U.S. judge orders release of 5 of the 6 'Bosnian Algerians' detained in Guantanamo

[Al-khiyal]

Many detainees who remain in the U.S.-controlled detention center in Guantanamo Bay are held in cruel conditions of isolation, Amnesty International charged today in its new report, "USA: Cruel and Inhuman - Conditions of Isolation for Detainees in Guantanamo Bay."

Most detainees have suffered harsh treatment throughout their detention, confined to mesh cages or maximum security cells. Moreover, a new facility that opened in December 2006, known as Camp 6, has created even harsher and apparently more permanent conditions of extreme isolation and sensory deprivation.

"Guantanamo Bay is the festering symbol of the Bush administration's continued contempt for international law and disregard for human rights - further diminishing our country's moral standing," said Larry Cox, Amnesty International USA executive director. "The administration continues to think that it can justify ongoing human rights violations in the name of national security. Perhaps President Bush needs to think again, because the voices calling for the closure of this disgrace to American values are only getting louder."

Detainees are reportedly confined for 22 hours a day to individual, enclosed, steel cells where they are almost completely cut off from human contact. The cells have no windows to the outside or access to natural light or fresh air. No activities are provided, and detainees are subjected to 24-hour lighting and constant observation by guards through the narrow windows in the cell doors. They exercise alone in a high-walled yard where little sunlight filters through; detainees are often only offered exercise at night and may not see daylight for days at a time.

The U.S authorities have described Camp 6 as a "state of the art modern facility" that is safer for guards and "more comfortable" for the detainees. However, Amnesty International believes that the conditions, as shown in photographs and described by detainees and their attorneys, contravene international standards for humane treatment. In some respects, they appear more severe than the most restrictive levels of "super-maximum" custody on the U.S. mainland, which have been criticized by international bodies as incompatible with human rights treaties and standards.

It appears that around 80 percent of the approximately 385 men currently held at Guantanamo are in isolation - a reversal of earlier moves to ease conditions and allow more socializing among detainees. According to the Pentagon, 165 detainees had been transferred to Camp 6 from other facilities on the base by mid-January 2007. A further 100 detainees are held in solitary confinement in Camp 5, another maximum security facility.

As many as 20 detainees are also believed to be held in solitary confinement in Camp Echo, a facility set apart from others on the base, where conditions have been described by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as "extremely harsh."

While the United States has an obligation to protect its citizens and those living within its borders from attacks by armed groups, that does not relieve the United States from its responsibilities to comply with human rights and the rule of law. By rounding up men from all over the world and transporting them to an isolated penal colony, holding them without charge or trial, the United States has violated several U.S. and international laws and treaties. Statements by the Bush administration that these men are "enemy combatants," "terrorists" or "very bad people" do not justify the complete lack of due process rights.

Shaker Aamer, a U.K. resident and former camp negotiator, has been held in total isolation in Camp Echo since September 2005. Saber Lahmer, an Algerian seized in Bosnia, has also spent the last 10 months in Camp Echo. Both men are reportedly confined to small, windowless cells with little exercise and no possessions apart from a copy of the Qur'an. Saber Lahmer reportedly refused to leave his cell for a pre-arranged visit with his attorneys in March, causing grave concern for his mental health.

"It seems that detainees are being placed in extreme lock-down conditions not because of their individual behavior, but because of harsher camp operating procedures," said Jumana Musa, Amnesty International USA advocacy director for international justice and domestic human rights. "Even men who have been cleared for release are being held in isolation."

Amnesty International urges the Bush administration to close the facility and detainees to be charged and tried under international fair trial norms or else released. U.S. authorities must take immediate steps to ensure that no detainee is subjected to prolonged isolation in conditions of reduced sensory stimulation and allow detainees more association and activities as well as regular contact with their families with opportunities for phone calls and visits. In addition, independent health care professionals and human rights experts should be able to examine and visit detainees in private.

"Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is the latest U.S. official, including President Bush, to say that Guantanamo should be closed. There's no reason to dawdle ... there's no reason to delay ... but there are many reasons to end one of the worst blemishes on United States' human rights record," said Cox.

Conditions in Guantanamo Detention Center flout international standards,
charges new Amnesty International report

[liberte]

Conditions for detainees at the US military jail at Guantanamo Bay are deteriorating, with the majority held in solitary confinement, a report says.
Amnesty International said the often harsh and inhumane conditions at the camp were "pushing people to the edge".

It called for the facility to be closed and for plans for "unfair" military commission trials to be abandoned.

Many of the 385 inmates have been held for five years or more, unable to mount a legal challenge to their detention.

"While the United States has an obligation to protect its citizens... that does not relieve the United States from its responsibilities to comply with human rights," the report said.


Some [inmates] are dangerously close to full-blown mental and physical breakdown
UK director Kate Allen
Amnesty International

"Statements by the Bush administration that these men are 'enemy combatants,' 'terrorists' or 'very bad people' do not justify the complete lack of due process rights," the group said.

Amnesty reiterated its call for detainees at the prison camp in Cuba - many of whom are suspected Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters - to be released or charged and sent to trial.

'Already in despair'

The report, published on Thursday, said about 300 detainees are now being held at a new facility - known as Camp 5, Camp 6 and Camp Echo - comparable to "super-max" high security units in the US.


The group said the facility had "created even harsher and apparently more permanent conditions of extreme isolation and sensory deprivation".
It said the detainees were reportedly confined to windowless cells for 22 hours a day, only allowed to exercise at night and could go for days without seeing daylight.

The organisation's UK director, Kate Allen, described the process at Guantanamo as "a travesty of justice".

"With many prisoners already in despair at being held in indefinite detention... some are dangerously close to full-blown mental and physical breakdown.

"The US authorities should immediately stop pushing people to the edge with extreme isolation techniques and allow proper access for independent medical experts and human rights groups."

'Serving justice'

The provision that stripped detainees of their right to mount a legal challenge to their confinement was upheld by a US federal appeals court in Washington in February.

Pushing the anti-terror legislation through Congress last year, Mr Bush said he needed the new law to bring terror suspects to justice.

It allows for the indefinite detention of people as "enemy combatants".

The US has said it plans to use the military tribunal system to prosecute about 80 of 385 prisoners remaining at the camp.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Guantanamo conditions 'worsening'

[Al-khiyal]

June 29, 2007 -- In an end-of-session about-face, the U.S. Supreme Court said without comment Friday that it will consider a Guantánamo Bay detainees' challenge.

The court's action - granting a so-called writ of certiorari - came in combined cases carrying the names of a Kuwaiti and an Algerian detainee who have been held at the remote U.S. Navy base in Cuba since 2002.

It means both Bush administration and detainee lawyers will likely go before the court in October - the third such time the justices will weigh in on the White House powers to detain and try war-on-terror captives.

The online authority on the high court, scotusblog, called the announcement "a startling turn of events in the legal combat over the war on terrorism.''

Under the court's rules, the late June decision to review the issue means that five justices have now agreed to hear the case.

The court passed on review on April 2, after only three of the justices agreed to hear the case. A reversal required five justices.

The surprise announcement follows a series of setbacks to Bush administration ''enemy combatant'' policy in both military and civilian courts.

Two military judges earlier this month dismissed war crimes charges against two Guantánamo detainees, declaring the Pentagon review processes at odds with an act of Congress.

Separately, a federal appeals court ruled against the White House powers to indefinitely hold an enemy combatant on U.S. soil.

The White House expressed regret at the decision.

''We did not think that court review at this time was necessary, but we are confident in our legal position,'' said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

''We're elated,'' declared Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, in Miami. ''It's truly, truly unprecedented for them to reconsider a cert denial'' so soon after it passed on a case.

He said ''some dynamic has changed in the court'' and offered three suppositions.

"It might have enverything to do with the government dragging its feet on Guantánamo. It might also have to do with the Guantánamo legal processes collapsing under their own weight. Also, there's been increased domestic and international pressure to close Guantánamo and provide due process.''

The Defense Department had no immediate response Friday but spokesman had earlier said that there were no plans to change the procedures by which uniformed officers administratively review President Bush's finding of Guantánamo captives as "enemy combatants.''

The court also acted on the same day that 140 members of Congress wrote the president urging closure of the prison camps that today hold about 375 war-on-terror detainees, some since January 2002.

''Holding prisoners for an indefinite period of time, without charging them with a crime, goes against our values, ideals and principles as a nation governed by the rule of law,'' Rep. Jim Moran, D-Virginia, wrote in the letter, which was co-signed by about a third of the House of Representatives.

"Its continued operation also threatens the safety of U.S. citizens and military personnel detained abroad.''

Supreme Court to review Gitmo detainee case

[Al-khiyal]

June 29 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court will hear appeals by Guantanamo Bay inmates, held without trial for more than five years, who say the Bush administration and Congress have deprived them of a constitutional right to go to federal court.

The justices said they will decide whether a 2006 law validly bars judges from considering so-called habeas corpus petitions filed by prisoners challenging their detention at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The government is holding 375 inmates there, and only 10 men have ever faced charges.

"Hundreds of men are currently facing lifelong imprisonment without any assurance that they will ever be tried on a criminal charge or given any fair opportunity to challenge the purported basis of their apprehension and detention by the government,'' one of the appeals argued.

Today's action is a reversal for the court, which in April rejected the same two appeals over the objections of three justices who voted to grant a hearing. It's the first time in decades the court has agreed to hear arguments in a previously rejected case. The justices will consider the cases during the nine-month term that starts in October. The court issued its final decisions of the current term yesterday.

High court review creates a new legal headache for President George W. Bush, whose administration urged the justices not to hear the appeals. U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement said the inmates' constitutional rights are protected by a 2005 law that authorizes military hearings and limited judicial review.

Previous cases

"No other captured enemy combatants in the history of this country, or any other, have enjoyed such privileges,'' argued Clement, the administration's top courtroom lawyer.

In three previous cases since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Supreme Court put limits on presidential power to determine the fate of Guantanamo detainees without more involvement of the other two branches of government.

The administration says the latest dispute is different because Congress explicitly stripped federal trial judges of their power to hear habeas petitions from detainees. Such petitions are a centuries-old legal device used by inmates to claim they are being wrongfully held.

Lawmakers put in place a new system that requires the military to review each inmate's status as an "enemy combatant'' on a regular basis and gives detainees limited rights to appeal those conclusions. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the law on a 2-1 vote.

New developments

"We didn't think that court review at this time was necessary, but we're confident in our legal position,'' White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

When the high court refused to hear the cases in April, Justices John Paul Stevens and Anthony Kennedy said they voted not to grant a hearing "despite the obvious importance of the issues.'' They said the detainees should first go before military tribunals.

Three other justices - Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter - voted at that time to hear the appeals.

Military-law experts pointed to several developments since then that might have prompted wavering justices to conclude they needed to intervene.

Earlier this month, military judges threw out charges against two inmates, saying the men hadn't been properly classified. Later, a military officer and lawyer who had been involved in overseeing the tribunals said the process was flawed and that prosecutors had been pressured to label detainees as enemy combatants.

'Deciding by not deciding'

"All these things add up,'' said Eugene Fidell, a military law expert at Feldesman Tucker Leifer Fidell in Washington. He said the justices might have concluded they needed to get involved because "they were deciding by not deciding.''

Under Supreme Court rules, at least five of the nine justices must agree to reconsider a decision rejecting an appeal. Ordinarily, four justices' votes are needed to grant review.

Kennedy cast the deciding vote in 2006 when the court barred Bush's original plan to try Guantanamo Bay inmates before military tribunals. The ruling scaled back presidential wartime powers.

"Kennedy is clearly the critical vote here,'' said Michael Greenberger, a law professor and director of the University of Maryland's Center for Health and Homeland Security in Baltimore. "My own view is that everything that has happened since April 2 almost certainly led him to believe that enough is enough.''

Detainee Treatment Act

The court's order today noted that the D.C. Circuit is currently considering what rights inmates have under the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act. The justices said they would seek legal briefs from the government and detainees once the appeals court rules in two cases before it.

The D.C. Circuit ruling may play a central role in the Supreme Court case because of the Bush administration's contention that the 2005 law provides an adequate substitute for habeas review. Lawyers for the inmates contend the lower court ruling soon will show the inadequacy of the tribunals.

Under the 2005 law, panels known as Combat Status Review Tribunals consider the "enemy combatant'' status of each prisoner on a regular basis. Inmates can challenge those decisions in the D.C. Circuit.

The status review tribunals sharply limit the evidence inmates can present and bar them from being represented by lawyers. The rules also put the burden on detainees to prove that they shouldn't be detained. In addition, the 2005 law limits the issues the D.C. Circuit can consider on appeal.

The justices today agreed to hear arguments from two groups of detainees. One consists of six Algerian natives seized in Bosnia in 2002 and held ever since at Guantanamo without charges.

The other appeal was filed by 39 prisoners, most taken into custody in Afghanistan or the bordering areas of Pakistan. Most aren't facing criminal charges.

The cases are Boumediene v. Bush, 06-1195, and Al Odah v. United States, 06-1196.

Guantanamo Bay detainees get U.S. Supreme Court hearing

[Al-khiyal]

Sarajevo, August 23, 2007 - Bosnia-Herzegovinan authorities recently requested guarantees from the US government that six Bosnian citizens detained in Guantanamo Bay prison would not be executed or tortured, the Foreign Ministry confirmed Thursday in Sarajevo. "Bosnia-Herzegovina asked the US authorities to give guarantees that those people will not be sentenced to death, and will not be exposed to torture, inhumane and humiliating treatment," said the letter signed by Bosnia's ministers of justice, human rights and foreign affairs.

The Foreign Ministry said the official correspondence was sent earlier this month, after the government approved it last month.

Six Bosnian citizens of Algerian origin - all married to Bosnian women and known as the Algerian Group, were arrested in Bosnia- Herzegovina in October 2001 under suspicion of planning possible terrorist activities against US and British diplomatic missions in Bosnia.

The arrests were conducted in a nationwide Bosnian action to fight terrorism after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.

In February 2002, immediately after the six were released by a Bosnian court due to lack of evidence, the Bosnian government handed them over to the United States, which transferred them to the US internment camp Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Bosnia interested in fate of its people in Guantanamo

[Al-khiyal]

WASHINGTON, December 1, 2007 (AP) — Nearly six years ago, Bosnian authorities ordered the release of six men picked up on suspicion of plotting to attack the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo. An investigation found no evidence against the six Algerian natives.

Instead of freedom, however, they got a trip to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They were branded enemy combatants by the Bush administration and have been held since. They have not been charged with a crime.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will consider whether the Algerians and about 300 other prisoners at Guantanamo can go to U.S. courts to challenge their confinement. Just three detainees are facing charges at the moment, although Pentagon officials have talked about eventually holding military trials for 60 to 80 prisoners.

The prisoners want the justices to order prompt court hearings, considering the length of their detention so far.

The cases to be argued Wednesday mark the third time that the Supreme Court has examined the rights of the detainees. Twice before, the court has ruled against the administration. Each time Congress and the White House have changed the law in an effort to keep the Guantanamo prisoners from contesting their detention before American judges.

The indefinite detentions have become a focal point of international criticism of the administration's fight against terrorism, with increasing calls for closing the Guantanamo facility.

The administration is mounting a vigorous defense of its detention policies.

In a court filing, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer says the cells at Guantanamo hold people suspected of plotting terrorist attacks or with ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network and the Taliban who formerly ruled Afghanistan. Moreover, the detainees "enjoy more procedural protections than any other captured enemy combatants in the history of warfare," Solicitor General Paul Clement says.

Despite the prisoners' six years of confinement, Clement says the justices should not upset the detainees' classification as enemy combatants "at this preliminary stage," even if the court rules that the detainees can be heard in U.S. courts.

The case turns on the reach of the writ of habeas corpus. The centuries-old legal principle, enshrined in the Constitution, allows courts to determine whether a prisoner is being held illegally.

The government says foreigners held outside the United States have no constitutional rights and that Congress has stripped federal courts of jurisdiction in the detainee cases.

Even if the detainees have rights, the procedures put in place to review their status as enemy combatants are adequate, Clement says.

The case has attracted 26 court filings on behalf of the detainees. Among those weighing in are Canadian and European lawmakers; former U.S. judges, diplomats and military officers; Israeli law professors; human rights organizations; liberal interest groups; the libertarian Cato Institute; and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania.

Four legal briefs, from retired military officers, national security organizations and conservative public interest law firms, are supporting the administration.

Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer for the detainees, said the case tests "whether the U.S. can establish lawless enclaves, prisons beyond the law."

The detainees' lawyers say most were not seized on a battlefield, but rather were handed over by local warlords in Afghanistan and Pakistan for large bounties. Others, like those in Bosnia, were picked up far from the fighting in Afghanistan.

They were moved to the U.S. base in Cuba beginning in early 2002, a few months after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The justices initially turned down the detainees' latest appeal, but reversed course in June. They provided no explanation. But their action followed a declaration from a military officer who alleged the U.S. military panels that classified detainees as enemy combatants for the past four years relied on vague and incomplete intelligence.

The detainees' lawyers feel good about their chances at the Supreme Court because five of the nine justices must agree to take a case that previously has been denied a hearing. Ordinarily, just four justices must vote to hear a case.

Attached to the Algerian-Bosnian detainees' appeal are excerpts from the review panel that considered whether one of them, Mustafa Ait Idir, had been properly classified an enemy combatant.

The government said Idir associated "with a known al-Qaida operative" and planned to attack the embassy. He was not given the name of the operative or any evidence linking him to the plot.

"If a supervisor came to me and showed me accusations like these, I would take these accusations and I would hit him in the face with them," he said, interrupted by laughter from everyone in the room, according to the transcript. "Why? Because these are accusations that I can't even answer."

The cases are Boumediene v. Bush, 06-1195, and Al Odah v. U.S., 06-1196.

Detainees get third round at U.S. Supreme Court

[Al-khiyal]

«Son» cas devant la Cour suprême des Etats-Unis :
L'histoire d'un Algérien de Guantanamo

Lundi 3 decembre 2007 -- La Cour suprême des Etats-Unis doit se pencher, après-demain, pour la troisième fois, sur les droits des détenus de Guantanamo, pour déterminer si la Constitution américaine limite le pouvoir de l'exécutif sur les prisonniers de la «guerre contre le terrorisme».

Depuis 2002, les prisonniers demandent à pouvoir contester cette détention illimitée devant un juge indépendant, une procédure charnière du droit anglo-saxon appelée «habeas corpus». En 2004 puis en 2006, la Cour avait pourtant considéré que la loi leur garantissait ce droit. Mais à l'automne dernier, le Congrès a modifié la loi, interdisant aux détenus de saisir une cour fédérale avant d'avoir été jugés par un tribunal militaire d'exception. Plus de 800 hommes et adolescents ont été détenus à Guantanamo, et environ 305 s'y trouvent encore. Selon le gouvernement américain, parmi ces derniers, 70 doivent être rapatriés et 60 à 80 traduits devant un tribunal militaire d'exception.

La décision de la Cour suprême américaine concernera donc en premier lieu les plus de 150 autres, qui ne sont ni libérables, ni inculpables. C'est l'affaire «la plus importante de la décennie», assure le Centre pour les droits constitutionnels, qui coordonne la défense des détenus de la base navale à Cuba, pour la plupart arrivés il y a près de six ans et jamais inculpés. Parmi ces plus de 150 détenus se trouvant dans cette situation problématique à la fois pour la justice et pour la classe politique américaine, un Algérien, Lakmar Boumediene. Le hasard a voulu que l'affaire, qui sera exminée ce mercredi par la Cour suprême, porte son nom et celui d'un autre prisonier koweïtien, Fawzi Al-Odah, tous deux détenus à la prison de Guantanamo depuis 2002. Lakmar Boumediene, 41 ans, est marié et père de deux enfants. En 1997, il est parti avec sa famille vivre à Sarajevo (Bosnie), où il a travaillé pendant quatre ans avec le Croissant-Rouge.

En octobre 2001, il a été arrêté avec cinq autres Algériens, tous soupçonnés d'avoir projeté un attentat contre l'ambassade des Etats-Unis à Sarajevo. Trois mois plus tard, les six hommes ont été blanchis par la Cour suprême de Bosnie, mais remis aux autorités américaines et transférés à Guantanamo. Les Etats-Unis le soupçonnent d'être un partisan d'Al-Qaïda parce qu'il a voyagé dans des zones de conflit au Proche-Orient et en Europe de l'Est et parce qu'il a apporté son aide à un «agent connu» de l'organisation terroriste. Selon ses avocats, M. Boumediene porte encore les cicatrices des profondes entailles creusées par les menottes pendant son transfert.

Sur cette question relative aux Algériens détenus dans la prison de Guantanamo, le président de la Commission nationale consultative de promotion et de protection des droits de l'homme (CNCPPDH), M. Farouk Ksentini avait, pour rappel, affirmé, le 19 novembre dernier, avoir rencontré récemment l'ambassadeur des Etats-Unis en Algérie qui lui a fait part de la disposition de son pays à les transférer en Algérie «sans aucune condition» tout en lui indiquant que l'opération pourrait avoir lieu dans un avenir proche compte tenu de la volonté des Etats-Unis de fermer cette prison avant la fin du mandat du président américain George Bush.