Guantanamo and US District Courts/Appeals Courts

My report about the latest medical scandal at Guantánamo, as a medical team was flown in to conduct emergency surgery on Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, who has a degenerative spinal condition. Al-Iraqi previously had five surgical operations at Guantánamo, in 2017-18, after his condition was ignored for ten years. It is clear that his needs cannot be met at the prison, but he cannot receive urgent and more appropriate medical care on the US mainland because of an ongoing ban, imposed by Congress in the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which prevents prisoners from being transferred to the US mainland for any reason. I also look at the case of Ammar al-Baluchi, who suffered brain damage as a result of torture in a CIA “black site,” but whose calls for independent medical experts to assess him are being resisted by the Biden administration.

My report about Guled Hassan Duran, a Somali prisoner in Guantánamo who has worrying health problems, and whose lawyers have just asked a US court to revisit his long-stalled habeas corpus petition, and to order his release, a year since he was approved for release by a Periodic Review Board.

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.

Good news, as torture victim Mohammed al-Qahtani has finally been released from Guantánamo, where it was eventually recognized that his schizophrenia could not be dealt with adequately at the prison. At Guantánamo, meanwhile, 38 men are still held, half of whom have been approved for release, and more releases must follow soon.

My report about the latest welcome news from Guantánamo: the decision by a Periodic Review Board to approve the release of Mohammed al-Qahtani, who suffers from schizophrenia, which pre-dates his capture and arrival at Guantánamo in 2002. Despite this, the US authorities tortured him over the course of several months, in 2002-03, after discovering that he was apparently the intended 20th hijacker for the 9/11 attacks. Finally, however, the authorities have recognized that his mental health issues are so profound that he cannot be adequately treated at Guantánamo, and have accepted the need for him to be repatriated to Saudi Arabia where he can receive proper treatment.

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 report about this week’s Supreme Court hearing in the case of torture victim and Guantánamo prisoner Abu Zubaydah, involving efforts by his lawyers to secure testimony from his torturers regarding what happened to him Poland. In oral argument, however, what emerged most forcefully was the Justices’ surprise that Abu Zubaydah himself has not been allowed to testify about what happened to him, and that he has had a habeas corpus petition pending for 14 years, as well as their concern that he is still being held at all, given the end of the war in Afghanistan.

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.