February 16, 2005
Armed Forces Press Service on Current Conditions at GITMO
Reporter Kathleen T. Rhem of the American Forces Press Service provides a glimpse into the conditions under which terror suspects are currently being held. In an article posted to the Department of Defense website, the tarnished image of a scandalized Guantanamo is replaced by a detention facility in compliance with correctional, legal and humanitarian standards; a detention facility that embodies the mission of the Joint Task Force, ensuring "the safe, secure, humane custody of the detainees."
As Rhem reports, at the base's detention camps prisoners are divided into 4 levels. The levels are unrelated to detainee's intelligence value but rather, they are based on how well detainees comply with camp rules and cooperate with guards instructions.
Typically, level 1 detainees are obedient, and are inclined to follow camp rules. They occupy communal living quarters, and wear uniforms that are white - a culturally respected color that serves as an incentive to detainees in other camps.
In contrast, level 4 detainees often have a history of offenses, ranging from threatening guards and other detainees, to hurling bodily fluids, to refusing to exit their cell when ordered. Level 4 detainees wear orange, hospital type uniforms, and are granted fewer privileges than level 1 detainees.
For detainees who cooperate, privileges may include extended access (7-9 hours per day) to an outside exercise area, which features picnic and ping-pong tables, a soccer area and volleyball court. Games, books and other reading material, as well as electric fans and ice water may also be made available.
With regard to the camp's physical structure, the article illustrates how the concrete and open-air chain-link enclosures of the crude and hastily built Camp X-Ray have been replaced by more modern and permanent structures. Construction of Camp Delta began in 2002, eventually replacing the make-shift Camp X-Ray, which had never been intended for long-term detentions. Then in spring of 2004, a state-of-the-art $16 million detention facility was completed. Camp 5 was composed of four wings consisting of 12 to 14 individual cells each.
Last month, plans for a new prison - Camp 6 - were announced. The $25 million, 200 bed, medium-security facility will be restructured with an improved medical facility, including a $1.7 million psychiatric wing.
Together Camps 5 and 6 are said to represent 'the future of Guantanamo Bay,' which is being revamped to house those prisoners found to pose a continuing security threat.
Despite official pronouncements of its intentions to reduce prisoner population - as well as the contention held by many that GITMO will probably not become a fully-functional detention facility - the millions spent and earmarked for the construction of state of the art facilities suggests that the Department of Defense does in fact, have long-term plans for the U.S.- run prison in Cuba.
January 24, 2005
Mass Suicide Attempt at Guantanamo Revealed
The AP reports that during August 2003, 23 terror suspects detained at Guantanamo attempted a mass suicide.
The military has confirmed that nearly two dozen detainees tried to simultaneously hang or strangle themselves during a mass protest. In a statement posted to the NPR website, U.S. Southern Command describes the attempt as “a coordinated effort to disrupt camp operations and challenge a new group of security guards from the just-completed unit rotation.”
An excerpt:
· Of the 23 detainees involved, two required treatment in the Detention Hospital. Each of these detainees was treated for minor injuries, remained in the Detention Hospital for less than 48 hours for observation, and subsequently were transferred to the Behavioral Health Services Unit.
· The JTF medical staff evaluated the other 21 detainees at the Detention Hospital and then sent them to the Behavioral Health Services Unit for evaluation and monitoring.
· The JTF chain of command was notified of these incidents and reported them as required to SOUTHCOM.
· Of the 23 detainees who participated in this incident, 16 remain in the camps. Seven detainees have been transferred from Guantanamo Bay.
· The Joint Detention Operations Group continually assesses the camp's population for whom the informal leaders are, the mood of the detainees, and their ability to communicate with each other.
· That assessment has enabled the leadership to take numerous measures to reduce the opportunity for detainees to communicate a coordinated self-harm incident, or strike out at another detainee or the guard force.
· There have been no successful suicide attempts at GTMO. This is because of a vigilant, well-trained guard force, charged with the safe, humane custody of the detainees and because of that force's ability to rapidly and properly respond.
As reported by the AP, Alistair Hodgett of Amnesty International was critical of the delay in reporting the incident.
“When you have suicide attempts or so-called self-harm incidents, it shows the type of impact indefinite detention can have, but it also points to the extreme measures the Pentagon is taking to cover up things that have happened in Guantanamo,” he said.
Mission commander of Guantanamo Army General Jay Hood said that since the military set up a psychiatric ward at the facility, the number of incidents has decreased.
January 23, 2005
Update - Combatant Status Review Tribunals
On Saturday, the U.S. military held the last of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) at Guantanamo. A 30-year-old detainee was the last of 558 men who had their cases considered by the CSRT, convened to determine whether detainees are properly held as “enemy combatants.”
As per a statement issued by the Pentagon, the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants has conducted 550 tribunals since July 2004. The convening authority has reviewed and finalized 330 tribunals, of which 327 have remained classified as enemy combatants, and three have been determined to no longer be enemy combatants.
December 02, 2004
Detainee Status Debated in Federal Court
In what is expected to be a protracted second phase of the legal battle over the government’s efforts to assign the fate of Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. military rather than the federal courts, the Defense Department continued to defend its Guantanamo prison policy before a federal court in Washington on Wednesday, The New York Times reports.
In the landmark June 29th ruling, the Supreme Court entered the first phase of the battle, issuing a blow to the Bush administration when it ruled that foreign terror suspects held at Guantanamo could in fact use the American legal system to challenge their detentions.
Arguments heard yesterday concerned the government’s motion to dismiss Habeas Corpus petitions filed on behalf of 54 Guantanamo detainees who have asked the courts to require government justification of its detentions. Lawyers for the detainees argue their clients have the right to a fair trial and should be given the proper opportunity to defend themselves.
Government lawyers however, remain steadfast in their position that the U.S. military can hold foreign terror suspects picked up in the “War on “Terror” as “enemy combatants” - a broadly defined classification that suggests they are not entitled to protections generally given to prisoners of war and as such, do not possess the constitutional rights to contest their detentions in court.
Of the Pentagon’s decision to detain suspected Taliban and al Qaeda fighters - some for 3 years - deputy associate attorney general Brian Boyle explained, “The military has an interest in holding people who pose a risk.”
“We're not detaining these people just because there's some enjoyment in it.”
Addressing the hotly debated and broadly defined description of “enemy combatants,” Judge Joyce Hens Green presented a series of hypothetical scenarios, one of which questioned whether the president could imprison “a little old lady from Switzerland” as an enemy combatant if she unintentionally made a donation to a terrorist organization that was fronted as an Afghan orphanage.
Possibly, Boyle replied.
“It would be up to the military to decide as to what to believe,” he said.
As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, Boyle explained that the military can detain any foreigner who provides support to terrorists or might have knowledge of their plans.
Boyle argued that the foreigners detained at Guantanamo have no constitutional rights enforceable in U.S. courts. He averred that they have nevertheless been provided a process, contending that was all they were entitled to under the June 28th ruling.
Following the hearing, attorney for 12 Kuwaiti detainees Thomas B. Wilner told reporters, “That’s really shocking.”
“People throughout the world will fear the United States is asserting the power to pick up little old ladies and men who made a mistake.”
Attorney Barbara Olshansky of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) offered, “The government showed its true colors today.”
She continued, “If under this definition of enemy combatant a Swiss granny who gave money to charity can be detained indefinitely at Guantanamo, then anyone who unintentionally acts in a way the government finds suspicious is in danger of losing their freedom.”
November 03, 2004
Hicks: GITMO Ordeal Pushing Him to “Brink of Madness”
In a letter sent to his family and released to Reuters, Australian terrorist suspect David Hicks expresses that as a result of his isolation and treatment, he is “on the brink of madness.”
Following widespread reports of prisoner abuses at U.S. detention facilities at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo - and earlier conversations with his father that he was in fact, mistreated by both Northern Alliance and U.S. soldiers – Hicks reveals “I feel as though I’m teetering on the edge of losing my sanity after such a long ordeal, the last year of it being in isolation.”
“I’ve reached the point where I’m highly confused and lost, overwhelmed if you like. I suffer extreme mood swings every half hour, going from one extreme to another,” he writes.
“The decisions I’m making, which are no doubt important, are often done without thought or sometimes care. All decisions are made in chains, including being chained to the floor.”
“Pressure, stress and bewilderment is a result of having a day or two visit after weeks of isolation.”
While Hicks has been detained as an “unlawful combatant” for almost 3 years, he was only formally charged this past August. His father Terry Hicks said he witnessed his son’s deteriorating mental state when he visited him in August, when he first appeared before the U.S. tribunal.
“You could tell talking to him that he had lost that light in his eyes, that sparkle was definitely gone, and he was getting quiet distressed telling us about his mental side and the physical treatment,” Terry Hicks said.
While he acknowledged his son looked physically fit, his mental state was nevertheless so fragile that he was concerned he might have said things in interrogations that could be used against him.
The elder Hicks averred, “He is telling them what they want to hear.”
Hicks’ father said he was surprised to receive the uncensored letter - dated August yet received only three weeks ago - because previous correspondence from his son had been censored by U.S. forces.
August 29, 2004
Preliminary Hearings at Guantanamo: The Week in Review
Pre-trial hearings were held last week at Guantanamo for four men the Pentagon deems enemy combatants in the U.S.-led war on terror. An Australian, two Yemenis and a Sudanese have been held at the U.S. naval base since their capture by U.S. forces at the end of "Operation Enduring Freedom" in Afghanistan. Of the nearly 600 detainees held at Guantanamo, 15 have become eligible for trial by military commission for violations of the law of war.
The detainees appeared before a five member tribunal comprised of senior military officers; prosecution and defense attorneys present were also members of the U.S. armed forces. The hearings mark the beginning of what will be the first U.S. military tribunals since World War II.
The first prisoner formally charged with committing war crimes was 34 year-old Yemeni Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s driver. Hamden denied the charge of conspiracy to commit violations of the law of war. His military-appointed attorney Navy Lieutenant Commander Charlie Swift questioned the suitability of four members of the panel judging him, contending they had personal connections with the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent "war on terror" and as such, would be prone to partiality. After conferring with his client Commander Swift requested a continuance. When the presiding judge Colonel Peter Brownback asked for a plea, the defendant exercised his right not to enter one at that time.
The next detainee to be arraigned was 29 year-old Australian David Hicks, a former cowboy and Muslim convert who fought alongside Islamic groups in Europe and Asia. Hicks was accused of conspiracy, attempted murder by an unprivileged belligerent, and aiding the enemy. Hicks plead "not guilty" to all charges. As did Hamdan’s attorney, Hicks’ counsel Marine Major Michael Mori challenged the qualifications of the commissioners on the tribunal. Motions hearings are scheduled for November 2nd, and Hicks will be tried before a U.S. military commission on January 10th. If convicted, Hicks could be sentenced to life in prison.
The third commission hearing was the most chaotic of the four proceedings. 36 year-old Yemeni Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al-Bahlul was an al Qaeda public relations man who made videotapes exalting the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, and was charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes. Unlike Hamdan and Hicks, al-Bahlul did not accept military-appointed defense attorneys, and instead expressed a desire to represent himself, telling the tribunal, "If the American system will not allow me to defend myself, then I will be forced to attend and I will be a listener only." When his request was denied, he then asked to have a Yemeni attorney defend him. Al-Bahlul’s follow-on request was also denied. As explained in a Department of Defense Press Release, as per Military Commission Order Number One, neither detainees – nor foreign legal counsel – are permitted to attend sessions where classified information is discussed.
Nevertheless, Army Colonel Robert Swann, the tribunal's chief prosecutor, later commented that the Pentagon may reconsider allowing a defendant to act as his own attorney.
Through his translator the defendant confessed to being a member of al Qaeda, offering, "I testify that ... nobody has put me under pressure…I am from al-Qaeda, and the relationship between me and Sept. 11..." reports USA Today. Out of concern that al-Bahlul’s statement - which was not made under oath - would be inadmissible as evidence, Colonel Brownback ordered him to stop mid-sentence, concerned tribunal rules do not allow for the use of a defendant's self-incriminating statements. Colonel Brownback said al-Bahlul could appeal to change the procedure. The hearing was then adjourned, without setting a date for continuance.
The last of the four detainees to face pre-trial hearings was Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi, a 44 year-old Sudanese accountant and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden accused of conspiracy to commit terrorism and murder. His defense counsel Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Sharon Shaffer said that because of a proposed job change, she was ill-prepared to defend her client. As such, al-Qosi’s trial date is tentatively scheduled for early December.
As Voice of America reports, after the hearing Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer told reporters the Pentagon denied her the resources needed to mount an effective defense, including access to witnesses, as she expressed, "It's a shame because, with something that's happening that has not happened in over 50 years, this is a historical moment, and it’s important that all of the offices are completely staffed with what they need."
Challenges presented during the initial hearings did little to enhance the image of a widely controversial tribunal process. In addition to panel bias, the failure to provide proper oversight, and the lack of resources made available to defense attorneys and officers, the competency of Arabic-English translators - indispensable to three of the four defendants - also became a point of contention. The government’s translator for Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al-Bahlul was unable to keep pace with the defendant, and was several times corrected. Similarily, while speaking on behalf of her client Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi, Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer remarked, "He was very, very, very disappointed in the interpretation. About half of the time, he indicated that the translation was broken up, and he wasn't getting the full picture of what was taking place."
Human Rights Watch maintains that such inaccuracies raise the likelihood that defendants could be convicted based on inaccurate testimony.
Upon conclusion of the trials, Colonel Swann indicated nine more cases were being developed, CNN reports. At least one of the new cases could be announced within "a couple of weeks," and he added that when the new group of nine becomes public, "the American people will recognize the names of the individuals."
August 05, 2004
New Allegations of Abuse Surface at Guantanamo
The Washington Post reports three British Muslims captured in Afghanistan, detained at Guantanamo and repatriated to the U.K. in March - where they were never charged and were subsequently released - allege they were sexually and religiously humiliated, as well as psychologically and physically tortured during their two year detention at Guantanamo.
In a 115-page report released by prominent British civil rights attorney Gareth Peirce, Shafiq Rasul, 27, Asif Iqbal, 22, and Rhuhel Ahmed, also 22, describe in graphic detail abuses that occurred while detained at the prison facility in Cuba, many of which resemble those previously confirmed at the Abu Ghraib facility in Iraq. Among the catalog of abuses they recount: being stripped, cavity searched and photographed while naked, shown pornographic images, forcibly shaven and deprived of sleep, subjected to intense heat, cold, and imposed injections, beaten and threatened with torture and death.
The report claims forced confessions were also common practice, as Rasul said he eventually admitted to his interrogators that he had met with Osama bin Laden and Mohamed Atta in 2000, while in fact he was working at the time for a discount appliance store in Central England.
There was no mention in the report why the men were in Afghanistan to begin with, although as The Post points out, in the past they claimed to have gone for humanitarian purposes while visiting Pakistan.
The Britons' allegations of systematic brutality are corroborated by two of the French nationals released on July 27th. As an AP article reported, Mourad Benchellali and Nizar Sassi claim to have been beaten, threatened with dogs, and forcibly medicated. Likewise, Swedish citizen Mehdi Ghezali, also released last month, described being shackled, sleep deprived, and forced to endure cold temperatures for up to 14 hours at a time, as well as being sexual humiliated while detained at Guantanamo, ABC News reported.
In a press release posted to their website, attorneys with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) - the advocacy group which provided legal counsel to Rasul and Iqbal in Rasul v. Bush, the landmark Supreme Court case that successfully challenged the Bush Administration’s policy of indefinitely holding detainees without judicial review - announce they have forwarded the report to Senators John Warner (R-VA) and Carl Levin (D-MI), ranking members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, calling for Congress to establish a commission independent of the Department of Defense to investigate the abuses at Guantanamo.
“What happened to these individuals is Kafkaesque. Any door that opened led to more coercive interrogations from which there was no exit. This report calls into question the reliability of any information or confession obtained from any detainee. Every bit of information has been acquired by unlawful coercive techniques,” said Michael Ratner, President of the CCR.
As the CCR explains, the report contends treatment of the detainees worsened when Major General Geoffrey D. Miller of Abu Ghraib notoriety became camp commander in Fall 2002. The Britons' allegations echo similar abuse charges made towards prison guards at Abu Ghraib. “For example, the prisoners would be stripped naked and forced to watch videotapes of other prisoners who, in turn, had been ordered to sodomize each other. The sexual humiliation was reserved for those who would be most impacted by it, those who had been brought up strictly in their Muslim faith,” says the CCR.
If substantiated, the UPI reports, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the abuses might qualify as a war crimes. "Some of the abuses alleged by the detainees would indeed constitute inhuman treatment," said Florian Westphal, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. "Inhuman treatment constitutes a grave breach of the third Geneva convention and these are often also described as war crimes."
Voice of America reports that the three men never conveyed their allegations to British authorities who visited the base during their dentention, nor did they upon repatriation bring their claims to the British government. As such, London has asked the United States to investigate the charges and respond to them fully.
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Michael Shavers denied the allegations, stating the United States operated "a safe, humane and professional detention operation."
"We have investigated all the allegations of abuse at Guantanamo Bay and have dealt with them. They have been resolved," he said.
May 26, 2004
Another Briton Claims Gitmo Abuse
According to a May 25 Los Angeles Times article, a Briton who spent two years in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is accusing his captors of subjecting him and other inmates to a catalog of brutality: beatings, forced injections, sleep deprivation and shackling in painful positions.
Jamal Harith, 37, described how he endured a beating in which a guard jumped up and down on his legs when he resisted an injection of an unknown drug, one of 10 such injections that left him feeling woozy and disoriented. He said interrogators forced him to spend long periods in painful positions on his knees or bound in chains that cut into his skin.
Harith said he witnessed dozens of beatings inflicted by a team of guards known as the Extreme Reaction Force. A guard with a video camera often taped the incidents, he said. Detainees suffered broken arms and legs and bloodied and swollen faces, he said. Harith insisted he was wrongly jailed at the prison where suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are being held. He was among five British detainees whom the U.S. military in March sent back to Britain, where authorities released them, saying they did not pose a security threat. On Monday, the Pentagon said the former British detainees are not credible.
April 06, 2004
British Prisoner Claims Torture
On Wed, March 31, former detainee Jamal al Harith, 37, from Manchester was interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Harith claimed that during his time in Guantanamo he was repeatedly beaten and forcibly injected with drugs.
“I refused to take an injection. They sent in a riot squad, dressed in riot gear, they beat me up, then they put me in chains, then they injected me. After that they put me in isolation for a month as well."