Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

My reflections on Guantánamo and 9/11 on the 21st anniversary of the terrorist attacks, which led to two failed wars, the CIA’s torture program, and, of course, the establishment of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, the enduring symbol of the US’s shameful and lawless response to the 9/11 attacks, where 36 men are still held, most of whom have never been charged with crime. Also included is a video of my discussion about 9/11 and Guantánamo with Inayat Wadee of Salaamedia in South Africa. Ironically, the men held who were allegedly responsible for the attacks have still not been successfully prosecuted, because of the torture to which they were subjected, while, alarmingly for the old men who still want to keep the “war on terror” alive, no one under 25 even remembers 9/11, and in many cases don’t even know what happened that day.

Here’s my report on the US military’s announcement that it has closed the secretive Camp 7 at Guantánamo, where the so-called “high-value detainees” were held, and has moved them to Camp 5 instead. Camp 7 had been falling apart for years, but moving these men is no solution to Guantánamo’s larger problems: that the men held there should either be tried via a functional judicial system, or released.

Good news for a change, as Uzair Paracha, convicted of terrorism-related charges in 2005, and given a 30-year sentence, has been freed and repatriated to Pakistan. In 2018, the judge who presided over his initial trial ordered a new trial after concluding that allowing the existing conviction to stand would be a “manifest injustice,” a decision based on serious doubts about the veracity of testimony against him that had been provided by prisoners at Guantánamo, previously held in CIA “black sites,” including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Sadly, although Uzair has been freed, his father, Saifullah, held on the basis of similar discredited testimony, is still held at Guantánamo, with no sign of when, if ever, he too will be freed.

Marking the 17th anniversary of the “torture memos,” written by John Yoo and approved by Jay S. Bybee, I look at how the US’s decision to embark on a torture program continues to undermine justice, as defense lawyers for the men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks are taking exception to claims that the use of torture on their clients can be sidestepped because “clean teams” of FBI agents later interrogated them non-coercively. The lawyers claim – and have evidence to back it up – that actually the “clean teams” were working quite closely with the CIA throughout the whole process.

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal.   I wrote the following article […]

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.   I wrote the following article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012, on the 10th anniversary […]

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.   I wrote the following article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012, on the 10th anniversary […]

It’s the start of my latest quarterly fundraiser. Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.   Today, as we remember the terrible terrorist attacks of September 11, […]

The military commissions at Guantánamo, as I have been reporting for ten years, are a shamefully deficient excuse for justice, a system dreamt up in the heat of America’s post-9/11 sorrow, when hysteria and vengeance trumped common sense and a respect for the law, and it was decided, by senior Bush administration officials and their […]

Please support my work! I’m currently trying to raise $2800 (£2100) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo for the next three months.   In the 15 years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States has systematically undermined many of the key values it claims to uphold as a nation […]