Guantanamo tribunals

The first of two articles about the devastating report about Guantánamo that was issued on June 26 by Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, following her visit to Guantánamo in February, which was the first ever visit to the prison by a Special Rapporteur. Despite improvements in conditions under President Obama and President Biden, she concluded that the detention regime at the prison continues to represent “ongoing cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment”, and “may also meet the legal threshold for torture.”

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.

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.

Celebrating the release from Guantánamo of two Pakistani brothers, Ahmed and Abdul Rahim Rabbani, who were held without charge or trial for over 20 years, first in CIA “black sites,” and, since September 2004, at Guantánamo, where they were finally approved for release by Periodic Review Boards in 2021. With their release, 18 other men, also approved for release, are still held, and the Biden administration needs to make their release a priority.

Promoting a new infographic I’ve created showing how long the 20 men approved for release from Guantánamo have been held since they were approved for release. In contrast to the 377 days that recently released prisoner Majid Khan had to wait to be freed after the end of his terrorism-related sentence last year, most of these 20 men have been waiting for far longer, and still have no idea when, if ever they will be freed, because their approval for release came through purely administrative processes, which have no legal weight.

Linking to and discussing my recent radio interview with Bob Connors and Tom Walker of WSLR 96.5, a progressive community radio station in Sarasota, Florida, about the release from Guantánamo of 75-year old Saifullah Paracha, Guantánamo’s oldest prisoner, and the plight of the 20 other men approved for release, for whom no legal mechanism exists to actually compel the US government to free them, because the review processes that approved them for release are purely administrative.

My photos of, and my report about a UK Guantánamo Network vigil for the closure of Guantánamo that was held outside the US Embassy in London on November 2, 2022. At the vigil, we held up laminated posters of “the Guantánamo 20”, the 20 men (out of the 35 men still held) who have been approved for release but are still held.

Celebrating the release of Saifullah Paracha, Guantánamo’s oldest prisoner, but also explaining in detail how unreliable information obtained through the coercive interrogation of his son, Uzair, was used to justify Saifullah’s imprisonment, even after Uzair had his sentence quashed by a federal court judge on the US mainland.

Introducing an update to my six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, which I first put together in 2009, listing the 779 men held at the prison since it opened on January 11, 2002, and which links to my articles about the prisoners, drawing on the 2,500 articles I’ve written about Guantánamo since 2007. I’ve updated it several times since 2009, most recently in 2018, and this latest update adds links to all the articles I’ve written over the last four years.