia that Hicks would not face the death penalty and would not have his conversations with his lawyer monitored by American troops.
[ The Scotsman.Com ]
Washington sacked a team of lawyers within hours of their recruitment to defend alleged terrorists being held at a US naval base in Cuba after they criticised their brief, a UK newspaper reported on Wednesday.
"The first day, when they were being briefed on the dos and don'ts, at least a couple said 'You can't impose these restrictions on us because we can't properly represent our clients,'" The Guardian quoted a former military lawyer as saying.
"When the group decided they weren't going to go along, they were relieved. They reported in the morning and got fired that afternoon," added the lawyer -- who was not one of those sacked in the incident earlier this year.
The Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions denied the claim.
"That is not true, never happened," The Guardian quoted its spokesman as saying.
Washington says the detainees -- among 660 prisoners from 42 countries being held at the base in Guantanamo Bay -- are all enemy combatants ineligible for due legal process and intends to have them tried in military courts.
[ Hindustan Times ]
Manchester, NH (AP) - Wesley Clark said in New Hampshire that suspected terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay should be put on trial before an international court.
Clark says the detainees should not face war crimes tribunals but should have lawyers and be tried in an international venue.
Clark is a former Army general and Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.
About 660 people suspected of taking part in terrorist activity are being held at the prison on the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The Bush administration has said its top priority is interrogating the detainees for intelligence on any planned terrorist attacks.
Officials have said the prisoners either would be tried by U.S. military tribunals, held indefinitely in Cuba or sent home if their governments could be trusted to handle them properly. But Clark said if he was president, he would set up an international tribunal. He said he would have done that starting right after the terror attacks in 2001.
[ Associated Press via katv.com ]
TONY EASTLEY: Unofficial reports suggest the US Government is preparing to release 140 detainees currently being held in Guantanamo Bay. According to unnamed officials in Washington negotiations are underway with a number of countries to repatriate their citizens for trial or custody before Christmas.
The Australian Government has struck a deal, agreed to last week, for the two Australian citizens being held to face a military commission in the United States. In Britain the Blair Government has expressed strong reservations about any military trial of its nine citizens. It hasn't said whether a deal has been offered or struck.
London Correspondent Fran Kelly reports.
FRAN KELLY: Lawyers working with the Guantanamo Bay detainees think their release is imminent. The US administration's sick of the pressure it's under from a host of countries to afford their citizens a fair trial.
Stephen Jacoby from the group Fair Trials Abroad thinks that pressure and the possibility that detainees could soon be granted access to the American legal system has brought about a change of heart in Washington.
STEPHEN JACOBY: Well, mainly what's changed is on November the 10th the American Supreme Court agreed to accept a challenge to the Guantanamo Bay situation on behalf of all the inmates, which means that the American administration is faced with the possibility they'll be forced to bring everybody to the mainland under a federal system in due course.
FRAN KELLY: Five weeks ago Prime Minister Tony Blair told the media resolution of this issue was only two weeks away, and that it would include a fair trial for those held, whether that be a military commission in America or being brought home to see justice meted out. But he also hinted at the problems bringing them home could hold for the Government.
TONY BLAIR: There are also issues to do with our national security that we have to be careful of, and my experience of these debates is they can very swiftly, a civil liberties issue turns into a national security issue.
FRAN KELLY: In other words, it's all very well to argue they should be brought home to a fair trial, but what if they can't be tried under British law or charges can't be made to stick? How would that look at a time when Britain's on high terror alert and British police are almost every day arresting or questioning people over terrorist activities?
Sarah Ludford, the lead member on Guantanamo Bay issues for the European Parliament, believes most of those repatriated would end up being released.
SARAH LUDFORD: Lawyers have been warning the British Government that if there has been evidence which has been extracted under duress, which I'm afraid human rights organisations have called "torture light", i.e. psychological pressure, then that evidence would not stand up in court and would be thrown out by the courts.
And actually that's one of the ironies of the situation, because if there are people who really are guilty of terrorist offences, I would like to see them behind bars, and the US Government, with the complicity and collusion of the UK Government, may well have torpedoed any chance of that by its behaviour in the last two years.
FRAN KELLY: But if British citizens aren't brought home to receive justice, the alternative is a military commission in the US, and last week, while the Australian Government was outlining details of the deal it struck with the United States for just such a military trial for the two Australians held, one of Britain's most senior judges was launching an unprecedented attack on that kind of military court, describing it as a stain on the United States justice – a view endorsed by lawyers for those imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay who remain unimpressed with Australian Government guarantees that it secured fundamental legal rights for its citizens.
STEPHEN JACOBY: It strikes me, you know, the sort of concessions Australians have managed to achieve are cosmetic concessions that look good politically, but in fact leave an extremely unfair and appalling trial system in place.
TONY EASTLEY: Stephen Jacoby from Fair Trials Abroad, and Frank Kelly with that report.
[ Transcript from The World Today, broadcast on ABC Local Radio in Australia ]
A deal to return British terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo Bay is to be sealed before Christmas, according to officials from both the US and the UK.
The "returns policy" is now believed to be the leading option being considered in Washington, which has made it clear it wants to end the tension between the US and Britain over the issue.
Under the terms of the agreement, the nine British detainees will be returned to Britain, either after pleading guilty to charges in America and being sent to serve in British prisons, or being sent back without being charged.
It is then likely that some of them will be sent to Belmarsh high security prison and held under prevention of terrorism legislation.
At least two, Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal, the so-called "Tipton Two" could be freed.
The agreement will bring to an end one of the most damaging conflicts between the White House and Downing Street, which has been pressing for a fair trials system for the British citizens who have been held under military command for two years.
Many thought that a deal would be signed to mark US President George W. Bush's visit to London two weeks ago. But complex legal arguments, which are still on-going, meant a delay.
The US has been moving rapidly in recent weeks to solve the Guantanamo problem which has seen strained relations with a number of countries whose citizens are held at the same base.
Last week Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, indicated that although a deal was not yet done with Britain, they had finished questioning two of the nine detainees, thought to be Rasul and Iqbal.
An American diplomat also recently announced the release of 20 other non-British inmates from Guantanamo and Australia has also agreed a deal on its nationals being held there.
Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and David Blunkett, the home secretary, have consistently made it clear that they wanted to see the suspects sent back to Britain to face British justice.
Attorney General Lord Goldsmith has also made trips to Washington to try to secure a deal.
British human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, who is working with the suspects, said he was confident that a deal had been struck.
"The British Government has finally realized it has to help the Americans out of the corner they have painted themselves into," he said. "This deal will most likely consist of the British having to plead guilty on some nonsense charge and come back here to serve their sentence.
"However it seems highly improbable that Iqbal and Rasul will be charged with anything. There simply is nothing there."
It appears that Downing Street would be comfortable with some charges being brought but it is clear that the British Government could not guarantee a trial of anyone sent back to the UK, one of the original demands made by the US.
[ http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2003/12/01/2003077951 ]
OTTAWA - A Canadian man who was released from Guantanamo Bay military prison by US officials after spending two years in captivity returned to Canada on Sunday protesting his innocence.
CBC television showed pictures of Abdurahman Khadr, 21, arriving at Toronto airport. Khadr said when US authorities released him last month they refused to send him back to Canada and put him on a plane to Afghanistan instead.
Khadr's younger brother Omar, 17, is still in the US prison in Cuba, accused of involvement in a fatal attack on a US soldier in Afghanistan. The father of the family, Ahmed Said Khadr, is a suspected member of al Qaeda.
Khadr was detained by Afghans in October 2001 -- he said that like most people there, he carried a gun -- and held until January 2003, when he was moved to Guantanamo Bay.
"Why was I captured? Because I was armed. That was the only reason I was captured in Kabul. There was nothing against me," he told CBC.
"That's why I've been released after two years of my life being wasted," he added, declining to say how he had been treated in Guantanamo Bay. Human rights groups have criticized the United States for holding the detainees without charges.
Relations between Ottawa and Washington are already strained over the case of a Canadian man who was deported from New York to Syria last year and says he was regularly tortured in jail.
Khadr said he made his way from Afghanistan through Iran to Turkey and then to the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, where the Canadian embassy issued him with emergency travel documents.
Canadian foreign ministry officials, denying allegations by Khadr's lawyer that a number of embassies had refused to issue him travel documents, said the first time he had approached one of the country's missions was in Bosnia.
[ reuters via New Zealand Herald ]
CANBERRA : The United States has given no indication that either of the two Australians among 660 prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba is likely to be released soon, Australian officials said.
The announcement came after a US military official was reported to have told journalists that more than 100 men and boys -- "the easiest 20 percent" -- will be released in the next two months from the base where terrorist suspects have been in detention since the US-led attack on Afghanistan.
The first of two new releases is scheduled for the end of December, and the other in January, the official was quoted as saying.
But a spokesman for Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said here that there had been no communication, formal or informal, from the United States to suggest either of the Australian captives, David Hicks or Mamdouh Habib, would be among those released.
"It's just media speculation at this stage," the spokesman said. "We've got nothing confirming that.
"It wouldn't be particularly unheard of given that over 80 have been released already.
"We're constantly in touch with the Americans regarding the two Australians there. And the two Australians are in a situation that hasn't changed."
Hicks, who has been earmarked for trial by a US military commission, was captured by US troops as a suspected Taliban fighter in Afghanistan and Habib was arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of terrorist activities.
Both have been detained without charge since 2001 but Canberra has made no appeal for their release, believing the pair are unlikely to have committed any offence under Australian law and would have to be freed, regardless of what links they may have to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Both have applied to the US Supreme Court to be released.
The US official did not say where the prisoners would be sent and a military spokeswoman declined to provide details about future releases from the US base at Guantanamo Bay.
"We do expect there will be other transfers but because of operational procedures, I can't talk about any details," Lieutenant Colonel Pamela Hart said.
"We only talk about detainee movements after an operation is complete."
The 660 detainees are from 44 countries.
[ Channelnewsasia.com ]
by Fahad Ansari
"An article questioning the demonisation of the detainees and analysing their actual "crime". The conclusion is that rather than being treated like animals, these people should be honoured for upholding so called western values of defence of the weak and the oppressed. The author also wonders whether it is wise to treat your enemy so badly knowing thatr in war, your own POWs are very vulnerable."
The United States will release two dozen prisoners from Guantanamo Bay in the coming weeks, an American envoy said Friday. Pierre-Richard Prosper, the U.S ambassador-at-large for war crimes, said several dozen other prisoners will be transferred to the custody of authorities in their native countries. This follows the release of 5 Pakistani prisoners from the Camp earlier this week.
Let us examine this in more detail. According to the U.S. the 600 odd prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are the most dangerous international terrorists in the world, willing to blow themselves up in a suicide attack if given half a chance. These monsters, who include 3 children, believe the purpose of their life is to engage in an open-ended war of terror against the West. These people are such a threat to every “infidel” they encounter that they must be bound, shackled and hooded lest they dare attempt to take the life of one of the prison guards with the infamous “stare of death”. Moreover, these psychos are so fanatical that they do not deserve to be treated like human beings with certain basic human rights. Lets be honest, why should we give these animals the protection from torture which the whole world has recognised as something completely abhorrent to the civilized world we live in. International human rights law? Fawgett about it! Cuff ‘em, hood ‘em, beat ‘em, kill ‘em. Do what you want with ‘em. Whatever they get is too good for them.
So that’s exactly what we did. We cuffed ‘em, hooded ‘em, beat ‘em and will probably kill ‘em all. That is except for the 5 Pakistanis sent home last week. And the 11 others released in July. And the several dozen others who will be released in the coming weeks. Yeah, that’s rights. This is how we treat these maniacs who threaten our way of life and everything we hold dear here in the West. We cuff ‘em, hood ‘em, beat ‘em, isolate ‘em and … erm … free ‘em. Yes, the US has just released a bunch of people back into society who for almost 2 years were held illegally without charge in a concentration camp, in the belief that they were the most wicked individuals to walk the face of the earth. But after 2 years of torture, the US now feels that, “Hey! Maybe these guys are telling the truth. Maybe they don’t actually know Osama. Maybe that taxi driver was actually fighting against the Taleban!!”
Could it be that these guys actually weren’t the maniacs we made them out to be?? Could it be that many of these were actually innocent people caught up in the greatest witch-hunt since the Cold War?? Could it be that some of these were innocent people who rose to defend their country against foreign invaders?? Could it be that many more of these, who were picked up in Europe and illegally sent to the Cuban concentration camp, were innocent Muslims with legitimate grievances against the US?? Their crime? They exercised their right to free speech – they spoke out against the Americans.
Let us try and look at this from the viewpoint of a Pakistani detainee. September 11 2001 – as you hear about the atrocities committed in the U.S., you cannot help but feel a little happiness that for once, the hunter has become the hunted. Yes, thousands of innocents perished in the attack but for once, the Americans will feel the pain and anguish felt by victims of American terror around the world from places as far apart as Guatemala to Iraq to Japan. As wrong as it may be, it is difficult to suppress the sentiment of justice being done.
A few weeks later, the U.S. lead international community, begin dropping bombs on Afghanistan, without evidence linking her to the New York attacks. You think; once again the Muslims are being slaughtered by international terrorists. It looks familiar – you remember similar terror campaigns carried out in the name of freedom and democracy in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan and Palestine. You recall the screams of little children as their tiny limbs are blown off by American bombs. You shudder with fear as you recollect the cries of women as their houses and families are destroyed by the invading forces.
Now once again, you witness these symbols of terror launching another brutal campaign against the innocent people of Afghanistan. What do you do? Do you stay at home and wait for them to finish and move on to your country? Or do you do what the international community did in 1991 when Iraq invaded Kuwait? You rush to defend the innocent and the weak and repel the attackers in an act of collective self-defence. You see the American lead troops as not only a threat to your way of life, but as a threat to life itself. So off you go with your rifle in your hand and your heart on your sleeve.
In a truly just world, these brave people would be honoured as heroes for their noble actions. They charged forth from their homes to uphold the virtues of justice, law and order, sacrificing their lives in the process. They strove to uphold principles common to Western systems of justice such as the right to a fair trial, freedom of speech, freedom from torture and the right to self-defence.
But we live in a world where might is right and where global politics have twisted the norms of justice. Such people are not welcome in this world and are condemned as evil terrorists. We live in a world in which the rogue superpower has invaded 2 sovereign countries in 2 years, resulting in the slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians. Moreover, this has been done without any evidence linking the Taleban to September 11th or Saddam Hussein to Osama Bin Laden.
As the super-terrorist state prepares for its next attack on the people of Syria and Iran, it should bear something in mind. People of justice will not stay silent. They will come to help the oppressed. The U.S. must take heed of the fact that many of its soldiers may very well become captives at any stage and in any country. The U.S. regards this as an open-ended war on terror where Muslim prisoners may be captured anywhere in the world and held captive without charge, without trial, and without any legal rights for the duration of the war. Similarly, its enemies will view the next escapade, wherever it may be, as the latest extension in an open-ended War against Islam and capture and treat American captives accordingly.
A note for the wise – Treat others as you yourself would like to be treated.
[ http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/2515/ ]
In a case the U.S. Supreme Court will soon consider, three former high-ranking officers have played a key role in arguing against the indefinite detention of suspected terrorists on the Navy base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
WASHINGTON - Former Rear Adm. Don Guter felt the Pentagon shudder when an airliner hijacked by terrorists struck on Sept. 11, 2001. He helped evacuate shaken officers and later gave the eulogy for a colleague killed that day.
''I would have done anything that day, and I fully support the war on terrorism,'' said Guter, who served as judge advocate general, the Navy's chief legal officer, until he retired last year.
That makes Guter part of an unlikely trio -- joining his predecessor as Navy judge advocate general and a retired Marine general with expertise on prisoner issues -- challenging the Bush administration's indefinite detention of suspected terrorists at the Navy base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Guter, former Rear Adm. John Hutson and former Brig. Gen. David Brahms say they understand the demands of wartime security. They also worry that the example of Guantánamo -- lengthy incarcerations without hearings -- will undermine the rule of law and endanger U.S. forces years from now.
''For me, it's a question of balance between security needs and due process, and I think we've lost our balance,'' Guter said. ``We shouldn't take a backward step on the law.''
FIGHTING FOR ACCESS
The three former officers filed an unusual brief on behalf of 16 detainees who have been held at the Guantánamo prison camp for almost two years. U.S. officials say all the captives are enemy combatants, most captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and have no POW status, legal rights or access to federal courts.
Early next year, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear lawyers for the families of the detainees argue that the captives have the right to challenge their detention in federal court. The case has the potential for a historic clash between presidential authority and judicial oversight.
''This may be one of those cases that comes along every 50 years -- there's that much at stake,'' said Eugene Fidell, president of the nonpartisan National Institute of Military Justice. ``The briefs filed in the case came from a remarkable range of perspectives, and I think that got the court's attention.''
Along with the retired officers, briefs were filed by former federal judges, diplomats and even American POWs from World War II, urging the Supreme Court to review lower-court rulings that have favored the Bush administration.
Guter was involved in the early discussions for using Guantánamo to isolate and interrogate detainees in the war on terrorism. As an admiral, he said the Navy base made sense because of security.
''We would be safe, the detainees would be safe from reprisal,'' Guter said. ``But many of us expected some sort of hearings by now for some of these people.''
A MISSED CHANCE
The former military officers say the administration and Pentagon missed a chance to provide quick hearings with minimal due process, outlined in the Geneva Conventions, to determine if the captives were probably enemy combatants.
''Somehow, in the fog of war, we skipped over that,'' Hutson said.
Instead, President Bush ordered the creation of military tribunals to try some captives. But those trials have been delayed by policy questions, a debate over rules and complicated negotiations with Britain, Australia and other countries.
When tribunals were discussed, Guter said, it was the officers in the JAG corps of each service who pressed for due process protections for defendants, not administration officials.
''There was a perception that we were ready to stomp on civil liberties, and that's not so,'' said Guter, who is now the CEO of a military retirees' complex.
For two years, Bush and top Pentagon officials have referred to detainees as ''the worst of the worst'' and ''killers.'' The former officers are skeptical, noting that 88 people have been released so far.
''We're trying to separate the goat-herders from the real terrorists, and that's not easy, but I'm not convinced they're all guilty,'' said Hutson, now dean of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in New Hampshire.
WHOSE JURISDICTION?
The case before the Supreme Court will turn on the narrow but important issue of jurisdiction. The administration says that because the detainees are foreign nationals held outside U.S. territory -- the base is leased from Cuba -- U.S. courts have no authority.
The ex-officers and others who filed briefs contest that issue, but they say there are bigger stakes involved. They warn that the Guantánamo precedent will make it easier for other countries, groups and warlords to hold Americans and ignore the Geneva Conventions.
''If we want the world to play by the rules, we have to be on the moral high ground,'' said Brahms, who spent 26 years in the Marines.
He was the Corps' principal legal advisor on POW issues when the Vietnam War was ending. Brahms recalled that U.S. forces tried to follow the Geneva rules on POWs, and that gave them some leverage with North Vietnam, which was holding U.S. prisoners.
''International pressure was important, and [North Vietnam] played a little more by the rules toward the end,'' Brahms said.
Top U.S. officials say the Guantánamo detainees are treated humanely under Geneva Convention standards, with the Red Cross as an independent monitor.
ENSURING JUSTICE
Guter, Hutson and Brahms worry that Guantánamo may reverse a 200-year tradition of U.S. efforts to codify and protect the rights of prisoners.
The former officers speak with pride about how military justice has improved since 1950, and say they have received muted support from some still in uniform. But feedback has been limited, and they cited the military tradition of not questioning political decisions.
''I'm a little surprised that only three of us signed on to this,'' said Guter, surrounded in his office by the memorabilia of a 32-year Navy career.
He recalled trying to convey his concern: ``Blind loyalty is dangerous. We took an oath to defend the Constitution, not the president or secretary of defense. We have loyalty to a system.''
[ The Miami Herald ]
San Juan, P.R. (AP) - An Army intelligence officer was charged Saturday with violating security at the U.S. detention camp for terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
He is the fourth worker at the base accused of such violations. Two Arabic translators and a Muslim chaplain face charges ranging from espionage to adultery.
U.S. Army Col. Jack Farr was charged Saturday with failing to obey a lawful general order and making a false official statement, all violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, said a statement from the U.S. Southern Command in Miami.
"Specifically, he's charged with wrongfully transporting classified material without the proper security container on or around Oct. 11, and making a false statement in the course of the investigation into his handling of classified material," it said.
It was not immediately clear if Farr was under arrest, nor if he is still at Guantanamo Bay.
He had been on temporary duty there for six months, serving as an intelligence staff officer, the statement said.
His charges have been forwarded to the commander of the base, who could dismiss them, refer them to a court-martial or direct a pre-trial investigation, it said.
He has been assigned two Army attorneys and has the right to retain a civilian lawyer.
[ The Guardian Unlimited ]
