Tunisians in Guantanamo

In a genuinely startling development in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Gladys Kessler has ruled that Mohammed Abdul Rahman, a Tunisian detainee at Guantánamo who was cleared for release after the first round of administrative reviews in 2006, “cannot be sent to Tunisia because he could suffer ‘irreparable harm’ that [...]

In another resounding demonstration of the importance of legally constituted checks and balances on executive power in the United States, the Associated Press, after filing a request to the Pentagon under the Freedom of Information Act, has secured 58 transcripts from the latest round of annual Administrative Review Boards at Guantánamo, convened to assess whether [...]

In the Washington Post, Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch provides gruelling updates on the stories of Abdullah bin Omar and Lofti Lagha, the Tunisian Guantánamo detainees who were returned to the country of their birth in June. Having recently travelled to Tunisia, Daskal reports that, although she was unable to gain access to bin [...]

The story of Hedi Boudhiba, a 46-year old Tunisian, who has been abandoned in Spain after being extradited from the UK and cleared of all charges against him in the Spanish National Court, calls into doubt the quality of British and pan-European intelligence about activities related to terrorism, and also raises uncomfortable questions about the [...]

Back in June, I was the first journalist to cover the story of Lofti Lagha, one of two Tunisians repatriated from Guantánamo, who faced an uncertain future in the country of his birth. While fears that his fellow countryman, Abdullah bin Omar, would face torture on his return to Tunisia (which were confirmed in July), [...]