Guantanamo and habeas corpus

Looking at the problems faced by the US government in finding a third country prepared to offer a new home to Guantánamo prisoner Majid Khan, whose sentence for involvement in terrorism ended on March 1 this year. Khan is thoroughly repentant about his actions, and has cooperated with the authorities on other terrorism-related cases, but it remains uncertain whether another country can be found that will take him in. As a cooperating witness, he should, it seems to me, be resettled with his family under a new identity in the US, but that is currently illegal under provisions in the annual National Defense Authorization Act introduced by Republicans during the Obama presidency, and maintained ever since.

Celebrating the latest release from Guantánamo — of Asadullah Haroon Gul, an Afghan held without charge or trial since 2007, who was approved for release last year by a Periodic Review Board, and who also had his ongoing imprisonment judged as unlawful by a District Court judge reviewing his habeas corpus petition.

The latest news in the case of Guantánamo prisoner Majid Khan, who has submitted a habeas corpus petition seeking his release, 100 days since his sentence for involvement with terrorism ended. While Khan should have the law on his side, I also compare his case to that of the 20 other men approved for release by administrative review processes, but also still held, for whom, shamefully, no legal mechanism at all exists to compel their release.

In a world exclusive, originally posted on the Close Guantánamo website, I tell the story of Saeed Bakhouch, an Algerian prisoner seized in Pakistan in March 2002, who has finally been approved for release by a Periodic Review Board, after being held for 20 years without charge or trial.

It’s ten years since Majid Khan agreed to a plea deal at Guantánamo, and a month since his sentence came to an end, and yet, despite it being clear throughout this entire period that he would be eligible for release in March 2022, the US government has made no plans for his release.

Celebrating the good news that, for the first time since 2010, a US judge has granted the habeas corpus petition of a Guantánamo prisoner. The prisoner is Asadullah Haroon Gul, who was associated with the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin militia, but the US Justice Department had continued to try to justify his ongoing imprisonment even though HIG reached a peace deal with the Afghan government in 2016.

My analysis of the significance of last week’s full en banc hearing, in the Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., in Al-Hela v. Biden, a case focused on whether the prisoners at Guantánamo have due process rights (a question that shouldn’t need asking after nearly 20 years), highlighting the obstructive role played by the Justice Department throughout the prison’s long history.

A cross-post, with my own introduction, of a detailed article for the Atlantic about the failure of the law at Guantánamo by Benjamin Farley, an attorney with the defense team for Ammar al Baluchi, one of the five men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks, who was also an adviser to the Special Envoy for Guantánamo Closure from 2013 to 2017.

A detailed examination of the current Guantánamo cases before the US courts, some involving a long-running struggle for due process rights, others involving the imminent end to the war in Afghanistan, and another involving severe mental health issues. There are glimmers of hope in the litigation, but it already seems clear that the Biden administration is intent on resisting judicial interference when it comes to Guantánamo, and is more interested in making decisions about whether or not to release prisoners through the purely administrative Periodic Review Board process, which, just last month, approved three long-standing “forever prisoners” for release.

My report on the news that the Afghan government has submitted an amicus brief to a US court in the case of Asadullah Haroon Gul, one of the last two Afghans in Guantánamo, arguing for his long-overdue release. Of the 40 men still held, Gul is one of 22 identified as “forever prisoners,” because of their ongoing and thoroughly unjustifiable imprisonment without charge or trial.