Guantanamo tribunals

The ninth article in my ongoing series of ten articles about the 16 men approved for release from Guantánamo, noting how long they have been held since those decisions were taken, telling their stories, and tying publication of these articles into significant dates in their long ordeal. The articles are published alternately here and on the Close Guantánamo website, and this particular article focuses on the case of Sanad al-Kazimi, seized in the UAE in January 2003, and held in Emirati custody and CIA “black sites” until September 2004, when he was flown to Guantánamo, where he has been held ever since without charge or trial. He was finally approved for release in October 2021, after over 12 years of tortuously slow review processes that began under President Obama.

The seventh article in my ongoing series of ten articles about the 16 men approved for release from Guantánamo, noting how long they have been held since those decisions were taken, telling their stories, and tying publication of these articles into significant dates in their long ordeal. The articles are published alternately here and on the Close Guantánamo website, and this particular article highlights the case of Khaled Qassim, a Yemeni, and a talented artist, whose ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial was upheld for many years because of his “non-compliance” — his resistance to the injustice and brutality of Guantánamo, including through persistent hunger strikes — far more than anything he was alleged to have done before he was seized and taken to Guantánamo in the first place.

The fifth article in my ongoing series about the 16 men approved for release from Guantánamo, noting how long they have been held since those decisions were taken, telling their stories, and tying publication of these articles into significant dates in their long ordeal. The articles are published alternately here and on the Close Guantánamo website, and this particular article highlights three men approved for release in December 2021 — the talented artist Moath al-Alwi, and two victims of extraordinary rendition and torture: Zakaria al-Baidany and Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu.

The third article in my ongoing series about the 16 men approved for release from Guantánamo, noting how long they have been held since those decisions were taken, telling their stories, and tying publication of these articles into significant dates in their long ordeal. This particular article highlights the three especially unfortunate men who were approved for release over 14 years ago.

My report about last month’s military commission hearings at Guantánamo, at which the prison’s only Malaysian prisoners, Mohammed Farik Bin Amin and Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, accepted a plea deal, admitting that they were involved as accomplices in the Bali nightclub bombings in 2002, as members of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiya, and agreeing to provide information in the forthcoming trial of the group’s alleged leader, Hambali (Riduan Isamuddin), in exchange for a reduced sentence. As I explain, the two men are largely unknown to the general public, even though they are “high-value detainees” who were held and tortured in CIA “black sites” for three years, from 2003 to 2006, and have been held at Guantánamo for over 17 years.

The first of a series of articles focusing on the 16 men still held at Guantánamo who have long been approved for release by high-level US government review processes. Published to coincide with significant dates in these men’s long wait for freedom, this first article focuses on Uthman Abd Al-Rahim Muhammad Uthman, a Yemeni who was approved for release 1,000 days ago.

My report about a recent Periodic Review Board hearing in Guantánamo, not reported in the mainstream media, about Muhammed Rahim, the last Afghan in the prison, who delivered a heartfelt plea for his release. Despite claims that he was connected with Al-Qaeda, the US authorities have never provided any evidence to back up their claims.

As Guantánamo once more falls off the mainstream media’s radar, I thought this would be a good time to ask those who oppose the continued existence of the prison to write to the men still held, to let them know that they’ve not been forgotten.

The first of two articles about the devastating report about Guantánamo that was issued on June 26 by Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, following her visit to Guantánamo in February, which was the first ever visit to the prison by a Special Rapporteur. Despite improvements in conditions under President Obama and President Biden, she concluded that the detention regime at the prison continues to represent “ongoing cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment”, and “may also meet the legal threshold for torture.”

A major article examining the cases of the 14 men still held at Guantánamo — “high-value detainees” and torture victims — who have not been approved for release, and what the US authorities can and should do with them, given that many have significant physical and/or mental health problems relating to their torture, or to the inadequacy of medical care at the prison. Following recent, highly critical reports by the UN and the ICRC, I look at the possibility of plea deals to resolve the deadlock in the trials of those who have been charged, and who may end up remaining at Guantánamo, but in a new facility providing “rehabilitation from torture, and adequate medical care”, and also suggest that other men not charged may also have to be provided with a similar, but non-penal facility providing the same level of care.