Bosnians in Guantanamo

Just two weeks ago, in a habeas corpus case in a Washington D.C. court, Judge Richard Leon turned the clock back to January 11, 2002 (the day Guantánamo opened) by ruling that the US government could continue holding two prisoners at Guantánamo — the Yemeni Muaz al-Alawi and the Tunisian Hisham Sliti — because the […]

On the seventh anniversary of the opening of the “War on Terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba (on January 11, 2002), this is perhaps a rather bleak title, given that Barack Obama has pledged to close the prison, but recent events in a US District Court — largely overlooked in the mainstream media — have […]

With less than two weeks until the Bush administration leaves office, Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison, reports on developments — or the lack of them — during the last month in the Military Commissions, the much-criticized trial system for “terror suspects” that was […]

As three Bosnian Algerians — Mustafa Ait Idr, Hadj Boudella and Mohammed Nechla — returned to their families in Bosnia-Herzegovina on Tuesday, Ait Idr spoke briefly to reporters. “For almost seven years,” he said, “I was at the end of the world, at the worst place in the world. It would have been hard even […]

On Thursday, in the US District Court in Washington D.C., Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush, delivered a major blow to the outgoing administration’s “War on Terror” detention policies by ordering the immediate release of five Algerian-born Bosnian prisoners at Guantánamo, after concluding that the government had provided no credible evidence […]

In a previous article, Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, examined the reasons why Barack Obama must stick to his election promise to close the “War on Terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, focusing on the Bush administration’s callous disregard for domestic and international laws, its pursuit of unfettered executive power, the disturbing effects of […]

This article, following on from yesterday’s article Guantánamo and the Supreme Court: the most important habeas corpus case in modern history, which analyzed the legal history of the detainees’ demands for habeas corpus rights, looks at the stories of the lead Petitioners in the cases that will be considered by the Supreme Court today. It’s […]