MISCELLANEOUS NEWS REPORTS * 2003.01.01 - 2003.06.30

    misc_digest_2003_1.txt

    * Associated Press: http://www.ap.org/
    * Inter Press Service (IPS): http://ipsnews.net/
    * Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/

    * BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
    * CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/
    * CNN: http://www.cnn.com/

    * Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/
    * Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/
    * Newsweek: http://www.msnbc.com/news/NW-front_Front.asp
    * San Francisco Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/news/
    * Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/
    * The Age (Melbourne): http://www.theage.com.au/
    * The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/
    * The Daily Telegraph (UK): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
    * The Globe and Mail (Toronto): http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
    * The Guardian (UK): http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
    * The Independent (UK): http://www.independent.co.uk/
    * The Mirror (UK): http://www.mirror.co.uk/
    * The Observer (UK): http://www.observer.co.uk/
    * The Times (UK): http://www.timesonline.co.uk/

================================================================================

Reuters:

June 28, 2003

KEY LAWYER DIFFERS ON U.S. TERRORISM TRIAL RULES

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Air Force officer named as chief defense counsel for
terrorism suspects tried by U.S. military commissions says he disagrees with
some rules set by the Pentagon, including the government's ability to monitor
all conversations between defendants and their lawyers.

But Col. Will Gunn said he understood what he was getting into when he agreed to
the job.

"It's critical that these trials be done right. It's critical that we hold true
to fundamental American values," Gunn said in an interview with Reuters late on
Friday.

"As chief defense counsel, I have one fundamental goal: and that is responsibly
to provide for zealous defense of any individuals who are brought before
military commissions," the Harvard Law School graduate added.

The Defense Department is preparing for possible military trials of an
undisclosed number of non-U.S. citizens caught in Afghanistan and elsewhere in
what President Bush calls the war on terrorism, including those held at the U.S.
naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Pentagon in May issued detailed instructions for conducting the trials and
named Gunn as lead defense counsel and Army Col. Frederic Borch as head
prosecutor. Before any trials are conducted at the Guantanamo base, Bush must
designate which prisoners are eligible, and the Pentagon must bring charges.

Rights groups argue the trial rules are biased toward the prosecution and place
unacceptable conditions on the defense.

"If I were the person who had designed this system, I would have designed it
differently," Gunn said.

Gunn singled out language permitting the Defense Department to monitor any
conversations or communications between defense lawyers and defendants, which
some critics have called a breach of customary attorney-client privilege.

"For instance, I would make it clear that no conversation between the defense
counsel and a client can be monitored unless the government had a particularized
reason for doing so ... a reason that can be clearly articulated," Gunn said.

APPEALS PROCESS

Gunn said the appeals process would be different if he had designed it. The
rules do not allow for an independent judicial review of convictions or
sentences. Appeals go to a military panel appointed by the Pentagon, and final
review of convictions or sentences is made by Bush himself.

Gunn said the traditional U.S. military justice system allows for some appeals
to be heard by a civilian court.

"The most serious cases with the most severe sanctions can be reviewed by
civilians," Gunn said.

Gunn said he will not actually argue any cases, instead overseeing the defense
machinery and strategy.

He will assign each defendant a military defense lawyer. Defendants also have
the right to hire a civilian lawyer who is a U.S. citizen, is deemed eligible to
hear classified information, and agrees to conditions set by the Pentagon such
as the monitoring of conversations.

Gunn said only about 10 civilian lawyers have applied for such work, but "no
names that you would recognize."

Gunn knows he will be responsible for defending men who many Americans might
consider ruthless terrorists.

"I had someone ask me whether or not I was a patriot. And I believe I'm very
much a patriot," Gunn said.

He noted that John Adams, before helping lead the quest for independence from
Britain and serving as the second U.S. president, represented British soldiers
accused of firing into a crowd in the 1770 Boston Massacre.

"He thought that providing for an effective defense and ensuring that justice
was done was critical to the cause of liberty," Gunn said. "I feel the same
way."

* * *


The Gwinnett Daily Post (GA):

http://www.gwinnettdailyonline.com

28 June, 2003

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DECIDES WHO GETS DUE PROCESS

By Jacob Sullum

Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, who was charged until recently with credit card fraud
and lying to the FBI, is an enemy combatant. Iyman Faris, who confessed in May
to participating in a conspiracy to sabotage the Brooklyn Bridge, is not.
The government says both men were taking orders from al-Qaida. So why is Faris
in civilian custody, facing a 20-year prison sentence, while Al-Marri has been
transferred to a military brig for indefinite confinement without charge or
trial?

You might think the difference is citizenship: Faris is a U.S. citizen
originally from Kashmir, while Al-Marri is a Qatari. But that can t be it,
because two U.S. citizens Yasser Esam Hamdi, captured in Afghanistan two years
ago, and Jose Padilla, arrested in Chicago last year on suspicion of plotting to
explode a radioactive bomb have, like Al-Marri, been designated enemy
combatants.

Is it possible that the government simply did not have enough evidence to make a
case against Al-Marri (which seems to be what happened with Padilla)? Not
according to the Justice Department. We are confident we could have prevailed on
the criminal charges, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher said.
However, setting the criminal charges aside is in the best interests of national
security.

How so? The Justice Department isn't saying, presumably because offering an
explanation would not be in the best interests of national security. You may be
inclined to trust the government's judgment on such matters. That attitude is
fine, provided the government always acts in good faith and never makes
mistakes. But if you assume public officials are fallible and occasionally
malicious, you may have qualms about giving them unilateral authority to lock
people up and throw away the key.

According to the Associated Press, Prosecutors say al-Marri had over 1,000
credit cards in files on his laptop computer, which also contained oaths to
protect al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, photos of the Sept. 11 terror attacks,
files detailing weaponry and dangerous chemicals and lists of militant Islamic
Internet sites. Based on information from an al-Qaida detainee in a position to
know, the FBI determined that Al-Marri was a sleeper agent charged with helping
members of the terrorist network get settled in the United States.

That certainly sounds sinister, but we have yet to hear Al-Marri's side of the
story. And if the government gets its way, we never will.

Al-Marri's attorney says the Justice Department decided to drop the criminal
charges against him and hand him over to the Pentagon because he refused to
cooperate or plead guilty. There is obvious potential for abuse when defendants
know that if they don t confess they can be sent to the brig with no questions
asked, potentially for the rest of their lives.

That's the sort of pressure Iyman Faris faced. Citing a lawyer who demanded
anonymity, The New York Times reports that prosecutors discussed the idea of
declaring Mr. Faris an enemy combatant ... and that may have influenced his
decision to admit guilt to avoid the prospect of indefinite detention.

I have no reason to doubt that Faris really did discuss the Brooklyn Bridge's
vulnerability to blowtorches with members of al-Qaida. But it's not hard to
imagine how a wrongly accused man in such a situation would feel compelled to
plead guilty.

Hence the possibility of an enemy combatant designation can have an impact far
beyond the suspects who are officially put in that category. In this light,
reassurances that the designation has been used sparingly carry less weight.
The Bush administration maintains that its decisions about who deserves due
process (or any kind of process at all) are not reviewable. So far the federal
courts have not agreed. Even the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit,
which upheld Yasser Hamdi's detention based on the government's assertion that
he was captured while fighting with the Taliban, recognized that he had a right
to a hearing.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which is considering the
government's appeal of a ruling that said Jose Padilla has a right to meet with
an attorney, may go further. Unlike Hamdi, Padilla was not captured on a
battlefield, and the 2nd Circuit tends to be less deferential to the government
than the 4th.

Explaining how the government decides who is an enemy combatant, the Justice
Department's Fisher confessed, There's no bright line. Let's hope the courts
help draw one.

[ Jacob Sullum is a senior editor with Reason magazine and a nationally
syndicated columnist. His column publishes on Saturday. ]

* * *


Wed June 25, 2003 06:47 PM ET

RIGHTS GROUPS CRITICIZE U.S. TERRORISM TRIALS RULES

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon's rules for military trials of terrorism
suspects including those being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, deny them basic legal rights and fail to guarantee fair trials, human
rights and legal activists said on Wednesday.

"The United States should ensure that those tried before military commissions
receive trials that are a credit to American justice, not a stain on its
history," the activist group Human Rights Watch said in a new report.

The Defense Department is in the final stages of preparing for possible trials
before military commissions of non-American citizens captured in Afghanistan and
elsewhere in what the U.S. government calls the war against terrorism.

The Pentagon last month issued eight detailed trial instructions, appointed a
chief military prosecutor and defense lawyer, and began recruiting civilian
attorneys interested in defending suspects in proceedings expected to be held at
the Guantanamo base.

The next major step is for President Bush to designate which of hundreds of
prisoners held at Guantanamo and other locations without charges or contact with
lawyers are eligible for trial before the commissions.

Defense Department officials said the rules allow for "full and fair" trials and
are not biased against defendants.

TRIAL RULES

The Human Rights Watch report stated that the commissions, as currently
designed, fall far short of international due process standards.

The report noted that appeals of any convictions would go to a military panel
appointed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and that Bush would have
final review of commission convictions and sentences.

"So what we have here, in effect, is that President Bush, through his designees,
can serve as prosecutor, judge and jury and potentially -- given the fact that
the death penalty is available -- executioner," Wendy Patten, U.S. advocacy
director for Human Rights Watch, told reporters in a conference call.

The report notes that the rules do not allow for the most basic challenge a
defendant might mount: whether the U.S. government has the right to bring him to
trial before such a commission.

The rules state that the Pentagon will appoint a military defense attorney for
all defendants, but defendants have the right also to hire a civilian defense
lawyer. The report noted, however, numerous restrictions are placed on this
civilian attorney, and that the Pentagon reserves the right to monitor any
conversations between defense lawyers and their clients.

"The bottom line is that the rules do not guarantee a fair trial," said Elisa
Massimino, head of the Washington office of the Lawyers Committee for Human
Rights, an activist group also critical of the commission rules.

* * *


CNN:

INTERVIEW WITH JOSE PADILLA'S ATTORNEY DONNA NEWMAN

American Morning
Aired June 24, 2003 - 09:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE
UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: As we reported earlier, there are now three enemy
combatants held in the U.S. In a presidential order released yesterday, the
president wrote -- I'm quoting now, "Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri engaged in
conduct that constituted war-like acts, including conduct in preparation for
acts of international terrorism. Mr. al-Marri represents a continuing, present
and grave danger to the national security of the United States."
Al-Marri now is the third person, the latest person to be taken out of the
criminal justice system and named an enemy combatant. Another, Jose Padilla, was
designated that last year.

For more on this, the court-appointed lawyer for Jose Padilla's our guest now,
Donna Newman here, in New York City. Good morning to you.

DONNA NEWMAN, ATTORNEY FOR JOSE PADILLA: Good morning, Bill.

HEMMER: Were you surprised about this action with al-Marri?

NEWMAN: Yes, I was. Because in fact it indicates the extension of authority that
is not called for in the Constitution. The government has said they're doing
this for preventive measures. In fact, if somebody is arrested and charged with
a crime, and convicted, they're put away for life under the terrorism statute. I
think that's pretty preventive. I don't think they're out in the community. So
to say that it's preventive is just not accurate.

What is frightening, however, is what they did with Mr. Padilla when they do not
have enough to bring charges, when they are fearful they cannot succeed in the
criminal justice system, they place these individuals in a legal black hole
which is void of rights. Why would they do that if they could see -- succeed in
the criminal justice system, where in fact, if they have the goods, as they say,
certainly, as we've seen in other cases, they do get convictions.

HEMMER: Now the other side if they sitting here would say, you know what? You
can't prosecute this war unless you take action like this. It's a different
component, it's a war on terror and no one should be afforded the opportunity to
skirt the law if indeed they're trying to harm American citizens. Your response
is then what?

NEWMAN: Nobody is asking that they skirt the law. In fact, we do have laws, we
have very strict laws and they keep asking for more strict laws. We have what we
need. The criminal justice system works. I believe in the system. I don't know
why the executives now don't. I don't know that. It has worked all the time. And
the action they are taking is not constitutional. There is nothing under the
Constitution that permits the legal black hole that they have put Mr. Padilla
and now this latest.

HEMMER: Your client is Padilla, your client is not al-Marri that we just put up
on the screen a short time ago.

NEWMAN: That is correct.

HEMMER: What happens in the brig? What goes on in South Carolina when Jose
Padilla goes down there? You mention a black hole. Is it that?

NEWMAN: Well, I think it's pretty analogous to that. I mean I don't know
specifically because they won't tell us anything...

HEMMER: Well is it questioning? Is it interrogation? What is it?

NEWMAN: Well that's what they say. They say interrogation. It could be coercive
interrogation. It could be duress. It could be torture. I don't know.

HEMMER: Why is it, Donna, that you have not seen your client? Court-appointed
attorney you are, in more than a year.

NEWMAN: Because they won't let me. The court has said, Yes, she can go down
there. But the government doesn't like that. So right away, now we're in the
court of appeals. And now we have to wait for the 2nd Circuit to rule.

HEMMER: In the ten seconds we have left here, then, depending on what happens at
a court ruling, what do you say to those that say, You know what, Donna, sorry,
it's a question of national security.

NEWMAN: We have laws that protect national security. And national security does
not trump the Bill of Rights, it does not trump the Constitution. It never has.
We have had incidents like this.

HEMMER: Donna Newman, thanks for talking.

NEWMAN: Thank you.

* * *


CNN:

June 23, 2003 Posted: 8:18 PM EDT (0018 GMT)

AL QAEDA SUSPECT DECLARED 'ENEMY COMBATANT'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Qatari man President Bush designated an "enemy combatant"
Monday was an al Qaeda sleeper operative tasked with helping other militants get
in position for future attacks, Justice Department officials said.

The officials said an al Qaeda detainee provided that information on Ali Saleh
Kahlah al-Marri, 37, who has been in U.S. custody since December 2001 and was
under an indictment charging him with making false statements to the FBI and
credit card fraud.

The detainee also said al-Marri was trained in the use of poisons but was not
ordered to carry out a biological or chemical attack in the United States, the
officials said.

It was the second time since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that Bush
has transferred a defendant from the criminal justice system to more restrictive
military custody, where he is afforded fewer rights.

Other detainees told interrogators al-Marri met with al Qaeda leader Osama bin
Laden at the al-Farooq paramilitary camp in Afghanistan and that al-Marri
offered to become a martyr for the cause, according to the officials.

Al-Marri arrived in the United States on a student visa the day before the
September 11 attacks. The FBI interviewed al-Marri that fall, when he was living
in Illinois, following tips that he had made several calls to a terrorist
paymaster in the United Arab Emirates. Al-Marri denied making the calls.

Jan Paul Miller, U.S. attorney for the central district of Illinois, said
prosecutors were recently made aware of the new evidence in the case, which came
from at least two detainees.

Although prosecutors were consulted by the Justice Department, "we were not sure
this would happen until the president signed it," Miller said in a telephone
interview with CNN.

Sources told CNN al-Marri was not cooperating with authorities and that the
government believed it may have a better chance of obtaining information from
him if he is placed under military custody.

"An individual with that kind of situation is an individual who might know a lot
about what could happen, might know the names of individuals, information being
so key to intelligence and prevention," said Attorney General John Ashcroft.

"Prevention being our No. 1 objective, we decided we would be best served with
him detained as an enemy combatant."

The presidential order requires Ashcroft to surrender al-Marri to Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He will be moved to the brig at the Navy base in
Charleston, South Carolina, officials said.
Charges dropped

"Mr. al-Marri engaged in conduct that constituted hostile and war-like acts,
including conduct in preparation for acts of international terrorism," said the
one-page order bearing the president's signature -- a photocopy of which was
obtained by CNN.

"Mr. al-Marri represents a continuing, present and grave danger to the national
security of the United States," Bush's order said.

The order added that his detention was "necessary to prevent him from aiding al
Qaeda in its efforts to attack the United States or its armed forces, other
government personnel, or citizens."

At the government's request, the existing criminal charges against al-Marri, who
was awaiting trial in Illinois, were dismissed with prejudice, meaning they
cannot be filed again.

Al-Marri was indicted earlier this year on seven counts charging him with making
false statements to FBI investigators and to financial institutions, and with
identity and credit-card fraud.

Although al-Marri was not charged with terrorism, the indictment said he lied
about his contacts with a terrorist paymaster in the United Arab Emirates,
Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi.

Al-Hawsawi, who has been in U.S. custody since his February capture in Pakistan,
is suspected of helping finance the September 11 terrorist attacks by
transferring tens of thousand of dollars to the 19 hijackers before the attacks.
Attorney questions motives

"I am skeptical that their decision is a response to new information, as opposed
to legal developments in the case," said defense attorney Mark Berman, who
represented al-Marri in New York before the case was transferred to Illinois.

Just last week, Berman filed pretrial motions to suppress evidence seized at al-
Marri's West Peoria, Illinois, apartment.

Berman argued the FBI search, the day before al-Marri's arrest, occurred without
a warrant. The attorney also said al-Marri's initial interrogation was conducted
without properly advising him of his rights.

U.S. District Judge Michel Mihm had planned a July 2 hearing on the suppression
motion, and a July 22 trial date had been set.

"Rather than providing due process, the government has chosen a forum in which
they can deny the defendant his constitutional rights, not the least of which is
right to counsel," Berman said.

Prosecutors in open court have called al-Marri "an associate of al-Qaeda" who
sought to provide the group "material support."

The al-Marri indictment said he told FBI agents he had never called al-Hawsawi's
phone number when in fact he had dialed the number using a calling card on
several occasions between September and November 2001.

The same number was a point of contact for lead September 11 hijacker Mohamed
Atta and alleged attack coordinator Ramzi Binalshibh, investigators said.

The indictment accused al-Marri of possessing more than 15 unauthorized credit
cards and counterfeit credit numbers, which investigators said they found in his
laptop computer and on a piece of paper in his computer carrying case.

Al-Marri -- who has a wife and five children in Saudi Arabia -- was also charged
with using fake identification and a false Social Security number to open three
bank accounts in Illinois so he could deposit and withdraw money under an
assumed name.

FBI agents said in court documents that al-Marri's computer contained audio
lectures by bin Laden about jihad and martyrdom, an Arabic prayer asking God to
protect bin Laden, photos of the September 11 attacks, and bookmarked Web sites
about the ousted Taliban regime of Afghanistan.

The agents said al-Marri surfed Web sites about dangerous chemicals and marked
pages in an almanac with information about U.S. dams, railroads, waterways and
railroads, according to court documents.

A 1991 graduate of Bradley University, al-Marri had returned to the Peoria
school to pursue computer studies.

He joins enemy combatant Jose Padilla as the second known criminal defendant
removed from the criminal justice system.

Padilla, who is being held at the Navy brig in Charleston, is a U.S. citizen
suspected of plotting to explode a dirty bomb, a conventional explosive laced
with radioactive material, inside the United States.

A Louisiana native, Yaser Esam Hamdi, also has been designated an enemy
combatant, but unlike Padilla and Al-Marri, he was never charged in the civilian
criminal justice system.

The Louisiana-born Hamdi was captured as a member of the Taliban army and as
such was considered as an enemy combatant. Authorities said Hamdi had an AK-47
in his possession when he was captured.

Hamdi initially was sent to a makeshift prison at the U.S. Navy base in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was later transferred to a Navy brig in Norfolk,
Virginia, after he revealed he was a U.S. citizen.

* * *


Reuters:

June 23, 2003 05:09 PM ET

QATARI MAN DECLARED ENEMY COMBATANT BY U.S.

By Niala Boodhoo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government transferred a Qatari man from an
American jail to Defense Department custody on Monday based on allegations he
was an al Qaeda "sleeper" operative whose job was to settle other members in the
United States, the Justice Department said.

Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri was "tasked to help new al Qaeda operatives get
settled in the United States for follow-on attacks after Sept. 11," Deputy
Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher told reporters.

Marri had been in U.S. custody under a criminal indictment that alleged he lied
to FBI agents about calls made to a United Arab Emirates telephone number used
by a man with links to Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta. He had pleaded innocent
and was to face trial in Illinois next month.

U.S. officials learned of the alleged al Qaeda connection from other detainees
and President Bush declared Marri an enemy combatant for national security
reasons, officials told reporters.

Officials said they had information Marri met with al Qaeda leader Osama bin
Laden in an Afghanistan training camp, where Marri pledged his services and
offered himself as a martyr.

Marri's lawyer, Mark Berman, told Reuters he hadn't been able to speak to his
client for almost three weeks.

"I'm disappointed that the attorney general, rather than provide criminal
defendants with due process, chooses a forum in which the defendant can be
denied constitutional rights not the least of which his right to counsel," he
said.

A defense official, who asked not to be identified, said there were no plans to
move Marri to Guantanamo, where 680 military suspects are being held in the U.S.
war on terrorism.

As an enemy combatant, Marri could face a court-martial before a U.S. military
commission. Marri is the first non-American to receive the designation.

Also declared an enemy combatant were Americans Jose Padilla, accused of
plotting with the al Qaeda network to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the
United States, and Yaser Esam Hamdi, captured with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Bush administration's policy, which prevents U.S. citizens held as enemy
combatants from speaking to their lawyers, has drawn sharp criticism from legal
groups, including the American Bar Association and civil rights organizations.

(additional reporting by Charles Aldinger and Gail Appleson)

* * *


BBC:

June 22, 2003

Real Audio:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/audio/39197000/rm/_39197100_guantanamo09_manel.ram

* * *


BBC:

June 22, 2003

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3011096.stm


Cuba prisoner puts BBC on spot

A BBC tour of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre was terminated after inmates
tried to speak to them.

US military authorities invited the team on a tour of Camp Delta but ended the
visit abruptly, accusing the reporters of breaching security.

Camp commanders also ordered the journalists to erase their recording of the
shouted conversation between them and an inmate.

But John Manel, reporting for Radio 4's Broadcasting House programme, managed to
make a copy of the dramatic exchange.

Little has been heard publicly from the 680 detainees held at the US military
base in Cuba.

Classed as "enemy combatants", the suspected fighters from the Afghanistan war
have no right to trial or legal representation. None have been charged.

 I've been a long time waiting for you here, it's amazing for us

Detainee

Manel's exclusive report on Sunday's programme described the journalists'
surprise when they saw a number of prisoners sitting around a table as they
prepared to enter the medium-security part of the camp.

Elsewhere on the tour, the reporters had been kept away from areas where
detainees were held.

He said one prisoner called out to him and two colleagues from the Panorama
programme when they saw them carrying microphones.

His secret recording captured the conversation:

Detainee: "Are you journalists?... Can we talk to you?"

BBC: "We are from BBC Television. We are from BBC TV."

Detainee: "Thank you very much. I've been a long time waiting for you here."

BBC: "Sorry?"

Detainee: "I've been a long time waiting for you here. It's amazing for us."

Officer: "John, you need to leave... We're going to end the tour right now.
Either you keep moving or we're going to end it."

Contact banned

The BBC team were then escorted away from the area and planned visits to the
medium-security cells and the camp hospital were cancelled.

 I cannot allow any breaches of security here

Colonel Adolph McQueen

Our correspondent protested that it was the detainees themselves not the BBC who
had initiated the contact.

Camp commander Colonel Adolph McQueen replied: "I cannot allow any breaches of
security here. We were trying to show you the facility but if you cannot follow
instructions then I have to end the tour.

"No media people have ever done this before."

Assurances

The BBC was assured that the detainee who tried to talk to the journalists would
not be in any trouble.

 We are detaining the enemy combatants here in Guantanamo in a humane manner

Major-General Geoffrey Miller
Earlier the officer in overall charge of the camp, Major-General Geoffrey
Miller, countered complaints by the International Committee of the Red Cross
that the US was not adhering to all the protections which would be afforded to
detainees if they were classified as prisoners-of-war under the Geneva
Conventions.

He told the BBC: "We are detaining the enemy combatants here in Guantanamo in a
humane manner in accordance with the Geneva Conventions with the exception of
the requirements of military necessity."

He said he welcomed the continued input of the ICRC.

* * *


The Age (Melbourne):

June 17, 2003

GUARD YOUR RIGHTS, JUDGE EXHORTS

By David Wroe

Canberra -- High Court judge Michael Kirby has made an impassioned plea for
Australians to be vigilant about their constitutional rights - rights he said
were denied prisoners held by US authorities at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay.

In a speech championing the rule of law as the equal right of all citizens,
Justice Kirby quoted an Israeli judicial colleague's description of Guantanamo
Bay as a legal "black hole" and said such a situation could not arise in
Australia.

But he refused to be drawn on the fate of two Australians being held there
indefinitely without charge or legal representation, saying that was a political
matter.

"All I'd . . . say is that the issue of Guantanamo Bay could not happen in
Australia. There can be no black holes," he told the Rotary Club in Canberra.

Australians David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib are among more than 600 prisoners
being held in legal limbo by US authorities as alleged "enemy combatants"
captured in the war against terror.


Justice Kirby said Australia's constitution included an "escalator to the High
Court", giving any citizen the right to go straight to the High Court if they
felt the Commonwealth had violated their constitutional rights.

This was a vital legal protection, yet Justice Kirby expected only one
Australian in 100 knew they were entitled to it.

"Keep your eye on the constitution . . . because these are great protections,"
he said. "The protection of our liberties does not ultimately depend on
parliaments or even courts. It depends on the love of the people for liberty."

He said it was not his job to explain or criticise the US constitution, but said
the founders of the Australian constitution had inserted the "escalator" section
because they saw a gap in the US constitution. Prisoners at Guantanamo fell
outside any legal jurisdiction, which meant the US Government could do things
that could not be scrutinised by the courts.

A spokeswoman for Attorney-General Daryl Williams said the US was holding the
two Australians for security, intelligence and law enforcement purposes.

"Australian officials have visited Guantanamo Bay on several occasions to
continue investigations into Mr Hicks' and Mr Habib's activities and have noted
that both men were in good health and being treated humanely," the spokeswoman
said.

Justice Kirby admitted the High Court had made mistakes in the past 100 years
but maintained that most of its decisions had been right.

He cited a 1950s ruling that effectively overturned a Menzies government act
banning membership of the Communist Party as an exemplary decision protecting
Australians' constitutional rights.

Justice Kirby said the prospect of a bill of rights for Australia was worth
considering.

"I think we'll hear a lot about this debate in the future," he said.

* * *

CNN:

June 11, 2003

COURT TO HEAR 'ENEMY COMBATANT' APPEAL

From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN New York Bureau

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A year after Jose Padilla was tossed into a Navy brig as an
"enemy combatant," a federal appeals court has agreed to speed up a decision on
whether the alleged "dirty bomber" should be allowed to meet with lawyers trying
to challenge his detention.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York has granted motions to hear an
appeal in the case on an "expedited" basis, as both the Justice Department and
Padilla's lawyers requested in April.

The appellate court will schedule oral arguments after October 13, the court's
order said, and the case is expected to be heard by the end of the year.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has alleged that Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was
involved in an al Qaeda plot to detonate a radiological device -- a so-called
dirty bomb -- possibly in the Washington, D.C. area.

A Brooklyn-born Puerto Rican who converted to militant Islam, Padilla was taken
into custody by the FBI last May at Chicago's O'Hare airport after flying from
Pakistan. Officials have said a top al Qaeda lieutenant, Abu Zubaydah, now a
captive, provided a key tip about Padilla.

Rather than charge him criminally, President Bush declared Padilla an enemy
combatant June 9, 2002, and he was transferred to the custody of the military.
Since last June, he has been held at a Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina,
set up to house both U.S. and non-U.S. citizens designated as enemy combatants.

The Justice Department has been fighting attempts by lawyers representing
Padilla to meet with him to discuss his case, arguing that could jeopardize
national security.

Defense attorney Donna Newman said prosecutors are trying to "put him in a black
hole so he has access to nobody."

"There is the criminal justice system. There is a military justice system. He is
in neither," she said. "A citizen is still being held incommunicado without
charges being filed, based on the government's assertion that they can do it."

U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey ruled that Bush, as commander-in-chief, had
the authority to detain Padilla as an enemy combatant. But the judge ruled that
Padilla should be able to meet with lawyers to contest the government's
evidence.

After Mukasey refused the Justice Department's request to reconsider that
decision on national security grounds, federal prosecutors decided to appeal his
ruling to the 2nd Circuit.

An American Bar Association task force last August criticized the Bush
administration for not allowing U.S. citizens jailed as enemy combatants to go
to court and consult a lawyer.

The courts should have no role in reviewing these designations, Bush
administration lawyers have argued, because they are inherently military
decisions, which the executive branch is uniquely qualified -- and empowered by
the Constitution -- to make.

Prosecutors declined to comment on the appeal.

Raised in Chicago, Illinois, Padilla served prison time for a juvenile murder in
Illinois and for gun possession in Florida.

* * *


BBC:

June 8, 2003

'TALEBAN' FATHER IN CAGED PROTEST

The father of an Australian man accused of fighting for the Taleban has shut
himself in a wire cage to protest at his son's detention at a US base.

Terry Hicks was protesting against what he said was the Australian Government's
failure to demand the return of his son, David.

Mr Hicks shut himself in the cage outside a convention centre in Adelaide, where
Prime Minister John Howard was attending a conference.

According to Mr Hicks, the cage is similar to the one his son is being held in
at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where he has been detained without charge since the
end of the war in Afghanistan 18 months ago.

The other countries have asked for their people back, what has the Australian
government done?
Terry Hicks
Terry Hicks said other countries had asked for their nationals back, but the
Australian Government had "washed its hands" of the case.

"It's frustrating when it comes to government, you're banging your head against
a brick wall - no one wants to talk to us," he told the Australian Associated
Press.

"The government is very quick off the mark to give the drug dealers and everyone
else ... consular access and lawyers, but when it comes to David's situation, he
has nothing."

The Australian prime minister avoided the protest by entering the conference
venue through a side door.

About 660 men from 40 different countries are being held without trial by the US
at Guantanamo Bay

The men - suspected of links with al-Qaeda or Afghanistan's former Taleban
rulers - are classified by the US as "unlawful combatants" and have no access to
lawyers.

Human rights groups have long urged Washington either to charge the Guantanamo
detainees with crimes and put them on trial, or let them go.

© BBC MMIII

* * *

June 3, 2003

[ GUANTANAMO BAY ] BASE PREPARING FOR POSSIBLE TRIBUNALS

By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- With the Pentagon preparing recommendations on which detainees to
send to military tribunals, authorities at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, have begun renovating several old office buildings to serve as
courtrooms.

U.S. officials in Cuba also are informally discussing plans for building a death
row and an execution chamber should any of the military trials in the war on
terrorism result in death sentences.

In Washington, authorities cautioned that it probably would not be until this
summer, at the earliest, before President Bush acts on the recommendations from
the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions and signs an executive order
finding a "reason to believe" some of the 680 detainees in Cuba should be
charged with crimes and ordered to stand trial.

The office is preparing its recommendations now, and authorities expect that
only a handful of detainees would initially be sent to military court.

"They will recommend, probably, a small group of people that they will forward
to the president," Navy Lt. Cmdr. Barbara Burfeind said Monday.

Once the president acts, she said, the newly appointed prosecution and defense
teams will begin preparing their cases for trial -- in all likelihood at
Guantanamo Bay.

At the base, Army Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a prison camp spokesman, said
authorities expect that tribunals -- if called for -- will be held there, and
that they have started preparing for such proceedings.

If military tribunals "are ordered and when they occur this is a likely location
for them to be held," Johnson said.

"And it would be foolish of us not to sit down here and discuss this
possibility."

He said several old offices at the base are being spruced up to be used as
courtrooms. He said base commanders also are discussing what needs to be done
for a permanent facility to house prisoners for years ahead, especially if the
tribunals result in lengthy prison sentences for some detainees.

In addition, Johnson said, the base command has discussed the construction of a
death row facility and a chamber for execution by lethal injection, should the
ultimate penalty be meted out.

* * *


June 1, 2003

HALLIBURTON GOING STRONG AMID CLAMOR

· The oil field giant keeps shareholders happy as it weathers
a storm over an Iraq contract and a bribery scandal.

By Dana Calvo, Special to The Times

The headlines haven't been particularly kind to Halliburton Co. recently. But
flip back to the stock tables and you'll get a whole different story.

The world's second-largest oil services company, Hallliburton was the No. 6
performer on the S&P 500 last year, and its shares this year have risen 24% on
the New York Stock Exchange, closing Friday at $23.87, not far from its 52-week
high of $24.67.

The strong performance has come in spite of the revelation that Halliburton paid
a multimillion-dollar bribe to a Nigerian official and the controversy
surrounding the company's no-bid secret contract to extinguish oil well fires in
Iraq. What's more, Halliburton is under investigation by the Securities and
Exchange Commission, which in December started a probe of some of the company's
accounting practices in the late 1990s. Just Friday, Halliburton agreed to pay
$6 million to settle 20 shareholder lawsuits that accused it of using deceptive
accounting practices back then.

The Iraq contract has drawn the most bad press. Critics have been vocal about
the link they see between the lucrative, hush-hush deal and the fact that
Houston-based Halliburton was headed by Vice President Dick Cheney before he
resigned in August 2000 to become George W. Bush's running mate.

Army Corps of Engineers officials acknowledged last month that they had
downplayed the scope of the contract and that what was billed as an emergency
pact to put out anticipated fires in wartime was in fact an assignment to kick-
start Iraq's oil industry. And that disclosure came on the heels of an admission
that the contract's value could go as high as $7 billion, outraging members of
Congress and others who said the Army misled the public into thinking the amount
would be in the mere millions.

But Wall Street simply isn't troubled: Halliburton shares have gone up 15% since
the contract became public March 24.

"Halliburton is a big, diverse company," said Bill Miller, a political
consultant and lobbyist in Austin, Texas. "It takes more than one storm for them
to get wet.

"You have to take threats seriously when you're a publicly traded company and
the government's looking into you. But the company's doing a good job of
explaining their position to shareholders."

The company was founded by Erle Palmer Halliburton, a young ex-Navy man with an
attitude, the kind that got him fired in 1919 from his first job at a California
cement company. Determined to do things his way, he pawned his wife's wedding
band, headed to Oklahoma and set up his own cement mixing firm.

By 1922, Halliburton had a U.S. patent for his "jet-cement" mixer, and his 17
trucks were rumbling across the muddy oil fields of four neighboring states,
sealing up leaky oil pipelines. Getting to those jobs was so harrowing that his
drivers invented the firm's first slogan: "We will get there, somehow safely."

They got there and then some. With 85,000 employees in more than 100 countries,
Halliburton's oil drilling, engineering and other operations are expected to
pull in more than $13 billion in revenue this year.

Halliburton aims to be one-stop shopping for the expensive and complex process
of finding, extracting and transporting crude oil. Among its many units are
entities that conduct exploration, erect offshore oil and gas facilities, rent
out massive drill bits and clean pipelines.

Major oil and gas companies, such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and ChevronTexaco Corp.,
used to have labs that did research, but the majors' belt-tightening in recent
years means oil-patch technology has fallen to companies such as Halliburton and
its larger rival, Paris-based Schlumberger Oilfield Services, and smaller
competitors Baker Hughes Inc. and Weatherford International Ltd.

It's a global business, and usually profitable: Analysts predict that
Halliburton's earnings this year will hit $1.05 to $1.10 a share, up from 89
cents last year.Halliburton's success is maddening for critics such as Rep.
Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles). He says Halliburton and its large subsidiary,
Kellogg Brown & Root, have a history of getting special treatment from the
Pentagon.

"It's amazing to me that with all the audits they've undergone that have
recorded a history of overcharging the government, Halliburton and its
subsidiaries still get picked for very lucrative contracts," he said.

A September 2000 report from the General Accounting Office, for instance, took
issue with KBR's $2.2-billion contract to provide logistical and engineering
support in the Balkans, saying the Army should be more vigilant about reviewing
costs submitted by KBR. In February 2002, KBR paid $2 million to the government,
but admitted no wrongdoing, to settle claims that it improperly billed Uncle Sam
for work it did at what formerly was Ft. Ord near Monterey.

Last July, less than six months after KBR settled the Ft. Ord case, the Pentagon
awarded KBR a $9.7-million contract to build 204 prison cells at Guantanamo Bay
for suspected Al Qaeda members.

In all, Halliburton and its subsidiaries have received more than $3.5 billion in
federal contracts over the last five years, about 75% of which came from the
Department of Defense, according to the Center for Public Integrity, a
nonpartisan watchdog group.

"The criticism is that they're making too much money, but that's not something
that investors frown upon," said Bill Allison, the center's managing editor.
"The bottom line is that they are pretty good at what they do. You can't dispute
that."

There is, he added, the "appearance of conflict" because Cheney was Defense
secretary before he became Halliburton's chief executive and now is vice
president. His is a classic example of the revolving door syndrome, whereby
people who leave government posts for the private sector sometimes return to
Washington.

The Corps of Engineers and Halliburton deny any favoritism. Halliburton's KBR
was selected for the $7-billion Iraq contract because of its experience and
qualifications, the Corps of Engineers said, and because it already had
developed a contingency plan for repairing and operating Iraq's oil
infrastructure under a separate contract.

"Given who my predecessor was, and given the bitter, partisan climate today, you
see much media scrutiny on Halliburton," said Chief Executive David Lesar. "It's
something we've had to learn to live with."

In an interview with The Times on May 14, Lesar said the Iraq contract would be
worth "no more than $100 million." A week later, he raised it to "a couple of
hundred million" in comments to reporters after Halliburton's annual meeting.
Even that amount would be less than 2% of the firm's yearly revenue.

The company's biggest money makers in the Middle East aren't in spot contracts
in places such as Iraq, Lesar said, but long-term projects in Saudi Arabia and
other oil-producing countries that are not funded by the U.S. government.

"We've always had a good-sized business in the Middle East," he said. "In any
year, they've always been 15% of our entire portfolio. So this is not a
springboard. We're already there."

Halliburton suffered a minor embarrassment last month when it disclosed in an
SEC filing that one of its foreign subsidiaries paid $2.4 million to the company
of a Nigerian government official last year to get favorable tax treatment.

Lesar said that several Halliburton employees were fired over the discovery, and
no one in top management was involved.

Halliburton may have to pay an additional $5 million in taxes in Nigeria, not
much for a company its size.

The company's only flesh wound in recent years was asbestos liability stemming
from its 1998 acquisition of Dresser Industries, which once employed the first
President Bush as an equipment clerk.

A Dresser subsidiary used asbestos in making bricks and pipe coating. Dresser
had severed ties with the subsidiary by the time of the acquisition, but the
former subsidiary couldn't pay the thousands of asbestos claims.

Ultimately, Halliburton became liable, and its shares took a dive when a
Baltimore jury brought in a verdict against it in December 2001.

"From a stock perspective it was very serious. It took $8 billion to $9 billion
off their market value for nine months," said Jim Wicklund, an analyst at Banc
of America Securities specializing in the oil field services sector.

Late last year, Halliburton announced a $4-billion settlement of the asbestos
claims; the settlement must be approved by the court.

Lesar says finalizing the settlement will help the company focus on the future.
While holding the short-term temporary contract for emergency oil services in
Iraq, Halliburton is seeking the long-term contract for rebuilding the oil
industry.

The company also is making a shift into high-tech work through its small but
growing subsidiary Landmark Graphics Corp., which uses imaging technology to
assess the profitability of oil pockets.

Last July, Landmark signed a five-year contract with Kuwait Oil Co., which gives
that company access to all of Landmark's geophysical, geological and economic
modeling technologies.

Halliburton acquired Landmark in 1996, when Cheney was CEO, and it has grown to
2,000 employees whose work accounted for 15% of Halliburton's revenue last year.

"We thought having more of a high-tech flavor to our product offerings would get
us more attention on the Street," Lesar said, "which it certainly did."

[ Associated Press was used in compiling this report. ]

* * *


IPS:

30 May, 2003

IRAQ: U.S. FACES GROWING CHARGES OF WAR CRIMES

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, May 30 (IPS) - When General Tommy Franks, who coordinated the
recent U.S.-led military attack on Iraq, was asked about civilian casualties, he
shot back: "We don't do body counts."

Less than two months after the invasion of Iraq, there are no definitive figures
of the civilian casualties -- unarmed men, women and children who died in the
44-day military assault. But there are a growing number of attempts to determine
that number and to hold Washington and its allies responsible.

Several human rights groups are calling for the creation of either a war crimes
tribunal or an international commission of justice. Additionally, several non-
governmental organisations (NGOs) say they will pressure Washington to pay
compensation for the killings of innocent civilians -- a common practice in U.S.
law courts.

The Commission on Human Security (CHS), which is overseeing the 'Iraq Body Count
Project' estimates between 5,000 and 7,000 civilians died in the attack, or
more.

Marla Ruzicka of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) says her
door-to-door survey teams in Iraq have concluded that "somewhere between 5,000
to 10,000 people died in this conflict".

"Yes, a number is important," she says, "but it's not as important as making
sure that we recognise that each number is a life. Our goal, beyond getting
assistance to the innocent families that are harmed, is to get a proper
accounting of war."

Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights says Washington should be
hauled up before an international war crimes commission and held accountable for
civilian deaths in Iraq.

"In any war, the number of civilians killed is critical," Ratner told IPS.. "It
is that number that can help determine whether or not the military complied with
the Geneva conventions (governing the conduct of wars)."

"And in each military engagement, the number of civilians killed cannot be out
of proportion with the value of the military target. Franks' statement is
practically saying that the laws of war do not apply to the United States," he
added.

Last week, a Belgian lawyer filed a lawsuit in Brussels charging Franks with war
crimes. The action was submitted on behalf of 19 Iraqis, allegedly victims of
cluster bombs and U.S. bombings of civilians, under a law that permits Belgian
courts to try foreigners for war crimes.

This week, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) challenged a U.S. military
accounting of the bombing last April of a hotel in Baghdad in which two
journalists were killed.

After an investigation the CPJ concluded there is no evidence that U.S. forces
were fired on from the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, where nearly 100 journalists
were holed up before the building was shelled by U.S. forces.

The family of a Spanish journalist killed in that attack has already filed a
lawsuit against three U.S. soldiers for war crimes and murder. The suit, based
on a provision of the Rome Statute (of the International Criminal Court or ICC),
could be expanded to include other people, "independent of their rank or
nationality", said Pilar Hermoso, the attorney for Jose Couso's family.

But the high court's chief prosecutor, Eduardo Fungairiño, said this week he
opposes the complaint, meaning a delay of 15 days before it is decided if the
case will proceed.

"It is very clear that war crimes were committed in Iraq," says James Jennings,
president of Conscience International.

First, U.S.-led forces targeted and killed many civilians during massive bombing
of facilities unrelated to military objectives, such as government ministries
serving civilian needs, as well as hospitals, schools and homes.

Secondly, he told IPS, the military used disproportionate force with its so-
called "covering fire" technique, which means indiscriminate shooting at shops,
homes and mosques, killing many civilian non-combatants, including women and
children.

Jennings said that at least one Marine battalion commander admitted as much to
'Time' magazine when he said -- after the killing by his unit of nearly 100
Iraqis without an injury to his men -- "Let's quit pussyfooting, and call it
what it is. It's murder, it's slaughter."

"Now that the United States has accepted the status of an occupying power under
international law, officials in Washington cannot claim exemption from
prosecution of war crimes during the period of conflict," Jennings added..

The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and Amnesty International have both
called for the establishment of a commission of experts to examine past and
recent international war crimes and genocide committed in Iraq.

But since the United States and Britain hold veto powers in the United Nations
Security Council, most human rights groups doubt that the world body will create
a war crimes tribunal for Iraq. That does not mean it is not essential, says one
expert.

"Whether or not the question of accountability in Iraq is addressed successfully
could make or break the prospects for peace and stability in that country," said
Michael Posner, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.

Meanwhile, a coalition of over 150 peace and human rights groups has expressed
disappointment that a recent Security Council resolution lifting sanctions on
Iraq never addressed the issue of war crimes.

"We have just sent letters both to the Security Council and members of the
General Assembly about the issue of war crimes and the killing of both civilians
and journalists by the U.S. military," said Rob Wheeler of the Uniting for Peace
Coalition.

"These issues, along with many others, were irresponsibly ignored when the
Security Council approved the recent U.S. resolution on Iraq à These matters
must be investigated as part of a wider discussion by the General Assembly on
the invasion of Iraq," he added in an interview.

"The United States says it cares about the 3,000 people killed during the attack
on Sep. 11 (2001), but it doesn't seem to care about the tens of thousands or
even millions of civilians that have been killed by U.S. attacks on other
countries over the years."

Wheeler said that his coalition believes that the invading powers must be forced
to pay reparations for the death and destruction they have caused in Iraq. "Yes,
compensation is due for all of the damages, and civilian loss of life, caused by
this illegal and unprovoked war," he added.

Jennings pointed out that besides civilian killings, "the use of tons of
depleted uranium munitions, which cause genetic defects into the next
generation, and of 1,500 cluster bombs that have killed and maimed numerous
children, may also be classified as war crimes."

"In short," he said, U.S. technological progress has far outstripped its moral
development."

* * *


May 29, 2003

PRISONER SUICIDE ATTEMPTS IN CUBA DISMAY THE PENTAGON

From Reuters

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon on Wednesday reported two new suicide attempts by
prisoners held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, expressing
renewed concern as the total number of suicide tries reached 27.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Barbara Burfeind, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said in the last 10
days, one detainee attempted to kill himself for the first time, while another
made a repeat attempt. She said neither man was injured and both received
medical and mental evaluations.

Burfeind said 18 detainees have tried to kill themselves -- most by hanging --
and that there were 27 attempts by these detainees since the facility opened in
January 2002. She said there were numerous repeat suicide attempts, and some may
have tried more than twice.

Roughly 680 prisoners are being held at Guantanamo.

"There's definitely concern in terms of reducing the number of attempts,"
Burfeind said. "It's not an easy situation."

No one has died, although one detainee who attempted suicide has been
hospitalized for months.

Human rights groups have criticized the United States for the conditions under
which the prisoners are held, saying that interrogation techniques used there
might include torture.

The United States has used the Guantanamo base to hold non-U.S. citizens,
including suspected members of the Al Qaeda terrorist network, caught in what
President Bush calls the U.S. war against terrorism.

The Pentagon has refused to identify the prisoners, has not brought charges
against any, and has barred them from contacting lawyers. The Pentagon is
finalizing plans for military trials for some of the prisoners.

* * *


May 22, 2003

U.S. TO REPATRIATE MORE GUANTANAMO INMATES-POWELL

PARIS (Reuters) - The United States and Saudi Arabia have reached an agreement
to repatriate Saudi nationals held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay,
Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Thursday.

He also said the United States was close to reaching a similar deal with another
country, but did not give details.

"In the last week or so we've concluded agreements with two countries and their
citizens are in the process of returning home," Powell told a news conference at
the French American Press Club in Paris.

"The only one I can mention right now is Saudi Arabia. There is another one
which just needs another day or two to clear the agreement. We are working with
all the other countries in an aggressive way to see whether we can clear these
cases."

Efforts to repatriate prisoners from the naval base were focusing in particular
on young prisoners with little likely intelligence information or criminal
links, he said.

Powell did not give details on the agreements.

About 675 Taliban and al Qaeda members are being held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
They were captured during the U.S.-led war that began right after the September
11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks on U.S. landmarks.

Most of the hijackers were Saudi nationals. The U.S. blames the attacks on
Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

Prisoners at Guantanamo have been held without charge and without being
permitted access to a lawyer, drawing criticism from human rights activists.
Amnesty International has demanded that all those held at Guantanamo be charged
or released.

The United States has released a total of 41 prisoners from Guantanamo,
including some released in the past two weeks. U.S. officials have said they
will free prisoners when it is determined they no longer pose a threat to the
United States.

U.S. officials said last week the United States has turned five Saudi prisoners
held at Guantanamo Bay over to authorities in the kingdom.

Saudi media later quoted Interior Minister Prince Nayef as saying the five, who
were among about 100 Saudis held at Guantanamo Bay, were now being held in Saudi
prisons and would be tried in due course.

* * *


CNN:

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

INDIAN MEN LOOK BACK IN ANGER AT U.S. DETAINMENT

From CNN Senior Producer Phil Hirschkorn and Correspondent Jamie Colby

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Mohamed Azmath and Syed Shah are just two among the hundreds
of mostly immigrant men rounded up by U.S. law enforcement authorities in the
post-September 11, 2001, dragnet, but few had their faces splashed around the
world in mug shots as often as Azmath and Shah.

They were suspected of ties to the 19 hijackers who crashed airliners into the
World Trade Center and Pentagon, but, in the end, were found to be guilty only
of credit card fraud unrelated to the terrorist attacks.

Even prosecutors now agree that Azmath and Shah were in the wrong place at the
wrong time.

They were flying on September 11, 2001. They carried box cutters and had shaved
their bodies, like some of the hijackers. They had numerous passport photos and
a lot of cash. They even lived in Jersey City, New Jersey -- a base in the past
for terrorists plotting against the U.S.

"I don't think anyone would say the government acted unreasonably," said U.S.
Attorney James Comey, whose office prosecuted their cases.

"It could be that they were victims of extraordinarily bad fortune, that they
were flying in the air during the time of the 9/11 attacks, had one-way tickets,
and were carrying their devices," Comey continued. "There were a lot of
circumstances that warranted the government taking a very, very close look at
them."

This was the the two men's first interview with an American news network since
their release from U.S. detention and their deportation earlier this year.

They agreed to be interviewed by CNN in their homes in Hyderabad, India, a city
of 2.5 million people in south India that has a sizable Muslim population in a
mostly Hindu country.

"They labeled me as a terrorist without any evidence and proof. They just put it
in the newspaper and the news everywhere in the world," Azmath said.

"They singled me out as a Muslim," said Shah.

"I was treated by the prison guards as a guilty man," said Shah. "I don't want
to go back again."

"America is still the same, but the federal system is totally changed," Azmath
said.

Azmath and Shah came to the United States in the mid-1990s. They shared an
apartment in Jersey City, right across the Hudson River from Manhattan, and
worked for grocery stores, department stores and, finally, a newspaper stand in
a Newark, New Jersey, train station, where they earned $300 a week and regularly
sent money home to their families.

When the newspaper stand changed ownership on September 1, 2001, Azmath and Shah
were laid off. A friend told them of job prospects in San Antonio, Texas, and
the men were on their way.

Azmath and Shah were mid-air when the terrorist attacks occurred, and their TWA
passenger jet was forced to land in St. Louis, Missouri, as the country's
airspace closed.

They decided to continue their journey, boarding an Amtrak train for a 36-hour
ride. They paid cash for one-way tickets -- a pattern for illegal drug couriers
that caught the eye of a Drug Enforcement Agency agent in Fort Worth, Texas.

When the train stopped in Fort Worth, police boarded the train and accosted
Azmath and Shah.

"I did not have anything to do with New York," Azmath blurted, according to the
police report.

Azmath was sweating, and Shah was "nervous and evasive," the police observed.

The men had a total of $5,500 cash; two flat, box cutter-type knives; numerous
passport photos, showing them both clean shaven and with a full beard; hair dye;
and letters written in Arabic.

They also had expired visas.

"The box cutters were the tools of the trade," said Steven Legon, a court-
appointed defense attorney who helped Azmath. "Because of what happened, they
were singled out, they were profiled, they were pulled aside."

Azmath and Shah were arrested, transferred to federal custody and interrogated
about their possible prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks.

The men were sent to New York and held in solitary confinement in the high-
security wing of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where they were
denied access to mail, phone calls or lawyers for three months.

The FBI searched their apartment, which was down the street from a mosque where
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman once preached to his fellow radicals, including the 1993
World Trade Center bombers. Rahman is serving a life sentence for the terrorism
conspiracy behind the bombing and other thwarted attacks on New York landmarks.

During their detention, Azmath and Shah said, they were repeatedly harassed by
jail guards.

"I couldn't sleep for three, four months in the night time. Every half an hour,
they come and bang on the door," Shah said. "They kick on my leg shackles, and I
had a deep cut."

"Again and again they are saying, 'You are a terrorist, you belong to al
Qaeda,'" said Azmath. "I was treated like a dangerous criminal, and I was
isolated from everything."

Bureau of Prison officials declined to respond to those claims.

"When I met him, he was in full shackles and manacles. There was a camera there
recording our meeting. He was a little teary-eyed, shaken," said Anthony Ricco,
another court-appointed attorney who defended Azmath.

"I really felt a sense of his pain. He was a person who was wrongly accused at a
very difficult time," Ricco said.

After extensive interviews by the FBI, Azmath and Shah were eventually cleared
of any connection to terrorism. But both were charged and eventually pleaded
guilty to credit card fraud last June.

Azmath admitted selling a Social Security number to a man who obtained credit
cards in the name "Azmath Jaweed" and ran up unpaid balances exceeding $58,000.
Azmath netted only a few hundred dollars in the scheme, his attorneys said.

Shah admitted selling 15 fake credit cards for up to $2,000 apiece. One of those
cards had an outstanding balance of $281,000.

The men served their sentences, were transferred back to U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service custody and were deported.

They were among 765 immigration-related detainees held after September 11, most
of whom were deported, according to Justice Department figures.

Separately, the September 11 investigation led to more than 135 individuals
being detained on criminal charges.

"These cases teach us, me and you, how important and how cherished the rights
are that we have." Ricco said. "After all, it is those rights that were under
attack."

In Hyderabad, Azmath is reunited with his wife and son and working in his
father's auto parts business, while Shah intends to go to law school.

Both men say their feelings about the United States as a land of opportunity
have changed.

"I am trying to heal myself [of] what they did to me, actually. I will never
forget those days when I was in solitary confinement," Shah said.

Said Azmath, "It makes me angry, because they caught the wrong guy and just give
him [a] hard time because of the religious background or the ethnic look."

[ CNN's Suhasini Haidar in New Delhi contributed to this story. ]

* * *


The Observer:

Sunday May 25, 2003

RED CROSS DENIED ACCESS TO POWS

Up to 3,000 Iraqis - some of them civilians - believed to be gagged, bound,
hooded and beaten at US camps close to Baghdad airport

Ed Vulliamy in Baghdad
The Observer

The United States is illegally holding thousands of Iraqi prisoners of war and
other captives without access to human rights officials at compounds close to
Baghdad airport, The Observer has learnt.

There have also been reports of a mutiny last week by prisoners at an airport
compound, in protest against conditions. The uprising was 'dealt with' by the
Americans, according to a US military source.

The International Committee of the Red Cross so far has been denied access to
what the organisation believes could be as many as 3,000 prisoners held in
searing heat. All other requests to inspect conditions under which prisoners are
being held have been met with silence or been turned down.

There is circumstantial evidence that prisoners are being gagged and hooded, in
the manner of the Afghans and other captives held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba -
treatment in itself questionable under international law.

Unlike the Afghans in Cuba, there is no doubt about the status of these
captives, whether PoWs or civilians arrested for looting or other crimes under
military occupation: all have the right, under the laws of war, to be visited
and documented by the International Red Cross. 'There is no argument about the
situation with regard to the Iraqi armed forces and even the Fedayeen Saddam,'
said the ICRC's spokeswoman in Baghdad, Nada Doumani.

'They are prisoners of war because they have been captured during a clear
conflict between two states. If they served in the armed forces or in a militia
with distinctive clothing which came under the chain of command of one of the
warring states, they are protected under article 143 of the Geneva Convention.'

The ICRC has gained access to prisoners held in camps at Umm Qasr in the south.
But with regard to the larger numbers reportedly held in Baghdad, said Doumani,
'we are still waiting for the green light, more than a month after the end of
the conflict. This is in breach of the third Geneva Convention.' She said the
laws of war should give the ICRC access 'as quickly as possible'.

The airport camps are also said to contain many hundreds of civilians detained
for looting, who, Doumani said, 'do not fit into the category of prisoners of
war, according to the Americans'.

Civilians held, she said, have similar rights because they have been detained by
an occupying power, which the ICRC insists the Americans to be, even if they do
not use those words of themselves.

'Civilian prisoners under a military occupation have the right to be visited and
documented,' she said, 'and for their next-of-kin to be informed. Hundreds of
families are looking around Baghdad for members of their families who have gone
missing and are believed to have been arrested. They are being taken somewhere,
but no one knows where.'

A US military source said a mutiny occurred at the beginning of last week at one
compound at the airport zone - for the most part a sealed-off area and the site
of some of the heaviest civilian casualties as the Americans surged into the
Iraqi capital.

The rebellion was 'dealt with' by the US authorities, said the source, with no
confirmation or denial of deaths.

Witnesses to the camps are few, since no Iraqi prisoners taken to them have been
released. But a cameraman for the France 3 television channel, arrested at the
Palestine Hotel, did manage a glimpse. Leo Nicolian has documentation signed by
a Lieutenant Brad Fisher saying he was wrongly arrested (and beaten, with a
black eye to prove it) for the alleged theft of a bag from an American reporter.

He was held at the tennis court compound along with, he said, about 50 other
prisoners, and told he was detained 'for investiga tion'. On his way out,
Nicolian said he passed a bigger encampment in which he saw 'hundreds of men'
hooded, with their arms tied behind their backs.

A worker for a non-governmental aid organisation, who asked not to be named,
told The Observer that he saw men in a similar state aboard a truck, apparently
in transit from one place to another. The aid worker said he managed to video
the scene.

Doumani said there was no specific wording in the Geneva Convention on the
American practice of hooding and gagging, but that the law did specify that
prisoners be treated humanely. 'We have to assess what is humane,' she said.

* * *


The Daily Telegraph (UK):

5/24/2003

OFFICERS SHAKEN BY ARRIVAL OF CHILD TERRORISTS

By David Rennie in Camp Iguana

The disclosure that the United States was holding three Afghan boys under 16 as
"juvenile enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay caused widespread shock.

Officers there were almost equally surprised, they said yesterday. They
discovered they had been sent a child only when doctors examining a recent
arrival noticed his physical immaturity.

The youth, whose exact age is uncertain, was separated from adult detainees
immediately. When two more youths arrived shortly afterwards a separate juvenile
camp was built in a remote house overlooking the sea.

Anxious to defuse a potential public relations disaster, officials at Guantanamo
Bay allowed access to Camp Iguana, as the new area is called.

Senior commanders were at pains to describe the special care being taken of the
unusual detainees, while stressing their status as dangerous terrorists.

Col Adolph McQueen, head of the Joint Detention Operation Group, said: "We have
a programme designed by medical staff, they are being taught mathematics and
reading, and we have an interpreter there all the time."

The youngest of the three appears to be about 13. But Col McQueen said: "They
are juvenile enemy combatants that have a history of violence. If you let your
guard down you could get someone hurt."

Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, the overall commander, would not be drawn on the nature
of the crimes committed by the boys, saying only that they "have both
information of value to the United States and are threats to this nation" after
being pressed into terrorist service by "despicable people".

* * *


The Daily Telegraph (UK):

May 24, 2003

OUR SONS ARE FORGOTTEN, SAY GRIEVING BRITISH FAMILIES

By Sandra Laville

The letters stopped arriving months ago. In their place, Agnes Belmar received
four photocopied A4 sheets last week, courtesy of the Foreign Office, containing
pictures of her son's 8ft by 6ft cell, his shower and the exercise yard where he
is allowed to take in the fresh air for 15 minutes twice a week.

The photographs were part of an attempt by the Government to persuade the
families of the nine Britons held without charge for 18 months in solitary
confinement in Guantanamo Bay that their relatives are not complaining of
maltreatment and are in good health.

If the pictures were meant to appease and reassure the British families, many of
whom have received no correspondence from their relatives since last July, they
have failed.

Speaking for the first time about her 23-year-old son, Richard, Mrs Belmar, a
devout Roman Catholic who lives with her husband, Joseph, in north London, said:
"I feel my son has been forgotten about, abandoned.

"Even if he has done something, even if he was involved in something he should
not have been, no one has charged him with anything. He has been held so long,
without access to his lawyer or anyone, surely he has served his sentence by
now? Sometimes I find it hard to believe I will ever see him again."

Like all the British detainees at Guantanamo, Richard Belmar, who became a
Muslim after being expelled from school as a teenage troublemaker, has been
refused access to his lawyers for the last 18 months.

His mother, who lives on a council estate in Maida Vale, was as powerless as any
parent when her son announced in 2001 that he was going to Pakistan to study.

"My son was a normal young boy, he went to raves, he behaved badly for a time.
Then he became a Muslim, he changed, he became polite and respectful and
worshipped regularly at Regent's Park Mosque.

"He is a Muslim but he is not a terrorist. He went to Pakistan before the
September 11 attacks. I didn't want him to go, but he is an adult and I could
not stop him. Then we got a phone call from the Foreign Office to say he was
being held in Cuba. My husband was so shocked he could not speak."

British lawyers say Mr Belmar and the other eight Britons - Moazzem Begg, 35,
Shafiq Rasul, 24, Asif Iqbal, 20, Ruhal Ahmed, 20, Feroz Abbasi, 22, Jamal
Udeen, 33, Tarek Dergoul, 24 and Martin Mubanga, 29 - are in legal limbo: they
are denied the rights of prisoners of war or the opportunity to defend
themselves in court because no charges have been laid against them.

"If they had been fighting they might have been held as prisoners of war but
they should have been released once the hostilities were over," said Louise
Christian, who represents Mr Abbasi and two others. "If [the Americans] have any
evidence of terrorist involvement they should bring the defendants before a
court."

"Guantanamo Bay is America's own gulag," said Steven Watt, of the Centre for
Constitutional Rights in New York, which represents three of the Britons.

British officials visited the nine last month and reported them fit and well.
"We keep in regular contact with the families, and brought letters back to them
after the last visit," said a Foreign Office spokesman. In Tipton, West
Midlands, however, the family of Shafiq Rasul says the Government is doing
nothing for them.

Mr Rasul, a 24-year-old IT student, was arrested by the in Karachi in November
2001 and handed over to the Americans at Bagram air base in Afghanistan before
before being transferred to Cuba.

The last picture his family have of him is one taken on a day trip to Blackpool.
"My brother is a football-mad Liverpool fan, his last holiday was an 18-30s
package tour to Corfu," said Habib Rasul.

"He went to Pakistan to take a Microsoft computer course and visit his parents'
birthplace and the information I have is that he was lifted as a westerner and
handed to the Americans for a ransom.

"I sent a few football magazines and some pictures of the family to him. They
came back three months later, with a label saying, 'Suspicious items; return to
sender'.

"The Americans talk of democracy, liberty and freedom, but they are not
affording these rights to anyone in Guantanamo Bay."

Military officials have confirmed 25 suicide attempts by 17 people since the
inception of Camp Delta, 15 this year.

Fears about the mental health of the British detainees are always in the minds
of their relatives. In one of the last letters received by his family, Mr Iqbal,
who is also from Tipton, said: "I would rather be dead than treated like this...
if the death penalty was offered to us, we would jump at it."

* * *

The Daily Telegraph (UK):

May 24, 2003

SULLEN PRISONERS OF THE STEEL MACHINE

By David Rennie in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

The camp is reached through multiple wire fences, is shrouded from the outside
world by green tarpaulins, and patrolled by hundreds of United States military
police, almost all of them reservists, called from other lives as policemen,
prison wardens, teachers and students.

Wooden watchtowers, fitted with searchlights, loom over rows of steel huts.
There is a sound of the wind flapping in flags, the whirring of guards' electric
fans, and the barking of large dogs.

Each maximum security cell is a one-man steel cage, painted pale green
throughout, except for a black stencilled arrow, pointing towards Mecca.

The outer walls are neatly formed from a shipping container, with a floor of
non-slip metal, and walls of rigid mesh.

The door is of stout bars, with two hatches at waist and ankle height, through
which shackles are fixed to arms and legs before a prisoner leaves the cell.

A faint stench rises from a squat lavatory set into the floor next to a low sink
for ablutions. A bunk of pale green steel, topped with a thin mattress, takes up
much of the rest of the cage.

Despite the baking heat outside the cell blocks are merely warm, cooled by high
ceilings and revolving roof vents.

Though it is largely invisible you can smell the Caribbean Sea crashing on rocks
a few feet away.

The Pentagon's initial silence bred worldwide suspicion, fed from the very start
by images of the first inmates arriving, stumbling along blindfolded, ears
muffled, or pinioned to trolleys. Further anger was sparked when American
officials insisted that the detainees were not prisoners of war but "enemy
combatants" not covered by the Geneva Convention.

Lawyers for detainees quickly discovered that Guantanamo was not chosen just for
its isolation.

This unique American naval base, which is leased from communist Cuba under an
unbreakable treaty dating from the 19th century, is a legal limbo, beyond the
reach of any civilian court.

Only last month a chance question to the commanding general of Camp Delta
uncovered the fact that Guantanamo held three juveniles under 16, one of them as
young as 13.

Defence chiefs have yet to concede a single point of law. But they appear newly
determined to show the world that their camp is humane.

The Telegraph, the first British media organisation allowed inside Camp Delta,
was offered access to guards, camp commanders, doctors, pastors, even the camp
cook this week.

Curried fish stew was swiftly ladled from a vast tub. It tasted quite good. A
cold military ration pack - lunch for the maximum security inmates - was
produced. It was OK.

In a move to instil an esprit de corps, the commanding general has ordered Camp
Delta troops to bark "Honour bound . . ." every time they salute an officer.

Officers, in turn, must complete the motto ". . . to defend freedom" as they
salute back, though some rather mumble the line.

The guards are young and fresh-faced, swigging bottles of Gator-Aid like high
school students in camouflage. They are earnest and unabashedly patriotic.

Specialist Gordon Leslie, 20, a reservist from Connecticut, admitted to anger at
criticism of Camp Delta from outsiders. "It's military, so it must be bad -
that's what people think," he said."We could give them cake, fan them, feed them
grapes by hand, and people would still complain.

"People think because it's not under the Geneva Convention there's no rules. But
we probably have more rules than if they were legal PoWs."

There are about 100 women among the guards who endure everything from sullen
hostility to prisoners spitting at them. In the only concession to Islamic
culture female guards do not supervise male detainees when they shower.

Specialist Julie Martell, a slight, pretty 22-year-old from Baltimore, Maryland,
explained: "They'd rather talk to a man even if they need something. They don't
like a woman to touch them. The older detainees have the biggest problem with
women. But if I'm the only person there I get the job done.

"It really depends on the shift you're working. If everyone's awake a female
issue is a big problem. If everyone's asleep one prisoner might want to try to
be your best friend."

A surprising number of detainees speak some English.

She added: "I've been told that I'm not really a soldier, that I'm here for MWR
[morale, welfare and recreation]," using a navy acronym for troop recreation.

Asked how they get their message across, she wrinkled her brow. "They miaow at
me."

Guards exchange horror stories of inmates hurling excrement at them. Their
commander, Col Adolph McQueen, calls such stories exaggerated. "We've had water
thrown, sometimes with toothpaste in it. It might have been urine. But we have
not had serious assaults on guards."

"There's the occasional threat," said Specialist Leslie. "We're required to put
tape over our name badges for security, so they assume we're afraid."

Detainees routinely mock and abuse guards and visitors, offering what the
commanding general, Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, delicately called "vile language".

Some of the choicest profanities lose something in translation, said Specialist
Leslie. "They're pretty keen on calling us donkeys. They seem to expect that to
really hurt our feelings, so they'll wait for a big event to throw that one
out."

Guards are not allowed to answer prisoners back or interact with them, though
put-upon women soldiers have been known to note, aloud, that they are going home
now while detainees will be spending their night in a cage.

Troublemakers are moved around to break their grip on fellow detainees and
reduce tensions. Saudis and Afghans get on particularly badly, it has emerged.

An extensive system of rewards and penalties is used to induce co-operation,
from larger portions of food to extra break periods in a one-man exercise pen,
offering a tantalising view of the sea and ospreys wheeling in a tropical sky.

The highest reward is transfer to Camp Four, a newly opened medium security
facility, now home to some 60 of the best behaved detainees. Walking past a
group of bushy-bearded inmates, they looked bored rather than hostile at the
sight of visitors.

The detainees, wearing prayer caps, white pyjama-like uniforms and flip-flops,
sat at a shaded picnic table eating fruit, their bare feet curled under them.

For all the inducements, the mission of Camp Delta is not rehabilitation but
detention and intelligence gathering.

In the end what lies in detainees' hearts does not greatly excite the guards at
Camp Delta, merely that they stay there, locked up and unable to attack America.

"You have people try to persuade you they're wrongfully there," said Specialist
Leslie.

"It's not our job to decide or to care."


* * *

The Daily Telegraph (UK):

5/24/2003

TELEGRAPH MAN IS FIRST BRITISH REPORTER INSIDE CAMP DELTA

By David Rennie in Guantanamo Bay

It is not horror that crushes your spirits when you enter the cells at Camp
Delta. Instead, it is an absolute sense of defeat, of being hopelessly caught in
a great steel machine, remorseless in its efficiency and patience.

Just a moment inside a maximum security cell - newly vacated for repairs - is
enough to bring on despair. The hundreds of terrorist suspects brought to Camp
Delta, on its scrubby hillside at the eastern tip of Cuba, were men seething
with dreams, fuelled by visions of conquest and hate.

Camp Delta, newly built to replace the temporary facility of Camp X-Ray, is
designed to smother such dreams, reducing the world to a steel cage, 8ft by 6ft
8in.

It is not a place of visible humiliation or cruelty. Some of its key facilities,
from medical care to the food, are exactly the same as those provided to the
guard force of US military police.

The call to prayer is piped through the cells five times a day, and each inmate
has a copy of the Koran, prayer beads and holy oil.

But from the Stars and Stripes flags nailed to the camp's watchtowers, to the
female troops who help patrol its cell blocks (outraging many inmates), it is
intended to assert the final victory of the United States.

The Guantanamo Bay camp was, until very recently, shrouded in secrecy. The
Pentagon will not confirm the nationalities of its 680 detainees, though it is
known that nine are from Britain.

But the camp is clearly here to stay. American military commanders have drawn up
plans for a permanent terrorists' prison at the site, including a possible
execution chamber.

Special military tribunals that could pass death sentences are expected to begin
sitting this year, with defence lawyers asked to secure "secret-grade" security
clearance.

Commanders in Guantanamo stressed that it is up to senior Bush administration
officials in Washington to take final decisions on where the tribunals, or
commissions, will be held, and to decide where convicted terrorists will be
punished.

Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller heads the Joint Task Force (JTF) in charge of suspects
from Afghanistan and across the globe. He said: "We have laid out a very
extensive plan should long-term detention and imprisonment be given to JTF
Guantanamo."

Camp Delta opened last year on a rocky shoreline overlooking the Caribbean, and
is still expanding. However, its steel mesh cages require refurbishment every
few months, because of corrosion in the salty, humid air.

Building a Death Row at Guantanamo "is one of the plans", said Gen Miller.

The special tribunals will involve no juries and there will be no appeals to
higher courts, only reviews of verdicts by the defence secretary, and
ultimately, the president.

For security reasons, only American lawyers will be allowed to act for the
Guantanamo detainees, all of whom are foreigners.

Some 42 countries are represented at Camp Delta. Allies of the United States,
including Britain, have pushed for an end to the legal limbo for their citizens,
who are not considered to be on American soil, but have no redress to Cuban
courts.

* * *


May 23, 2003

U.S. PREPARES FOR LIKELY MILITARY TRIBUNALS OF TERROR DETAINEES

· Leaders of prosecution and defense teams
are named for possible trials this year.

By Richard A. Serrano, LA Times Staff Writer

In preparation for possible military tribunals in the war on terrorism, the
government on Thursday named heads for its prosecution and defense teams and
invited civilian attorneys to apply to represent prisoners detained by the U.S.

The announcement indicates that at least some of about 680 detainees at the U.S.
naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- and probably some of the high-profile
captives being held in secret locations -- likely will stand accused in military
tribunals this year.

Pentagon officials promised "to conduct full and fair military commissions for
enemy combatants," but that process cannot officially begin until President Bush
signs executive orders specifying that certain detainees go to trial.

"Although the president has not made a determination that anyone will stand
trial by military commission, we have the responsibility to be ready should he
make that decision," said the Pentagon's deputy general counsel, Paul Koffsky.

The Pentagon earlier detailed 18 war crimes and eight other offenses, including
terrorism and the killing of civilians, as charges that could be handled by
military tribunals. With that in mind, Army Col. Fred Borch, who was named to
head the prosecution team, said he already is reviewing at least 10 possible
cases.

But the new chief defense lawyer, Air Force Col. Will Gunn, said his team will
work vigorously to ensure that detainees are given the best legal assistance
possible. "We don't have a group of people who will roll over and go with
whatever the prosecution presents," he said.

Thursday's developments came after mounting criticism, inside the administration
and from civil liberties groups, that too many detainees have been held for too
long without being granted a lawyer or access to their families. The first
detainees on Guantanamo Bay arrived in January 2002.

Recently, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell urged the Pentagon to speed up the
process, and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), in a new, separate letter to the
administration, called for the prompt release of children and Taliban fighters
picked up in Afghanistan.

Saying the war in Afghanistan ended with the installation of Hamid Karzai and
his government, Kennedy wrote to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that "the
United States no longer has the authority" to keep holding the prisoners.

"They should immediately be repatriated," he wrote in the letter, sent Tuesday.

Under Pentagon guidelines, the cases would be decided by a board of up to seven
military officers serving equally as judge and jury. Convictions could be handed
down by a majority vote. Any death sentence would have to carry a unanimous
vote.

Gunn said he would strive to shield his defense team from political pressure
during the tribunals, saying defense lawyers would work hard to ensure the
proceedings are fair.

"We have a job to do," he said. "We believe in this nation and we believe in the
values this nation espouses."

Borch promised that the tribunals would be tough, but fair.

"I can tell you that every single case that merits prosecution, that we're told
to prosecute, we will prosecute," he said.

That includes many of the high-profile cases, he added, including that of Jose
Padilla, an American citizen arrested in Chicago after allegedly returning to
this country to scout out a target for a radioactive "dirty bomb."

Padilla, like the others, has not been charged, and he remains locked up in a
Navy brig. Speaking about the Padilla case, Borch said, "I can't speak for what
the president might or might not do, or what advice he might be getting."

* * *

BBC:

22 May, 2003

PAKISTANI RELIVES GUANTANAMO ORDEAL

By Haroon Rashid, BBC correspondent in Peshawar

A Pakistani man recently freed from US custody at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba has
said he was given injections to make him talk.

Shah Mohammad was released earlier this month and is now back in Pakistan after
months in custody, suspected of links with Islamic militants.

Another Pakistani, Jehan Wali, and an Afghan, Sahibzada Usman Ali, were freed
with him.

Fifty-four Pakistanis are among some 650 prisoners from 40 countries still in
detention at the maximum security military base.

Mr Shah alleged that the Americans had given him injections and tablets prior to
interrogations.

"They used to tell me I was mad," the 23-year-old told the BBC in his native
village in Dir district near the Afghan border.

"I was given injections at least four or five times as well as different
tablets.

"I don't know what they were meant for."

CROSSING THE BORDER

Shah Mohammad, a baker, says he went to Afghanistan in search of a better job.

"I was employed by the Taleban to bake bread for them and they paid me a monthly
stipend for these services.

"I had nothing to do with the military side of things in Afghanistan," he says.

He said he was captured in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif by the
anti-Taleban Northern Alliance in November 2001.

They handed him over to US troops who flew him and others to Guantanamo Bay.

"Before boarding the plane our hands and feet were tied and duct tape was stuck
across our mouths, blindfolds were placed on our eyes and devices were shoved
into our ears.

"Our hair and beards were shaved off," he said.

TOUGH CONDITIONS

Mr Shah said conditions at Guantanamo were appalling to begin with.

"We were not allowed to pray and little food was served. But later things
improved," he said.

Denied prisoner of war status by US authorities, none of the detainees have been
officially charged and they have been prevented from meeting lawyers or even
receiving visitors.

Most have spent the majority of their detention in complete isolation,
punctuated only by routine interrogations.

"Jehan Wali has not talked to anyone for the past eight months," Mr Shah said of
his fellow former detainee.

The US authorities had promised him some money but at the end gave him a black
bag containing just a pair of jeans, a shirt and a pack of tissues.

"I don't know whether I can ask for any compensation," he said.

But he said he would never go back to Afghanistan.

"My family will not let me do it again and apart from that the Americans have
made me sign an oath saying I will never go there."

Shah Mohammad now wishes to get a decent job and restart his life.

* * *


May 21, 2003

UNCONFIRMED: Recieved from Lawyers Against the War

Source: Dawn (Pakistan)

Two From Camp X-Ray Vow To Sue Over Illegal Detention

Two Pakistani prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay have reached their homes
after remaining in captivity for 18 months, sources told Dawn on Monday.

Shah Mohammad of Alladand Dheri (Malakand Agency) and Wali Jan of Dir, both 23-
year-old, were released by United States authorities some 10 days ago.They were
shifted to Kandahar first and then on May 13, the Afghan government send them to
Islamabad through a special flight, family sources from Malakand told this
reporter on telephone.

The sources said that both remained under medical treatment at the Combined
Military Hospital in the federal capital for three days. Later on, the federal
government asked the NWFP authorities to make arrangements for shifting them to
their homes and on Friday, the Frontier government sent a special team of law
enforcement agencies that brought them to their residences.

Shah Mohammad, a bread-maker by profession, had gone with the activists of
banned religious organisation Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammadi to fight
alongside the Taliban militia against the US-led coalition forces.

The family sources quoted Shah Mohammad as saying that he was arrested by the
Northern Alliance fighters in Mazar-i-Sharif soon after the fall of Taliban.Shah
Mohammad alleged that he was sold out to the United States-led coalition forces
for Rs200,000 along with other Pakistanis.

"We were taken to Kandahar for interrogation, where US forces shaved our beards
and heads. Later, before being shifted to the Camp X-ray in Guantanamo Bay, they
handcuffed us, plugged our ears and sealed our lips with tape and made us to put
on black glasses," he revealed.

He said there were 44 Pakistanis in the camp and most of them were mentally sick
owing to the third degree torture by US interrogation teams. "The US authorities
shaved the face and head even of the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan,
Mulla Abdus Salam Zaeef, at the Camp X-ray," the sources quoted Wali as saying.

"Most of us were detained in a very small cage, in which we could not move,"
headded. Shah Wali claimed that after getting the clean chit from the
interrogation team, the US authorities offered him asylum in America. But he
refused the "owing to his love with Islam, the motherland and family".

"I will sue the US government in the International Court of Justice for 18
months illegal detention," he vowed. With the release of Shah Wali and Wali Jan,
now the total number of Pakistanis released from the Guantanamo Bay prison is
three.

* * *


Sydney Morning Herald:

May 20, 2003

THE BOYS INSIDE GUANTANAMO PRISON

[ Rights groups say the youngsters the US is holding should not be there, writes
Caroline Overington in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. ]

"Iguana House" is a cream brick bungalow which stands apart from the cells that
hold former fighters of the Taliban and, according to their American captors,
members of the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

The Cuban villa has a lounge, a bedroom, a kitchen and bathroom and the usual
detritus associated with adolescent inhabitants. They are three children who
human rights groups say should not be there in the first place.

There is a sofa in the house, plus two armchairs, and a television for watching
videos including Castaway. The dining table is littered with board games,
including an American favourite called "Get Into Trouble!" From the look of the
sandshoes under a bed, one has size nine feet.

The youngsters themselves were not in view when journalists were conducted
through by US guards. A three-metre cyclone wire fence has been built around the
house, which is also screened by green mesh.

Unlike the adult camp, there are no guard towers, no barbed wire, and soldiers
have cut a large hole in the green screen so you can see the sea from the yard.

"That really fascinates them," said David Wodushek, 35, a US soldier who is
helping guard the three detainess kept here. "They had never seen the sea
before."

Early this year the occupants of Iguana House were brought to the US military
prison at Guantanamo Bay. Almost immediately, it became clear that three of them
were not men, but boys.

"They were kind of small, and not that well developed... we were fairly
certain they were juveniles," said Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, of the
Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay.

Medical tests were carried out and "we concluded that all were somewhere between
13 and 16 years of age", he said.

The US says all three boys were detained during fighting in Afghanistan and that
they are therefore "juvenile enemy combatants", not child prisoners of war. It
also determined that, just like the adult prisoners at Camp Delta, they would be
held indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay without access to lawyers.

When news of this arrangement leaked to the media last month, it sparked outrage
among human rights groups, who have described the detention of juveniles as
repugnant.

Stung by the criticism, the US moved to assure the international community that
the boys were being humanely treated and, last week, the Herald was invited to
join a media tour of the facility where they are being held.

The military says the boys are allowed to exercise in the yard for two hours a
day. Colonel Johnson, who led the tour of Iguana House, said the juveniles were
taught English, reading, writing and maths, and that a Muslim cleric had
visited.

Mr Wodushek said the juveniles were "extremely well behaved. We've had no
discipline problems... there is some respect between us."

The US has so far refused to reveal the identity of any of the boys, but
Canadian media has reported that one could be 16-year-old Omar Khadr, who is the
Toronto-born son of an Egyptian-born Canadian citizen and who allegedly
underwent small arms training at an al-Qaeda compound in eastern Afghanistan. If
so, he has been in the custody of the US military since last July.

The deputy commander of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay, General James
Payne, told the Herald it was "unfortunate" that juveniles had become involved
in the war on terrorism. "But it's also an unfortunate fact that some groups do
use children as soldiers."

General Payne said the boys had arrived at Guantanamo Bay "malnourished and in a
state of poor health. Since then, they've been receiving excellent medical care
and three meals a day. Now I can say they are in super shape. I don't think I'm
exaggerating when I say this is the best care they have ever received."

As well, they had greatly improved their reading skills. "I would say this is a
success story."

Human rights groups do not agree. A spokesman for Amnesty International,
Alistair Hodgett, said in a statement this month that the US was violating the
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which says "every child deprived of his
or her liberty shall have the right to prompt access to legal and other
appropriate assistance".

* * *


LA Times:

May 19, 2003

Letter to the Editor

AMERICA'S PRISONERS AT GUANTANAMO BAY

Re "Appetite for Authoritarianism Spawns an American Gulag," Commentary, May 2:
Jonathan Turley says that Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay was designed to hold
alleged war criminals from Afghanistan. That is incorrect. The purpose is to
detain dangerous enemy combatants captured while fighting against our forces and
remove them from the battlefield.

Turley implies that we are being "shadowy" about juvenile detainees. We have
been very forthcoming about the fact that we simply do not know the exact ages
of all the detainees, but we believe a small number of them may be juveniles. We
are providing them with special medical and psychological care in an environment
that is segregated from the rest of the detainee population. It is important to
remember that these are still very dangerous people.

Turley makes the disturbing comparison of Camp Delta to a "gulag." That is an
affront to the millions of innocent people who were starved, raped, tortured,
executed or worked to death in Soviet-era gulags because of their political
beliefs. Camp Delta is a place where we hold enemy combatants in a humane, safe
environment. The detainees are well fed, free to practice their religion and
receive some of the best medical care in the world.

Victoria Clarke
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs
Washington

* * *


BBC:

May 16, 2003

LEGAL LIMBO OF GUANTANAMO'S PRISONERS

By the BBC's Monica Whitlock, BBC correspondent in Kabul

With the arrival of 30 new detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the United
States is now holding more prisoners there than ever before.

Most of the new intake are Afghans, captured during the US campaign against the
Taleban in 2001 and 2002, and held in Afghanistan ever since without charge.

Said Abaseen is a taxi driver from the Afghan capital, Kabul.

He set out on an ordinary day's work last July - and ended up in Cuba, 15,000
kilometres (9,300 miles) from home.

He was held at Guantanamo Bay for nine months, before being classified as of low
intelligence value and sent back to Kabul in March - part of the first
substantial group to be set free.

He was never charged and still does not know why he was arrested.

Nobody knows exactly who is being held, but the US Government says there are
roughly 660 people currently detained at Guantanamo Bay, from over 40 countries.

Two weeks ago, US defence department officials announced that they had three
children between the ages of 13 and 15 detained at Guantanamo.

'UNLAWFUL COMBATANTS'

A hunger strike, last year, and a string of suicide attempts drew attention to
conditions in Guantanamo.

Since those early months, much has changed at the camp.

Prisoners have been moved out of the steel-mesh cages of the first makeshift
camp - called Camp X-ray - into solid buildings.

Wendy Patten of Human Rights Watch says that the prisoners are now living in
"Camp Delta", a facility which has plumbing and ventilation. "It's apparently
being used for those who are beginning to prepare to complete their detention
and move them on to release.

"We understand they're allowed out a couple of times a week for exercise."

The Red Cross ensures that prisoners are allowed to write to their families, and
the children in the camp are given some lessons.

But Human Rights Watch is continuing to insist the US Government respects the
human rights of their prisoners.

Yet US officials insist that there is nothing inhumane or degrading in the
prisoners' treatment.

Donald Rumsfeld, uses the term "unlawful combatants" to describe the detainees
at Guantanamo:

"As I understand it, technically unlawful combatants do not have any rights
under the Geneva Conventions."

This means that the prisoners do not need to be released at the end of
hostilities - as prisoners of war are.

Under this classification, the prisoners are not charged, but nor are they
allowed access to any legal process.

MILITARY TRIBUNALS

British lawyers, such as Louise Christian, are doing what they can to help some
of the prisoners.

But as they cannot meet with their clients, they have to represent their
families, with whom the inmates communicate by letter.

Like other lawyers, she has found her work thwarted by a legal maze within a
maze. Guantanamo Bay is on a perpetual lease, granted in 1901, from the Cuban
Government.

And because these are non-US citizens on non-sovereign US territory, that means
that the US courts do not have jurisdiction.

The conundrum of Guantanamo may, however, be opening up a little.

Last month, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, wrote a strongly worded
letter to Donald Rumsfeld, deploring the imprisonment of children and old
people, and saying that eight governments friendly to the US had complained
about the holding of their citizens.

Guantanamo, he said, could undermine US efforts to sustain international
approval for its foreign policy.

Nothing definite has been announced, but the word in Washington is that some
prisoners will go before military tribunals in the months to come.

And these tribunals will have the power to impose the death penalty.

It will, it is said, be up to President Bush to decide on any executions.

* * *


LA Times:

May 14, 2003

LACK OF DETAINEE HEARINGS UNDER FIRE

A federal judge in Los Angeles lambasted the Bush administration Tuesday for
failing to make good on its promise to hold military tribunals for more than 600
war-on-terror detainees being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in
Cuba.

U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz's criticism came in a written opinion
rejecting a habeas corpus petition brought on behalf of Falen Gherebi, a 45-
year-old Libyan who has been held prisoner by U.S. authorities for more than a
year.

The petition asked that Gherebi be given access to a lawyer and granted a
hearing on his status before a federal judge.

Citing an earlier ruling he issued in a related case, Matz said prisoners at
Guantanamo are not entitled to seek relief in U.S. courts because the Guantanamo
naval base is not under American sovereignty. The base is held under a century-
old lease with Cuba.

"The court reaches this conclusion reluctantly, however," Matz wrote in a 15-
page opinion.

Matz, who was appointed to the bench by President Clinton in 1998, quoted from a
Defense Department order promising that military commissions would be impaneled
to try those held captive.

"Not one military tribunal has actually been convened," Matz wrote. He said
delay in carrying out the promised tribunals is inconsistent with basic values
of the American legal system.

* * *


BBC:

May 9, 2003

MORE PRISONERS SENT TO CUBA BASE

Pentagon officials say about 30 detainees have been transferred to the
Guantanamo Bay detention centre from Afghanistan.

Earlier, the Pentagon had confirmed that 13 prisoners had been "transferred for
release" in Afghanistan on Wednesday.

Most were Afghans, but there were a small number of Pakistanis, Pentagon
officials said.

The total number of detainees at the US base on the island of Cuba now stands at
about 680.

The Pentagon says the latest transfers to the base are mainly Afghan and had
been held in Afghanistan until now.

The US has used the base to house what it terms "unlawful combatants" it
encounters in its so-called war on terror.

'NO LONGER A THREAT'

It has not granted them prisoner-of-war status, and none has been charged or
stood before a judge - a fact harshly criticised by human rights groups.

The BBC's Nick Childs in Washington says this growing criticism could have
spurred on the latest releases - though in public Washington insists it is not
responding to such pressure.

It says it has merely deemed that the men no longer pose a threat to US
security.

The 13 men sent back to Afghanistan this week, after more than a year in
detention and interrogation at the base, are being held in a police station in
Kabul.

Authorities said they would conduct short interviews and check they are not
wanted for other crimes.

"I'M INNOCENT"

Speaking to news agency Associated Press, the men said they had been released
without compensation or an apology.

One showed reporters a blue sports bag containing trousers, sports shoes, a
jacket, underwear and a bottle of shampoo.

He said that was all he had been given.

"I'm just angry that the Americans waited until we were in Guantanamo to
interrogate us," said Mohammed Tahir.

"Had they questioned us here in Afghanistan, it would have saved us a lot of
trouble.

"They could have realised a lot sooner that I was innocent."

'FORCED TO FIGHT'

Another man described how, two or three times a week, his hands and feet were
bound and he was interrogated.

"All the time they asked us, 'Where are you from? Are you Taleban? Were you in
Pakistan? Why were you captured with the Taleban?" said

The men who were released all said they were forced to fight for the Taleban.

Although they are bitter about their long detentions, apart from the frequent
interrogations none of the men had any other specific complaints about their
prison treatment.

They said they were allowed to pray, ate three times a day and showered twice a
week, according to AP.

* * *


The Guardian:

Tuesday May 6, 2003

PENTAGON TO RELEASE CHILD PRISONERS

Oliver Burkeman in Washington

Children held at Guantanamo Bay are expected to leave the American detention
camp in the near future as part of what may be the biggest single release of
prisoners since it was established, US military officials said last night.

But they rejected reports that the Pentagon was succumbing to international
pressure after protests greeted news that the juveniles were in detention - or
to a complaint from Colin Powell, the secretary of state, that US policy at the
camp was straining relationships with allies.

Between one and two dozen inmates, mostly Afghans, will be released in the near
future, according to unnamed military officials.

One official said he believed juveniles would be among them, though it was not
clear whether that number would include all three of the boys aged 13 to 15
whose presence at Guantanamo caused outrage when it was revealed last month. It
was also unclear whether they would be freed, or transferred to detention in
their home nations.

Since the camp received its first detainees in early 2002, only 23 have been
released, including inmates who were elderly or mentally ill.

The planned release, which Pentagon officials said would not be confirmed
publicly until after it had happened, may well be the largest so far. The camp's
660 detainees are being held indefinitely, have no access to lawyers and have
not been charged.

Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, has said the under-16s are "not
children" and could be dangerous.

Signs that the defence department is reviewing individual cases follow an
increase in criticism not only from outside the Bush administration, but also
from within.

Mr Powell warned Mr Rumsfeld in a letter that eight allies had complained about
their citizens being held there. He was reported as saying that mishandling of
the prisoners was damaging global cooperation in combating terrorism.

Mr Powell "is wondering about due process," a state department official said
yesterday on condition of anonymity. "There are questions about these prisoners,
and [Mr Powell] is aware of them."

But the Pentagon denied that the releases were connected to the letter, saying
they had been planned "for some time", and Mr Rumsfeld sought to present the two
departments as united.

He said: "What Colin and I have been concerned about ... is that it's taking so
long."

Olara Otunnu, the UN's special representative for the rights of children in war,
told the Guardian it was imperative that all prisoners at Guantanamo below the
age of 18 be "released as fast as possible for them to be reunited with their
families".

Of the expected release, he said: "My hope is that top of the list will be the
persons below the age of 18 ... if they are accused of committing any crime,
they can obviously be tried, they can be investigated - but instead of
sentencing to detention or jail, you put them through a programme of
rehabilitation and correction."

But a release of all minors at the camp seemed far from imminent.

A Canadian government official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, told
the Guardian he thought it "highly unlikely" that the released inmates would
include Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen who entered the camp at 15 after being
captured by US forces in Afghanistan. Amnesty International welcomed news of the
release.

* * *

The Globe and Mail:

Tuesday, May 6, 2003 - Page A12

U.S. TO RELEASE SOME PRISONERS HELD IN CUBA
Teenagers and two Canadians are among about 660 detainees at Guantanamo base

By COLIN FREEZE

The United States is preparing to release 22 Guantanamo Bay prisoners, several
of whom are said to be teenagers. But there was no word yesterday whether two
young Canadians are among those to be sent away from the U.S. naval base in
Cuba.

Omar Khadr, 16, and his brother, Abdul-Rahman, 20, grew up in Ontario and are
among an estimated 660 detainees being held in Guantanamo Bay.

The prisoners are mostly suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters who were caught
during the U.S.-led campaign to oust Afghanistan's Taliban regime.

An official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that
juveniles are among those to be released. News that several boys between the
ages of 13 and 16 were among the prisoners had drawn criticism from human-rights
groups.

While such organizations have focused on Omar's young age, U.S. officials have
been more eager to accuse him of using a grenade to kill a U.S. medic last
summer in Afghanistan.

Omar is the sole survivor of a group of men who got into a firefight with U.S.
forces in Afghanistan on July 27, 2002. The teenager is said to be co-operating
with his captors, and is not known to face any charges.

Yet Omar could still soon appear before a military tribunal. The Washington Post
reports that U.S. military officials have drawn up a list of a small number of
alleged al-Qaeda operatives whom they want to try in Guantanamo Bay. But no
names have been released.

These tribunals have outraged human-rights groups because they would afford
fewer protections to the accused than under criminal trials. For example, U.S.
President George W. Bush and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would personally
decide who would be tried and who gets to appeal. Convictions could result in
prison sentences or the death penalty.

The Khadr brothers, who were captured months apart in Afghanistan, are the sons
of Ahmed Said Khadr, an Egyptian-born Canadian who took his family on several
trips to Central Asia since he began working for Islamic charities in the 1980s.

In 1995, the elder Mr. Khadr was detained on suspicion of being involved in a
deadly bombing in Pakistan, but was released after Canadian interventions.

Canadian officials have visited Omar in Cuba, but yesterday said they had no new
information on the status of Omar or his brother.

Family members in Toronto say they have heard nothing new about the brothers in
months.

"Just through the Red Cross, they said nothing, they don't talk.... We have
nothing to do, just wait and see what is going to happen," a relative said
yesterday.

Guantanamo Bay holds prisoners from 42 countries, including several from
countries friendly to the United States.

Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote a strongly worded letter
to Mr. Rumsfeld, saying eight allied countries complained that the failure to
handle the prisoners correctly was undermining efforts to win co-operation in
the so-called war on terror.

[ With a report from AP ]

* * *


CNN:

May 6, 2003 - 2053 GMT

MILITARY COMMISSIONS ARE READY TO GO
'Specter of an American gulag'

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A prosecutor and defense lawyer are lined up for military
tribunals that might try some of the accused terrorists who have been captured
across the globe. Courtroom rules are set, too. All that's needed now are the
defendants.

Lawyers familiar with the matter say they believe only a small number of the
approximately 660 detainees captured in the war on terrorism and held at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will ever appear before the tribunals. No one is certain
who would be the first.

In the meantime, the Pentagon is considering Army Col. Frederic Borch III to be
chief prosecutor overseeing military commission trials and Air Force Col. Willie
Gunn to run the chief defense counsel's office, according to lawyers. They would
supply the pool of military legal talent for the prosecution and the defense.

The Bush administration has categorized the detainees brought to Guantanamo Bay
as unlawful combatants, not prisoners of war. They have no constitutional rights
because they are non-U.S. citizens held outside U.S. territory on land leased
from Cuba. Legal advocacy groups are in court seeking recognition of
constitutional rights for the detainees. (Full story)

Guantanamo Bay is a likely location for any commission trials. The Pentagon has
listed 18 war crimes and eight other offenses that could be tried, from
terrorist acts to false surrenders. (Guantanamo history)

The detainees are former Taliban fighters and others from 42 nations, thought at
the time of their capture by the U.S. government to have connections to
terrorist groups. In most instances, they were picked up in Afghanistan and
Pakistan.
Conditions for release

Now after lengthy interrogation, many of the detainees are thought to be low-
level former Taliban fighters, unlikely prospects for commission trials. Several
are juveniles. More than a dozen Guantanamo detainees will be sent home this
week, while an additional 30 or so are to be brought in. (Full story)

When the detention center in Guantanamo opened in January 2002, Vice President
Dick Cheney called the men in custody there and in Afghanistan "the worst of a
very bad lot." On a trip to Guantanamo, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
called them "among the most dangerous, best trained, vicious killers on the face
of the earth."

Rumsfeld now says detainees could be released if officials determined there
would be no charges against them, they posed no threat and they had no more
useful intelligence to offer. Still, officials maintain that a number of the
prisoners are dangerous, saying some have threatened to kill Americans or make
more trouble if given the chance.

But the indefinite detention and lack of access to legal counsel for the
Guantanamo detainees "raises the specter of an American gulag," George
Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said.

Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights deplores the fact that
"some of these people have been there 15 months and not had any kind of a
tribunal determine whether they were properly picked up."

Others say any criticism should be tempered by the new reality of life in a
post-September 11 world.

"Legally, if you're going to question the validity under the Constitution of
what the government has done, what they have done is probably all right, but
whether it's socially and morally acceptable, certainly it's uncomfortable,"
former military prosecutor Jeff Ifrah said.

Countries that have said publicly they want their citizens home from Guantanamo
include Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Britain and Pakistan.

Twelve Kuwaiti families issued a statement through a spokesman Tuesday calling
on the U.S. government to put an end to "this legal limbo" for relatives held at
Guantanamo Bay since January 2002.

Guantanamo Bay isn't the only source of possible defendants for military
commission trials.

Major terror suspects in U.S. custody who are held far from Guantanamo Bay at
undisclosed locations around the world could be subject to the trials. So could
accused September 11 suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, if the government is unable to
work out its problems in his federal court case over the use of classified
information. And if President Bush expands the order he signed in November 2001,
Iraqis alleged to have committed war crimes could face commissions.

Trials before military commissions are far different from those the public is
used to seeing in civilian court.

The commissions require a two-thirds vote to convict a defendant, as opposed to
a unanimous verdict by a 12-member jury. A death penalty case before a seven-
member military commission requires a unanimous verdict. In non-death penalty
cases, the commissions can have as few as three members. Every commission has at
least one military lawyer who rules on admitting evidence and other such issues.
Commission members are always military officers.

* * *


CNN:

May 6, 2003 - 1420 GMT

U.S. DETAINEES POLICY CRITICIZED

By CNN's Avril Stephens

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Human rights groups criticized the U.S.' planned
release of 12 more detainees from Guantanamo Bay saying all "unlawful
combatants" should be charged or freed.

U.S. defense officials say the detainees, including children, will be released
from the high-level security U.S. military base in Cuba after a delay caused by
the Iraq war.

No date, or further details on who or exactly how many will be released have
been given.

But human rights groups say the remaining 650 detainees should be brought to
court or freed, having been arbitrarily held without access to a lawyer or a
trial since many were held there more than a year ago.

"Allowing prisoners to challenge the lawfulness of their detention in a court of
law is a fundamental human right that protects against arbitrary arrest and
detention," Amnesty International, U.S., said in a statement Tuesday:

"All of the prisoners held at Guantanamo should be charged or released."

They also say basic human rights violations are taking place, with the detainees
being kept in prolonged solitary confinement, heavy shackling and lack of
adequate exercise. Fifteen detainees have unsuccessfully attempted to commit
suicide.

Human rights groups say the detainees will only be released or tried when
politicians put enough pressure on the U.S. government to take action.

The latest release comes after the U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell
complained to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about the time it was taking
to come to a decision on the fate of the detainees.

Eight countries have complained about its citizens being detained, among them
Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Britain and Pakistan.

Most of the detainees are from Afghanistan and Pakistan, but there are some from
more than 40 other countries.

Those released are expected to receive clothes and some money, and then handed
to Afghanistan authorities after which their fate will be decided.

The detainees are being held as "unlawful combatants" rather than prisoners of
war (PoWs) and as a result are not officially covered by the Geneva Convention.

Some were captured with concealed weapons, while the "unlawful combatant" tag
allows the U.S. to indefinitely interrogate the detainees for intelligence on
Afghanistan's former Taliban authorities and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service denies basic human rights are
being withheld from detainees.
Rumsfeld: Complicated process

But Stephen Jakobi, director of the UK-based legal rights charity Fair Trials
Abroad, told CNN: "I am an international human rights lawyer, and I had not
heard of the term unlawful combatants before the U.S. used it after the
Afghanistan war.

"The sad, and irresistible conclusion, is that the U.S. will lock everybody up
who does not hold the same views as itself."

He added: "The U.S.' pleas about useful intelligence gets thinner and thinner as
time goes on. The information will be of more use to historians than
intelligence operatives.

"The question remains, 'Why are they being held there -- to which there is no
rational answer.'"

Rumsfeld said Sunday that the process for releasing prisoners is complicated and
slow, The Associated Press reported.

"They must be questioned by several government agencies, including the FBI, the
Justice Department, the State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA and U.S.
immigration services," he was quoted as saying.

Detainees may be returned when they are determined to be innocent civilians
caught on the battlefield, they no longer pose an intelligence value, or they
are no longer deemed a threat.

So far, 23 detainees have been released since the camp was opened in January
2002. They have all been elderly or mentally-impaired.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, although some of
the detainees being held may be regarded as children they are "very, very
dangerous people ... who have killed."

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington rejected in March an appeal brought by
16 detainees, from Australia, Britain and Kuwait, to be allowed a hearing.

Nine Britons are being held at Guantanamo Bay. A spokeswoman for the British
Foreign Office told CNN: "We remain in close contact with the U.S. and continue
to press about the Britons' fate.

"British officials have made five trips to the camp and asked the detainees
about their welfare. They have found the conditions, in general, to be
satisfactory.

"The U.S. has given us their assurance that the detainees are being treated
humanely."

Question marks also hang over the fate of Iraqis captured by coalition forces in
the latest Gulf war.

Thousands of soldiers, as well as high profile Iraqi officials listed in the
U.S. pack of cards, are in detention, their fate unknown.

Those held by British forces in southern Iraq are being treated as PoWs "unless
proven otherwise," the Foreign Office spokeswoman said.

Three days ago, the Pentagon announced that rules had been issued for possible
trials of foreign terrorism suspects.

U.S. officials did not say which prisoners or how many might be brought to trial
before military commissions or when such trials might start. They said it was
possible such trials could be held at the Guantanamo base.

* * *


BBC:

6 May, 2003, 09:08 GMT

US TO FREE 'TERROR' DETAINEES

Fifteen men captured by American troops during the war in Afghanistan will be
released this week, the US authorities have announced.

The detainees have nothing further to tell the authorities about terrorist
groups, the US defence department says.

It adds that the prisoners - held at Guantanamo Bay naval base on Cuba - have
not been linked to any crime.

Human rights activists have criticised the conditions in which about 600 people
are held without charge there, and the fact that they have no legal right to
challenge their detention.

The US has come under particular criticism - including from the United Nations -
for holding a small number of youths.

The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says at least one of those to be released is
under the age of 16.

The move was dismissed by the human-rights organisation Amnesty International as
too little, too late.

"All of the prisoners held at Guantanamo should be charged or released," an
Amnesty spokesman in the US said.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote to the Pentagon last month, saying the
detentions were undermining international support for the US war on terror.

Pentagon officials denied that this week's releases were connected to the
complaint.

Our correspondent says it does not look as if this is the start of a wider
operation to clear the camp.

In a few months' time, military tribunals are expected to begin hearing cases
against those the US believes were involved in terrorism.

ENEMY COMBATANTS

The US has refused to say exactly how many prisoners it holds, but there are
believed to be about 660 from more than 40 different countries. Most are
suspected of being members of the Taleban or al-Qaeda.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at the weekend he would like to
expedite the processing of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

But Mr Rumsfeld said it was necessary to question the detainees thoroughly.

"It takes time to find out what intelligence they have," he told CNN.

"It also takes time to figure out what law enforcement process might be
appropriate.

"What [Mr Powell] and I have been concerned about... is that it's taking so
long," he said.

Hundreds of people were taken prisoner by US-led forces in the war launched to
overthrow the Taleban after the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and
Washington, blamed on al-Qaeda.

The US started moving captives to its remote base in Cuba in January 2002. They
have been classified as enemy combatants - not prisoners of war, who would have
more rights.

None have been charged with a crime and few have been released.

Three children under the age of 16 are among the detainees, whose status means
they have no rights to legal representation.

© BBC 2003

* * *

The Times of India:

May 05, 2003

WASHINGTON ROPES IN ISI FOR KASHMIR PEACE

Chidanand Rajghatta, Times News Network

WASHINGTON: Pakistan's top spymaster Ehsanul Haq, Director of the Inter-Services
Intelligence, better known by the acronym ISI, has begun a weeklong visit to
Washington amid expectations that he will be asked to clean up the wanton ways
the agency is notorious for and back the peace process with India.

Although no details are being released about the visit, Haq is said to be
meeting top US officials dealing with security matters, including chiefs of the
CIA and FBI, besides cabinet officials such as Homeland Security boss Tom Ridge,
National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, and Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage, who has just left for the sub-continent.

The range and level of meetings reflect the importance the Bush administration
is attaching to reigning in the spy network that is often accused of being a
state within a state in Pakistan.

Among the subjects on the table during these discussions will be the issue of
infiltration and cross-border terrorism that has brought India to the brink of
war with Pakistan. Despite routine denials by the Pakistani government, both
Washington and New Delhi say on record that the incursions are continuing,
sometimes at reduced levels.

Both sides have determined that separately with technical means at their
disposal and shared the data, according to sources familiar with the exchanges.

The issue is not just infiltration, but the widespread connections of Pakistani
intelligence with the fundamentalist, jehadi, and ultimately the terrorist
constituency, officials say.

In the most recent instance, it has come to light that David Hicks, an
Australian who fought alongside the Taliban and is currently detained in
Guantanamo Bay, told US interrogators that he "joined' the Pakistan Army and
went on missions inside Jammu and Kashmir. This could not have happened without
official Pakistani complicity, they say.

Also last week, French philosopher-writer Bernard Henri-Levy charged in a BBC
interview that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was killed after he
discovered the involvement of the ISI with extremist elements.

In a new book to be released shortly, Levy says Pearl was lured and killed by
British-born Islamic militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who he claims is a double
agent working for the ISI. Sheikh incidentally surrendered to a former top
official of the ISI, Brig Ejaz Shah, when he was governor of Punjab.

Such murky incidents have undermined the trust between Washington and Islamabad
despite the public face both sides put on in describing as positive their
operational cooperation.

Pakistan has unquestioningly turned over scores of terrorist suspects to the
US., but where there are doubts about the suspects being able to squeal about
their links to the ISI (as in the Omar Sheikh case), Islamabad has declined to
deport or extradite them. Sheikh has in fact threatened to rat on the ISI if he
is sent to the United States.

US officials on background often express fears that the ISI, which is a spin-off
from the Pakistan Army, has been overrun by the jehadis, although they say Gen
Musharraf still appears to retain complete control over the organization.

The CIA and the ISI worked hand in glove in the 1980s during the Afghan war and
there is still plenty of residual affection for the Pakistani outfit among those
in American spookdom who were on the beat then. Frank Anderson, a former
American spook, wrote an impassioned op-ed article in the Washington Times last
year protesting what he thought was the vilification of the ISI and reminding
the Washington establishment that the agency was a "Valued helping hand in
terror war."

Although he agreed the ISI was promoting violence against India, Anderson wrote,
"it is hard to identify an organization anywhere in the world that has more
positively contributed to US. aims in both the Cold War against Soviet communism
and, now, the war on terrorism."

But there are others who feel that a lot changed during the 1990s when the ISI
began using the jihadi elements for operations in Kashmir without too much
concern about the wider and longer-term consequence of this, especially their
commonality with other terrorist outfits like the al-Qaeda. The cooperation in
the war on terror has also been spotty and selective, they say.

At least two former ISI chief, Hamid Gul and Javed Nasir, have openly backed the
fundamentalist goals and means to the extent of coming under the US watchlist.
One other ISI chief, Mahmoud Ahmed, who was ostensibly sent by Gen Musharraf to
Kabul to counsel the Taliban against Osama Bin Laden, and instead ended by
consorting with them, was fired at US instance. In the past, the agency has been
accused, most notably by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, of undermining
and subverting governments.

With such a chronicle of dubious activity, the agency, notwithstanding the
chronic hysteria it evokes in Indian circles, has also come under US scrutiny.
Such is the mistrust of ISI in American intelligence circles that last year the
FBI organized some former Pakistani army officers and others into a band known
as the "Spider Group" to locate Taliban and al-Qaeda fugitives hiding in tribal
areas along the Afghanistan border, because it believed the ISI had been
compromised and was not cooperating fully.

Just how important the ISI has become in Islamabad's scheme of things is evident
in the fact that Pakistan's foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri told reporters that
both the Army and ISI are behind the political establishment's peace initiatives
with India. By engaging Ehsanul Haq so extensively, Washington appears to be
making sure that is indeed the case.

* * *


LA Times:

May 5, 2003

PROLONGED DETENTION IS BLAMED ON PROCESS

From Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday that prisoners at
the U.S. Naval Base on Guantanamo Bay in Cuba must be questioned by several
agencies before they can be released, and he blamed this "very slow" process for
their continued detention.

Rumsfeld was responding to a letter from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who
urged the Pentagon to move more quickly in determining which prisoners can be
released.

Powell's April 14 letter questioned the continued detention of about 660
prisoners from 42 countries who were captured during the war against Al Qaeda
and other terrorist organizations.

Rumsfeld responded that he too would like to see the process move more quickly.

But, Rumsfeld said, the prisoners' cases are being reviewed by agencies
including the FBI, the Justice Department, the State Department, the Defense
Department, the CIA and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Some are interested in prosecuting the detainees for crimes they may have
committed, while others are interested in gathering intelligence information to
prevent attacks.

"So it's a complicated process. It is very slow," Rumsfeld said.

He said Powell, as America's chief diplomat, was making the case on behalf of
foreign governments that want to see the prisoners released.

"Colin's job is to represent those countries into this interagency process and
see if there isn't some way we can speed that up," Rumsfeld said. "I would like
to see it move faster."

* * *


LA Times:

May 5, 2003

A SON'S FATE IN THE BALANCE

· A Kuwaiti who helped the U.S. during the Gulf War is frustrated over his
firstborn's detention at Guantanamo Bay as an enemy combatant.

By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- When Iraq invaded Kuwait 13 years ago, Khaled al Odah was a
freedom fighter.

A U.S.-trained colonel in the Kuwaiti air force, he helped run the 1991 Persian
Gulf War's underground resistance movement in his country. He put his life --
and his family -- at risk, setting up sniper operations and identifying targets
for U.S. bombers.

When allied troops came marching up the main highway into Kuwait City on
liberation day, he was holding the hand of his son Fawzi, then just about to
turn 14.

"He was very happy," the father recalled of his eldest child. "He was dancing,
waving to them. He slipped from my hand and went down to some of the troops."

Now, once again his son has slipped away.

In the weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Fawzi al Odah was captured
and turned over to American authorities in Afghanistan.

His family insists he was helping refugees fleeing into Pakistan. Nevertheless,
he was flown in shackles with other captives to the detention camp at the U.S.
Naval Base on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Once again, he was surrounded by U.S. troops, with weapons pointed at him this
time.

Fawzi is 25 years old. His father is 50. They have not spoken, and they have not
seen each other this last year and half. It was six months before Khaled even
received a short Red Cross postcard from his son.

Whether Fawzi was helping refugees or was an enemy combatant is unclear, and his
fate remains in limbo. The U.S. has not revealed plans for any of the 660
detainees at Camp Delta.

None has been charged with an offense, and none has been allowed to meet with an
attorney. The federal courts in Washington have characterized them as foreign
enemy combatants who, because they are not being held on U.S. soil, are not
eligible for due process protection.

Khaled is not allowed to see his son. Nor can he get a visa from the U.S.
Embassy in Kuwait City to visit Washington to lobby for help.

His plight is similar to other families with detainees on Guantanamo Bay --
wrenching in its uncertainty, hopeless in that no amount of money or good
intentions, or even past deeds such as Khaled's aid to the American military,
will bring a son home.

Khaled's wife, Souad, sits by the telephone. The family heard once that a
detainee from Saudi Arabia was allowed to call home after he gave U.S.
interrogators some important intelligence information. But the al Odah phone
does not ring. Relatives say that because Fawzi is innocent, he has nothing to
tell authorities, and thus nothing to gain.

Now, there has been another war -- this one in Iraq -- and American soldiers
again benefited from Kuwaiti assistance.

"So I am deeply frustrated," Khaled says in a telephone interview from Kuwait.
Sometimes he goes quiet for long stretches. Other times he cries. Then he
apologizes for losing his composure and goes on to explain that he is retired
from the Kuwaiti air force now and has supported his wife and five children in
the lucrative textile business. But nothing could have prepared him for losing a
son this way.

"I thought now after this new war against Iraq and the tremendous help of my
country to the United States, something could happen," he said. "A lot of allies
turned their backs on the United States, but my country stood up and helped
them.

"The least thing for the United States government to do is to release our sons.
Wouldn't it be just a small reward for Kuwait, for helping liberate Iraq?"

Khaled said he joined the Kuwaiti air force in 1973. He went to military
college, and he later was sent to the U.S. for pilot training and language
school in Texas.

He still cherishes photographs of himself from that time -- in his pilot
jumpsuit, climbing in and out of U.S. Air Force jets, flashing the victory sign
with American pilots, drinking a Coca-Cola on his day off.

He flew later in France and was assigned as a Kuwaiti attaché in Paris. But he
missed his growing family. So in 1986, he retired from the military and focused
on the textile industry and garment manufacturing.

"It was a very, very good business at that time," he said. "Until the invasion."

The Iraqis rolled into Kuwait in 1990. Many of his old air force colleagues fled
the tiny nation. Khaled said he and his family decided to stay.

"We created a resistance cell inside Kuwait," he said. "We got ourselves
together and afterward we conducted some operations against the Iraqis."

He said they planned and carried out a few sniper attacks and car bombings.
Using two satellite phones and identification smuggled in from Saudi Arabia and
Jordan, he said, they alerted U.S. Air Force commanders in Riyadh, the Saudi
capital, of potential bombing targets.

All the while, he said, he was constantly on the move, trading addresses,
changing names, using fake identification cards. He told his oldest son that if
the Iraqis knocked on the family door, to never abandon his father.

"I told him, 'If they ask about your father, say you have not seen him, and
afterward, call me' And he managed very well. He was just [13], and I was afraid
for him."

After the war, U.S. Air Force officials met in jubilation with Khaled and his
band of resisters. They recall that their help was invaluable. Retired U.S. Col.
Chris Christon remembers that meeting. "Those resistance guys really were
heroic. No doubt about that," he said.

"From an air perspective, they provided us with target tip-offs," Christon said.
"And we also used them very extensively for helping us to preclude any
collateral damage during the air war. If we were going to put something on the
bombing target list that was in Kuwait, we'd go back through and try to
ascertain that in fact we were on a target that was not going to have an adverse
affect on the Kuwaitis."

Had the Iraqis captured Khaled and the other resisters, Christon said, "they
would have killed them."

U.S. Air Force Gen. Charles A. Horner, who led the air campaign to free Kuwait,
sent a letter of commendation to the Kuwaiti resisters. Without their help, he
wrote, "the liberation of Kuwait would have been far more costly to the
coalition forces and the people of Kuwait."

Khaled's onetime supervisor, Kuwaiti Col. Abdullah al Samdan, said Khaled "was
our eyes" during the war. "He did a great job. And we had a very good record of
appreciation from the American side right after the liberation."

Christon wonders why the U.S. continues to keep Khaled's son behind bars --
especially given the father's service during the war. "If he's really not
guilty," Christon cautioned.

Al Samdan believes the son is innocent. "We know he doesn't have any involvement
with the terrorists," he said.

The family said Fawzi is a religious-studies graduate who preaches the Koran and
often spent summers helping those less fortunate abroad -- digging wells or
building schools. Never married, he left home the last time in August 2001 to
teach poor students in Pakistan, relatives said.

After the trauma of Sept. 11, he told them that he wanted to stay and assist
refugees from Afghanistan.

The family lost contact with him -- not hearing until January 2002 that he was
inside a prison in Kohat.

A fellow Kuwaiti, who escaped the bedlam that came with the war on Afghanistan,
wrote to the family: "Every Arab citizen was chased regardless of their work or
beliefs When Pakistani villagers knew that there were financial rewards for
those who could hand any Arab over to the American troops, they started to
arrest them."

On May 7, 2002, the day after Fawzi turned 25, his parents received the first of
a smattering of short Red Cross notes from their son. He was in U.S. hands at
Guantanamo Bay.

"Investigations are still going on and I will be established innocent soon, God
willing," he wrote. "Then I will return back to you safe, good, not ashamed or
seduced." He ended the note, "Your son who loves you to the greatest extent
possible. Fawzi."

In subsequent cards, he continued to place his faith in God and in his belief
that the Americans eventually would exonerate him.

The Pentagon will not talk about individual cases of detainees at Guantanamo
Bay.

But the Kuwaiti Embassy in Washington believes that most of the 12 Kuwaiti
detainees were wrongly rounded up after U.S. forces began offering bounties. The
Kuwaiti government believes the detainees should be allowed to defend
themselves.

"Nothing will solve this issue until they are given due process," said Kuwaiti
Ambassador Salem Abdullah Jaber Sabah.

Khaled has organized a committee of the 12 Kuwaiti families to press for the
release of those being held. But lawyers in Washington have been unable to
persuade the federal courts to grant some relief.

And Khaled has been denied a visa to travel to the U.S. on his son's behalf.
State Department officials said it was against policy to talk about individual
visa applications. But Kelly Shannon, spokesman for the Bureau of Consular
Affairs in Washington, said that being a relative of an enemy combatant would
not trigger an automatic rejection.

Meanwhile, Khaled al Odah stays home, near the phone, not knowing where to turn
next.

"I once was optimistic," he said. "I thought the Americans would check with my
son and find him innocent and release him immediately. I know how honest the
Americans are."

* * *


LA Times:

May 3, 2003

PENTAGON REVEALS TRIBUNAL GROUND RULES FOR TERRORIST SUSPECTS

By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- Under mounting pressure from foreign embassies and Secretary of
State Colin L. Powell, the Pentagon on Friday announced details of how military
tribunals would be conducted for detainees at the U.S. Naval Base on Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba.

Officials also outlined a wide range of criminal charges that could be filed
against detainees, including murder and assault of civilians during the war in
Afghanistan, and the taking of hostages and pillaging of communities when U.S.
troops waged war against the Taliban after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In some instances, the Pentagon said, detainees could be sentenced to death if
they are convicted in U.S. military tribunals of the most heinous offenses.

The announcement signaled that the Department of Defense is closer to making
decisions on what to do with the detainees.

"The issuing of these instructions is another step [the Department of Defense]
has taken toward being prepared to conduct full and fair military commissions,"
said Whit Cobb, the Pentagon's general counsel.

Military officials said Powell wrote to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld two
weeks ago, formally urging him to make "a final determination" on what to do
with the detainees in Cuba. Powell noted that several of the detainees are
juveniles, that some are believed to be elderly and that many of their home
countries are growing frustrated and want their citizens returned to their
custody.

The officials said Powell was bothered because, while detainees first began
arriving in Cuba more than a year ago, no one has been prosecuted or even
charged with an offense.

But the Pentagon said it has been moving deliberately to properly set up the
tribunal system before deciding who, if anyone, would be prosecuted.

While officials said they have names of some detainees in mind who might face
tribunals, no decisions have been made.

The officials said it was important for U.S. interrogators to fully interview
the detainees and learn everything they can about terrorist operations before
any are ordered to stand trial in military tribunals or are flown home.

"Secretary Powell voiced his concerns to us and that mirrored the concerns of
many in the administration," a Pentagon official said.

"But there is a lot of work going on in the background Eighteen detainees were
released in March, and there is a push to release more. We don't want to keep
them any longer than we need to."

While the Powell letter was strongly worded, another Pentagon official cautioned
that it should not be seen as a major split between the secretary of State and
Rumsfeld on the proper course for the Guantanamo Bay detainees.

"They have healthy discussions," the official said.

"They have a good relationship, and there is a healthy relationship among
Cabinet members where they express their views and are able to discuss them
openly and freely. These perceived tensions and differences, I think, are just
way over-exaggerated."

Officials added that "further proof" the Pentagon is moving forward is the
announcement Friday of how the tribunals would be constructed.

The Military Commission Instructions outline the parameters for setting up teams
of prosecutors and defense lawyers as well as commission members, and lays out
how the historic tribunals would be conducted.

Although about 660 detainees are incarcerated at Camp Delta, none have been
allowed to meet with attorneys or family members. Most were seized during the
war on terrorism in Afghanistan.

With the ground rules in place, authorities said the next developments would be
to identify prosecutors, defense lawyers and commission members, and to formally
present charges.

[ Times staff writer Greg Miller contributed to this report. ]

* * *


LA Times:

May 2, 2003

APPETITE FOR AUTHORITARIANISM SPAWNS AN AMERICAN GULAG

By Jonathan Turley

Last week, the United States confirmed it is holding children under the age of
16 at Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In keeping with the other shadowy
facts about this camp, it is not clear how large the children's wing at Camp
Delta has become. Before the Marine guards launch a Toys for Terrorist Tots
campaign, it is time to get some answers about our government's plans for the
growing number of detainees, including children, held in Cuba.

The camp's children are among 664 detainees from 42 countries. Some were
captured in Afghanistan; others were rounded up elsewhere. Many have been held
without trial for more than two years.

The Bush administration has argued that these detainees are not "people" under
the Constitution but, rather, legal nonentities it may hold, release or even
execute at its sole discretion. Recent reports indicate that the Justice
Department has no intention of trying the vast majority of these prisoners.
Rather, estimates on possible tribunal trials rarely exceed two dozen. The
administration has simply decided to hold hundreds of people without trial or
judicial review at the president's whim. There is a term for that type of
prison: gulag.

Although certainly tiny compared with Chinese or Soviet models, the facility
operated by the U.S. can no longer be defined as a prison or even a military
camp. It is an American gulag, holding hundreds of prisoners without trial or
access to the courts. In fairness to the Soviets, it must be noted that at least
their prisoners got sham trials. This makes Camp Delta an even more extreme
variation on the gulag theme.

Camp Delta was originally justified as a holding area for alleged war criminals
from the Afghanistan conflict. The administration now has broadened its use to
include anyone whom it defines as a terrorist suspect or a person suspected of
aiding or abetting terrorists. Of course, suspicion in the Bush administration
is as good as a conviction because the vast majority will never be submitted to
a tribunal, let alone a legitimate court of law.

Administration officials like Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft appear to covet the
authority to hold individuals indefinitely. Ashcroft recently announced that
legal immigrants would be held indefinitely based on a simple declaration that
such confinement served national security. As for citizens, Ashcroft has
previously claimed that he has the unilateral authority to declare U.S. citizens
to be "enemy combatants" and to strip them of all constitutional rights --
including access to the courts or counsel. Alternatively, Ashcroft is seeking
new powers in Congress giving him the ability to strip people of citizenship,
subjecting them to deportation or indefinite incarceration.

Camp Delta, the enemy combatant policy and the new alien policy are all examples
of a certain appetite in the administration for the trappings of authoritarian
power. While the number of affected individuals remains relatively small, the
taste for such unilateral power is clearly growing into a craving.

It is tempting to dismiss these measures as mere indulgences on the edges of
society -- akin to a frolic or fringe benefit for the autocratically inclined.
Yet the construction of facilities like Camp Delta require the destruction of
something irreplaceable in a nation of laws.

Ironically, Americans were appalled when Iraqi citizens looted their own
national museum. Many asked how a people could destroy their own cultural
treasures and history. Yet such looting is openly occurring in this country. As
a relatively young nation, we have few gilded treasures like those from the
Mesopotamian period. In fact, our greatest treasures tend to be documents, like
the Bill of Rights, that define us as a nation. It is that legacy that is being
looted and destroyed through the creation of places like Camp Delta.

Since his arrival, Ashcroft has rushed through the U.S. legal system with the
same rampaging rage as a Baghdad looter, thoughtlessly shattering artifacts in
looking for things of instant value. What remains are pieces of Americana, like
the presumption of innocence and due process, that lay in shards after only a
two-year period.

What is tragic is that, like the Iraq Museum looting, none of this was necessary
or inevitable. If there was evidence that these detainees were terrorists or war
criminals, they could have been handled in the very legal system that they
sought to destroy. Instead, it is American hands that are pulling down that
system and constructing a gulag in a new American image. Meanwhile, Congress
remains silent.

Just as the military watched as the Iraq Museum was plundered, Congress has
adopted a pedestrian role concerning the this administration's excesses. The
only preservation that appears to motivate our representatives is self-
preservation.

[ Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington Law School. ]

* * *


The Gaurdian (UK):

April 23, 2003

US DETAINS CHILDREN AT GUANTANAMO BAY

Staff and agencies

The US military has admitted that children aged 16 years and younger are among
the detainees being interrogated at its prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, a US military spokesman, yesterday said all
the teenagers being held were "captured as active combatants against US forces",
and described them as "enemy combatants".

The children, some of whom have been held at Guantanamo for over a year, are
imprisoned in separate cells from the adult detainees, Lt Col Johnson said. He
would say only that the teenagers are "very few, a very small number" and would
not say how old the youngest prisoner is.

The US military confirmed their presence yesterday after Australia's ABC
television reported that children were being held at Guantanamo, the
controversial detention centre where prisoners from the war in Afghanistan have
been held by the US, in breach of the Geneva conventions, for over a year.

The news sparked outrage from human rights groups already campaigning against
the indefinite detention of the roughly 660 males from 42 countries, held on
suspicion of having links to al-Qaida or Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime.
They have not been charged or allowed access to lawyers.

"That the US sees nothing wrong with holding children at Guantanamo and
interrogating them is a shocking indicator of how cavalier the Bush
administration has become about respecting human rights," said an Amnesty
International spokesman, Alistair Hodgett.

Human Rights Watch said the US was exacerbating a contentious situation. "[The
detention of youths] reflects our broader concerns that the US never properly
determined the legal status of those held in the conflict," said James Ross,
legal adviser for Human Rights Watch in New York.

Lt Col Johnson said the juveniles were being held because "they have potential
to provide important information in the ongoing war on terrorism".

"Their release is contingent on the determination that they are not a threat to
the [US] nation and have no further intelligence value."

Lt Col Johnson said officials determined that some detainees were younger than
16 during medical and other screenings after their arrival in Cuba. He added
that all the prisoners aged under 16 years were brought to Guantanamo after
January 1 2002 - suggesting that some were 15 or younger when they were first
imprisoned.

In September 2002, Canadian officials reported that a 15-year-old Canadian had
been captured on July 27 after being badly wounded in a firefight in eastern
Afghanistan. Canada's prime minister, Jean Chrétien said he was seeking consular
access to the boy.

Last week, Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper reported that the youth, now 16,
is being held in Guantanamo and that US officials have refused access to
Canadian officials.

The newspaper quoted unidentified sources as saying that the youth allegedly
threw a grenade that killed Sergeant 1st Class Christopher James Speer, 28, of
Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The Globe and Mail said US officials would want to interrogate the Canadian
because his father has been identified as a senior financial leader of al-Qaida.

Lawyers have blamed the indefinite detentions for increasing depression and
suicide attempts at the camp, which received the first detainees in January
2001.

According to the US military, there have been 25 suicide attempts by 17
prisoners at Camp X-Ray, with 15 attempts made this year.

Just this Monday the US military announced that one prisoner, who it said was
under supervision in the acute care unit of a new mental health ward, made a
repeated suicide attempt.

* * *

LA Times:

April 23, 2003

JUVENILES ARE AMONG CUBA WAR DETAINEES

· U.S. military officials are sorting out the next
step for teens being held at Guantanamo Bay.

By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- Military authorities at the U.S. Naval Base on Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, have discovered that several of their war-on-terror detainees are
juveniles and have begun providing them special care while trying to sort out
what intelligence value, if any, the youths might have.

The "handful" of juveniles, described as between 13 and 15, were declared "enemy
combatants" when they were arrested fighting against U.S. troops in Central
Asia. They were flown to the detention camp earlier this year and, after a
detailed medical examination, were determined to be youngsters, Army Lt. Col.
Barry Johnson said Tuesday.

Because of their special situation, Johnson added, the juveniles have been
removed from individual cells at Camp Delta and placed in a group setting away
from the other 660 detainees. They also are being given extra mental health
counseling, and efforts are underway to contact their home nations and,
presumably, their parents.

But, Johnson stressed, there is no intention at this point of simply returning
them home before U.S. interrogators can thoroughly examine the youths. U.S.
officials want first to determine that they would no longer be a threat to the
United States if they were released.

In addition, there has been no decision that, as juveniles, they automatically
would not be sent to a military tribunal and, possibly, sentenced to more prison
time.

"We did have to adapt and make some special considerations and look at how we're
going to handle them with regard to the rest of the detention population,"
Johnson said.

"But we have to face the hard reality that there are some places in the world
where child combatants are used to further a cause."

Thomas Wilner, a Washington lawyer who is representing the families of a dozen
adult Kuwaitis detained at Guantanamo Bay, said it is deplorable that none of
the inmates, including the juveniles, has been given access to a lawyer or been
apprised of any charges against them. "It makes it all the more important for
the need for some impartial body to review these detentions," Wilner said. "How
would any of us feel if one of our children were held this way, with no ability
even to talk to him?"

The acknowledgment that some of the detainees -- numbered at fewer than a half
dozen -- are juveniles comes after the camp has been operating for more than a
year as the central holding facility for prisoners from the war in Afghanistan.
The prisoners' fates have yet to be determined.

The Pentagon has published some regulations for eventually holding military
tribunals and trying some of the detainees, but no announcement has come on who
might be tried and for what offenses, even though the first inmates began
arriving in January 2002.

As the detention camp grows, tensions and deep frustrations have settled in at
the Caribbean facility. There have been sporadic hunger strikes, and two dozen
detainees have attempted suicide, mostly by trying to hang or strangle
themselves.

Authorities soon will decide what to do with one detainee who severely injured
himself in an attempted hanging. The man was reported to have been in a coma.

"He is back in the detention hospital," Johnson said of the detainee, who hurt
himself Jan. 16. "He is undergoing evaluation to determine what disposition
should be taken with him, and what his prognosis is for the future.

"But he is not on life support. He breathes on his own."

Further complicating the uncertainty at the base, the U.S. Court of Appeals in
Washington ruled last month that none of the detainees has the right to meet
with lawyers or seek due process in the courts.

The appellate court based its finding on the fact that the detainees are not
Americans and are not housed within the borders of the United States -- all of
which leaves them at the mercy of their U.S. handlers.

The juveniles began arriving after the first of this year from a holding area at
a U.S. air base in Bagram, Afghanistan.

"They looked like teenagers, like young adults," Johnson said. "But often, ages
are difficult to determine because people don't always know what their ages are,
necessarily. You get a wide range of answers."

To solve the dilemma, authorities turned to the Armed Forces Institute of
Pathology to perform a series of medical tests on the youngsters to estimate
their ages.

Johnson said the teenagers were immediately taken from individual cells with the
general adult inmate population and placed in a separate confinement area where
they can intermingle. Isolated in that way, authorities also can provide special
physical and mental health care for the teenagers, and also give them
educational assistance and special recreation. And guards trained in watching
juvenile inmates have been assigned to the unit.

Also, contacts are being made with the boys' home countries to notify those
government officials, and leave it to them to decide whether the teenagers'
parents should be alerted.

But, Johnson said, the teenagers are still classified as enemy combatants, and
none of them has completed the interrogation process or been deemed no longer a
threat to America.

"Very unfortunate situations bring them here," he said. "The fact that children
and juveniles are being used as combatants is a reality in many parts of the
world.

"So we're going to do the right thing in taking care of their special needs. But
that doesn't necessarily lessen the intelligence value they may have in
assisting us fight the global war on terrorism."

* * *


ABC News (Australia):

April 22, 2003

CHILDREN HELD AT CAMP XRAY, US ADMITS

The US military has revealed it is holding juveniles at its high-security prison
for terrorists at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, known as Camp Xray.

The commander of the joint task force at Guantanamo, Major General Geoffrey
Miller, says more than one child under the age of 16 is at the detention centre.

However, Maj Gen Miller has revealed little more about their welfare.

Maj Gen Miller says the US is holding "juvenile enemy combatants" at the centre,
confirming rumours of children being held.

He has refused to reveal how many there are, their exact ages or their countries
of origin.

He says they are being well cared for and are kept in facilities separate to
adult prisoners.

The children are still being interrogated and will continue to be held at
Guantanamo.

About 660 prisoners are in the camp.

They have not been tried or convicted of any offence but are being held as part
of what the US calls its war on terror.

[ http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s836988.htm ]

* * *


The Guardian (UK):

April 4, 2003

BLAIR 'DISSUADED BUSH FROM ATTACK AFTER 9/11'

Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor

Tony Blair has frequently played a pivotal role in the infighting in the US
administration over Iraq, according to the recently retired British ambassador
to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer. Hawks in the Bush administration, mainly
the deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, pushed for an attack on Iraq
rather than Afghanistan in the aftermath of September 11.

Sir Christopher, in an interview with the US public broadcasting system last
night, said that the prime minister, arriving in Washington the week after an
inconclusive discussion between George Bush and his key advisers at Camp David,
swung in behind the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, who saw Afghanistan as
the prime target.

In the documentary Blair's War, Sir Christopher, who returned to Britain last
month, said that when Mr Blair met Mr Bush in the weeks after September 11, he
urged him to deal first with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network and its
protector - Afghanistan's Taliban government - before tackling Iraq.

"Tony Blair's view was, 'Whatever you're going to do about Iraq, you should
concentrate on the job at hand'. And the job at hand was get al-Qaida, give the
Taliban an ultimatum," the former British ambassador said.

Sir Christopher added that Mr Bush took Mr Blair aside and promised he would
keep Iraq "for another day".

Apparently, on becoming president, Mr Bush was content with the then US-British
policy of containment. But September 11 changed his attitude to Saddam Hussein
and he was no longer prepared to countenance a government that might prove to a
risk in the future.

When Mr Bush returned to the Iraq issue after dealing with Afghanistan, the
prime minister pressed him to go first to the UN, and offered to sell US policy
to other European leaders.

"Blair said, 'If you want to do this you can do this on your own; you have the
military strength to go into Iraq and do it, but our advice to you is: Even a
great superpower like the US needs to do this with partners and allies'."

Mr Blair allied himself with Mr Powell in the battle to go down the UN route,
against hawks such as the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, who in August last
year appeared to rule out that option.

It was touch and go: when Mr Bush last September in a speech to the UN promised
to take the Iraq issue to the security council, it was not in the text on his
teleprompter. He agreed so late there was not enough time to include it.

* * *

The Gaurdian (UK):

01 April 2003

MILITIAMEN MAY BE IMPRISONED AT GUANTANAMO BAY

By Paul Waugh in London and Donald Macintyre in Qatar

Captured Iraqi paramilitaries will be segregated from regular prisoners of war
and could be sent to Guantanamo Bay for questioning, British Government sources
confirmed yesterday. Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, told the Commons that
8,000 Iraqi PoWs were being held.

But the prospect of so-called "irregulars" being sent to Camp X-Ray at the
American naval base in Cuba could trigger a row between London and Washington.
Senior British officers have made clear they would prefer plain-clothes
fighters, paramilitaries and Fedayeen to be subjected to due judicial process
for war crimes, possibly through the new International Criminal Court (ICC).

Downing Street said last night that any PoWs captured by British troops "will be
treated under the Geneva convention". A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence
said there would be "different handling arrangements" for captured or
surrendered regular Iraqi troops and irregular militia. British and US officers
say Iraqi irregulars have been disguising themselves as non-combatant civilians,
some using cars and commercial vehicles, opening fire after staging fake
surrenders and intimidating others into fighting for them.

The militias include the Fedayeen Sadaam -- literally self-sacrificers for
President Saddam Hussein -- the Secret Security Organisation, and plainclothes
combatants from the Baath party. Some U.S. forces said they saw militias using
combatants as human shields, pushing women and children into the line of fire.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that some Iraqi "irregulars", will be
sent to Guantanamo Bay, where 660 Islamic militants and others captured in
Pakistan and Afghanistan are held without trial. Military sources told the
newspaper 300 suspected paramilitaries captured in areas of fierce fighting near
Nassiriyah may be sent there.

The detainees will be treated like PoWs, but without official status, until a
hearing is held under Article 5 of the Geneva Conventions, officers told the
Post. At least some suspects are reportedly being segregated from prisoners of
war, in part because they may have been intimidating regular army soldiers now
being held.

Asked to confirm plans to send paramilitary detainees to Guantanomo at
yesterday's daily news conference here Brigadier-General Vince Brooks said all
enemy prisoners would in initially be treated as enemy PoWs. He added: "Any
additional decisions will be policy decisions, not made by this command.".

Senior military spokesmen for the US have noticeably hardened their language to
describe the militias during the week. General Brooks has several times has
called them "terror squads", "terror cells" and members of "terroristic behaving
organisations".

The fate of the irregular captives could provoke fresh tensions over the ICC.
The UK has unconditionally ratified it, but the US, China and Russia have not.
One British source in Qatar suggested that "may be the nub of the difficulty".
Air Marshal Brian Burridge, commander of the British forces, said in a weekend
interview: "I do have a passionate personal belief that the only way to deal
with asymmetric warfare and this sort of irregular behaviour is to use the war-
crimes process. And the way we created the notion of equity after Bosnia, I
think that is an important and powerful way of dealing with it. That is my
personal view but it is not me who makes the decisions; it is for ministers,
politicians and wiser people than I."

Referring to "irregulars", Air Marshal Burridge said: "You detain them. The
notion of the Geneva convention is that prisoners of war are repatriated. Those
who might have committed other sorts of crimes will undoubtedly have to answer
for those crimes."


LAWS OF WAR

By Robert Verkaik

Surrender and treachery

Under the Geneva Convention soldiers are forbidden from misusing flags of truce,
feigning war wounds or disguising themselves as civilians. The Convention
describes all three actions as "perfidy" in article 37. But there is no ban on
"ruses of war" -- the spread of misinformation and use of decoys and camouflage
are all legal.

Civilian casualties

British military lawyers have been attached to Air Force and Army headquarters
and to units on the ground to help assess Iraqi targets. "The expected harm" to
civilians "must not be excessive when set against the direct ... military
advantage anticipated". An attack would be a war crime if it were "clearly
excessive". Byplacing of military equipment in civilian locations the Iraqis are
laying Britain and America open to charges of war crimes.

Pilots

Pilots of helicopters and warplanes shot down by Iraqi ground fire must not be
"attacked" if they are forced to eject or parachute --they must be given an
opportunity to surrender. These rules do not apply to troops parachuting from
aircraft.

Spies

Anyone who is engaged in espionage does not have the protection afforded to
prisoners of war. There are hundreds of Iraqi citizens helping the Allies
identify targets in Baghdad and other cities.

Conscientious objectors

Three British soldiers have been sent home for objecting to the conduct of the
war and could now face a possible courts martial. The right to refuse on the
grounds of conscience to participate as a combatant was included in the Military
Service (No.2) Act 1916, which introduced conscription for the First World War.
This right is not available to members of the armed forces.

* * *


LA Times:

March 25, 2003

Commentary

BY FLOUTING WAR LAWS, U.S. INVITES TRAGEDY

By Erwin Chemerinsky

( Erwin Chemerinsky, a professor of law and political science at USC, was one of
the plaintiffs and co-counsel in a lawsuit brought on behalf of the Guantanamo
detainees. )

On Sunday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld quickly invoked international
law in condemning Iraq's treatment of American prisoners of war and its use of
civilians as human shields. As soon as the Americans were shown on television,
Rumsfeld denounced Iraq for violating the Geneva accords, which govern the
treatment of prisoners of war.

But Rumsfeld's hypocrisy here is enormous. For two years, the Bush
administration has ignored and violated international law and thus has
undermined the very legitimacy of the treaties and principles that constitute
the law of nations. Though we all hope, of course, for the quick and safe return
of the American prisoners of war, the fact is that -- unfortunately -- Iraq and
other nations may feel much freer today to violate international law in the way
they treat war captives and the way they wage war.

One clear violation by the United States is taking place in Guantanamo Bay,
where for the last 15 months the U.S. has held more than 600 captives in clear
violation of international law.

Under the third Geneva Convention, those who were caught in Afghanistan are
deemed prisoners of war if they were fighting for the Taliban. International law
prescribes the way they can be questioned, how they are to be treated and when
they are to be repatriated. The U.S. government has ignored all of these
requirements.

Rumsfeld has asserted that those held in Guantanamo are "enemy combatants" and
thus the rules for prisoners of war do not apply. International law draws a
distinction between "prisoners of war," who were soldiers fighting for a nation,
and "enemy combatants," who were not acting on behalf of a country; enemy
combatants are accorded fewer protections than prisoners of war. Under well-
established principles of international law, only those who fought for Al Qaeda
and not the Taliban government are enemy combatants. The Geneva accords are
clear that there must be a "competent tribunal" to determine whether a person is
a prisoner of war or an enemy combatant.

More than a year ago, Secretary of State Colin Powell expressly recognized this
but nothing has been done despite the requirements, however ambiguous, in
treaties ratified by the U.S.

Several months ago, top-level administration officials were quoted as saying
they knew many prisoners were being held in Guantanamo by mistake because of
inaccurate intelligence from foreign governments and because of arrests made in
the heat of battle. Therefore, individuals continue to be held even though it is
known that they did not participate in terrorism and have no useful information,
and even though it is a clear violation of international law to continue to
detain them.

Many of these individuals have been held in solitary confinement, some for as
long as 15 months, with no charges brought against them and no end in sight. For
a time, many were held in small cages. They have not been allowed to speak to an
attorney, and they have had virtually no outside contact. This treatment
violates basic principles of human rights law. About 25 of the detainees have
attempted suicide.

Several lawsuits have been brought on behalf of these detainees, claiming that
the U.S. is violating international law. Washington has successfully moved to
dismiss each of these and has persuaded judges that no court has jurisdiction to
hear such claims. This too violates international law because the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: "Anyone who is deprived of his
liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings before a
court, in order that the court may decide without delay on the lawfulness of his
detention." The treaty also provides that "[n]o one shall be subjected to
arbitrary arrest and detention."

Rumsfeld has criticized Iraq's use of civilians as shields against attack at its
military and political facilities. Although he is right that this is despicable
behavior, he cannot legitimately invoke international law to govern how a war
should be fought when the war itself is a clear violation of international law.
Nothing in international law authorizes a preemptive war to overthrow a
government and disarm it. Our war in Iraq fits in none of the prescribed
situations where it is lawfully permissible.

There are enormous costs to such behavior. The United States cannot expect other
nations to treat our prisoners in accord with international law if we ignore it.
If the United States wants other nations to live by the rule of law, it too must
do so.

* * *


The Gaurdian (UK):

March 25, 2003

ONE RULE FOR THEM ...
Does the US support the Geneva Convention or doesn't it?

http://www.monbiot.com/dsp_article.cfm?article_id=569

By George Monbiot.

Suddenly, the government of the United States has discovered the virtues of
international law. It may be waging an illegal war against a sovereign state; it
may be seeking to destroy every treaty which impedes its attempts to run the
world, but when five of its captured soldiers were paraded in front of the Iraqi
television cameras on Sunday, Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary,
immediately complained that "it is against the Geneva Convention to show
photographs of prisoners of war in a manner that is humiliating for them." FN1

He is, of course, quite right. Article 13 of the third convention, concerning
the treatment of prisoners, insists that they "must at all times be protected
... against insults and public curiosity." FN2 This may number among the less
heinous of the possible infringements of the laws of war, but the conventions,
ratified by Iraq in 1956, are non-negotiable. If you break them, you should
expect to be prosecuted for war crimes.

This being so, Rumsfeld had better watch his back. For this enthusiastic convert
to the cause of legal warfare is, as head of the defense department, responsible
for a series of crimes sufficient, were he ever to be tried, to put him away for
the rest of his natural life.

His prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, where 641 men (nine of whom are
British citizens) are held, breaches no fewer than 15 articles of the third
convention. The US government broke the first of these (article 13) as soon as
the prisoners arrived, by displaying them, just as the Iraqis have done, on
television. In this case, however, they were not encouraged to address the
cameras. They were kneeling on the ground, hands tied behind their backs,
wearing blacked-out goggles and ear phones. In breach of article 18, they had
been stripped of their own clothes and deprived of their possessions. They were
then interned in a penitentiary (against article 22), where they were denied
proper mess facilities (26), canteens (28), religious premises (34),
opportunities for physical exercise (38), access to the text of the convention
(41), freedom to write to their families (70 and 71) and parcels of food and
books (72). FN3

They were not "released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of
active hostilities" (118), because, the US authorities say, their interrogation
might, one day, reveal interesting information about Al Qaeda. Article 17 rules
that captives are obliged to give only their name, rank, number and date of
birth. No "coercion may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them
information of any kind whatever." In the hope of breaking them, however, the
authorities have confined them to solitary cells and subjected them to what is
now known as "torture lite": sleep deprivation and constant exposure to bright
light. FN4 Unsurprisingly, several of the prisoners have sought to kill
themselves, by smashing their heads against the walls or trying to slash their
wrists with plastic cutlery. FN5

The US government claims that these men are not subject to the Geneva
Conventions, as they are not "prisoners of war", but "unlawful combatants". The
same claim could be made, with rather more justice, by the Iraqis holding the US
soldiers who illegally invaded their country. But this re-definition is itself a
breach of article 4 of the third convention, under which people detained as
suspected members of a militia (the Taliban) or a volunteer corps (Al Qaeda)
must be regarded as prisoners of war.

Even if there is doubt about how such people should be classified, article 5
insists that they "shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until
such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal." FN6 But
when, earlier this month, lawyers representing sixteen of them demanded a court
hearing, the US Court of Appeals ruled that as Guantanamo Bay is not sovereign
US territory, the men have no constitutional rights. Many of these prisoners
appear to have been working in Afghanistan as teachers, engineers or aid
workers. If the US government either tried or released them, its embarrassing
lack of evidence would be brought to light.

You would hesitate to describe these prisoners as lucky, unless you knew what
had happened to some of the other men captured by the Americans and their allies
in Afghanistan. On 21 November 2001, around 8,000 Taliban soldiers and Pashtun
civilians surrendered at Konduz to the Northern Alliance commander General Abdul
Rashid Dostum. Many of them have never been seen again. As Jamie Doran's film
"Afghan Massacre - Convoy of Death" records, some hundreds, possibly thousands,
of them were loaded into container lorries at Qala-i-Zeini, near the town of
Mazar-i-Sharif, on 26 and 27 November. FN7 The doors were sealed and the lorries
were left to stand in the sun for several days. At length, they departed for
Sheberghan prison, 120 km away. The prisoners, many of whom were dying of thirst
and asphixiation, started banging on the sides of the trucks. Dostum's men
stopped the convoy and machine-gunned the containers. When they arrived at
Sheberghan, most of the captives were dead.8

The US special forces running the prison watched the bodies being unloaded. They
instructed Dostum's men to "get rid of them before satellite pictures can be
taken." FN9 Doran interviewed a Northern Alliance soldier guarding the prison.
"I was a witness when an American soldier broke one prisoner's neck. The
Americans did whatever they wanted. We had no power to stop them." FN10 Another
soldier alleged, "They took the prisoners outside and beat them up and then
returned them to the prison. But sometimes they were never returned and they
disappeared." FN11

Many of the survivors were loaded back into the containers with the corpses,
then driven out to a place in the desert called Dasht-i-Leili. In the presence
of between 30 and 40 US special forces, both the living and the dead were dumped
into ditches. Anyone who moved was shot. The German newspaper Die Zeit
investigated the claims and concluded that "No one doubted that the Americans
had taken part. Even at higher levels there are no doubts on this issue." FN12
The US group Physicians for Human Rights visited the places identified by
Doran's witnesses and found that they "all ... contained human remains
consistent with their designation as possible gravesites." FN13

It should not be necessary to point out that hospitality of this kind also
contravenes the third Geneva convention, which prohibits "violence to life and
person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and
torture", as well as extra-judicial execution. Donald Rumsfeld's department,
assisted by a pliant media, has done all it can to suppress Jamie Doran's
film, FN14 while General Dostum has begun to assassinate his witnesses. FN15

It is not hard, therefore, to see why the US government fought first to prevent
the establishment of the International Criminal Court and then to ensure that
its own citizens are not subject to its jurisdiction. The five soldiers dragged
in front of the cameras yesterday should thank their lucky stars that they are
prisoners not of the American forces fighting for civilisation, but of the
"barbaric and inhuman" Iraqis.

References:

1. Donald Rumsfeld, 23 March 2003. Transcript of CBS Face The Nation. United
States Department of Defense.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2003/t03232003_t0323sdcbsface.html

2. Convention (III), relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 12
August 1949.

3. These were the conditions in Camp X-Ray. In Camp Delta, to which the
prisoners have been moved, most of these omissions still appear to apply, and
their confinement has become still stricter, though they are now permitted to
exercise for two 15-minute sessions a week.

( Katty Kaye, 11 January 2003. No fast track at Guantanamo Bay.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/americas/2648547.stm ).

The Convention suggests that they should be able to exercise freely.

4. Duncan Campbell, 25 January 2003. US interrogators turn to 'torture lite'.
The Guardian.

5. Frank Gardner, 24 August 2002. US bides its time in Guantanamo.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/from_our_own_correspondent/2212874.stm

6. Convention (III), as above.

7. Afghan Massacre - Convoy of Death, now available on video from ACFTV, Studio
241, 24-28 St Leonards Road, Windsor, SL4 3BB, United Kingdom. Or through
www.acftv.net. All published details checked on March 24th 2003 with Jamie
Doran.

8. ibid.

9. ibid.

10. ibid.

11. ibid

12. Giuliana Sgrena and Ulrich Ladurner, Masar-i-Scharif Während des
Afghanistan-Feldzugs gab es in Masar-i-Scharif ein Massaker. Zeugen sagen, US-
Soldaten hätten daran mitgewirkt. Ein Beweis ist das noch nicht. Eine
Spurensuche. Die Zeit. No date given. The cited text appeared, in translation
in: Peter Schwarz, 29 June 2002. Further evidence of a massacre of Taliban
prisoners. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jun2002/afgh-j29.shtml

13. Physicians for Human Rights, 2002. Preliminary Assessment of Alleged Mass
Gravesites in the Area of Mazar-I-Sharif, Afghanistan, January 16-21 and
February 7-14. PHR, Boston and Washington DC.

14. Bill Vann, 12 February 2003. Film exposing Pentagon war crimes premieres in
US. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/feb2003/afgh-f12.shtml

15. Jamie Doran, 24 March 2003, pers comm.

* * *


The Atlantic:

March 18, 2003

FALSELY ACCUSED 'ENEMIES' DESERVE DUE PROCESS

Congress should now force the administration to assign
military tribunals to interview every detainee

by Stuart Taylor Jr.

Two major court decisions on the rights -- or lack of rights -- of suspected
terrorists, Talibans, and others detained in the war against terrorism came down
on March 11. The first held that the 650 foreign nationals seized by U.S. forces
abroad and detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have no legal rights enforceable in
U.S. courts. The second decision, by contrast, sharply rebuffed the Bush
administration position that even a U.S. citizen arrested in this country can be
held incommunicado indefinitely, with no right ever to see a lawyer, a judge, or
anyone else, if the military labels this person an enemy combatant.

Both rulings may be legally correct. But they also illustrate that unless
Congress requires due process for such detainees, many and perhaps all of those
who are wrongly classified as enemy combatants will be lost in a Kafkaesque
maze, with no help from the courts in most cases and inadequate help in others.

This at a time of mounting allegations that some detainees who turned out to be
innocent have been subjected to months of brutal conditions designed to soften
them up for interrogation.

For example, two former Afghan prisoners at the U.S. air base at Bagram,
Afghanistan, named Abdul Jabar and Hakkim Shah, told The New York Times that
between interrogations they were kept standing in cold cells for two weeks, day
and night, naked (in Shah's case), hooded, arms chained to the ceiling, feet
shackled, and sleepless, with guards kicking them or shouting to keep them
awake. The deaths of two other Bagram detainees are under investigation as
homicides, caused in one case by what a U.S. military pathologist called "blunt-
force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease." The
man was 22.

Claims of brutal treatment have also been made by some of the 1,200 Muslim men
who were detained in the U.S. in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks,
mostly for immigration violations. Consider the story of Egyptian-born Hady
Hassan Omar. He was picked up the day after the attacks, for a good reason: Omar
had bought plane tickets for September 11 using the same computer, at the same
Kinko's outlet, that Mohamed Atta had used.

Was Omar part of Atta's plot? Or just unlucky? To find out, the government held
and interrogated him for 73 days under conditions so harrowing that he became
suicidal. Or so Omar told reporter Matthew Brzezinski, who wrote about his
experience in the October 27 issue of The New York Times Sunday Magazine:

"Three cameras recorded his every move. The lights in his cell weren't turned
off for weeks at a time.... Strip, he was told, once again. A dozen officials,
including two women, he recalls, looked on.... Omar stood naked while his body
cavities were searched for the third time in less than four days. He still has
trouble speaking in front of his wife about what happened next. 'They told me to
lift my testicles,' Omar remembers, blushing slightly. 'One of the guards
pointed at my backside and said, "You sure you're not hiding anything in there?"
I said no.' ... [A] man in white medical scrubs entered the room. He wore a
latex glove. Bend over, he said. Squinting from the pain, Omar looked up at one
of the INS guards who had escorted him from the New Orleans prison. She was
laughing, he says....

"It's impossible to say precisely why the authorities finally decided that Omar
must be telling the truth. One senior law enforcement official in Washington
did, however, agree to share a theory.... 'If your subject has a complete
breakdown,' he said, 'the barriers to resistance are lessened. Once a person is
at that point, he has lost the will to deceive, and you can be pretty certain
that he's not lying.' "

Is this our government's policy for handling people who might be terrorists --
or might not? To brutalize them until they break, spilling out their inner
thoughts? In the face of reports like these, the government's assurances of
humane treatment cannot be taken at face value. Nor can its classification of
all detainees as guilty until proven innocent. Indeed, one wonders how many more
may have evidence of innocence that the government ignores to avoid
acknowledging mistakes.

But under current law, innocent suspects caught up in the war against terrorism
will get no help at all from the courts if they are foreign nationals captured
and detained abroad. That is the lesson of the March 11 decision (PDF) in Al
Odah v. U.S., which dismissed three lawsuits by family members seeking the
release of 12 Guantanamo detainees from Kuwait, two from Britain, and two from
Australia.

The Kuwaiti lawsuit argued that the 12 were not combatants but charity workers
who had been seized by Pakistani bounty hunters and sold to U.S. forces. The
evidence of their noncombatant status has been deemed credible by high-level
Kuwaiti officials and some journalists. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
D.C. Circuit nonetheless ruled that none of the detainees has any right to seek
judicial relief, under any circumstances.

"No court in this country has jurisdiction," Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote for
the unanimous three-judge panel, because "aliens detained outside the sovereign
territory of the United States" are not protected by the Constitution. This
appears to be a correct application of a 1950 Supreme Court precedent, Johnson
v. Eisentrager. More debatably, Judge Randolph also held that Guantanamo was
outside U.S. "sovereign territory" because Cuba technically retains sovereignty.

The legal black hole in which this leaves any and all innocent detainees held by
U.S. forces abroad is both unjust and insulting to the international community.
If this is the law, then the law needs amending.

Fundamental American values and international norms require some kind of due
process for all prisoners, no matter where detained. Congress should now force
the administration to do what it should have done long ago: assign military
tribunals to interview every detainee and to provide all those who plausibly
claim that they are not enemy combatants with a fair opportunity to prove it.

In the second March 11 decision (PDF), Padilla v. Rumsfeld, Chief Judge Michael
B. Mukasey, of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, did about as well as could
be done under current law in crafting a procedure to allow U.S. citizens and
others detained in this country to contest the military's claims that they are
enemy combatants. The case involves Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen (and convicted
murderer) who was arrested last May, after flying from Pakistan to Chicago, on
suspicion of plotting a dirty-bomb attack for Al Qaeda. In his initial ruling
(PDF), on December 4, Judge Mukasey upheld the government's central contention:
that it can detain any "enemy combatant" indefinitely without criminal charges,
and without the protections required for criminal defendants. But the judge had
rejected the government's view that he had virtually no power to second-guess
its determination that Padilla was an enemy combatant, or even to let Padilla
see a lawyer or appear in court to respond.

Unsatisfied, the administration pressed Judge Mukasey to reverse himself, based
on a sworn statement by Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Defense
Intelligence Agency, that allowing any contact between Padilla and a lawyer
could destroy the "dependency and trust" necessary for effective interrogation.

In his sternly worded opinion of March 11, Judge Mukasey dismissed this forecast
as "speculative." He suggested that if Padilla were given a chance to consult a
lawyer and go to court, and then "lost in short order," the man might quickly
realize that "cooperating with his captors" was his best option.

In any event, Judge Mukasey held, "I cannot confirm that Padilla has not been
arbitrarily detained without giving him an opportunity to respond to the
government's allegations," and "there is no practical way for Padilla to
vindicate that right other than through a lawyer." (For a slightly different
view on the latter point, see my column of March 8.)

Judge Mukasey's logic is compelling. But the government seems likely to appeal,
and it just might win. That would be a disaster for civil liberties. Besides,
detainees like Padilla -- who has been held incommunicado since last June --
should not have to wait months for a hearing. Congress should step in both to
ratify Judge Mukasey's decision and to set specific deadlines for expedited
hearings in such cases.

Padilla is the only person arrested in the U.S. so far to be handed over to the
military as an enemy combatant. And the evidence against him may well be solid.
But the administration claims the power to deny meaningful judicial review to
anyone -- to immigrants such as Hady Hassan Omar, to you, or to me. Congress
should say: Not in America.

[ Stuart Taylor Jr. is a senior writer for National Journal magazine, where
"Opening Argument" appears. ]

* * *


BBC:

12 March, 2003, 13:22 GMT

UK 'MUST NOT FORGET CUBA INMATES'

Some detainees have been held since January 2002

The British Government has been urged to intervene after a US ruling that terror
suspects held in Guantanamo Bay - including several Britons - have no right to a
court hearing. Stephen Jakobi, of Fair Trials Abroad, said the prisoners must
not be forgotten as the world prepares for possible military action in Iraq.

"It is down to the British Government to really fight for the Britons and bring
them here to face any charges they may face, or release them," he said.

"The same is true of the Swedish Government for the Swedes, and the French
Government for the two Frenchmen sitting out there.

"It really is no excuse because of the current Iraqi situation to forget about
those people or not push harder, there is always something."

Guantanamo Bay, leased from Cuba by the US, holds more than 600 alleged Taleban
and al-Qaeda fighters.

They were mainly captured by US forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some have
been held without charge, and with no access to lawyers or relatives, since
January 2002.

The US Court of Appeals in Washington on Tuesday rejected an appeal bought by 16
detainees - from Australia, Britain and Kuwait - to be allowed a hearing.

'Not held lawfully'

The court ruled they were being held in a place outside US sovereign territory.

That meant they were not entitled to constitutional rights such as being charged
with a crime or being given access to a lawyer, it ruled.

Mr Jakobi said the federal court had rejected the appeal because it knew the
prisoners could not be held lawfully.

He said: "The legal rote in the US will not work - we think that the American
administration have really worked out that particular argument from the
beginning - which is why the inmates are sitting in Guantanamo Bay."

Mr Jakobi cited the case of Moazzam Begg, from Birmingham, who was seized by the
CIA in Pakistan in February 2002 and taken to Afghanistan, where he was held for
a year without access to British consular staff.

He was then transferred to Guantanamo Bay last month. His family say he is the
victim of mistaken identity.

Lawyers for the 16 argued that because Guantanamo Bay was under de facto US
control, the men should be afforded legal rights.

Detainees at Guantanamo Bay are designated by the US Government as "unlawful
combatants" - not prisoners of war - meaning they are not entitled to rights
under the Geneva Convention either.

The US has been criticised by human rights groups for holding the prisoners
indefinitely without charge - leaving them in legal limbo.

The prisoners can still appeal to the US Supreme Court and ask it to overturn
the ruling.

There are now nine Britons in Guantanamo Bay, the Foreign Office has confirmed.
They are:

Moazzam Begg, 30, from Sparkbrook, Birmingham

Shafiq Rasul, 24, of Tipton, West Midlands

Asif Iqbal, 20, of Tipton,

Ruhal Ahmed, 20, also of Tipton

Feroz Abbasi, 22, from Croydon, south London

Martin Mubanga, 29, from north London

Jamal Udeen, 35, from Manchester

Richard Belmar, 23, from London

Tarek Dergoul, 24, from east London

In the UK, judges hearing a case on behalf of detainee Feroz Abbasi have ruled
that British courts do not have the power to intervene in the case.

Human rights lawyers have accused the UK Government of washing its hands of the
detainees.

Foreign Office officials have made four visits to Guantanamo Bay since January
2002, with another one planned soon to check on Mr Begg.

A Foreign Office spokesman told BBC News Online it was continuing to talk to the
US administration "at a higher level" about finding a way to deal with the
detainees.

* * *


The Atlantic

March 11, 2003

IS IT EVER ALL RIGHT TO TORTURE SUSPECTED TERRORISTS?

Suppose that Mohammed is taunting his interrogators by predicting an imminent,
deadly attack.

by Stuart Taylor Jr

....

"Before we interviewed detained foreign national Al Qaeda subjects in East
Africa in connection with the East African embassy bombings," former FBI
Director Louis Freeh told congressional investigators last October, "FBI agents
gave them their Miranda rights."

That was in 1998. Times have changed. "Interrogations of detained enemy
combatants have [already] helped to thwart an estimated 100 or more attacks
against the United States and its interests after September 11, 2001," the Bush
administration claimed in January 10 court papers. Filed in the case of
suspected "dirty-bomb" plotter Jose Padilla, the court papers said that Padilla
himself had been caught thanks to interrogations of other Qaeda suspects.

Those sessions cannot have been gentle. I doubt that they began with Miranda
warnings. Does anybody think that "You have the right to remain silent" should
have been the first thing U.S. agents said to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the Qaeda
operations chief seized in Pakistan on March 1? Or that all interrogation should
have ceased if he requested a lawyer? If your answer is yes, have you considered
that Mohammed -- said to be the master planner of many as-yet-unconsummated
attacks on America as well as of September 11 -- may well have information that,
if extracted, could save dozens, hundreds, or thousands of lives?

The Constitution not being a suicide pact, it's clear enough that there should
be no Miranda warnings or lawyers for suspected Qaeda terrorists such as
Mohammed -- not as long as there is a reasonable chance of eliciting information
that might help foil future attacks. The same logic holds to some extent even if
the suspect is a U.S. citizen, and even if he is seized on U.S. soil, as in the
case of the Brooklyn-born Padilla, who was arrested last May after a flight from
Pakistan to Chicago.

But cases such as these present very, very hard questions, grounded in the
agonizing conflict between the need to squeeze potentially life-saving
information out of captured terrorists and fundamental values including
legality, decency, and fairness.

What can U.S. interrogators properly do to make such people talk? Scream at
them? Blindfold them? Deprive them of sleep? Of edible food? Keep them in bone-
chilling cells, stripped naked? Force them to stand or kneel for hours in
uncomfortable "stress positions"? Slap them around? Threaten to deliver them to
foreign intelligence agents who will break their bones, burn them, or rip out
their fingernails? Carry out such threats?

All of these techniques -- except the last, the real, unambiguous torture -- are
privately endorsed as legitimate by U.S. military and intelligence interrogators
overseas, according to news reports. And while U.S. officials say that Mohammed
and other prisoners are treated "humanely," it has been widely reported that the
U.S. sometimes "renders" uncooperative prisoners to foreign intelligence
services known to use torture.

This practice would violate the United Nations Convention Against Torture and
Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the Senate
ratified in 1994. Unlike the 1949 Geneva Convention regarding prisoners of war,
the torture convention protects even terrorists and other "unlawful combatants."
But its definition of torture -- intentional infliction of "severe pain or
suffering, whether physical or mental" -- leaves room for interpretation. It's a
good bet that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has felt some pain. And if that's the best
chance of making him talk, it's OK by me.

But what if nothing short of unambiguously "severe" pain -- torture, that is --
seems to have any chance of eliciting Mohammed's potentially life-saving
secrets? Should interrogators be prepared to cross that line? I would say no, in
principle. Torture would dehumanize the interrogators and their superiors -- up
to and including the president -- as well as the suspects. It could also lead to
routine brutalization of suspected terrorists.

My answer might be different in extreme circumstances, however. Suppose that,
right this minute, Mohammed is taunting his interrogators by predicting that
within 48 hours his foot soldiers will launch a series of attacks on American
targets he has chosen -- attacks so catastrophic as to dwarf those of September
11. How hard should his interrogators push him to identify the targets? There is
no good answer.

Now consider Padilla. Should he be treated more gently because he is a U.S.
citizen? Because he was captured on U.S. soil? I would say yes, because the
government could do to any of us whatever it can do to Padilla. Beyond that, he
seems a mere foot soldier, much less likely than Mohammed to have potentially
life-saving information.

Padilla actually did get Miranda warnings, and a lawyer, when first detained as
a material witness. This was not constitutionally required, in my view, except
in the sense that any statements elicited without the familiar warnings would
probably be inadmissible in a criminal case. The government is not seeking to
prosecute Padilla. Rather, it labeled him an "enemy combatant" last June and
moved him to a Navy brig for interrogation, citing World War II legal
precedents.

Padilla has been held incommunicado ever since, with no access to a lawyer or
family members, no hearing before any judge, and no opportunity to tell anybody
but his interrogators, "You've got the wrong guy. I'm no terrorist." The
government is even fighting to reverse a December 4 court order to allow
Padilla's lawyer to meet with him so as to help present his account of the
facts. It says that giving Padilla access to a lawyer could wreck his ongoing
interrogation. And it claims that it has the power to hold him incommunicado
indefinitely, with no chance of ever going before an impartial tribunal to tell
his story.

This is too much like tyranny for my taste. No president should ever claim the
power to grab anyone, anywhere, at any time, and lock him up forever, with no
semblance of due process, simply by labeling him an enemy combatant. And no
court should uphold Bush's claim. The government does make mistakes. Lots of
them. And it sometimes lies, as in 1942, when it grossly exaggerated the scanty
evidence that Japanese-Americans would act as a fifth column to justify
interning 110,000 of them.

How confident can we be that the government will never scoop up Arab-Americans
as "enemy combatants" for applauding Palestinian attacks on Israeli settlers in
occupied territories or for inflammatory denunciations of Bush's support for
Israel? How could such a person ever clear himself?

It seems unlikely that after nine months of grilling, Padilla will cough up
anything new, important, and timely. And if the administration really believes
that national security requires incommunicado, uninterrupted, unending
interrogation of alleged Qaeda detainees, it should have moved Zacarias
Moussaoui from jail to a military brig a long time ago. Moussaoui, the alleged
"20th hijacker," is (or was) as promising a prospect for interrogation as
Padilla. But because the government chose to prosecute Moussaoui in federal
court -- seeking the death penalty -- he has not been grilled for one second
since shortly after his August 2001 arrest on immigration charges.

This is not to doubt the legality or wisdom of handing over certain suspected
enemy combatants to the military for detention and interrogation. Nor is it to
deny that giving them immediate access to lawyers could destroy what the
government calls the "relationship of trust and dependency that is essential to
effective interrogation." Lawyers are trained to believe that their ethical code
requires coaching even the guiltiest of clients not to tell interrogators
anything and helping clients "remember" exculpatory facts.

To strike a balance in such cases, the law should allow the government a
specified number of days or weeks of incommunicado interrogation and then
require a fair hearing before an impartial military or civilian tribunal to give
the detainee a chance to contest the enemy-combatant label. A lawyer could be
appointed to represent the court -- not the detainee -- and assigned to help him
tell his version of the facts, without coaching him to resist interrogators or
to concoct a false story. The lawyer should also pursue vigorously any other
witnesses or evidence that may support the detainee's account, and then present
his case to the court. The entire process (excepting any appeal) could be
completed in a few days -- and interrogation could resume -- unless the detainee
plausibly contradicts the government's claim that he is an enemy combatant.

This may seem a pale shadow of the elaborate process used in criminal cases. But
it would be more due process than Padilla has received so far. And it would be
no worse than the travesties of due process that are all too common in death-
penalty cases, or the due-process extravaganza we saw in the O.J. Simpson trial.

* * *

The Guardian:

Friday March 7, 2003

AFGHAN PRISONERS BEATEN TO DEATH AT US MILITARY INTERROGATION BASE

'Blunt force injuries' cited in murder ruling

Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles

Two prisoners who died while being held for interrogation at the US military
base in Afghanistan had apparently been beaten, according to a military
pathologist's report. A criminal investigation is now under way into the deaths
which have both been classified as homicides. The deaths have led to calls for
an inquiry into what interrogation techniques are being used at the base where
it is believed the al-Qaida leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is now also being
held. Former prisoners at the base claim that detainees are chained to the
ceiling, shackled so tightly that the blood flow stops, kept naked and hooded
and kicked to keep them awake for days on end.

The two men, both Afghans, died last December at the US forces base in Bagram,
north of Kabul, where prisoners have been held for questioning. The autopsies
found they had suffered "blunt force injuries" and classified both deaths as
homicides.

A spokesman for the Pentagon said yesterday it was not possible to discuss the
details of the case because of the proceeding investigation. If the
investigation finds that the prisoners had been unlawfully killed during
interrogation, it could lead to both civil and military prosecutions. He added
that it was not clear whether only US personnel had had access to the men.

One of the dead prisoners, known only as Dilawar, died as a result of "blunt
force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease",
according to the death certificate signed by Major Elizabeth Rouse, a
pathologist with the Washington-based Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, which
operates under the auspices of the defence department. The dead man was aged 22
and was a farmer and part-time taxi-driver. He was said to have had an advanced
heart condition and blocked arteries.

Chris Kelly, a spokesman for the institute, said yesterday that their
pathologists were involved in all cases on military bases where there were
unusual or suspicious deaths. He was not aware of any other homicides of
prisoners held since September 11. He said that the definition of homicide was
"death resulting from the intentional or grossly reckless behaviour of another
person or persons" but could also encompass "self-defence or justifiable
killings".

The death certificates for the men have four boxes on them giving choices of
"natural, accident, suicide, homicide". The Pentagon said yesterday that the
choice of "homicide" did not necessarily mean that the dead person had been
unlawfully killed. There was no box which would indicate that a pathologist was
uncertain how a person had died.

It is believed that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, described as the number three in al-
Qaida, is being interrogated at Bagram. He is said to have started providing
information about the possible whereabouts of Osama bin Laden whom he is said to
have met in Pakistan last month. Most al-Qaida suspects are being held outside
the US which means that they are not entitled to access to the US judicial
system.

Two former prisoners at the base, Abdul Jabar and Hakkim Shah, told the New York
Times this week that they recalled seeing Dilawar at Bagram. They said that they
had been kept naked, hooded and shackled and were deprived of sleep for days on
end. Mr Shah said that American guards kicked him to stop him falling asleep and
that on one occasion he had been kicked by a woman interrogator, while her male
colleague held him in a kneeling position.

The commander of the coalition forces in Afghanistan, General Daniel McNeill,
said that prisoners were made to stand for long periods but he denied that they
were chained to the ceiling. "Our interrogation techniques are adapted," he
said.

"They are in accordance with what is generally accepted as interrogation
techniques, and if incidental to the due course of this investigation, we find
things that need to be changed, we will certainly change them."

In January, in his state of the union address, President George Bush announced
that "3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries" and "many
others have met a different fate" and "are no longer a problem to the United
States".

The other death being investigated is that of Mullah Habibullah, the brother of
a former Taliban commander. His death certificate indicates that he died of a
pulmonary embolism, or a blood clot in the lung.

* * *


National Catholic Reporter:

March 7, 2003

FOR LAWYER, CASE IS ABOUT DUE PROCESS IN PERIL

By Marc Parry

Donna R. Newman, a private practice lawyer, expected a routine morning in court
that Monday as she drove up the New Jersey Turnpike to Manhattan. Then her cell
phone rang.

The Pentagon has seized one of your clients, said the caller, a friend in the
district attorney’s office. Jose Padilla was now sitting in solitary confinement
in a South Carolina naval brig. President Bush had branded the New York-born
"dirty bomb" suspect an "enemy combatant."

"I thought he was joking," Newman said. "I had never even heard of an enemy
combatant."

That phone call last June touched off an ongoing struggle between Newman and the
U.S. government. The dispute pits Padilla’s constitutional right to due process
against the government’s authority to strip it away in the name of national
security. Its outcome could have wide-ranging consequences for how authorities
treat suspected terrorists.

"As a citizen, it frightens me," Newman said of the precedent set by Padilla’s
detention. "I’m frightened that the rest of America doesn’t see it. If it can
happen based on somebody’s suspicions, it means you can pluck people off the
street and nobody will know. That’s a totalitarian regime. That’s what they had
in Argentina."

Authorities arrested an unarmed Padilla in Chicago last May as he stepped off a
flight from Pakistan. The Bush administration says three actions merited
Padilla’s detention: He traveled to Egypt and Pakistan; he met with Al-Qaeda
operatives during those travels; and he returned to the United States to scout
targets for a radioactive dirty bomb.

"We have disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States,"
Attorney General John Ashcroft said in announcing Padilla’s detention.

But the government has presented little evidence to back that charge, either to
Newman or the public. The administration says Padilla’s status as an enemy
combatant means that, as long as the war on terrorism continues, it doesn’t have
to.

Newman fears the government is hiding behind that authority "because they can’t
prove the case against him." Already concerned when Congress passed the USA
PATRIOT (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools
Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act in 2001, Newman now says the
administration is steering a legal course more dangerous than she ever
anticipated.

"I want to leave the Constitution the way I found it," she said. "For the first
time in my life I’m concerned that’s not going to be."

Newman discussed the case over coffee in the living room of her suburban New
Jersey home. The 55-year-old lawyer recalled her first weeks on the Padilla case
with weary amusement. She remembered showing up in court alone to find the
government’s table packed with Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers. She also
recalled the nights and weekends spent teaching herself military law -- as well
as the missed vacations.

Newman is an unlikely adversary for the Bush administration. She typically
defends suspects in drug cases and works out of small offices in New York and
New Jersey. She loves shopping and describes herself as "not political" and "a
patriot."

Her involvement in the Padilla case began May 8 of last year. That day a New
York grand jury investigating the Sept. 11 attacks handed down a material
witness warrant for Padilla’s arrest. As the on-call public defender, Newman was
tapped to defend him. She met the suspect for the first time in court a week
later.

"I recognized immediately that this was a high-security case," she said,
"because the marshal wouldn’t let me keep a pen in my hand."

That detail is emblematic of a case that Newman has struggled to defend ever
since. When the military seized her client, Newman retaliated with a hastily
drafted habeas corpus suit. The government, in turn, told her that in order to
file the suit she needed Padilla’s signature -- knowing that was impossible
because the military was keeping him in solitary confinement in South Carolina

Endless rounds of briefing and counter-briefing ensued. Meanwhile, Newman
requested a co-counsel and the court assigned Andrew G. Patel. The National
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the American Bar Association rallied
to their side. So did public defenders, sole practitioners and academics across
the country.

Finally, on Dec. 4, a mixed ruling came down. The judge decided the government
could continue to detain Padilla without charging him but must justify the
detention by showing "some evidence" of his alleged links to Al-Qaeda. He also
ruled that Newman could help Padilla contest that evidence.

So when will she finally see Padilla?

Soon, she hopes. She just filed one last brief.

"I do not speculate anymore," she said.

If the Padilla case has made Newman a flag-bearer for civil libertarians, she
never planned for the role. Newman grew up in Brooklyn and spent the beginning
of her career teaching speech in public schools. It wasn’t until her mid-30s
that Newman enrolled at New York University’s law school.

"My dad and I used to watch Perry Mason," Newman said. "He was my idol. I always
wanted to be an attorney."

Newman credits the 20 years she spent as a criminal justice lawyer with
awakening her to inequities within the legal system. "I learned most of all that
people who are labeled criminals have much in common with people who are not
labeled criminals," she said. She described many of her clients as ordinary
fathers and mothers who turned to crime out of financial necessity.

As for Padilla, a former gangster with murder and weapons convictions on his
record, Newman refuses to say whether he, too, arouses her sympathy.

The case is not about him, she said. It’s about the larger issue of civil
liberties. And in the end, she said, it’s about common sense.

"John Walker Lindh had a trial," she said. "[Zacarias] Moussaoui is having a
trial. The shoe-bomber had a trial. We want a trial!

"I never thought I’d say, ‘Charge my client.’ "

[ Marc Parry is a free-lance writer and a graduate student at Columbia
University School of Journalism, New York City. ]

* * *


The Guardian:

March 5, 2003

FEARS THAT US WILL USE 'TORTURE LITE' ON AL-QAIDA NO 3

Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al-Qaida leader captured in Pakistan over the
weekend, was yesterday believed to be under interrogation at a US base in
Afghanistan. The White House denied he was being tortured, although there is
speculation that a variety of techniques known in the intelligence community as
"torture lite" would be used to get information from him.

Mohammed, who is said to to be the number three in al-Qaida, was arrested on
Saturday in Pakistan, in a joint operation by the CIA and Pakistani police. He
was initially interrogated in Pakistan but has now been moved.

The US does not comment on individual prisoners held in the wake of September
11, but Pakistani officials said they understood that he was now being held in
Afghanistan, reportedly at the Bagram base.

The arrest follows last month's capture in Pakistan of Muhammed Abdel Rahman, a
son of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who was convicted in 1995 of conspiring to blow
up the UN offices in New York.

Information provided by Mr Rahman led to the latest arrest, according to a
report in the New York Times.

There was also speculation that Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was arrested in Pakistan
last year, had given information about Mohammed under interrogation. The two had
been in hiding together in Karachi.

Qari Abdul Wali, a Taliban military commander in hiding near the Afghan town of
Spin Boldak, told Reuters that al-Qaida would remain intact despite the arrest.

"The arrest of a few individuals from within al-Qaida's ranks will have no
bearing on the organisation's functioning," Mr Wali said. "Representatives of
al-Qaida and the Taliban keep their communications going, but that doesn't mean
we are likely to snitch on each other."

Interrogators are likely to seek two key pieces of information from Mohammed:
plans for attacks on the US or US interests, and the whereabouts of Osama bin
Laden.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said in response to questions about the
detention of Mohammed: "The standard for any type of interrogation of somebody
in American custody is to be humane and to follow all international laws and
accords dealing with this type subject. That is precisely what has been
happening and exactly what will happen."

But lawyers for those detained after September 11 believe prisoners held abroad
are often subjected to torture.

Randy Hamud, who represents a number of Arabs detained in San Diego, said he
believed his clients had been taken to countries where they could be tortured.
There have also been reports that police in countries such as Pakistan and
Jordan are given prisoners by the US in the knowledge that they will be
tortured.

A former member of US navy intelligence said that "torture lite" - sleep
deprivation, and placing prisoners in awkward or painful positions for hours at
a time - would be used.

The Democratic senator John Rockefeller suggested at the weekend that the US
might consider turning over Mohammed to a country that does not ban torture. He
told CNN: "I wouldn't take anything off the table where he is concerned, because
this is the man who has killed hundreds and hundreds of Americans over the last
10 years."

He had since said that he was not condoning torture.

The secretary of homeland security, Tom Ridge, said Mohammed would have
significant information but would be hard to interrogate.

"We know that these individuals are trained and programmed in the craft of
evasion. It will be very, very difficult to extricate information from this guy
at this time."

There was also speculation that Mohammed would be questioned about the murder
last year of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

* * *


Los Angeles Times:

February 21, 2003

MEDIUM SECURITY CAPTIVES MOVING TO NEW GUANTANAMO SITE

By Richard A. Serrano, LA Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military will soon open a medium security detention
center in Cuba for prisoners from the war on terrorism that will allow them much
more freedom, a move that could lead to the eventual repatriation of many of the
650 captives held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, officials said
Thursday.

The decision to build "Camp IV" comes at a time when 19 of the detainees have
attempted suicide in recent weeks, mostly by trying to hang or choke themselves
in their cells, and legal challenges are pressuring the Bush administration to
either release the captives or at least allow them access to attorneys.

Most of the detainees were captured during the war in Afghanistan.

Army Lt. Col. Bill Costello, a spokesman for the military joint task force at
Southern Command in Miami, which is overseeing the detention operation in Cuba,
said the new center will open in about two weeks and will house medium security
prisoners who have already undergone interrogation and interviews by U.S.
intelligence officials.

The new camp will be inside the perimeter of Camp Delta, but it will have a
vastly more relaxed atmosphere than the single cells that detainees now occupy.

Instead, Camp IV will be a general population facility with large day rooms
allowing detainees to play sports, games and assemble. Construction of the
facility is expected to be completed by early March, and about 200 of the
detainees -- or nearly a third of the current prison population confined under
maximum security conditions -- will be moved there, Costello said.

"It would permit some of the detainees to have a little bit more freedom to
congregate with each other, to pray together, to recreate together," he said.

"It's for those who are considered less of a security risk and have been
cooperative in the interrogation process, and to prepare detainees who may be
identified for being returned to their home countries."

He said the plan calls for inmates in Camp IV who continue to behave and who
evince no security risks to eventually "be on their way to repatriation."

The first detainees began arriving in Cuba a little more than a year ago, and
many of them and their families, along with civil rights groups in this country
and abroad, have urged the administration to free those who are not terrorists
or true prisoners of war, or to at least give them access to defense lawyers.

Last year, the first group of detainees was released, including four men from
Afghanistan and one from Pakistan. But then earlier this month, another group of
about 25 detainees was brought to Camp Delta.

Nevertheless, some advocates believe the opening of Camp IV signals that more
releases may be imminent.

Tom Wilner, a District of Columbia attorney, is representing 12 Kuwaitis being
held in Cuba and has asked an appellate court in Washington to allow them to at
least meet with lawyers to fashion some kind of legal case for their defense.

"U.S. officials have privately acknowledged for months now that many people at
Guantanamo, and the 12 Kuwaitis there, are innocent," he said Thursday. "We hope
this is a step toward releasing them.

"There is simply no legal or moral excuse for jailing innocent people any
longer."

Costello would not say which detainees would be selected for Camp IV. But he
said the center will have four large complexes, each with a large communal
living room, along with showers, sinks and toilet facilities.

The detainees will be given special privileges, such as two large recreation
areas, game rooms, writing materials and books.

But he said the new facility would not be used for detainees who have attempted
suicide or have tried to harm guards or fellow inmates.

"If they are trying to commit suicide, or were picked out because they were
deemed dangerous to others, we're certainly not going to house them in an area
where they would commingle with other people," Costello said.

Because all the detainees are now housed in individual maximum security cells in
Camp Delta, guards are constantly monitoring their activities and quickly
responding to problems, he said.

Most of the suicide attempts were by detainees who used clothing items such as a
pant leg in attempts to strangle themselves. Guards have been able to stop them
each time.

"It's not like 19 folks have been cut down from an overhead support structure,"
Costello said. "Once a guard finds a detainee attempting something like that,
the guard goes in and prevents it."

Authorities acknowledge that a year in captivity, without visits from lawyers or
family members, has been trying for many of the detainees. "There are mental
health experts down there dealing with counseling," he said.

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BBC:

18 January, 2003

RED CROSS IN GUANTANAMO APPEAL

By Emma Jane Kirby, BBC correspondent in Geneva

The International Committee of the Red Cross has renewed its appeal to the
United States to clarify the status of hundreds of terror suspects it is holding
without charge.

The call came on the anniversary of the first Red Cross visit to the US military
base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where more than 600 people are imprisoned.

They are designated by the US as illegal combatants.

The Red Cross says they should be classed as prisoners of war and treated as
individuals, subject to the protection of the Geneva Conventions.

Many international agencies, including Amnesty International, have called on the
US Government to either release the men being held or to charge them with a
crime.

The ICRC steers clear of such public criticism but stresses that it is
continuing to put pressure on the US authorities to give each prisoner a fair
tribunal.


LETTERS

Over the past 12 months, ICRC teams have spent about 33 weeks in Guantanamo Bay
interviewing prisoners and checking basic issues such as food, hygiene
facilities and access to exercise and fresh air.

They are not allowed direct contact with their relatives so, over the past 12
months, Red Cross workers have facilitated the exchange of 3,300 personal
messages between the prisoners and their families.

The United States refuses to release the names of any of those held so the
censored letters are often the only way families can confirm their relatives are
being held at the base.


PROCEDURE

A spokesman for the Red Cross said the organisation had repeatedly told the US
Government that each prisoner should be given access to an independent and
impartial tribunal to determine his status.

"What is important for us is that we think there should be a procedure put in
place which answers that question for each individual internee who is at
Guantanamo at the moment," the spokesman said.

"On the basis of this determination of the status, the US can then see how they
want to proceed in the case of each individual detainee."

The ICRC, which has just completed its fourth mission to Guantanamo Bay, says it
will continue to carry out regular visits to the camp as long as people are
imprisoned there.

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Los Angeles Times:

February 10, 2003

Commentary

SANITY AND JUSTICE SLIPPING AWAY

· Ashcroft rolls over legal rights to
pursue a demented terror suspect.

By Jonathan Turley

Accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui has spent the

last two years like a freak on a leash -- raving his hate- filled fantasies as
Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft pulls him from jurisdiction to jurisdiction in search
of a speedy execution.

Now Ashcroft is upset that a federal court ruled against the government in a
critical motion, and he may yank Moussaoui out of his civilian trial and send
him to a military tribunal where the attorney general's notion of justice will
not be impeded by legal process.

When he was first charged, Moussaoui was presented as the 20th hijacker -- the
sole survivor of the 9/11 conspiracy who would pay for that crime with his life.
To better guarantee execution, Ashcroft had Moussaoui sent from Minnesota to
Virginia, where the notorious "rocket docket" makes fast work of criminal
defendants.

From the beginning, however, there was doubt that Moussaoui was ever a part of
the conspiracy, and there is growing agreement that he is a barking lunatic. Now
the Justice Department is facing the prospect of losing all or part of its high-
profile case to a hate-spewing, rug-chewing maniac. Worse still, the
government's growing disaster is of its own making.

Lacking any meaningful evidence linking Moussaoui to the 9/11 plot, the
government wrote an indictment that reads like a bad dime-store novel,
describing shadowy figures and loosely imputing their actions to Moussaoui. A
central character in this criminal novelette is alleged 9/11 mastermind Ramzi
bin al-Shibh, who figures so prominently in the indictment that the government
named him an unindicted co-conspirator.

That made Bin al-Shibh a material witness in the case, but the Justice
Department was not concerned about his being called to confirm these facts
because Bin al-Shibh was at large and believed to be possibly dead. That changed
last September when a very much alive Bin al-Shibh was arrested in Pakistan.

Under interrogation, Bin al-Shibh has reportedly given the CIA some valuable
information, but also one highly unwelcome tidbit: Al Qaeda thinks Moussaoui is
as crazy as we do.

Bin al-Shibh reportedly stated that he did send money to Moussaoui as a type of
terrorist retainer. However, he also stated that no one trusted the unhinged
Moussaoui for such an important mission and that Moussaoui was never made part
of the 9/11 conspiracy.

Such evidence might prove Moussaoui was part of a terrorist group and even
secure a lengthy sentence. But Ashcroft doesn't want to convict some terrorist
wannabe with the dubious distinction of flunking out of suicide bomber school.
He wants to execute the 20th hijacker and give Americans a sense of retribution
for 9/11.

District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema, however, recently earned Ashcroft's ire
when she decided that Moussaoui had a right to question the most important
witness in the case, Bin al-Shibh. After all, it was not Moussaoui who first
claimed Bin al-Shibh as a critical party and co-conspirator; it was the Justice
Department.

Moussaoui is not the only one asking for such access. In Seattle, federal
prosecutors have asked to question Bin al-Shibh as part of their case against
another alleged Al Qaeda operative, Earnest James Ujaama. The prosecutors have
reportedly complained to the court that they have been denied access to an
obvious material witness by the administration. Likewise, in Germany, a judge
has criticized the U.S. for refusing access to Bin al-Shibh in the trial of
accused 9/11 accomplice Mounir Motassadeq.

None of these judges or prosecutors is suggesting a coffee klatch among old
terrorism buddies but rather a court-controlled, classified examination on the
specific charges.

Not only has the Bush administration refused, but the Justice Department has
asked for all proceedings in the Moussaoui case to stop and indicated that,
unless Brinkema is reversed on appeal, it just might collect its trophy
terrorist and go elsewhere. Moussaoui would then be shipped off for some
tribunal-style justice -- commonly referred to in other countries as a lynching.

The Justice Department has gone out of its way to leak its travel plans for
Moussaoui as a warning to Brinkema and other federal judges. Under the new
Ashcroft doctrine, a federal trial has become merely one of many options -- a
right that he will indulge as long as it is not abused by any attempts to prove
one's innocence.

Yet none of this has stopped the government from continuing the pretense of
being a nation committed to the rule of law. Last week, when the administration
was openly debating the removal of Moussaoui to a secret tribunal, it also was
criticizing the Chinese government for the execution of a Tibetan for alleged
terrorist bombings. The administration reportedly objected to the secret trials
used to convict Lobsang Dhondup, in which the Chinese government denied basic
rules of evidence, barred public access and limited appeals.

These are, of course, the very same characteristics of the Bush tribunals.
President Bush could claim one dubious distinction: After years of human rights
objections, China is finally meting out justice in conformance with American
values.

[ Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington Law School. ]

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Chicago Tribune:

January 9, 2003

COURT BACKS BUSH ON DETAINEE
Appeals panel says U.S. citizen can be held as 'enemy combatant'

By Cam Simpson, Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The president can indefinitely imprison a U.S. citizen as an
"enemy combatant" during the war on terror, a federal appeals court ruled
Wednesday, saying the safeguards that Americans expect from the courts "do not
translate neatly to the arena of armed conflict."

Wednesday's decision in the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, a Saudi born in Louisiana
and captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan, was the most significant legal
victory to date for the Bush administration's policy of detaining individuals by
designating them as enemy combatants.

The ruling reverses an earlier decision by a judge in Norfolk, Va., who ordered
the government to produce a laundry list of evidence to justify Hamdi's
detention as an enemy combatant at a nearby U.S. naval brig.

Because he is designated as a combatant, Hamdi has been barred from speaking
with anyone, including a lawyer. The courts, however, have appointed a public
defender, who represents Hamdi but has never met him.

The appeals court Wednesday recognized the president's broad authority to wage
war as he sees fit--even when the enemies are scattered and without traditional
battlefield structure. It also said the courts have little, if any, business
tinkering in command decisions made during overseas conflicts.

But the cautiously worded, 54-page opinion from a three-judge panel of the 4th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the nation's more conservative appellate
courts, also made clear that the president's power is not unlimited, even in
times of war.

And the decision by the Richmond, Va.-based court was narrowly crafted, failing
to offer guidelines that could apply to other cases--including that of Jose
Padilla, the former Chicago street gang member and so-called dirty bomb suspect
who was arrested in the United States and later designated an enemy combatant.

The court said in its unanimous decision that while the tensions between
individual liberties and the president's power to wage war were significant, the
specific circumstances of Hamdi's capture were fairly clear-cut, weighing
heavily on the president's side.

"The constitutional allocation of war powers affords the president
extraordinarily broad authority as commander-in-chief and compels courts to
assume a deferential posture," J. Harvie Wilkinson III, the chief judge of the
4th Circuit, wrote for the panel.

He also wrote that "capturing and detaining enemy combatants is an inherent part
of warfare."

Still, Wilkinson wrote, "It is important to emphasize that we are not placing
our imprimatur upon a new day of executive detentions."

Hamdi's public defender, Frank Dunham, said he would appeal, but acknowledged he
was in for a difficult fight.

"I feel like because I can't talk to my client, I have no way to abandon the
cause at this point," Dunham said, adding that he would grab "my jousting stick
and charge at the windmill."

Dunham can ask the full court of appeals to review the three-judge panel's
decision or take Hamdi's case straight to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The decision represented "a shocking abdication of responsibility by the court,"
said Elisa Massimino, director of the Washington office of the Lawyers Committee
for Human Rights. The group was part of a throng of civil libertarians and
others who joined the case on Hamdi's behalf.

Hamdi, 22, was born in the U.S., automatically bestowing him with American
citizenship. His family moved to Saudi Arabia when he was a child.

In July or August 2001, before Al Qaeda carried out its deadly terrorist attacks
on New York and the Washingtonarea, Hamdi went to Afghanistan to train with, and
ultimately join, the Taliban, according to an affidavit filed by a Pentagon
official in the case.

Allegedly toting an AK-47 rifle, Hamdi surrendered to U.S.-backed Northern
Alliance forces in late 2001, according to the affidavit. He spent time at four
detention facilities set up in Afghanistan before he was shipped to a jail
operated by the U.S. at its base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Because interrogators had discovered he was an American citizen, Hamdi was
eventually shipped to the Norfolk brig.

Civil liberties groups and others challenged his incommunicado detention. Most
notably, they said the president had no right to detain a U.S. citizen as an
enemy combatant.

A federal judge in Virginia agreed, questioning virtually everything claimed by
the administration, including whether the Afghanistan campaign truly represented
a "war" and whether Hamdi had fired a single shot.

But in reversing that ruling, the appeals court said the war was real, albeit
unconventional. It said Hamdi's capture on a foreign battlefield and the
government's belief that he was fighting with the Taliban were enough to justify
his designation as a combatant.

Forcing a court to find out whether Hamdi "actually fired his weapon is to
demand a clarity from battle that often is not there," the appellate judges
said, adding that the murkiness of warfare is not "sufficient to justify active
judicial supervision of combat operations overseas."

The court also said it has been clear since at least 1942 that citizenship in
the U.S. "of an enemy belligerent does not relieve him from the consequences of
his belligerency."

The court was careful to point out that its ruling may not apply in a case such
as Padilla's, where the circumstances of capture and detention are quite
different.

Without charging him, the FBI arrested Padilla as a "material witness" on May 8
as he stepped off an international flight at O'Hare International Airport.

Only hours before a federal judge in New York had scheduled a hearing in the
case--asking the government to prove why Padilla should remain held without
charges--the president designated him an enemy combatant. Padilla was then
shipped to a military brig in South Carolina.

Officials have alleged that Padilla was pursuing a plan to detonate a
radioactive "dirty bomb" inside the U.S., but the strength of that case has been
questioned.

The appeals court Wednesday said reaching "broad or categorical holdings on
enemy combatant designations would be especially inappropriate," adding: "We
have no occasion, for example, to address the designation as an enemy combatant
of an American citizen captured on American soil."

Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune

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