Mohamed Jawad

In a turnaround from the defiant position he took last week, when he sacked his US lawyers and stated that he would either boycott his impending trial by Military Commission, or would represent himself, Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen who was just 15 years when he was seized in Afghanistan in July 2002, and who [...]

Yesterday was the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, established by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1997, to mark the ratification of the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment on June 26, 1987.
As UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan explained on June 26, 1998 (when the [...]

Since coming to power 15 months ago, promising to close Guantánamo within a year, and suspending the much-criticized Military Commission trial system for terror suspects, President Obama’s zeal for repudiating the Bush administration’s “War on Terror” detention policies has ground to a halt.
The rot set in almost immediately, when the new administration invoked the “state [...]

Lt. Col. David Frakt, Associate Professor of Law at Western State University College of Law and a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Air Force Reserve JAG Corps, served as lead defense counsel with the Office of Military Commissions, and has long distinguished himself as a particularly intelligent and knowledgeable critic of the Commissions, which were [...]

Please support my work!

NOTE: This list has now been superseded by a dedicated page, “Guantánamo Habeas Results: The Definitive List,” which will be used to monitor the ongoing habeas rulings.
As part of my series, “Guantánamo Habeas Week” (introduced here, and expanded, on April 23, to become “Guantánamo Habeas Fortnight”), it’s my pleasure to present [...]

In the wake of Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement that five Guantánamo prisoners — including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — will face federal court trials in New York, and five others will face trials by Military Commission, much of the media has been consumed with the whining of opportunistic right-wing politicians, who persist in maintaining the [...]

In a recent article, “On Guantánamo, Lawmakers Reveal They Are Still Dick Cheney’s Pawns,” I spelled out my despair and disgust at lawmakers from both parties (their names can be found here, here and here), who, since May, have voted for legislation severely curtailing President Obama’s ability to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba [...]

Earlier today I published an exclusive article about Mohammed Jawad, the Afghan prisoner, seized as a teenager, who was freed from Guantánamo last month, in which Maj. David Frakt, his military defense attorney (who also represented him in the habeas corpus case that resulted in his release) described the contributions made by other members of [...]

On August 24, Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan prisoner who was, perhaps, as young as 12 when he was seized after a grenade attack in Kabul in December 2002 and transported to Guantánamo, was finally freed after his habeas corpus petition was granted, and returned to Afghanistan, where he was welcomed by President Hamid Karzai, who [...]

Long-time readers of my work will know that I championed the cause of Mohamed Jawad, the Afghan prisoner released from Guantánamo on August 24, for nearly two years, from the moment that he was, ludicrously, put forward for a trial by Military Commission in October 2007. Jawad was charged with throwing a grenade that wounded [...]