
On Sunday, following the revelation of the identity of one of two Uzbeks released from Guantánamo to take up a new life in the Republic of Ireland, I published a letter from Guantánamo written by this man, Oybek Jabbarov. The letter also included a statement by his lawyer, Michael J. Mone Jr., to a Committee of the US House of Representatives, in which Mone explained that Jabbarov was a refugee, living in northern Afghanistan with his pregnant wife, infant son, elderly mother and other Uzbek refugees at the time of the US-led invasion in October 2001,
September 29, 2009 | Filed under
World |
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US District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly struck another decisive blow to the credibility of the Bush administration’s detention policies at Guantánamo by granting the habeas corpus petition of Kuwaiti prisoner Fouad al-Rabia, a 50-year old aeronautical engineer and a father of four who had been accused of fundraising for Osama bin Laden and running a supply depot for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan’s Tora Bora mountains.
September 18, 2009 | Filed under
World |
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A month ago, rulings made by District Court judges in the habeas corpus appeals of prisoners held at Guantánamo seemed, for the most part, to confirm that the courts were uniquely placed to deliver justice to the prisoners after their long years of imprisonment, largely without charge or trial.
September 11, 2009 | Filed under
World |
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As someone who has conducted evaluations of torture victims, the “evaluation” of high-value detainee Abu Zubaydah is a fascinating, if sickening, look at how the CIA goes about their kind of business. In the course of this article, we’ll learn more about how this “psychological evaluation” was used to further torture, making its drafting an [...]
September 1, 2009 | Filed under
Torture |
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White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday that former Vice President Dick Cheney has his facts wrong on the Obama administration’s policies for terror detainee interrogations.
August 31, 2009 | Filed under
TPRvideo |
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The lead story in today’s Washington Post, headlined “How a Detainee Became An Asset,” provides a one-sided and distorted account of the torture and abuse of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad (KSM) and demonstrates the urgent need for a blue ribbon bipartisan commission to create a comprehensive and authoritative narrative of the eight years of misgovernment of the Bush administration.
August 29, 2009 | Filed under
Commentary |
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President Barack Obama has staked his presidency on winning his “necessary” war in Afghanistan. Coming into office, one of his first acts, on Feb. 18, was to boost US troop levels in that country by 17,000, bringing the total number of soldiers and Marines in the country to about 57,000, to which one must also [...]
August 27, 2009 | Filed under
Commentary |
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By sheer coincidence, I had just been alerted to the publication of a number of documents relating to the ongoing habeas corpus cases of the Guantánamo prisoners last Thursday, and was reading, with mounting disbelief, the government’s supposed case against Khalid al-Mutairi, one of the last four Kuwaiti prisoners, when I received an email notifying [...]
August 4, 2009 | Filed under
World |
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Rejecting arguments from both the Bush and Obama administrations, a federal judge has ordered the release of an Afghani who may have been as young as 12 when he was detained 6 ½ years ago for allegedly wounding two U.S. soldiers and an Afghan translator by throwing a grenade at their unmarked jeep.
U.S. District Court [...]
July 30, 2009 | Filed under
Torture |
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Former Vice President Dick Cheney Cheney pressured George W. Bush and other top administration officials to deploy U.S. soldiers to a Buffalo NY suburb to arrest suspected terrorists, according to a report.
Using American soldiers for domestic law enforcement purposes would have been unprecedented. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits the armed forces from [...]
July 24, 2009 | Filed under
Nation |
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