GUANTANAMO BAY — David Iglesias, who in a previous professional incarnation was a U.S. attorney fired by the Bush administration for insufficient loyalty to the Republican Party, began his career as a defense counsel in the Navy JAG corps. Now he’s a prosecutor again, this time for the much-criticized and More…
There are two senators who’ve accused Justice Department attorneys who represented Guantanamo detainees of sympathizing with terrorists: Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and, perhaps more disturbingly, Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee who very nearly became a federal judge in the 1980s. Their logic is no More…
The Wall Street Journal, Pat Buchanan and others are already condemning the Obama administration for treating Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as a civilian criminal rather than an illegal warrior to whom we can presumably do whatever we please. We are in “a war,” The Journal More…
In February 2004, Ubrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi was charged with conspiring with al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere to attack and murder civilians and destroy property. The government claimed that al Qosi was an armed guard and driver for Osama bin Laden going back More…
The Obama administration is making plans to send about 25 detainees from the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay to federal prisons, to be tried in civilian federal courts, according to Newsweek.
As TWI reported last week, the biggest ongoing controversy is over where to 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…
As the Obama administration nears its deadline for deciding where to try the men suspected of masterminding the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists attacks, there are strong indications that those trials could take place in federal courts in the United States. That’s prompting fervent opposition from Republicans, who say the 9/11 More…
Since my earlier post on Yaser Hamdi’s express agreement not to sue the United States for his indefinite detention and mistreatment, Cornell Law Professor Michael Dorf, who analyzed the Hamdi agreement shortly after it was reached, has provided a helpful clue as to why we may not be More…
It was an odd but refreshing spectacle, to see U.S.-based human rights lawyers arguing to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the United States has effectively insulated itself from accountability for torture and war crimes, and ought to be pushed by an international body to do better.
Hey, this is going to come as a big shock, but it turns out that some Guantanamo Bay prisoners on trial for plotting Sept. 11 are actually claiming they’ve been tortured in prison.
What, you already knew that? Well, yeah, just about everyone else in the world did, too. Still, More…
rss