Guantanamo lawyers

The video of my speech at the inspiring “Close Guantánamo!” event at the European Parliament on September 28, 2023, hosted by the Irish MEPs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace, at which I stressed how the men still held at Guantánamo are as fundamentally without rights as they were when the prison first opened nearly 22 years ago, and called on EU countries to help resettle the men approved for release but who cannot be repatriated.

My detailed report about, and the video of ‘Close Guantánamo!’, an extraordinary and hugely powerful three-hour event held at the EU Parliament on September 28, 2023, featuring nine speakers, including Mansoor Adayfi (on what was only his second trip to freedom since he finally got a passport earlier this year) and two other former prisoners, two lawyers, a UN Rapporteur, myself and others, hosted by the inspiring independent Irish MEPs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace. As the event highlighted, the priorities for anyone concerned with justice, and with bringing to an end Guantánamo’s vile existence, are to resettle 16 men still held who have been approved for release (for which the countries of EU can help), providing adequate medical care for everyone still held at the prison, reminding the US government that it continues to have an obligation to ensure the welfare of former prisoners, even after their release, and, eventually, seeking accountability for the crimes that the US government has committed, and still continues to commit at Guantánamo.

My analysis of the significance of a DoD Sanity Board’s assessment that Ramzi bin al-Shibh, one of five men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks, who are caught up in seemingly endless pre-trial hearings in Guantánamo’s broken military commissions, is unfit to stand trial because he suffers from PTSD and psychosis. That assessment has been accepted by the military judge in the 9/11 case, but meanwhile President Biden has refused to accept conditions requested by the 9/11 co-accused in plea deals that have been ongoing for the last 18 months, since prosecutors finally recognized that the use of torture had made a successful trial untenable. The conditions include the lifelong provision of adequate physical and mental health care, which has not been provided at Guantánamo, and which, ironically, has contributed significantly to bin al-Shibh’s inability to stand trial.

Announcing “the most significant gathering ever assembled on Guantánamo in the European Parliament,” on September 28, which I helped to initiate and organize, at which MEPs and members of the public will hear from ten speakers, including three former prisoners (Mansoor Adayfi, Moazzam Begg and Lakhdar Boumediene), Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, three lawyers (Beth Jacob, Alka Pradhan and Mark Denbeaux), Valerie Lucznikowska of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, former Muslim Chaplain James Yee, and myself. The main thrust of the event will be to encourage EU governments to help with the resettlement of men still held at Guantánamo who have long been approved for release but who cannot be repatriated.

My report about a recent Periodic Review Board hearing in Guantánamo, not reported in the mainstream media, about Muhammed Rahim, the last Afghan in the prison, who delivered a heartfelt plea for his release. Despite claims that he was connected with Al-Qaeda, the US authorities have never provided any evidence to back up their claims.

Linking to, and discussing, The New Arab’s podcast, “Searching for Justice at Guantánamo: Tainted evidence and the fight for accountability,” in which Nadine Talaat tells the story of the prison, and, in particular, the case of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, through interviews with myself, Katie Carmon, one of his military commission lawyers, and former prisoner Mansoor Adayfi.

A major article examining the cases of the 14 men still held at Guantánamo — “high-value detainees” and torture victims — who have not been approved for release, and what the US authorities can and should do with them, given that many have significant physical and/or mental health problems relating to their torture, or to the inadequacy of medical care at the prison. Following recent, highly critical reports by the UN and the ICRC, I look at the possibility of plea deals to resolve the deadlock in the trials of those who have been charged, and who may end up remaining at Guantánamo, but in a new facility providing “rehabilitation from torture, and adequate medical care”, and also suggest that other men not charged may also have to be provided with a similar, but non-penal facility providing the same level of care.

My report about the release from Guantánamo of Said Bakush, the last Algerian in the prison, who was held for nearly 21 years without charge or trial. Bakush, as I have reported previously, was misidentified by the US military, who used a photo that purported to be of him, but was not him at all, and he was also analyzed as suffering from PTSD by a psychologist contacted by his attorney, Candace Gorman, who continued to work on his behalf, even though he has not seen her since 2016, because he became so depressed about his predicament.

An exclusive article about the latest court hearing in the case of Khalid Qassim, a Yemeni prisoner in Guantánamo whose lawyers are seeking to persuade a judge to order his release on the basis that, as someone seized after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan as a soldier, with no connection to terrorism, he must be released now that the war in Afghanistan is definitively over. The case was heard in December, in the District Court in Washington, D.C., before Senior Judge Thomas Hogan, and was argued by Tom Wilner, who was Counsel of Record to the Guantánamo prisoners in their Supreme Court cases establishing their right to habeas corpus in 2004 and 2008.

Announcing the good news that Ghassan Al-Sharbi, a Saudi national, has been repatriated from Guantánamo after nearly 21 years’ imprisonment, and tracing his long journey through the military commissions, the prison’s broken trial system, and its over-cautious administrative review processes, the Guantánamo Review Task Force and the Periodic Review Boards.