LGC Newsletter - June 2009

British Residents:

A federal judge in California has ruled that a convicted “terrorist”, José Padilla, a US citizen, with whom Binyam Mohamed was allegedly planning a dirty bombing campaign in the US, can sue the government lawyer, John Yoo, who authorised his torture while in detention pending his trial. Yoo is the Department of Justice lawyer who authorised the use of torture and any other techniques that could lead to confessions just short of causing “organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death” in Guantanamo, Bagram and elsewhere. While held in the US, Padilla was subject to sensory deprivation for several years and was completely disorientated and unfit to stand trial when he was convicted in 2007 on lesser charges of supplying funds to terrorist groups. This ruling is a major step forward in holding those responsible for torture and criminal behaviour in the Bush era accountable for their actions.

Guantánamo Bay:

A sixth man has died at Guantánamo Bay. 31-year old Yemeni prisoner Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh was allegedly found unconscious in his cell on the night of 1 June. He had been on hunger strike for a large part of this year and it is not clear whether he was still being force fed through a tube inserted up through his nose twice a day. He had not been charged and it is unclear as to whether he had legal representation. The Pentagon has alleged that “he committed suicide” and although his body has been repatriated to Yemen, the US authorities are insisting on keeping the results of his autopsy secret. The last death in Guantánamo Bay was in December 2007.

The trial of the first Guantánamo detainee in a US civilian court started on 9 June. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian national, was brought to New York for his hearing on multiple charges against him in his alleged role in the bombings of two US Embassies in East Africa in 1998 (Tanzania and Kenya). Having been held at secret CIA prisons after his capture in Pakistan in 2004, he was brought to Guantánamo Bay in 2006 along with 14 other “high value” detainees such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. He is accused of having transported the explosives used in the bombings which killed over 200 people. In a closed hearing at Guantánamo Bay in 2007, he admitted to delivering the explosives but expressed remorse and apologised to the families of the victims, stating that he did not know the purpose for which they were to be used. During his trial, Mr. Ghailani will be held at a “supermax” prison facility.

If convicted, he could face the rest of his life in prison in the US and potentially the death penalty. This case is very much a test case for the Obama administration in its attempts to close Guantánamo Bay and repatriate the remaining prisoners. Mr. Ghailani pleaded non-guilty in his first appearance before the court. The trial is expected to take a long time. The US is planning the trial of at least several dozen other detainees.

Controversy broke out in mid-June concerning the choice of states to send prisoners cleared for release. Almost a year ago, a group of 17 Chinese nationals, of the Muslim Uighur ethnic group from western China who are persecuted by their government, were declassified as enemy combattants and their release was ordered by a federal judge. However, as they cannot be returned to China and the US is refusing to allow them to resettle on the mainland, the search has been on for another country to take them. Palau, a remote Pacific island State, which has only been independent (previously US-administered territory) since 2004 offered to take 13 of the men. Although the president claimed that the offer was made for humanitarian reasons, the US has also offered Palau over $200 million in aid if it agreed to take the men.

A mission from the Palau government has visited the men at Guantánamo Bay and although none have yet been transferred, the men themselves have expressed concerns that the Chinese authorities may seek to have them returned to China if they are released to Palau. Bermuda accepted the other 4 Uighurs on 11 June and they are reported to settling well there. This move, however, angered the British Foreign Office which is supposed to review Bermuda’s external relations under a 1968 agreement. Bermuda is a British overseas territory. The move by the president of Bermuda is to be congratulated; Bermuda has allowed the men to settle there and work and will allow them to apply for asylum elsewhere if they so wish. China has disputed these agreements, demanding that the US sends back its nationals. However, China cannot assure their safety if returned. Five Uighurs had previously been resettled in Albania in 2005. This setttlement was not permanent and one of these men was recently offered asylum in Sweden where he has family. The other men are rebuilding their lives in Albania but cannot be joined by their families as the Chinese government has refused to let them leave the country.

On 11 June, Mohamed El-Gharani, the youngest detainee held at Guantánamo Bay, allegedly captured aged 14, was released to Chad after 7 years of detention. He was held in police custody for two weeks upon his release. In January, shortly before Obama became president, a federal judge ordered the release of El-Gharani, finding the evidence on which he was deemed to be an “enemy combatant” to be deeply flawed; it considered him to have been an Al-Qaeda operative in London when he was only 11 and had never left Saudi Arabia where he was born. Kidnapped in Pakistan in 2001, he has been tortured and abused, including severe racial abuse, at Bagram and Guantánamo Bay.

Aged 22 now, Mohamed El-Gharani has not only missed out on his adolescence but has also been denied his fundamental right to an education while held in Guantánamo Bay. The fact that it has taken President Obama’s administration 6 months to release him, in addition to the 7 years it took the Bush administration to investigate the spurious claims against him, show that even now there is little desire to hurry up the process and none whatsoever to do justice for these men. A few months ago, in a telephone conversation with former detainee and Al Jazeera cameraman Sami Al-Hajj, El-Gharani told him that the abuse of detainees at Guantánamo Bay over this year has gotten worse. Upon his release by the police in Chad, El-Gharani gave the following interview to Al-Jazeera: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iIsBSds5sM Several other detainees were also released in mid-June to Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Around 230 detainees still remain. Italy has agreed to take three prisoners, however only as it wishes to prosecute them. Ireland and Portugal have also agreed to take several prisoners.

Extraordinary Rendition:

The Foreign Secretary David Miliband admitted to parliament in February 2008 that the government had known, in spite of it being denied many times by former Foreign Ministers, that the CIA had flown two prisoners in the extraordinary rendition programme to the British-run island of Diego Garcia in the southern Indian Ocean, where they were tortured before being flown on to Guantánamo Bay. The UK leases the island to the US military, which it is uses as a base in the Iraq War, and is alleged to run off-shore torture ships.

Mr. Miliband, however, refused to make the names of these detainees public, admitting only at the time that one had since been released from Guantánamo Bay. The identities of the two men have now been made public in a document prepared by Reprieve director Clive Stafford-Smith for a parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee investigation into the UK’s role in extraordinary rendition, particularly the case of Binyam Mohamed. The two men are Mohammed Madni, an Egyptian-Pakistani national, kidnapped by the CIA in Indonesia in 2001, tortured in Egypt and then “rendered” through Diego Garcia in 2002 and later to Guantánamo Bay.

Since his release in 2008, he has returned to Pakistan and is reported to be in poor physical and mental health following his ordeal. The other man is probably Ibn Al-Shaykh Al-Libi, the former “ghost prisoner” who died in mysterious circumstances in a Libyan jail in May. Al-Libi was kidnapped in Pakistan in 2001 and transferred to various secret jails in different locations where he was tortured. In Egypt, where he “confessed” that Saddam Hussein was linked to Al-Qaeda, shortly before the war in Iraq started - “intelligence” which was used to launch the attack - his torture included a mock burial, sleep deprivation and daily interrogations lasting up to 17 hours.

He is likely to have been “rendered” through Diego Garcia; however, it is unclear as to whether he was ever held at Guantánamo Bay. He was released to Libya in 2006 suffering from tuberculosis and diabetes, where he was jailed and died last month. His death was allegedly a “suicide”, a convenience for those who would like to bury the facts of the horrific torture he faced at various locations and across several continents in secret jails for over more than four years. Al-Libi was never charged and never tried. His ordeal took place secretly outside of the confines of any known legal or humane process. The British government is responsible and liable for its role in the rendition and torture of these men and must be held accountable along with the American officials involved. The disclosure of the names of the men who were held at Diego Garcia is simply the second step in the process of holding the British government responsible for their involvement in this wrongdoing. For more information on this story, please see: www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/06/03/revealed-identity-of-guantanamo-torture-victim-rendered-through-diego-garcia/

In an interview with the July edition of Esquire magazine, Tony Blair called on the public to “wait for the facts” in the Binyam Mohamed case and clearly being unaware of anything that has happened in Britain since he left Downing Street, continued to deny that he or anyone else in his government knew or were involved in rendition through Diego Garcia, Iraq or the torture or rendition of British nationals or residents. This being in spite of David Miliband admitting to “renditions” through the British overseas territory of Diego Garcia, former Defence Minister John Hutton’s admission that British soldiers in Iraq handed prisoners over to the Americans who “rendered” them to Afghanistan and so on…for more details: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/britain-and-rendition-wait-for-the-facts-says-tony-blair-1693490.html

In mid-June, the Foreign Secretary David Miliband stated that MI5’s policy on interrogation which the Prime Minister recently ordered to be rewritten would be kept secret. This is in spite of mounting allegations and evidence that British intelligence agents have been involved in torture abroad in several countries. The Guardian newspaper also stated that Tony Blair had been aware that Britain had a secret torture policy which allowed intelligence agents to interview individuals who had been tortured abroad provided they did not ask them about the specifics of their ordeal or treatment. This happened in several countries, including Pakistan, and is in breach of international law. The revelations were made in a letter: www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/18/tony-blair-secret-torture-policy

In response to this story, several MPs have suggested that former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and former Home Secretary David Blunkett must have known about this policy too and should be prosecuted for any knowledge they have of wrongdoing by British intelligence agents. As Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw consistently denied involvement in extraordinary rendition, but this has since been openly admitted by the current Foreign Secretary David Miliband: www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/18/straw-blunkett-interrogation-detainee-policy

LGC Activities:

The LGC monthly “Shut Down Guantánamo!” demonstration outside the US Embassy was held on Friday 5 June. Four people attended. The July demonstration is at 6-7pm on Friday 3 July.

The LGC has held a series of stalls in Clapham, south London to raise awareness about the plight of Shaker Aamer, the last Londoner held in Guantánamo Bay. We will also be holding a public meeting to raise awareness and get the local community to act on 11 July at the Battersea Arts Centre with Cageprisoners.

London Guantánamo Campaign
london.gtmo@googlemail.com
www.guantanamo.org.uk