Guantanamo and habeas corpus

In the history of the “War on Terror,” few stories are as disturbing as that of Abu Zubaydah. Seized in Pakistan in March 2002, Zubaydah was initially regarded as a “high-value detainee” of such significance that the Bush administration conceived its torture program specifically for use on him, but the case against him has steadily […]

On Monday, the Pentagon announced that two prisoners had been released from Guantánamo. Abd al-Nisr Mohammed Khantumani, a 50-year old Syrian (also known as Abdul Nasir al-Tumani) was given a new home in Cape Verde, a former Portuguese colony off the West African coast, while Abdul Aziz Naji, a 35-year old Algerian, was repatriated to […]

For the last two years, the prisoners held in the “War on Terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba have been challenging the basis of their detention through habeas corpus petitions filed with the District Court in Washington D.C., where they have met with a notable degree of success. Of the 51 cases decided, 37 have […]

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 […]

Finally! 48 days after a District Court judge ordered the release of Mohammed Hassan Odaini, a Yemeni prisoner in Guantánamo, the Obama administration has sent him home. Odaini’s case had become an embarrassment for the administration, which had been obliged to concede that it had no basis on which to appeal the judge’s decision. As […]

On Thursday, in the District Court in Washington D.C., Judge Paul Friedman took the tally of victories by the Guantánamo prisoners to 37, out of 51 cases decided, when he granted the habeas corpus petition of Hussein Almerfedi, a 33-year old Yemeni, and instructed the Obama administration to “take all necessary and appropriate steps to […]

Two weeks ago, after 24 members of the campaigning group Witness Against Torture were cleared of charges of “unlawful entry with disorderly conduct,” stemming from demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol on January 21, 2010 (the date on which President Obama had promised the closure of Guantánamo), representatives of Witness Against Torture, other campaigning groups and […]

For our 14th interview — and our first since Antiwar Radio upgraded to a station with commercial breaks, making for a lean 20-minute show (available as an MP3 here) — Scott Horton and I began by discussing my recent article, Guantánamo and Habeas Corpus: 2 Years, 50 Cases, 36 Victories for the Prisoners, which allowed me […]

Saturday was the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, established twelve years ago to mark the day, in 1987, when the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Punishment or Treatment came into force, but you wouldn’t have found out about it through the mainstream US media. No editorials or […]

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 […]