When Attorney General Eric Holder announced earlier this month that the suspected plotters of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks would be tried in civilian court, he also promised to seek the death penalty for all of them. But the heated debate that followed over the supposed dangers of trying “the More…
Two Algerians held for seven years without charge or trial at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay l have been acquitted after after a trial back home in Algeria, their defense lawyer said yesterday.
Faghoul Abdelli and Mohamed Terari were arrested in Afghanistan by Pakistani police following More…
Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed, an Algerian national who was captured in Pakistan and turned over to the U.S. military after fleeing from Afghanistan, was ordered released from the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay by a U.S. District Court judge yesterday, according to the human rights group More…
Jeffrey Kaye at Truthout has a good piece today on the suicide — or murder? — of Yemeni Guantanamo Bay prisoner Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh al Hanashi in June. It’s a powerful reminder of why human rights advocates, as well as U.S. military leaders, think it’s important to close that More…
Yesterday’s announcement that the Obama administration will try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 suspects in federal court has been hailed as everything from “an important step forward for justice” by Human Rights Watch to “a step backwards for the security of our country [that] puts Americans More…
As former Vice President Dick Cheney and some Republican lawmakers continue to debate whether torture works and was a legitimate interrogation technique during the Bush administration, it’s almost jaw-dropping to read some of the memos that were written by the real experts on interrogation techniques in the U.S. government, warning More…
The American Civil Liberties Union has just released a video of interviews with five former Guantanamo detainees, talking about their experiences of abuse in U.S. custody. It’s not easy to watch, but it’s certainly worthwhile.
Although the video (after the jump) doesn’t give any sense of why these men in More…
Nick Baumann at Mother Jones reminds us that the Obama administration promised earlier this month to do its best to review about 224 more documents that might be responsive to the American Civil Liberties Union’s Freedom of Information Act longstanding requests for documents relating to the torture, abuse More…
Winning his freedom was a big step for Mohammed Jawad, reportedly the youngest prisoner at Guantanamo Bay until he was released in August. But Jawad, who two U.S. judges have said was tortured in U.S. custody, is still suffering from the effects of his treatment during seven years More…
A few more points worth noting about the new Military Commissions Act amendments passed by Congress yesterday: Just as the House bill circulating earlier did, the amendments passed would still allow some coerced testimony to be used in court if the military judge decides it’s reliable and More…
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