American torture

To mark the 19th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I reflect on its long and bitter legacy, via the US’s endless wars, the continuing existence of Guantánamo, and, as recently revealed, the shockingly large number of people displaced by the US’s many wars waged over the last 19 years.

Good news as a US judge upholds a ruling from March requiring the US government to allow a US doctor and two foreign doctors to assess the mental health of Mohammed al-Qahtani, a Saudi national who was subjected to a vile torture program at Guantánamo when he was suspected of being the intended 20th hijacker for the 9/11 attacks, even though the US authorities knew that he had serious pre-existing mental health issues.

In the long quest to hold accountable the US officials responsible for the rendition and torture of prisoners in the “war on terror”, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recently delivered a historic ruling, agreeing to investigate the cases of four of these men, including two British nationals, Binyam Mohamed and Bisher al-Rawi, who, as well as being held in CIA “black sites”, were also held at Guantánamo.

An important update from the military commissions at Guantánamo, normally a ‘Groundhog Day’ of broken justice, where a judge has ruled that Majid Khan, a “high-value detainee” who agreed to a plea deal in 2012, should be allowed to have his sentence reduced because of the torture he was subjected to in CIA “black sites.” This is the first time such a decision has been taken, and it is to be hoped that Khan will now be released before the previously agreed date of 2031.

Some rare good news on the Guantánamo front, as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), whose mission is “to promote and protect human rights in the American hemisphere,” and whose resolutions are supposed to be binding on the US, which is a member state, has determined that the US was responsible for the “torture, abuse, and decade-long confinement without charge” of Djamel Ameziane, held for nearly 12 years at Guantánamo, from 2002-13, and has recommended that the US should provide “adequate material and moral reparations” for the human rights violations that he suffered.

In a historic US court ruling, District Judge Rosemary Collyer has ordered the US government to allow tortured Guantánamo prisoner Mohammed al-Qahtani, who has long-standing and profound mental health issues, to be assessed by “a mixed medical commission,” consisting of a US medical officer, and two doctors from a neutral country chosen by the International Committee of the Red Cross, to determine whether he should be returned to Saudi Arabia for treatment.

My report on today’s great news that the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has approved an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan since May 2003 by US armed forces and members of the CIA, the Taliban and affiliated armed groups, and Afghan government forces, reversing a decision last year not to proceed with the investigation, which was widely perceived to have come about in response to pressure exerted by the Trump administration. Interestingly, although the US is not a party to the ICC Statute, the Court has jurisdiction over crimes committed by US actors in the territories of other State Parties to the ICC, and the investigation is, therefore, also empowered to look at crimes committed since July 2002 outside Afghanistan – at, for example, “black sites” in Poland, Romania and Lithuania.

My report about the questioning, in pre-trial military commission hearings at Guantánamo, of CIA torture architect James Mitchell, and my hope that those paying attention to the hearings don’t forget that 40 men are still held at Guantánamo, and that all of them are fundamentally deprived of justice, and will be until the prison is closed for good.

A link to – and my report about – my recent interview with Kevin Gosztola and Rania Khalek for their “Unauthorized Disclosure” podcast, in which we discussed Guantánamo and my recent US trip to call for its closure, and the proposed extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

With “The Report,” about the Senate report into the CIA torture program, released on Amazon Prime on November 29, here’s a cross-post, with my own commentary, of an op-ed in USA Today by torture victim and Guantánamo prisoner Ahmed Rabbani.