NEWS:
British residents:
Former British resident Ahmed Belbacha who returned to Algeria earlier
this year was placed under judicial supervision upon his return to the country.
At the end of June, he had a court hearing concerning his conviction in
absentia in 2009 before an Algerian court for supporting a foreign terrorist
organisation, in which he was given a 20-year sentence. The sentence is being
reconsidered and at the hearing, the judge at the Algiers Criminal Court set
the hearing back to a later date – possibly in September or October – as a
large number of documents are missing from the original case file, including
interviews and reports, as he had not been questioned about the charges in the
past and as no psychiatric evaluation has been carried out on Belbacha. He had
been placed in prison the day before but the judge asked for him to be
released. His lawyer stated after the hearing that now that Belbacha is in
Algeria and able to defend himself in court, the charges are no longer viable
and that he is certain that Belbacha will be acquitted as “the case against him
is completely non-existent!”
Guantánamo Bay:
Following a ruling by the judge overseeing proceedings at the Guantánamo
military tribunal, James Pohl, ordering the CIA to disclose files detailing the
torture Abd Al-Nashiri was subject to while imprisoned in secret CIA prisons in different
countries, one of the defendants accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks, Ammar
Al-Baluchi has asked for similar files related to the torture he faced to be
disclosed and taken into consideration in his case. It is feared that this –
consideration of the application by the judge and then disclosure and its
impact on the current case – could further delay proceedings, however with the show
trial still firmly stuck on procedural issues almost 13 years after the offence
took place, and no timeline for an actual trial, the US is no hurry to
prosecute or take the case forward.
Judge Pohl has stepped down from the other case currently being heard by
the Guantánamo military tribunal, that of Yemeni Abd Al-Nashiri accused of
involvement in bombings of US naval vessels in the Gulf of Aden in 2000, due to
scheduling conflicts and to ensure continuity in the 9/11 case. He will be
replaced by Air Force Col. Vance Spath.
The case of the 5 defendants in the 9/11 case has been split as on 24
July Judge Pohl ruled that the case of Ramzi Binalshibh
should be severed and dealt with separately and alone as legal issues relating
to his case alone are holding up the trial of the other four defendants. The first
issue to be considered in Binalshibh’s case is whether or not he has the mental
capacity to stand trial having been diagnosed in 2008 as having a “serious
mental disease” by military doctors.
A redacted memo
issued by the U.S. Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in a case related to the death
of American Anwar Al-Awlaki released in June under a Freedom of Information order
and dated 2010, shortly before Canadian former Guantánamo child prisoner Omar
Khadr’s 2010 military commission hearing, shows that the US deliberately designated
Khadr an “unprivileged belligerent” to charge him with offences that the US
knew did not exist under US or international law and to deny him protection
under the Geneva Conventions.
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/07/defense-olc-memo-supports-invalidation-of-omar-khadrs-conviction/
On 30 June, Khadr’s
US lawyer filed a motion to have the stay on Khadr’s case, imposed in March,
lifted and his conviction quashed on the basis that “the disclosure of a
previously secret memorandum […] which provided authoritative legal guidance to
the Department of Defense several months prior to Mr. Khadr’s guilty plea,
vitiates the theory of criminality underlying this prosecution and therefore
defeats the premise of the Court’s order”, and consequently that the charges
and conviction of Omar are bogus. On 7 July, the US government’s lawyers filed
a motion to have this dismissed, stating that the memo is “irrelevant” to
Khadr’s case. Khadr’s U.S. lawyer Sam Morison called this response predictable,
however the court denied Khadr’s motion before his lawyers had an opportunity
to respond.
On 8 July,
Khadr won his appeal before the Alberta Appeal Court in Canada for him to serve
a youth sentence as opposed to being held as an adult. This would entail the
transfer of Khadr to a provincial jail where he will have better opportunities for
rehabilitation and parole. The judge was quite unequivocal in her ruling that
the offences could only mean that Khadr be held as a youth offender in Canada,
given his age at the time. Nonetheless, he remains at the Bowden Institute, a
medium-security adult prison, following an appeal to the Supreme Court by the
Canadian government. Khadr agreed to stay where he is pending this appeal as he
is comfortable in his current environment and provided that the ruling he is
being held as a juvenile applies.
Khadr’s Canadian lawyers have also brought a lawsuit against the federal
government and the Canadian corrections system to allow Khadr the opportunity
to speak to the media. Held since 2002, Khadr has never once – not in the
media, not in the courts or in any public writings – had the opportunity to present
his side of the story. Vilified by the Canadian media, he has never actually met
or spoken to any journalists.
Reports issued by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s own officials
and office show that Omar Khadr is not a terrorist and is essentially a “good
kid”, in spite of constant statements by Canadian government upholding his
military tribunal conviction, which falls far below the conditions necessary for
trial in Canada.
Sunday 27 July marked the 12th anniversary of Omar Khadr’s
capture by the US following a gun battle in Afghanistan in which he was
severely injured. The following article provides a good overview of what has
happened recently in his case and where it currently stands: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/25161-the-trials-of-alleged-tween-terrorist-omar-khadr-of-canada
Judgment was handed down in the long-awaited military commission
conviction appeal by Yemeni prisoner Ali Hamza Al-Bahlul, accused of providing
Al Qaeda’s PR by making promotional videos for the organisation, and the only
prisoner to be given a life sentence. In 2008, he was convicted on three
charges of conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism and soliciting
others to commit murder. Following the successful appeal by fellow Yemeni Salim
Hamdan of his conviction in 2012, Al-Bahlul appealed as well and his
convictions were all quashed by the federal appeals court in January 2013. In that
case, the judges gave no reasoning for their decision to quash the convictions.
Given the huge ramifications the case has on other pending military commissions
and appeals of convictions, the US government sought a retrial “en banc” (where the
case is then reheard by all the judges in the appeal court – 7 as opposed to 3)
which was granted. The US government mainly contended that while the charges
were not international war crimes – which it concedes – they could be
considered war crimes under US domestic law.
Rather than simplify and clarify matters, the case has instead made them
much more complex and unclear. The 7 judges ruled to quash Al-Bahlul’s
convictions for material support for terrorism and solicitation but upheld the
conviction for conspiracy, a charge other prisoners have been convicted of
and feature in other pending military commissions. The judgment overturns parts
of the Hamdan ruling and also ruled to return the case back to the original
3-judge panel to consider some of the issues related to the conspiracy conviction,
ultimately meaning that it could be overturned. Lawyers for Al-Bahlul have the
option of waiting to see what the original panel then decides – not until at
least next year – or appealing to the Supreme Court. In either case, whether or
not his convictions are upheld, the future remains extremely precarious for
Al-Bahlul himself, who remains imprisoned at Guantánamo - the quashing of his
convictions could see him become a “forever” prisoner: http://justsecurity.org/12996/letter-editor-al-bahlul/
The appeals of former prisoners Canadian Omar Khadr and Australian David
Hicks were stayed in March pending this judgment. The judgment as it is should
mean that Hicks’ sole conviction for material support is now automatically
invalidated and that this is purely an administrative matter. However, both he and
Khadr, for whom the judgment is more obscure, may still have to wait along with
Al-Bahlul the outcome of this judicial wrangling over the essentially flawed
military commission process.
Uruguay is likely to accept 6 prisoners over the coming month. Having asked
to resettle a number of prisoners earlier this year, an issue raised during a
visit by Uruguayan president Jose Mujica to the US in April, the US has finally
completed the necessary paperwork on its side. The six are likely to include 4
Syrian prisoners, a Palestinian and Tunisian, all of whom have never been
charged or tried and have long been cleared for release, but have not been as
there is nowhere safe to send them. Uruguay anticipates hosting them as regular
refugees.
One of the six is alleged to be Syrian Abu Wael Dhiab, currently on
hunger strike and who has brought a high-profile court challenge against the Pentagon’s procedures for forcibly feeding detainees who are on
a hunger strike. His transfer would most likely render his lawsuit moot,
although there are several similar challenges.
Following two separate appearances before the Periodic Review Board last
month, the Board has decided to clear Kuwaiti Fawzi Al-Odah for release while
continuing to deem fellow countryman Fayiz Al-Kandari “almost
certainly retains an extremist mindset and had close ties with high-level
al-Qaida leaders in the past” and
will remain held at Guantánamo indefinitely. Neither man has ever been charged
or tried in the past 12 years of imprisonment.
Although the US has cleared 4 prisoners for release since restating the
reviews over the past year, none of the prisoners cleared have been released.
Extraordinary Rendition:
Amid growing demands for the UK government to admit to the extent of US
use of the British-administered territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean
for the extraordinary rendition programme, the government reported
in parliament that files related to the issue had been destroyed by water
damage during recent flooding.
Accused of a cover up, especially as there had been no substantial rain
at the time the damage is claimed to have occurred, a week later it then
reported that the files had been salvaged and dried out. The UK government is
still refusing to admit the full extent of its own complicity in the
extraordinary rendition programme and what it knew at the time of the alleged
use of this territory.
One prisoner who is alleged to have been flown through Diego Garcia, Libyan
Abdel Hakim Belhadj, and his wife Fatima Bouchar, who were rendered from
Southeast Asia to Libya in 2004 with the collusion of the UK brought an appeal on
21 July against a High Court ruling in favour of the government that he could
not sue MI6 and the British government for their involvement in the rendition of
himself and his family.
Former Bagram prisoner Yunus Rahmatullah, who was captured by British
troops in Iraq in 2004 and handed over to the US who rendered him to Bagram in
Afghanistan, from where he was released to Pakistan in April this year with
other Pakistani prisoners is bringing a lawsuit against the Ministry of Defence
and the Foreign Office for complicity in his torture and abuse he suffered in
both Iraq and Afghanistan over 10 years. In 2011, the Court of Appeal ruled
that he was unlawfully detained but in the Supreme Court, government lawyers
were able to successfully claim that the UK could not get the US to act to
release him.
Judgment was handed down by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg
on 24 July ruling that Poland had acted in breach of its obligations under the
European Convention on Human Rights, particularly as concerns the absolute ban
on the use of torture, when it hosted and operated a secret CIA torture prison
in Stare Kiejkuty. The facility has since closed down. The
case was brought by two prisoners currently facing military commission at Guantánamo
Bay, Abu Zubaydah and Abd Al-Nashiri, who both “disappeared” for at least two
years into the CIA’s networks of secret prisons around the world. The former
was held and tortured in Poland for 6 months and the latter for 9 months. The court
found Poland guilty of involvement in extraordinary rendition and ordered the
Polish government to pay each man €100,000 in compensation and a further
€30,000 to Abu Zubaydah in costs. The judgment outlines the journey of the two
men to Guantánamo and the horrific torture they faced at the facility. This is
the second time the court has ruled against a European state for complicity in
rendition, and further cases are pending against Lithuania and Romania. A
major blow for the CIA’s rendition programme, while the Polish government gets
a slap on the wrists and is ordered to pay a fine, no agents involved have been
prosecuted as yet and the CIA is still not subject to any prosecution, while
Abu Zubaydah and Al-Nashiri, the victims, face military commissions and ongoing
detention at Guantánamo and have never been given the opportunity for torture
rehabilitation. In many ways, outside of the legal framework of using the law
to check the extralegal behaviour of governments, the judgment remains largely
pyrrhic unless it can in some way influence their respective military
commissions.
LGC Activities:
The July “Shut
Guantánamo!” demonstration was attended by 4 people. The August
demonstration will be
at 12-1pm outside the US Embassy and 1.15-2.15pm outside Speaker’s Corner,
Marble Arch on Thursday 7th August: https://www.facebook.com/events/262069207321360/
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