MISCELLANEOUS NEWS REPORTS * 2003.12.01 to date

    misc_digest_2003_7.txt

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

    * ABC News (Aus): http://www.abc.net.au/news/
    * BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
    * CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/
    * CNN: http://www.cnn.com/

    * The Age (Melbourne):  http://www.theage.com.au/
    * Baltimore Sun: http://www.sunspot.net/
    * Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/
    * Dawn (Islamabad): http://www.dawn.com/
    * The Guardian (UK): http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
    * Toronto Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
    * The Independent (UK): http://www.independent.co.uk/
    * Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/
    * The Mirror (UK): http://www.mirror.co.uk/
    * The Observer (UK): http://www.observer.co.uk/
    * 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 Telegraph (UK): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
    * The Times (UK): http://www.timesonline.co.uk/

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


Boston Globe:

December 31, 2003

ASHCROFT STEPS ASIDE IN PROBE INTO CIA LEAK

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/12/31/
ashcroft_steps_aside_in_probe_into_cia_leak/

WASHINGTON -- After months of resisting Democratic demands that he step aside
from the investigation into who in the Bush administration leaked the identity
of a CIA agent, Attorney General John Ashcroft abruptly recused himself
yesterday from any further oversight of the case, and his deputy immediately
appointed a special prosecutor to take over.

Patrick Fitzgerald, a career prosecutor who is the US attorney in Chicago, will
have the authority to make all prosecutorial decisions -- including issuing
subpoenas, granting immunity to witnesses, or bringing charges -- without first
consulting his bosses at the Justice Department, Deputy Attorney General James
Comey announced.

"I told him my mandate was very simple: follow the facts wherever they lead and
do the right thing all of the time," Comey said.

The investigation stems from the July disclosure in journalist Robert Novak's
syndicated column that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent. Her husband,
former ambassador Joseph Wilson, has said her identity was revealed to punish
him for publicly discrediting President Bush's claims about Iraq's alleged
nuclear capabilities before the war. If deliberate, such an act would be a
felony under federal criminal law.

The case has provoked widespread speculation in Washington that senior
administration officials were involved, thereby giving Ashcroft a conflict of
interest in overseeing the case.

In making yesterday's announcement, Comey disclosed that he has close ties to
the special prosecutor. But he said that Fitzgerald, whom he described as "Eliot
Ness with a Harvard law degree and a sense of humor," would be fully
independent.

"I chose Mr. Fitzgerald, my friend and former colleague, based on his sterling
reputation for integrity and impartiality," Comey said. "He is an absolutely
apolitical career prosecutor. He is a man with extensive experience in national
security and intelligence matters, extensive experience conducting sensitive
investigations, and in particular experience in conducting investigations of
alleged government misconduct."

Comey did not explain why Ashcroft chose to step aside now after absorbing
criticism for months for his refusal to do so. He said only that the attorney
general decided it was "the appropriate point in this investigation" based on
the evidence gathered to date.

"The issue surrounding the attorney general's recusal is not one of actual
conflict of interest that arises normally when someone has a financial interest
or something," Comey said. "The issue that he was concerned about was one of
appearance. And I can't go beyond that. That's the reason he decided, really in
an abundance of caution, that he ought to step aside and leave me as acting
attorney general for those matters."

But the timing could mean several things, said Paul Rosenzweig, a legal analyst
with the conservative Heritage Foundation who was a prosecutor with the office
of former independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr.

"The Machiavelli in me says -- and I don't know if this is fair -- that it's
because it's Dec. 30. If you want to do something you don't want anyone to
notice, you do it now," he said. Or, he added, it could signal that the
investigation is about to enter a new and potentially more touchy phase:

"As far as I understand it, the investigation until now has been conducted in a
completely voluntary manner -- no one has been subpoenaed or forced to give up
documents. It may be that we're about to enter the phase of the investigation
where they start using coercive methods, and that would be a significant
decision."

In that phase, Ashcroft might have been obliged to decide which of his
colleagues would get subpoenas.

Although Comey would not comment about the investigation, law enforcement
officials said the FBI team is going through "boxloads" of documents, including
White House phone logs and e-mails, and has interviewed more than three dozen
Bush administration officials, including political adviser Karl Rove and press
secretary Scott McClellan.

Fitzgerald, 43, was described by colleagues as a no-nonsense career prosecutor
who is not close to Ashcroft. His previous experience in high-profile political
cases includes overseeing the investigation into former Illinois governor George
Ryan, a Republican who pleaded not guilty this month to a 22-charge corruption
indictment.

The son of an Irish immigrant father who worked as a doorman in Brooklyn,
Fitzgerald graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Amherst College and received a Harvard
law degree in 1985. After working briefly for a private law firm in New York, he
joined the US attorney's office for the Southern District of New York and was
named chief of the organized crime-terrorism unit in 1995.

Fitzgerald made his name with the prosecution of 12 men for a conspiracy that
included the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. He also prosecuted four
members of Al Qaeda charged in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa.
All were convicted and got life in prison.

In September 2001, he became US attorney in Chicago on the recommendation of
Senator Peter Fitzgerald, Republican of Illinois, who is no relation. The
senator said he had asked then-FBI director Louis Freeh for the name of someone
from outside Chicago who would be fully independent.

Patrick Fitzgerald immediately set a tough, aggressive tone. He told reporters
he would never hesitate to file charges if he believed they were warranted, even
if there was no assurance of a conviction.

"As long as we know that we're right," he said. In his new assignment,
Fitzgerald will have broad authority but his powers will not extend as far as
that of the now-expired post of independent counsel established after Watergate.
While such counsels were much freer to expand the scope of their investigations
-- which is how Starr was assigned to probe President Clinton's Whitewater land
deal but ended up looking into the Monica Lewinsky affair -- Fitzgerald must
limit himself to his defined jurisdiction.

In addition, while independent counsels would report only to a panel of judges,
Fitzgerald will continue to answer to Justice Department officials. Comey
emphasized that he has delegated all his decision making oversight to
Fitzgerald, though he acknowledged he could revoke that authority if he wanted
to do so.

"Mr. Fitzgerald alone will decide how to staff this matter, how to continue the
investigation, and what prosecutive decisions to make," he said. "In addition,
in many ways, the mandate that I am giving to Mr. Fitzgerald is significantly
broader than that that would go to an outside special counsel."

The move was called long overdue by Democrats who have called for Ashcroft to
recuse himself and appoint a special outside counsel to ensure that the
investigation would be "thorough and fearless" even if it touched powerful
people in the administration. That the special prosecutor remained a Justice
Department official, however, drew fresh fire.

Comey and Fitzgerald "are both Bush political appointees and carry the same
baggage as John Ashcroft," said Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of
Massachusetts, a presidential candidate. "All three serve at President Bush's
pleasure. . . . The president must direct the immediate appointment of a special
counsel who is not a political appointee and who is in no way beholden to the
fortunes of his administration."

But other Democrats praised Comey and Fitzgerald for their reputations for
fairness.

"It is not everything we asked for, but it's pretty darned close," said Senator
Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat who was the first to call for an outside
prosecutor. "In effect, this is very close to the special counsel we asked for.
The autonomy that US Attorney Fitzgerald has been given and Deputy Attorney
General Comey's previous assurance that he will report to Congress should any
area of the investigation be blocked, in effect, makes US Attorney Fitzgerald a
special counsel, albeit one within the Justice Department."

The conflict stems from a February 2002 trip Wilson took to the African nation
of Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium
there. Wilson found no evidence of that, and filed a report saying so. But
President Bush repeated the allegation in his January 2003 State of the Union
address. After the war, Wilson went public with accusations that US officials
exaggerated the case for invading Iraq. The White House eventually acknowledged
that the claim should not have been included in the speech.

Soon afterward, Novak published a column that noted that Wilson's wife was a
covert CIA agent. Wilson then asserted that Rove had helped plant, or at least
condoned, the leak of that information. Rove denied any involvement.

Yesterday, Wilson praised Ashcroft's decision to step aside from the
investigation.

"I have argued from the beginning that it was appropriate for the administration
to consider John Ashcroft recusing himself, understanding that there are
conflicts of interests that grow out of relationships that have gone on for a
number of years," he told the Globe. "It is their own best interest to ensure
there is no perception of a conflict of interest."

However, Wilson said it was not clear even to him that a law had been broken
because the evidence must prove "willful intent or prior knowledge" that his
wife's identity was classified.

Rosenzweig suggested that proving the identity of the leaker or leakers will
probably be impossible if Novak continues to refuse to divulge his source. He
predicted the assignment could turn into a thankless task for Fitzgerald.

"If he clears them, no one will believe him," Rosenzweig said. "If he indicts
someone, they'll think he's pulling his punches and covering up for someone else
above him. The only result that the press and the Democrats will accept is an
indictment that says President Bush personally ordered this leak and gets him
impeached. Otherwise, it's a no-win situation."

[ Globe correspondent Bryan Bender contributed to this report, which included
material from the Associated Press. ]

* * *


Providence Journal:

December 31, 2003

R.I. CHIEF JUSTICE TO HEAR APPEALS BY TERROR SUSPECTS

The Defense Department has selected Frank J. Williams to play a role in the
military trials of Guantanamo Bay detainees.

By Edward Fitzpatrick, Journal Staff Writer

http://www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20031231_chief31.22e567.html

The chief justice of Rhode Island's Supreme Court, Frank J. Williams, will be
part of a military panel that will hear appeals by suspected terrorists held at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

None of the 660 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station has been charged,
and although the Pentagon has not said when it expects to begin military trials,
the first is expected soon. It would be the United States' first use of military
tribunals since World War II.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday selected retired Army Maj. Gen.
John D. Altenburg Jr. to serve as the so-called appointing authority for the
military tribunals.

Altenburg will be the top official responsible for approving any charges against
those individuals President Bush wants tried.

Rumsfeld appointed Williams and three others to the review panel, which will
hear appeals of cases decided by the military tribunals.

"I'm honored to do it," Williams said. "I consider it my patriotic duty as an
American to answer the call."

Members of the review panel will serve two-year terms, but Williams said the
work will be intermittent and will not interfere with his duties on the state's
high court.

"I'm not giving up my day job," he said, comparing the commitment to that of an
inactive Army reservist.

Williams said he wrote to the Department of Defense, offering to help, about a
year and a half ago, after he read a New York Times article about the Defense
Department's preparations for military tribunals and a review panel.

As a nationally known Abraham Lincoln scholar, as a former U.S. Army captain and
as a judge, he said, "I thought I was uniquely qualified to assist if they could
use me." He said he made it clear the work would have to be "consistent with my
duties as chief justice."

Panel members will be commissioned as Army major generals during their terms.
"This old captain is getting promoted after 36 years," said Williams, who was in
the Army from 1962-67, serving in Germany and Vietnam.

The status and plight of the captives have sparked outrage from civil-liberties
groups, foreign governments and federal appellate courts. Most of the prisoners
have been held in legal limbo for two years -- without access to legal counsel
and without being formally charged.

The Pentagon has refused to brand them prisoners of war, which would require
that the United States honor the Geneva Convention on the treatment of
prisoners.

When asked about the open-ended nature of the detentions, Williams said he could
not share his thoughts because "these may be issues that come before the review
panel."

But Williams, who has written or edited more than a dozen books on Lincoln, said
he will bring a historical perspective to the panel.

"Military commissions have been around since the Revolutionary War, but the vast
majority were during the Civil War, when they had over 4,200," he said. "Lincoln
authorized them as commander in chief, just as President Bush has authorized
them through the secretary of defense."

Williams said he does not know when the review panel will begin its work, or
whether he will be paid. "I'm not doing this for the money," he said. If there
is pay, he said, "I may eschew the salary or give it to the State of Rhode
Island."

Williams, 63, of Richmond, was a Superior Court judge from December 1995 to
February 2001, when former Gov. Lincoln C. Almond appointed him chief justice of
the Supreme Court.

On the review panel, Williams will not be serving as a trial judge. Rather, he
will hear appeals, as the Supreme Court does. "It's the same duties I have as a
judge now -- to be fair and impartial," he said.

The others named to review panel are:

Griffin B. Bell, the former U.S. attorney general in the Carter administration
and former U.S. circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit.

Edward G. Biester, a Court of Common Pleas judge in Bucks County, Pa. He is a
former Pennsylvania attorney general and former member of the U.S. House of
Representatives.

William T. Coleman Jr., a former secretary of transportation.

One or more additional review-panel members may be named later, officials said.
Review-panel members will select from among themselves the three members who
will serve on a specific case.

The new panel has highly limited authority to overrule any tribunal if it finds
serious errors of law.

If the review panel finds that a "material error of law" occurred, it will
return the case for further proceedings, including dismissal of charges,
according to the Department of Defense. The panel also may make recommendations
to the secretary of defense on the cases, including sentencing matters.

"Except as necessary to safeguard protected information, written opinions of the
review panel will be published," the Department of Defense stated.

Top defense officials said the decision to appoint leading civilian legal
figures would bring credibility to a closed military system. The "experience and
independence" of the appellate panel "should go a long way to allaying some of
the criticism that's been made so far," said a senior defense official, who
conducted a briefing on condition of anonymity.

Several military-law experts said the decision may enhance the credibility of
military trials, but it still leaves questions about whether judicial review
will be independent.

"These are highly qualified nominees, and this is about as independent as you
can get, given this framework," said Eugene Fidell, who heads the nonpartisan
National Institute of Military Justice.

But Fidell and others questioned whether that adds up to genuine judicial
review. Unlike courts-martial, military trials will not be subject to review in
civilian federal courts.

"This will quiet some critics, but a panel of newly minted major generals is not
an independent court," said Elizabeth Hillman, a former Air Force officer and
professor at Rutgers University School of Law.

Altenburg, who was an Army lawyer for 28 years, will serve in a civilian
capacity as "appointing authority" for the military tribunals. He takes over for
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who had been overseeing the tribunal
process.

A senior Defense Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity said
yesterday the replacement of Wolfowitz, a lightning rod of administration
critics opposed to the war in Iraq, had always been contemplated.

"There was never any intention that the deputy secretary of defense would serve
on a permanent basis," the official told reporters. "Now the military-commission
process needs to be managed on a day-to-day basis by someone like John
Altenburg, who can devote his full attention to the matter."

The Pentagon also announced that Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Hemingway will
be Altenburg's legal adviser. Hemingway retired from the Air Force in 1996 and
was recalled to active duty last summer. He has served as a staff judge advocate
at several levels in the Air Force, and was a senior judge on the Air Force
Court of Military Review as well as director of the Air Force Judiciary.

In a related move, the Defense Department's top lawyer, William J. Haynes II,
issued Military Commission Instruction No. 9, spelling out the procedures for
appeals of tribunal decisions.

The steps announced by the Pentagon yesterday were the last major procedural
steps planned before one or more of the terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay
is charged and brought to trial.

Material from the Associated Press, Hearst Newspapers and Knight Ridder
Newspapers was included in the report.

* * *


Los Angeles Times:

December 30, 2003

ASHCROFT RECUSES SELF FROM CIA LEAK PROBE

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Attorney General John Ashcroft will recuse himself from an
investigation into who leaked the name of a CIA operative, Justice Department
sources said Tuesday.

The investigation will be headed by the U.S. attorney in Chicago, Patrick
Fitzgerald, who will report to Ashcroft's new deputy, James Comey, the officials
said. It was not immediately clear why Ashcroft made the decision.

Investigators want to know who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, an undercover
CIA officer, to syndicated columnist Robert Novak in July. Plame is married to
former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, who has said he believes his wife's identity
was disclosed to discredit his assertions that the Bush administration
exaggerated Iraq's nuclear capabilities to build the case for war.

The leaker could be charged with a felony if identified.

The FBI has interviewed more than three dozen Bush administration officials,
including political adviser Karl Rove and press secretary Scott McClellan.

The interviews have extended beyond the White House to other government
agencies. The Defense and State departments and the CIA itself also are part of
the probe.

The focus, however, remains on the White House, two law enforcement officials
said on condition of anonymity. While the initial, informal interviews have
yielded no major breaks, the FBI is satisfied that the dozen agents assigned to
the probe are making progress and have not encountered any stalling tactics, the
officials said Thursday.

So far, no grand jury subpoenas have been issued, they said.

Boxloads of documents have been forwarded to the FBI team, including White House
phone logs and e-mails. More documents are being produced, as the contents of
individual items sometimes lead agents to request additional materials, one
official said.

* * *


Fichburg (MA) Sentinel & Enterprise:

December 30, 2003

OLVER WANTS GUANTANAMO PRISONERS TO BE PROCESSED AS WAR CRIMINALS OR RETURNED

By Ian Bishop, Sentinel & Enterprise Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. John Olver, D-Amherst, has joined 12 other congressmen
in urging the Department of Defense to formally process as war criminals the 600
suspected Taliban operatives now held at a military base in Cuba or return them
to their home countries for judicial action there.

"We believe the continued, indefinite detention of these people is wholly
inconsistent with our basic commitment to fair procedures for determining the
guilt or innocence of individuals," Olver and his colleagues wrote in a letter
this month to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"We urge the administration to expedite the processing of detainees at
Guantanamo, as we believe our current policy falls short of the respect for
basic human rights embodied in our country's best tradition," the congressmen
add

The other congressmen joining Olver in signing the letter include fellow Bay
Staters William Delahunt, D-Quincy, and Barney Frank, D-Newton, its lead author.

The U.S. government currently holds more than 600 men on the base, detained in
Afghanistan and Pakistan and elsewhere on suspicion of terrorism.

Because they are being held on foreign land, the Bush administration has
maintained the men have no rights under the American legal system.

Although the detainees have been barred from American due process, military
officials say their treatment has been humane and in accordance with principles
of the Third World Geneva Convention of 1949.

"Should our servicemen and women be in the same position, I would hope they
would be treated in the same humane manner," Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller,
commander of the detention mission at Guantanamo, told The Associated Press in
an interview earlier this year.

The U.S. government has classified the detainees as "enemy combatants" rather
than prisoners of war, denying them the same protections under the conventions.

President Bush has ordered the convention rules be afforded to Taliban detainees
but not to al-Qaida international terrorists. The White House said international
terrorism was not envisioned when the convention principles were crafted in
1949.

Bush said the detainees continue to pose an immediate threat to the United
States, and that military and intelligence officials are investigating what
roles each may play in international terrorism networks.

"We're working with a variety of countries that have got people in Guantanamo
Bay," Bush said recently. "These are people picked up on the battlefield. We're
trying to learn more about them."

The representatives' letter adds political weight to an earlier missive written
by three senators who toured the Guantanamo Bay base. Senators John McCain, R-
Ariz., Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are calling for the
Defense Department to not only make a legal determination on each detainee's
status, but to also publicize the timeline for making the determinations.

* * *


National Post (Canada):

December 30, 2003

OFFICIALS LINK ARAR TO QAEDA CAMP
Family says claim is part of smear campaign
by anonymous officials, demands inquiry

Robert Fife, Ottawa Bureau Chief CanWest News Service

OTTAWA - Canadian and U.S. intelligence officials are "100% sure" that a Syrian-
born Canadian who was imprisoned for a year in Damascus trained at the same al-
Qaeda camp in Afghanistan as Ahmed Ressam, the former Montrealer convicted of
planning a terrorist attack.

American officials have long maintained that Maher Arar had undergone training
in Afghanistan, but this is the first time they have identified the site as the
Khaldun camp. Canadian officials have never made any claim before about Mr.
Arar's alleged activities in Afghanistan.

Mr. Arar has denied he is a member of al-Qaeda and maintains he has never been
to Afghanistan. He says he confessed to travelling to the country only after
being tortured by Syrian intelligence officers. U.S. officials deported him to
Syria after arresting him during a stopover in New York.

Kerry Pither, a spokeswoman for the Arar family, accused the Canadian and U.S.
intelligence communities of trying to smear Mr. Arar to avoid holding a public
inquiry into Canada's role in his deportation and imprisonment in Syria. "He has
never been to Afghanistan. He has never been anywhere near Afghanistan and it's
ludicrous that once again officials from the Canadian government and
intelligence services are refusing to name themselves and giving information on
him," she said.

"If they have something on Maher Arar, they should bring it out on the public.
This is why we need a public inquiry."

The U.S. decision to deport Mr. Arar, who was carrying a Canadian passport at
the time of his arrest in New York, raised concerns in Canada about U.S.
treatment of Canadian citizens.

High-level sources in Canada and the United States who have had access to an
extensive secret intelligence file on Mr. Arar say the 33-year-old Ottawa
software engineer travelled to Pakistan in the early 1990s and then entered
Afghanistan to train at the Khaldun camp.

Osama bin Laden often visited the camp in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan
where Western recruits were allegedly schooled in the use of explosives and
suicide attacks.

"This guy is not a virgin," said a senior Canadian intelligence source, speaking
on background. "There is more than meets the eye here."

Officials say Paul Martin, the Prime Minister, has been extensively briefed on
Mr. Arar's activities abroad and in Canada, suggesting this is why Ottawa backed
off holding a full-scale public inquiry into his arrest and deportation by
American authorities.

The officials say Mr. Martin has access to a "minute-by-minute, day-by-day" file
on Mr. Arar including evidence that the RCMP -- while it shared information on
Mr. Arar with the U.S. -- did not encourage the Americans to deport him to Syria
in October, 2002.

Officials say the RCMP had six officers at Montreal's Dorval Airport on Sept.
27, 2002, waiting for Mr. Arar's return from Tunisia through New York's JFK
Airport.

But U.S. authorities arrested him at Kennedy Airport and then shipped him to
Syria, which had shared intelligence on al-Qaeda operations with U.S. agencies,
including suspected terrorist targets in Ottawa.

"If you have people at Montreal airport waiting for a guy to get off the plane,
you certainly weren't in cahoots with the guys shipping him elsewhere and giving
tacit approval. Otherwise why would you have six guys at the airport?" a source
said.

Canadian officials say the Americans made a mistake in deporting Mr. Arar, who
was on an international terrorist watch list, rather than allow the RCMP to
monitor his activities upon his return from Tunisia.

"The Americans made a hell of an error when they deported him to Syria. The
better way to operate was to maintain the watch list," the source said.

Officials say U.S. agencies have an extensive dossier on him that raises serious
questions.

"If the Americans were ever to declassify the stuff, there would be some hair
standing on end," the senior source said.

Khaldun camp is where Ressam, an Algerian refugee claimant who lived in
Montreal, trained. He was convicted of planning a terrorist attack after
crossing into the United States from Canada with a car packed with explosives.

Other graduates of the camp bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 and were part
of the suicide team that drove truck bombs to U.S. embassies in East Africa in
1998, killing 224 people.

Abdurahman Khadr, a Canadian who was recently released from the U.S. prison at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, also trained at the camp, though he said it was common for
youths to do so under Afghanistan's Taliban regime and denied any connection to
terrorists.

Mr. Khadr is the son of Egyptian-born Canadian Ahmed Said Khadr, who is wanted
by the United States for his close ties to Osama bin Laden. Another son, Omar,
is still imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay and accused of killing an American soldier
in Afghanistan.

rfife@cns.canwest.com

* * *


WSWS:

December 30, 2003
AUSTRALIAN DETAINEE AT GUANTANAMO BAY PRESSURED TO PLEAD GUILTY
By Richard Phillips

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/dec2003/hick-d30.shtml

[ useful analysis ]

* * *

CNN:

December 29, 2003 - 2222 GMT

REVIEW PANEL TO OVERSEE GUANTANAMO TRIBUNALS
From Barbara Starr, CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/12/29/military.commissions/

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Four Americans will be appointed to a Pentagon review panel
for military commissions that will conduct trials of detainees held by the
United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a source said.

The announcement is expected as soon as Tuesday. The appointees are all
civilians but will be called to active duty in the military, and given the rank
of "major general," the source said.

The review panel is just one element of the commissions. The panel will look at
verdicts reached by tribunals and then possibly pass those verdicts to the
president for further review. It would specifically review any death penalty
verdicts.

A new "appointing authority" also is expected to be named on Tuesday.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz had originally been delegated that
responsibility from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. But the official said
Wolfowitz has too many other responsibilities.

As the potential start of the tribunals grows closer, the job of appointing
authority is becoming increasingly significant. This person would be responsible
for approving charges against a detainee, referring a case to trial, appointing
a commission panel and negotiating any conflicts during trial.

Earlier this month, a federal appeals court ruled that terrorist suspects held
in secret U.S. custody on non-U.S. territory deserve access to lawyers and the
American legal system. (Full story)

The U.S. Supreme Court has already agreed to decide whether U.S. courts have
jurisdiction over the "detention of foreign nationals captured abroad ... and
incarcerated at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba."

More than 600 men from about 40 countries are being detained by the United
States as part of its war on terror. The men are said to be al Qaeda or Taliban
fighters captured mostly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Some have been held for as long as two years at Guantanamo, without access to
lawyers or family. The base is technically on international soil.

The U.S. government has been interrogating the men, and deciding whether they
will face a military tribunal or be released back to their home countries.

* * *


Reuters:

December 29, 2003

SPANISH JUDGE WANTS 4 GUANTANAMO INMATES EXTRADITED

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4054302

MADRID (Reuters) - A high-profile judge called on the Spanish government on
Monday to seek the extradition of four suspected al Qaeda members who are being
held at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

In what Spanish court sources said was the first case of its kind, High Court
Judge Baltasar Garzon said in a court order the four men had close links to a
Spanish al Qaeda cell he was investigating.

Garzon said they could be extradited because they currently faced no charges in
the United States, and were not wanted there for political or military crimes.

U.S. authorities have said the Guantanamo military prison is outside the
jurisdiction of mainland courts. However, Garzon said the base was under U.S.
jurisdiction and subject to a 1971 extradition treaty with Spain.

In a 48-page document detailing scores of telephone conversations and meetings,
Garzon accused the four men of forming part of al Qaeda and its recruitment
structure in Europe.

The judge named the four as Spaniard Hamed Abderrahman Ahmad, Morrocan Lahcen
Ikassrien, Jamiel Abdul Latif al Banna and Omar Deghayes. The nationalities of
the last two were not given.

Garzon, who rose to prominence with a failed crusade to extradite former Chilean
dictator General Augusto Pinochet, sent his request to Spanish Justice Minister
Jose Maria Michavila.

The Spanish government, one of Washington's closest allies in its war on terror,
must now decide whether to pursue the extraditions.

In August, Madrid rejected a similar petition from Garzon to extradite 40 people
he accused of genocide and terrorism in Argentina's 1976-1983 "dirty war."

The United States has kept more than 600 people from several countries captive
in Guantanamo, on the eastern tip of Cuba, for nearly two years as part of its
fight against the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan and al Qaeda.

The detentions have raised an outcry from human rights groups. Earlier this
month, a U.S. appeals court ruled that prisoners at Guantanamo cannot be held
indefinitely or be denied lawyers.

* * *


Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

December 29, 2003

Editorial: IN THE SHADOWS

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/7585077.htm

Say what?

Or is "Who says?" more apt?

On Dec. 16, the Justice Department did an about-face and said it probably would
let terror suspect Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested in Chicago, consult a
lawyer, though not until authorities were finished wresting information from
him.

This was a distinct and significant, if grudging, policy shift. Two days later,
the administration was hit with an appellate court double whammy on its practice
of holding terror suspects interminably, uncharged and without access to legal
counsel.

So who made this striking official announcement by the Justice Department?

Only the reporters who were there know for sure.

"Three senior Justice Department officials, briefing reporters on condition of
anonymity, outlined the policy," read the story by Curt Anderson of The
Associated Press that ran in papers nationwide.

"Justice Department officials speaking to reporters in Washington on condition
of anonymity," is how Bloomberg put it.

"Senior department officials" was Reuters' quick-and-dirty reference that
completely ignored the infuriating game played by official Washington and the
national press corps.

These weren't confidential sources who required protection for good reason.
These were officials hiding behind an unnecessary and disingenuous cloak of
anonymity to gloss over a policy that has been flawed from the beginning. And
the reporters, as too often happens, played along.

For the past two years, the Bush administration has insisted that the president
can unilaterally designate "enemy combatants" and then order them held for as
long as the government wants, without the usual procedural protections of the
U.S. Constitution or international law.

This hard-line approach has been taken not just regarding more than 600 foreign
nationals detained at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba but also two U.S. citizens: Yaser
Hamdi, who was captured in Afghanistan, and Padilla, who was taken into custody
on U.S. soil.

The administration didn't start softening its position until the Supreme Court
agreed in November to hear a petition from 16 Guantanamo detainees who have
neither been charged nor been able to consult with attorneys.

On Dec. 18, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New
York ruled 2-1 that President Bush couldn't detain Padilla as an enemy combatant
without express authorization from Congress. The court unanimously held that
Padilla was entitled to a lawyer.

Meanwhile, a panel of the 9th Circuit in California ruled 2-1 that Guantanamo
detainees couldn't be held perpetually without any due process, such as a way to
challenge their detention plus legal assistance.

Both courts recognized the president's enormous responsibility to protect the
nation and its people from attack. But they also recognized that the country
isn't made safer by trampling the Constitution and scorning attempts by the
courts to intervene.

Not one of the appeals court judges -- Rosemary Pooler, B.D. Parker and Richard
Wesley on the 2nd Circuit, and Stephen Reinhardt, Milton Shadur and Susan Graber
on the 9th Circuit -- asked for anonymity.

Neither will the Supreme Court justices when they sort out these issues.

* * *


UPI:

December 28, 2003

GOVERNMENT'S KNUCKLES HIT TWICE
By Bob Barr

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031222-024823-9847r

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- If in fact the administration of President George
W. Bush takes seriously its oft-avowed adherence to the rule of law in fighting
the evils of terrorism, it ought to follow, not fight, the two decisions just
handed down by two federal courts of appeal on opposite sides of the continent.
Unfortunately, the administration already has said it would rather fight than
follow these decisions.

The first decision, rendered by the oft-maligned Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
in California, relates to the hundreds of detainees being held at the United
States Navy Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

More than 600 people various nationalities (from Afghanistani to Australian)
have been held (many for more than two years) at a U.S. facility, without having
been afforded a single court appearance or meeting with a lawyer; and the
administration has opposed every effort to allow any federal court to even
decide the threshold question of whether they are being detained unlawfully.

While the federal judges in San Francisco decided the sole and narrow question
of whether the Guantanamo Bay facility constitutes territory under the
jurisdiction and control of the United States in the affirmative, they also
correctly noted that the proposition being advanced by the government was
breathtaking in its scope: the U.S. Executive Branch can detain any foreign
person, indefinitely or permanently, without access to a lawyer, without
charging them, even subjecting them to physical torture or death if the
government so desired, simply because the territory in which such power is
exercised is not subject to the control or jurisdiction of the United States.

Of course, once one catches one's breath after the scope of the power asserted
by the government sinks in, one is struck by the artificiality of the
government's position that Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is not territory subject to
the control and jurisdiction of the United States.

No kidding! Old Glory flies o'er the base, U.S. dollars are the sole medium of
exchange, U.S. law applies to all who reside or visit there, people who run
afoul of U.S. law while there are taken to U.S. courts for prosecution and no
evidence of any foreign power of any sort is to be found.

Still, Uncle Sam's lawyers tried to convince the court with a straight face that
"Gitmo," as it affectionately has been know to thousands of military personnel
and their families since it was ceded to the United States in perpetuity by the
Cuban government in 1903, is some strange, unknown land far, far away over which
the United States exercises no control.

I traveled to Gitmo in August 2001, and aside from the checkpoints announcing
you were leaving a U.S. military base and entering Cuba, visiting this military
enclave was strangely similar to visiting other U.S. installations, such as
those in Florida or Puerto Rico.

Maybe I was missing something, or maybe we've given this strategically vital
territory back to Cuba in the interim; but it was apparent to me -- and to my
Navy hosts -- that we were on a U.S. military base.

The shallowness of the government's argument was discerned by two of the three
federal judges rendering the decision in this case with a clarity not oft seen
in federal court decisions.

Responsibly, the judges explicitly did not comment on whether the 600-plus
detainees would prevail in their argument they were being unlawfully detained.
Their simple directive was that it is fundamentally un-American (not to mention,
unconstitutional) not to give the detainees a forum in which to have their
arguments heard.

The second judicial slap at the administration last week, concerned the matter
of Jose Padilla, the so-called "dirty bomber," arrested in May 2002 in Chicago.

Padilla was initially charged in federal court under a federal material witness
warrant as he returned to O'Hare International Airport from Pakistan by way of
Switzerland. He was suspected of aiding al-Qaida. Shortly after his arrest, and
after his American lawyer filed papers opposing the warrant against him, the
government transferred the case out of the civilian court system entirely, and
moved Padilla to a military brig in Charleston, S.C., where he has been kept
ever since, without access to a lawyer, visitors (other than government
interrogators), or access to any courtroom, as an enemy combatant. Oh, I forgot
to mention, Padilla is a U.S. citizen.

The decision rendered in the Padilla case was by the federal appeals court for
the Second Circuit, out of New York. It, too, was 2 to 1. As with the Guantanamo
decision, the Padilla decision was strikingly straightforward and clear. And the
rap on the Bush administration's knuckles -- which has taken the position it can
unilaterally decide who an "enemy combatant" is whenever and however it wants,
and no court can question its decision -- was just as stinging.

Let's be clear, in this decision the judges did not reach the issue of whether
Padilla was guilty as sin and ought to be hanged, or should be canonized. What
these two judges did say, in directing the government to decide if it wanted to
continue to hold Padilla, but in a normal, criminal proceeding, was that no
administration, no matter how high sounding its rationale, can arrest a U.S.
citizen and then hold them incommunicado for as long as it wants under whatever
circumstances it wants.

Even though the administration has already indicated it will appeal both
decisions, and continue to assert the most breathtaking extension of federal law
enforcement power in our nation's history, everyone who supports our Bill of
Rights ought to savor at least these two temporary but important court
victories.

[ Bob Barr, a former US Attorney, was a member of Congress from 1995 to 2003. ]

* * *


Newsday:

December 28, 2003

BUSH CAN'T HAVE JUSTICE BOTH WAYS
By Peter Maguire

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/politics/
ny-vpmag283601208dec28,0,5677615.story

The discussion of an upcoming trial of Saddam Hussein was overshadowed by two
appellate court decisions that serve as a sobering reminder to the Bush
administration that presidential authority does not exist in a vacuum.

In separate cases, U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Ninth
Circuit ruled that "enemy combatants" should be granted lawyers and due process.
Up to now, President George W. Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft have
played fast and loose with the laws of war and bent the rules to suit them. For
the fallen Iraqi dictator, the president has called for a trial that meets
international standards, yet here at home "enemy combatants" face primitive
military tribunals.

Bush will soon learn that, in the unpredictable realm of political justice, he
cannot have it both ways. The Bush administration would be wise to heed the
warning of German legal theorist Otto Kirchheimer: "Justice in political matters
is more tenuous than in any other field of jurisprudence, because it can so
easily turn to mere farce."

Since 9/11, the administration has declared that "enemy combatants" captured in
the "war on terrorism" will be tried before traditional military tribunals
following cautious precedents laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1942
Quirin case dealing with Nazi saboteurs who landed on Long Island, and the 1946
case of the fallen Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita. The "dirty bomber," Jose
Padilla, presented an unusual case: He was both an American citizen and an
aspiring al-Qaida terrorist. Arrested on U.S. soil, Padilla was declared an
"enemy combatant" and held for close to two years without charges and without
seeing his lawyer.

No less an authority on war crimes than Marine Lt. Col. Gary Solis, who formerly
taught the law of war at West Point, argued that "even a 'bad man' has rights."
Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the Ninth Circuit concurred: "Even in times of
national emergency - indeed, particularly in such times - it is the obligation
of the Judicial Branch to ensure the preservation of our constitutional values
and to prevent the Executive Branch from running roughshod over the rights of
citizens and aliens alike."

It is one thing to play legal games with small fry like Padilla and Guantanamo
Bay inmates, but soon the Bush administration will face real challenges and
hostile international public opinion in the trial of Hussein. The captured Iraqi
leader is the most significant single war-crimes defendant since Herman Goering
took the stand at Nuremberg in 1946. Compared to Hussein's use of poison gas
against Iranians and his own people, Slobodan Milosevic, now on trial in the
Hague, is a relative small fry.

How ironic that the president who singlehandedly rolled back most of the
international legal gains of the 1990s is now calling for a trial that will bear
"international scrutiny." While a legitimate trial for Hussein could firmly
establish his guilt in the eyes of his countrymen, any trial designed to
"educate" the Iraqi people could quickly turn to farce as trials cannot be asked
to teach historical lessons. Trials, at best, can only establish legal guilt or
innocence.

The idea that war-crimes trials can "re-educate" societies is based upon the
assumption that the Nuremberg trials did more than punish the guilty and
exonerate the innocent - that they also transformed Nazis into law-abiding
democrats. Neither assumption stands up to the analysis of a new generation of
scholars. German historian Jörg Friedrich contends that the Nuremberg trials
caused many to embrace their fallen leaders:

    "Yet although their guilt was proven beyond a reasonable doubt, the public
    simply chose not to believe it. The wedge of criminal guilt that was meant
    to be a wedge between the public and the defendants turned out to form a
    link between them."

The Bush administration has entered the high-stakes arena of political justice,
a place where law, politics and public opinion oscillate in a constant state of
flux and the line between "blasphemy and promise" is a very fine one.

[ Peter Maguire has taught the laws of war at Columbia University and Bard
College. He is the author of "Law and War: An American Story: and the forth-
coming "Facing Death." ]

* * *


The Independent (UK):

December 27, 2003

LORD HUTTON: THE JUDGE WHO HAS PUT THE NATION'S LEADERS IN THE DOCK
By Robert Verkaik

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/story.jsp?story=476247

The armed police officers who travel everywhere with Sir Brian Hutton are a
constant reminder to the former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland that he
can never escape his past. For Lord Hutton's judicial career was forged in the
darkest days of the Troubles, at a time when a call to the bench came with
round-the-clock security.

But it is his hold on the future of the BBC and the political fortunes of the
Prime Minister and his Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, that have thrust him into
the full glare of the limelight. His much-anticipated report into the death of
the former weapons inspector Dr David Kelly is expected to be published in mid-
January.

James Brian Edward Hutton was born into a middle-class family in Belfast in
1931. His father, James Hutton, a Presbyterian senior rail executive, sent him
to Brackenber House, a preparatory school, where he became head boy. Later he
won a scholarship to Shrewsbury School, a public school whose more famous alumni
include Charles Darwin, Michael Heseltine, Paul Foot and Richard Ingrams. By all
accounts, the young Hutton did not enjoy his time there. One family friend says:
"His mother used to bring him breakfast in bed, so I think the shock of the
austerity of an English public school came as a something of a rude awakening."

It is still unusual for a middle-class Belfast family to send their children to
England for a private schooling, because of the sense of pride that Belfast
people have in their state school education system.

"When Brian Hutton left for England it must have seemed very odd indeed, not
something that would have impressed his contemporaries," says a senior Ulster
solicitor.

After Shrewsbury, Hutton went to Oxford, where he gained a first in
jurisprudence. His Ulster accent marked him out and made it difficult to be
accepted by the English public schoolboys who dominated Oxbridge in 1950s. "He
certainly built up a sense of being someone different, which might have helped
him work so hard to achieve his academic ambitions," says the family friend.

Brian Hutton then returned to Belfast where he completed the final spell of his
studies at Queen's University before he was called to the Northern Ireland bar
in 1954. One of his first high-profile cases was to prosecute Bernadette Devlin,
the fiery young independent MP for Mid-Ulster, after the Bogside riots in the
late 1960s. She was convicted of inciting a riot in 1970 and spent four months
in prison while still an MP.

Working for the authorities under the controversial Stormont government and
remaining in Crown service when it was abolished, Hutton became experienced in
the ways of civil servants and politicians. It was during these early days as a
barrister that he was able to finely tune the strong Presbyterian work ethic
that has never deserted him.

It was as a young QC that Hutton represented the soldiers at the first, and now
discredited, Bloody Sunday inquiry of 1973, which inquired into the killings of
13 civilians by the British Army the previous year. In one of his interventions
on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, he told an opposing barrister: "It is not
for you or the jury to express such wide-ranging views, particularly when a most
eminent judge has spent 20 days hearing evidence and come to a very different
conclusion."

Six years later, he was appointed to the Belfast bench. By the mid 1970s, judges
had joined politicians and police officers as legitimate targets for the
terrorists. Five members of the judiciary were murdered while Hutton was in
Belfast. But it was the death of Lord Justice Maurice Gibson, a fellow appeal
court judge, that had the most profound affect on him. Gibson was killed with
his wife, Cecily, when their car was blown up at Killeen, Co Down, in April
1987.

In 1982, Lord Hutton's close friend "Robbie" Lowry, whom he succeeded as Lord
Chief Justice of Northern Ireland in 1988, was ambushed by IRA gunmen as he
arrived to give a lecture at Queen's University, Belfast. A year later, Irish
police apprehended a gang waiting to kidnap his wife and daughter on their way
to a horse show at Sligo.

Lady Lowry QC, a retired barrister, who married Robbie Lowry in 1994, says: "I
think they were both very philosophical about the threats they faced. Robbie
used to say that the police guards were only there to shoot the men who shot
him. I think Brian had a similar view."

A senior Ulster barrister who now practises in London adds: "What you have to
remember is that these were beleaguered men working under terrible pressure.
They simply got used to driving around in armour-plated cars and having
policemen greet them when they came home at night."

Not all barristers were prepared to give up their freedoms and higher earnings
for a restricted life on the Belfast bench. It proved too much for one judge
who, ordered to stay away from his weekly night class, resigned and returned to
the bar.

Brian Hutton's top-target status among the IRA bombers was confirmed when his
name was discovered on a hit-list of prominent members of the Belfast
establishment. The Royal Ulster Constabulary's chilling find in 1996 included
details of addresses, registration numbers and the daily movements of the
suspected targets.

The name of the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland appeared on the list only
because of his high judicial status. There was no Republican suspicion that
Hutton was more pro-establishment than any of the other judges.

In fact, Hutton had gained a reputation for strict independence and fairness
while sitting on the much criticised judge-only Diplock courts that were
convened to try alleged terrorists.

"Although these courts were controversial at the the time, Hutton acquitted a
number of defendants in circumstances in which a jury would have sent them down
without even looking at the evidence," says one Belfast solicitor who
represented defendants at the Diplock courts.

Hutton's reputation for independence was reinforced when he dismissed Private
Lee Clegg's appeal against conviction for murder, saying that there was not the
"slightest suggestion in Pte Clegg's evidence that he thought the driver was a
terrorist". Clegg's conviction was later quashed by Lord Hutton's successor.

His experience was greatly valued when he was promoted to the House of Lords in
1997 where he is known as the Irish law lord. "Hutton has a steely determination
and conscientiousness that few other judges can match. He has a reputation for
being very much his own man who will do what he thinks is right, come hell or
high water," says a London-based Ulster barrister.

Last month, Lord Hutton showed that he was prepared to stand up to the
Government of the day when he sided with other law lords opposed to Labour's
plan to create a new Supreme Court. Two of his colleagues felt the issue too
controversial to even express an opinion.

Lord Ackner, a retired law lord, describes Hutton as a judge who "understands
the position of the judiciary in society and what the public thinks of them.
Because of all his experience, he is very good with PR. I expect his report to
be very sound."

Not since 1996 when Sir Richard Scott delivered his own damning report into the
arms-to-Iraq scandal have the conclusions of a public inquiry been so eagerly
anticipated. Hutton's investigation into the circumstances surrounding Dr
Kelly's suicide will run to more than 1,000 pages and is not expected to pull
its punches. After 23 days of hearings, at which 70 witnesses gave unprecedented
insight into the secretive workings of the Government and its security services,
Lord Hutton has emerged as a fiercely independent arbiter of truth. The judge
has pursued his quarry without fear or favour, setting new standards for the way
judicial investigations are conducted.

Of the man himself, Lady Lowry says: "Brian is a very kind man with a joie de
vivre and a sense of humour that doesn't come across on television."

He recently suffered a bereavement. In 2000, Mary Murland, his wife of 25 years,
died of cancer. The couple, who had two daughters, married in 1975 when Hutton
was 44.

In 2001, he married Lindy Nickols, at a quiet family wedding at Holly Trinity
Church, Brompton. A widow, she brought him two stepsons and a stepdaughter. A
few months later, he left his Pimlico home and moved in to her Chelsea house.
Says a family friend: "I don't think Brian has made a cup of tea in his life so
when Mary died his daughters had to look after him."

His cultural hinterland appears to be limited to his interests in the law, in
which he is immersed. Lady Lowry says: "He doesn't play chess, ride or even take
an interest in the garden. But he is very social." Last month, he was said to be
on "sparkling form" at the Northern Ireland Bar's grand night dinner in Belfast.

Brian Hutton, the judge of the moment, is much in demand at London dinner
parties, and the temptation is to always steer the conversation towards his
investigation. To spare his embarrassment, new acquaintances are warned that he
can't talk about his report until it is published.

This month, Lord Hutton announced his early retirement from the judicial
committee of the House of Lords, adding to speculation that he is well ahead in
his report. But the Department for Constitutional Affairs, which has
responsibility for the inquiry, said he would be spending the Christmas holiday
finalising his conclusions.

Without the protection of his judicial office, friends fear he will be
vulnerable to political attacks from those who might seek to undermine his
report. Others believe that the judicial respect with which he is held would
mean such a strategy would backfire.

Lord Hutton will stand down on 11 January, when he will still be 72, three years
before the mandatory retirement age for law lords. But despite the headline
cases and constant dangers in his long judicial career, he will always be
remembered for one thing above all others - the inquiry that he peerlessly
chaired into the tragic death of a senior civil servant.

Life story

Born: James Brian Edward Hutton, 29 June 1931, to James and Mabel Hutton.

Family: Married Mary Gillian Murland, in 1975 (died, 2000). Two daughters.
Married Lindy Nickols, in 2001.

Education: Brackenber House Preparatory School, Belfast; Shrewsbury School,
Shropshire; Balliol College, Oxford; Queen's University, Belfast.

Career: Called to the Northern Ireland bar in 1954. Legal adviser to the
Ministry of Home Affairs in Northern Ireland in 1973. High Court judge, 1979,
Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland in 1988 and appointed to the judicial
committee of the House of Lords in 1997. To retire as a law lord on 11 January
2004.

Other duties: Chairman, Bourndary Commission for Northern Ireland, 1985-88.
Visitor, University of Ulster, 1999 to present. Appointed chairman of the
inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly, 18 July 2003.

He says: "I make it clear that it will be for me to decide as I think right
within my terms of reference the matters which will be the subject of my
investigation."

They say: "He feels happier following, rather than setting, precedents. He does
not revel in doing the unexpected or hope to acquire a reputation for audacity."
- Lord Hattersley

* * *


BBC:

December 27, 2003

CUBA DECRIES DETAINEES' TREATMENT

Cuba has for the first time attacked the use of Guantanamo Bay as a centre for
detaining people the US suspects of links to the Taleban and al-Qaeda.

A Cuban parliament statement called the leased US facility a "concentration
camp" and said inmates were subjected to "indescribable humiliations".

The comments add to growing concern over the rights of those being held.

Over 600 men detained in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere on suspicion of
terrorism are being held there.

'Illegal lease'

The prisoners are "totally isolated, without the possibility of communicating
with their families or access to appropriate legal defence," the Cuban statement
said.

"They commit very serious attacks on human dignity, in an atmosphere of hysteria
and fear nurtured by North America's far-right," it continued.

The Guantanamo Bay base is leased under an agreement signed before Fidel Castro
took power in 1959.

The Cuban leader routinely describes that agreement as illegal and pointedly
refuses to cash the cheques for rental which the US sends every year.

No legal rights

Until now Cuba has not been overtly critical of the US decision to hold terror
suspects at the base, says the BBC's Steven Gibbs in Havana.

Indeed it surprised many observers by offering logistical and medical
assistance, our correspondent says.

The US maintains that the prisoners are being well treated.

The Bush administration has said the men have no rights to the American legal
system because they are being held in a foreign land.

As the US government has classified the men as "enemy combatants", rather than
prisoners of war, they are not given all the protections of the Geneva
Conventions.

The prisoners have so far not been charged.

* * *


December 26, 2003

EXPERTS SAY ARAR INQUIRY IS FEASIBLE
Must overcome security `obstacle' McDonald probe

By Graham Fraser, National Affairs Writer

OTTAWA -- An inquiry into the Maher Arar case could be held without compromising
Canadian security, according to experts on previous inquiries.

But one expert said it would likely be an "exercise in frustration."

Peter Russell, professor emeritus of political science at the University of
Toronto, was the research director of the McDonald Commission into activities of
the RCMP that was created in 1977 and reported in 1981. Russell pointed out that
the commission had testimony from the RCMP and ministers that could have been
dangerous to security.

"We had sessions dealing with that evidence in-camera," he said in an interview.
"The commissioners would read the transcript, and they would decide if what they
heard should be made public or not."

The government challenged this, saying it should have the final say. But the
chair of the commission, the late judge David McDonald, refused.

"We thought when we came to work the next day, the doors might be locked,"
Russell said in an interview.

But the commission continued. "That's a precedent," he said, adding it takes a
very determined commissioner to resist the government in a situation like that.

Russell said some explosive testimony that was given in-camera remained secret.
"There was some stuff that was pretty sexy that didn't come out in public," he
said. "And it still hasn't."

American officials seized Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, when he was
trying to change planes in New York on Sept. 26, 2002. After holding him in the
United States for a few days, the U.S. sent him to Syria where he was kept in
prison for a year and tortured.

According to sources, he was arrested and deported from the United States when
Canada would not guarantee he would be taken into custody when he returned to
Canada. Since his return to Canada, he has been calling for an independent
public inquiry. An inquiry has been set up by the RCMP public complaints
commission.

Wesley Wark of the Munk Centre for International Studies said it would be
possible to follow the model of the McDonald inquiry. "I know the Canadian
government would throw up (the threat to security) as an insurmountable
obstacle, but it isn't," he said, adding that it would require that the
commissioner or commissioners have the highest security clearance.

"But at the end of the day, the kind of information that is required is not the
raw material of intelligence," he said. "It's the policy and bureaucratic
procedures that were followed. They don't necessarily threaten what the
intelligence community calls `sources and methods.'"

The challenge for a commission of inquiry, he suggested, would be to establish
trust with the intelligence and security community, the government and public.
"The more any commission is seen as seeking a scapegoat, chasing headlines, or
as being inexpert, the more hopeless it all becomes," he said.

He concluded the RCMP complaints inquiry is "a terrible dead end."

Reg Whitaker of the University of Victoria said the problem would be to have an
inquiry that is satisfactory to Arar, his counsel and "all the rest of us who
are watching this with horror and disgust." He said a great deal would depend on
the determination of the commission to force testimony from those tempted to
evade telling the truth.

"In the Arar case, I suspect there is a lot that could be alluded to without
violating the law," he said.

But Russell said a public inquiry into the Arar case would be a big mistake,
even though it involves a very alarming set of events.

"What I learned from the McDonald inquiry is that you never get to the crucial
evidence, the smoking gun," he said. "All kinds of fences go up related to the
need for security."

And in this case, he said, co-operation would be required from the U.S., which
is playing hardball. "It would be a real exercise in frustration," he said. "It
would increase the anger of the public and we would learn very little."

* * *


Los Angeles Times:

December 25, 2003

COURTS PUT A DENT IN BUSH'S 'SAY-SO' DETENTIONS

* When it comes to post-9/11 jailing without
charges, the president is not a king.

By David Cole

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-cole25dec25,1,3612847.story

For two years, the Bush administration has been making the remarkable argument
that the president has the right to label any human being anywhere in the world
-- U.S. citizen or not -- an "enemy combatant" (or as Bush himself put it, a
"bad guy") and then lock him up indefinitely, incommunicado, without charges,
without trial or access to courts or lawyers.

But last week, two U.S. courts of appeal reminded us of one simple fact: It's
President Bush, not King George. The president is not above the law, both courts
concluded, and in a constitutional democracy the power to imprison cannot be
legally unfettered.

The two decisions raise fundamental questions about one of the administration's
central tactics in the war on terrorism -- preventive detention. That's the
theory under which about 700 foreign nationals have been held without charges as
enemy combatants at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base since January 2002 -- not
because they're being punished for wrongdoing but to prevent them from going
back and fighting against us.

That is also the theory under which the administration has detained more than
5,000 foreign nationals within the United States since 9/11, using immigration
law and other pretexts. These men have been held in prisons around the country
-- in some instances for a few days, in others for many months -- based on vague
suspicions, often predicated on little more than ethnicity, that they might be
involved in terrorism.

Yet not one of them has actually been charged with being a member of Al Qaeda or
with being involved in the attacks of 9/11. Virtually all have ultimately been
cleared by the FBI of any connection to terrorism. Only one has been convicted
of any crime related to terrorism, and even that conviction has recently been
put in doubt by evidence that the prosecution failed to disclose evidence that
its principal witness lied on the stand.

Preventive detention has an ignoble past in the United States. In World War I,
we made it a crime to speak out against the draft, ostensibly to prevent
interference with the war, and more than 1,000 people went to jail. In the
Palmer Raids of 1919-20, the government used immigration law to round up
thousands of left-wing foreign nationals deemed "suspicious" after a series of
bombings -- but not one was charged with the bombings. In World War II we relied
on race to intern 110,000 people of Japanese descent, even though there was no
evidence that any of them actually planned to engage in espionage or sabotage.
And in the 1950s and 1960s, the FBI maintained lists of up to 25,000
"subversives" to be detained in the event of a national emergency.

Citing these abuses, Congress in 1971 prohibited such detentions, providing that
"no citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States
except pursuant to an act of Congress." The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals
relied on that statute last week in ruling that Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen
arrested at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, could not be detained on nothing more than
the president's say-so.

Few of the detainees, either in the U.S. or at Guantanamo, have been American
citizens. But as illustrated by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals'
simultaneous decision extending judicial review to foreign nationals at
Guantanamo, skepticism about unilateral executive detention ought not to be
limited to U.S. citizens.

Foreign nationals, no less than U.S. citizens, have a right not to be locked up
arbitrarily, based in the Constitution's guarantee that "no person shall be
deprived of liberty ... without due process." And indefinite incommunicado
incarceration without charges, trial or hearing is the definition of arbitrary
detention.

Detaining the enemy on the battlefield has of course always been -- and remains
-- a legitimate tool of war. Neither the 2nd nor the 9th Circuit ruled to the
contrary. But they both insisted that preventive detention under U.S.
jurisdiction must be subject to the rule of law. And the rule of law, like
liberty itself, is not a right reserved for U.S. citizens.

[ David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University, is author of "Enemy
Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism"
(New Press, 2003). ]

* * *


Daily Times (Lahore):

December 25, 2003

FORMER GUANTANAMO PRISONER MOVES LHC FOR COMPENSATION

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_25-12-2003_pg7_37

ISLAMABAD: Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Muhammad Sagheer on Wednesday filed an
appeal in the Rawalpindi Bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) seeking
compensation of US$ 10.4 million from the government of the United States for
his illegal detention at Camp X-Ray and for the suffering, torture and
humiliation he suffered at the hands of US forces.

Earlier, a similar application for damages filed in a senior civil judge’s court
was rejected on the grounds that it does not lie within the jurisdiction of
Pakistani courts. Legal Counsel Muhammad Ikram Chaudhry filed an appeal before
the High Court with the plea that after being released from the US custody,
Pakistani authorities detained Mr Sagheer and, as such, the case lies within the
jurisdiction of the Pakistani courts.

Mr Chaudhry had also issued legal notices to the US government through its
embassy in Islamabad, which has not responded. The US secretary of state and the
US Justice Department have been made defendants through the US embassy in
Islamabad. The Government of Pakistan through the Ministry of Interior is also
on the list respondents.

Mr Sagheer, a resident of Pattan in the Kohistan district of the North West
Frontier Province, was arrested by Northern Alliance troops when he was in
Afghanistan on a preaching mission in November 2001. During the Afghan war, he
was suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda and given into the custody of the
allied forces. He was kept in Mazar-e-Sharif, Shabarghan and Kandahar and before
being shifted to Guantanamo Bay.

Mr Sagheer was kept in solitary confinement and had to undergo a thorough
investigation. The investigation process was conducted under the supervision of
four commandos. The point of the investigation was to determine information
about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and Mulla Muhammad Omar.

[ Staff Report ]

* * *


National Post (Canada):

December 24, 2003

NO SIGN OF WRONGDOING IN ARAR CASE
Some facts may be kept secret for security reasons

By Anne Dawson, Chief Political Correspondent CanWest News Service

http://canada.com/national/story.asp?id=3E3EDCFA-2150-4131-AA28-1A7B0FA039DD

OTTAWA - Paul Martin says he has seen no evidence to suggest Canadian security
officials acted improperly in the case involving the deportation of a Canadian
citizen to Syria.

The Prime Minister concedes he has not read the entire file on Maher Arar, but
says he has been briefed on it.

"I have not seen any evidence that Canadian officials did anything wrong," he
said.

Mr. Martin says he wants all the facts to come out, but not in a way that might
endanger the security of Canadians. And that could mean keeping some aspects of
the file secret.

"I want to know what happened on the Canadian side and I want to know what
happened on the American side. I'm going to do this in a way that is, in fact,
going to make sure that we do have the facts, but it is not going to imperil
national security because there are things in there that perhaps should stay ...
closed," Mr. Martin told CBC TV in a year-end interview.

While he did not specifically rule out a public inquiry, something he indicated
he was prepared to consider before he became Prime Minister, he played down the
possibility yesterday, suggesting such a forum could affect national security.

"No, I'm not closing the door to that [a public inquiry on Mr. Arar]," Mr.
Martin told reporters on Nov. 25.

Mr. Arar, 33, a Syrian-born Canadian, was arrested at New York's John F. Kennedy
Airport in September, 2002, on his return to Canada after a family visit in
Tunisia. He was questioned and detained for almost two weeks and then deported
by the United States to Syria, via Jordan, even though he was travelling on his
Canadian passport. He says he was falsely imprisoned for almost a year, tortured
and subjected to death threats.

The Americans said he was an al-Qaeda terrorist suspect, although he has never
been charged with a crime in any country.

There are already two independent investigations into the Arar case -- the
Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) announced this week it will
investigate what information CSIS officials had on Mr. Arar and how much of it
was shared with the RCMP, Foreign Affairs and other intelligence agencies. Also,
the RCMP Public Complaints Commission is probing the role of the Mounties.

There is no civilian watchdog agency for the RCMP that is the equivalent of
SIRC, although Mr. Martin announced on Dec. 12 that he intends to set up one.
Currently, Canadians can go to the RCMP Public Complaints Commission if they
feel their rights have been abused by the Mounties, but the agency does not have
the power to determine whether the police are abusing Canada's new anti-
terrorism laws.

Mr. Martin also told the CBC that although information was exchanged between
Canadian and American security officials, the U.S. officials did not respect the
Canadian passport in the way they handled that information.

"Obviously, there were exchanges of information and ... because I don't believe
that the way that the Americans reacted in terms of deporting him to Syria, that
was acceptable," Mr. Martin said.

"An understanding between our two countries as to how this is going to work has
to take place."

This fall, documents obtained under the Access to Information Act revealed U.S.
authorities consulted with the RCMP before arresting Mr. Arar. His supporters
charge that CSIS and the RCMP fingered him to U.S. authorities, and point to a
rental agreement for his Ottawa residence that American immigration officials
produced during his detention in New York.

Canadian officials have denied Canada's intelligence agencies played any role in
Mr. Arar's arrest or detention. But it is unclear precisely what information
Canadian agencies shared about Mr. Arar with their American counterparts and
whether that information prompted the United States to ship him to Syria.

[ adawson@cns.canwest.com ]

* * *


Sydney Morning Herald:

December 24, 2003

HICKS MAY BE CHARGED IN MARCH, SAYS HIS LAWYER

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/24/1072239711921.html

(AAP) Australian terror suspect David Hicks could be charged with conspiracy by
the United States in March, his lawyer said today.

Adelaide-born Hicks, 28, has been earmarked by the US to be the first of 660
suspected terrorists being detained at a US military base at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, to face a military tribunal.

The Australian has been held without charge since January 2002, following his
capture among Taliban forces in Afghanistan in December 2001.

Hicks' Adelaide-based lawyer, Stephen Kenny, last week became the first civilian
lawyer allowed access to a client inside Guantanamo Bay.

Mr Kenny met with Hicks for five consecutive days and said he was likely to face
conspiracy charges.

"I would expect that if there isn't some negotiation and discussions in the next
month or two, that formal charges will be laid probably by about March," Mr
Kenny said today on his return to Australia.

"But that's only what you might call a gut feeling."

Mr Kenny criticised the Australian government for refusing to release to him
details of Hicks' case.

The lawyer said Hicks had been interrogated by Australian officials up to five
separate times for an overall duration believed to be about 12 hours.

Mr Kenny said despite his landmark meetings with Hicks, he did not receive all
the information relevant to the case.

"We have been given some information but there is still a lot more information
that the prosecution is still holding," he said.

"The Australian government has interrogated David on four or five occasions ...
and we have not been given any information about that.

"We do know that some of that material has gone to the United States."

Hicks' father, Terry Hicks, said today the lack of information was typical of an
inactive Australian government stance.

"It gets frustrating, particularly with the Australians," Terry Hicks said.

"I have been requesting to speak to (Foreign Minister) Alexander Downer for two
years and I still haven't caught up with him."

Terry Hicks said his son, who the government has said trained with the al-Qaeda
terrorist group, would be discussed at the Hicks' Christmas dinner tomorrow.

"This is the second one (Christmas without David) ... you never get used to that
sort of thing," Terry Hicks said.

"It's a difficult situation but we'll just try and get on with it.

"It does sour things when you know the Australian government are still holding
someone with no charges, and they don't care.

"The Australian government don't care what my Christmas is like."

* * *


The Village Voice:

December 24-30, 2003

Mondo Washington by James Ridgeway

THE MARTIAL PLAN
Police State Tactics Transform a Nation -- Our Own

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0352/mondo1.php

WASHINGTON -- Every day the U.S. looks more like a police state.

An internal Justice Department probe, based on surveillance videos made by the
government inside federal detention facilities, shows that the U.S. harassed,
beat, and kept in solitary confinement without access to family or lawyers men
it picked up off the streets of New York after 9-11. More likely than not, these
men were seized on grounds that some cop or FBI agent thought they looked like
Osama followers. Or that a business partner or neighbor decided he could get the
man's money or property by charging him first with theft and then telling the
cops, "Oh, by the way, I think the guy is Al Qaeda," a claim that one magistrate
after another accepted as the reason to set bails so high no one but a
millionaire could pay to get out.

And this doesn't even scratch the surface of what's been going on. Lawyers were
not told the numbers of courtrooms to where their clients were being shuttled
because the room locations were secret. Members of Congress, government, the
press, and the judiciary knew from the very get-go that any FBI agent, acting on
his or her own, could make an affidavit asserting that any individual was a
suspected terrorist.

Every day, Ashcroft and Bush work the country toward something like martial law,
though the administration has suffered setbacks, like last week's rulings by two
federal appellate courts in Padilla v. Rumsfeld and Gherebi v. Bush. Both of
those decisions, for now at least, hamper the government's ability to simply
lock up suspects indefinitely.

But the government has other targets and other ways of dealing with them. The
most recent crackdown seems to be on the foreign press -- the source of much of
the substantial critique of its policies.

U.S. immigration authorities are detaining foreign correspondents on grounds
they have not obtained special visas permitting them to operate here, reports
the Associated Press. True, there is a law stipulating a special visa for
journalists, but few have ever heard of it and it is seldom enforced. No more.
No one ever told the visiting journalists it had suddenly been revived. As a
result, immigration officials aren't allowing reporters from abroad to come in
under ordinary 90-day tourist visa waivers.

Peter Krobath, chief editor for the Austrian movie magazine Skip, was seized and
held overnight in a cold room with 45 others who landed without visas. Is he an
Osama follower? A disguised fedayeen from Saddam's clan? No. He is guilty of
flying to the U.S. to interview Ben Affleck.

Thomas Sjoerup, a photographer for the Danish paper Ekstra Bladet, had to give
the American authorities fingerprints, a mug shot, and a DNA sample, and he was
promptly sent back home anyway.

Six French journalists were marched across a terminal at Los Angeles
International Airport in handcuffs, having had their belts and shoelaces
removed. The International Press Institute, based in Vienna, along with the
International Federation of Journalists, headquartered in Brussels, is
protesting this treatment.

The U.S. response? An embassy official in Vienna insisted that the government
was only acting in accordance with the letter of the law.

[ Additional reporting: Ashley Glacel, Phoebe St John, and Alicia Ng ]

* * *


CBC:

December 23, 2003

WATCHDOG TO PROBE CSIS ROLE IN ARAR CASE

OTTAWA - An independent committee will investigate all aspects of how the
Canadian Security Intelligence Service handled the case of Maher Arar.

The Security Intelligence Review Committee said Monday that it will examine any
exchanges of information that may have occurred between CSIS and the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International
Trade, and foreign intelligence agencies. The committee will not hear from
witnesses, not even Arar. Its mandate is limited to looking at paperwork and
electronic files.

The review is expected to be completed by spring, but all its contents will not
necessarily be released to the public, said Paule Gauthier, chair of the review
committee.

Critics say SIRC's probe is no substitute for a public inquiry. "Right now
Canadian public has more questions and more suspicions about the RCMP and CSIS
than they do about Maher Arar himself," said Kerry Pither, a spokeswoman for the
Maher Arar support campaign. Those supporters had hoped the new minister of
justice, Irwin Cotler, would have ordered a public inquiry and not handed full
responsibility to uncover the truth to SIRC alone.

Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham has argued that a public inquiry would be a
waste of time because no one could force the U.S. to participate, a lame excuse
according to Canadian Bar Association president Bill Johnson. "The picture won't
be complete because we won't have the evidence from the American side, but we
will have the evidence from the Canadian side, and that's what we're asking
for," said Johnson.

Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty Canada echoed similar disappointment
saying Canadians are growing tired of watching cabinet ministers turn to
Americans for information on the actions of Canadian agencies. "It's absurd to
suggest that the only way we can get clarity was to look to the United States to
get those answers. If we can't get answers here in Canada then there's something
terribly wrong with accountability in our system," said Neve.

Last week, Graham said that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had confirmed
to him that CSIS and the RCMP provided American authorities with information on
Arar before he was shipped off to Syria.

Wayne Easter, who was in charge of CSIS when Arar was deported, maintains that
CSIS had nothing to do with sending Arar to Syria. Easter says he believes Ward
Elcock, director of CSIS, who told MPs that his agency was not involved. But a
spokeswoman for the review committee says the exact wording of the question
Elcock answered -- "Was CSIS directly involved in the detention and deportation
of Maher Arar?" -- leaves a lot of wiggle room.

Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian engineer, was detained in New York in September
2002 while he was on a flight back to Ottawa from Tunisia. He was accused of
having ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and deported to Syria, where
he spent 10 months in captivity.

Arar says he was tortured by Syrian officials and forced to sign a false
confession. He returned to Canada in October.

* * *


The Guardian (UK):

December 23, 2003

Leader - BUT DOES IT WORK?

Across the country there has been understandable outrage over the 650 suspected
enemy combatants held by the US in Cuba without charge or trial. There has been
far less protest about our own Guantanamo Bay law that has indefinitely interned
16 foreign nationals here without charge or trial. The 16 were arrested on
suspicion of links to al-Qaida. They were arrested under the Anti-terrorism,
Crime and Security Act of 2001, a 118-page catch-all of an act, which was pushed
through parliament in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on America. Now, though, a
powerful voice has spoken. A joint parliamentary committee, set up by the home
secretary to review the act, urged David Blunkett at the end of last week to
scrap the draconian powers contained in part four. Rowan Williams, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, signalled his support for such a move this week.

The 121-page report from cross-party privy councillors is measured and
thoughtful. They rightly noted the law's powers had not been "injudiciously or
excessively" used, but criticised it on a much more vulnerable front: its
effectiveness. They pointed to the fact that the law could not apply to almost
half of the al-Qaida suspects in the UK because they were British. More
seriously, it felt the internment of foreign nationals should end "as a matter
of urgency" because of the risk of miscarriages of justice. Remember, detainees
have been arrested for what they might do, not what they have done. The UK was
only able to introduce this law by opting out of the relevant safeguards of the
European convention on human rights - the only European nation to do so. The
report also questioned the ethics of a law that allows detainees to leave
Britain voluntarily - two of the 16 have left, one for France and another to
Morocco - on the grounds that this amounted to "exporting terrorism".

This is a great advance on the legal reviews of the act that have happened so
far. In October 2002, the court of appeal, headed by Lord Woolf, upheld the
right under international law for the UK to distinguish between nationals and
non-nationals, especially in times of emergency. But eight months on, three
senior law lords, headed by Lord Bingham, agreed in August that the legal basis
under which the foreign nationals are being held should be reviewed. They are
due to begin early in the new year, after the special immigration appeals
commission has reviewed each of the detainees still held. A good first text
would be the recent lecture by Lord Steyn, the law lord, in which he indicted US
procedures in Guantanamo Bay. Belatedly, US courts have begun to challenge
Guantanamo, which is now to be reviewed by the US supreme court.

David Blunkett remained unmoved by the privy councillors' conclusion. He only
waited a matter of days before dismissing them on the grounds he would be
"failing in my duty" to abandon the internment powers. This is too glib. And how
does he square this position with his refusal to give Spanish and German
investigators access to Abu Qatada, one of the few detainees to be identified?
Does he have no responsibility to the wider international community? Mr Blunkett
needs to keep in mind his own test, set out in Tribune, the Labour weekly, by
which he wanted his anti-terror legislation to be judged: "Is it a practical
contribution to combatting terrorism?" The privy councillors, selected by him to
review the act, have given him their answer - no. They do not deny there is a
serious threat of terrorism. But this is not new. Mainland Britain faced two
decades of Irish terrorism without resorting to the draconian measures in the
2001 act. Nowadays, technology has given governments much greater capacity to
keep suspects under surveillance, than 20 years ago. Mr Blunkett must not reject
his advisers' report.

* * *

C-Span:

12/22/2003: WASHINGTON, DC: 30 min.
Steven Aftergood, Director of the Project on Government Secrets, discusses how
the government classifies information and issues related to government secrets,
in general.

rtsp://video.c-span.org/15days/wj122203_aftergood.rm


12/21/2003: WASHINGTON, DC: 30 min.
Joseph Onek, Senior Counsel for the Constitution Project, discusses the Jose
Padilla case. Padilla was classified as an "enemy combatant" and recently
ordered by an Appeals Court to be released. The Constitution Project filed a
brief on Padilla's behalf.

rtsp://video.c-span.org/archive/ter/ter_wj122103_onek.rm


12/17/2003: WASHINGTON, DC: 1.5 hours.
The AEI hosts this discussion on civil liberties and the war on terror.
Panelists discuss such topics as the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay, and enemy
detentions.

Barry Sullivan, Jenneer & Block (moderator)
John Yoo, UC Berkeley
Ruth Wedgwood, Johns Hopkins
David Cole, George Washington Universtiy
Alyssa Massimino, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights
Hon. Patricia Walsh, USDC DC Cicuit
Hon. Michael Chertoff, USDC 3rd Circuit

rtsp://video.c-span.org/jdrive/smil/ter121703_aei1.smi

* * *


CTV:

December 22, 2003

WATCHDOG TO REVIEW CSIS'S ROLE IN ARAR CASE

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1072100242713_13/?hub=Canada

The watchdog for Canada's spy agency has announced it is going to launch an in-
depth review of CSIS's involvement in the Maher Arar case.

Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian, spent 10 months in a Syrian jail after he was
detained as a terror suspect at a New York airport and deported to his native
country by the U.S. government.

The Security Intelligence Review Committee said Monday it plans to examine the
relationship between the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and various
domestic and foreign agencies, including the RCMP.

The SIRC investigation will be separate from the inquiry launched by the
Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP.

"Parliament and the people of Canada must have confidence that the Service is
acting within the law and respecting Canadians' rights," Paule Gauthier, chair
of the SIRC, said in a news release. "And this investigation will establish
whether that occurred in the case of Mr. Arar."

She expects the review to be completed by spring of 2004.

On Saturday it was revealed that both the RCMP and CSIS identified Arar to U.S.
anti-terrorist agencies. Arar's supporters say that revelation alone is enough
to warrant an inquiry into Canada's involvement.

News of the Canadian connection came in a Dec. 2 telephone call to Foreign
Affairs Minister Bill Graham from U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. Graham
had asked Powell for an accounting of Canada's role in the case in early
November.

Powell also told Graham there had been no Canadian involvement in Arar's
deportation to Syria.

Powell's statement contradicted earlier reports from CSIS, which had previously
said it had nothing to do with Arar's arrest.

Former federal solicitor general Wayne Easter, replaced in the recent cabinet
shuffle, said he believes that CSIS played no part in Arar's detention.

"Mr. Powell is wrong," Easter said Sunday.

Speaking on CTV's Question Period on Sunday, Graham again rejected calls for a
public inquiry.

"We're not going to get (U.S. Attorney-General John) Ashcroft to come up to
Canada and appear in a Canadian inquiry," he said.

"The decision to send Arar to Syria was made in the United States by American
authorities without consultation with Canadian authorities."

Graham said he continues to support a private investigation into the RCMP's
involvement by the Commission for Public Complaints.

Arar was returning to Canada on a Canadian passport when he was arrested at New
York's Kennedy Airport on Sept. 26, 2002.

He later spent 10 months in detention in Syria, where he was regularly tortured,
before being released in October and returning to Canada.

While detained in New York, Arar says he was confronted with a lease he signed
in Ottawa in 1997. It was apparently given to the FBI by their Canadian
counterparts.

The five-year-old documents were witnessed by Abdullah Almalki, a suspected al-
Qaeda operative. Arar said he was friends with Almalki's brother and that
Almalki had signed because the brother was busy.

It's still not known exactly how the FBI gained possession of Arar's lease.

* * *

Mother Jones:

December 22, 2003

OUR IMPERIAL JUSTICE
By Tom Engelhardt

http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2003/12/12_528.html

Timothy Noah of Slate writes: "[Vice-president Dick] Cheney violated the Bush
administration's policy of never saying the e-word in a Christmas card he and
his wife sent out to various supporters and important Washingtonians... Along
with their best wishes for this holiday season, the Cheneys included the
following quotation from Benjamin Franklin: 'And if a sparrow cannot fall to the
ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His
aid?'"

The imperial (vice-)presidency has new meaning -- and not just because Dick and
Lynne implicitly plugged God's Empire, the United States of Everything, in a
Christmas card. Last Thursday, The New York Times had a fascinating, if
chilling, front-page rundown on the underside of Cheney's imperial dream, the
sort of thing for which his New Year's card might be inscribed, "Happy New Year,
Welcome to Hell."

James Risen and Thom Shanker began their report, headlined 'Hussein Enters
Post-9/11 Web of U.S. Prisons', this way:

"Saddam Hussein is now prisoner No. 1 in what has developed into a global
detention system run by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency,
according to government officials. It is a secretive universe, they said, made
up of large and small facilities throughout the world that have sprouted up to
handle the hundreds of suspected terrorists of Al Qaeda, Taliban warlords and
former officials of the Iraqi government..."

This secret world extends from Bagram Air Force Base, Afghanistan, to Baghdad
International Airport to our Guantanamo naval base in Cuba (and even, though
they don't mention it, to the Navy's aircraft carriers off the coast of
anywhere). As it turns out, though, we don't have a single semi-secret
international prison system but two overlapping ones -- and although Risen and
Shanker speak of its inmates as "arrested," such arrests lead not to courts in
any country on earth, but directly to a universe of "interrogators." The
arrestees to a man are, at present, beyond the oversight of any court on earth.
The larger of these "detention systems" -- as the piece calls them -- is run by
the Pentagon; the smaller by the CIA and the prisons of that one, evidently
holding tiny groups of top al Qaeda leaders, are "in undisclosed locations in
friendly countries in" - as the reporters politely put it - "the developing
world." The only developing country identified by name is Thailand.

The piece then focuses on the -- again, politely put -- "full range of
interrogation techniques," which have been used on al Qaeda leaders but "might
not" be used on Saddam because "the agency's handling of him may eventually come
under scrutiny." Prisoners in the CIA system, for instance, are held in "total
isolation," with guards sometimes dressed in outfits that suggest the
incarcerees are back in their own Arab countries which are "feared for the use
of torture."

It's interesting, by the way, that the word torture is used only twice in the
piece -- first in the context of Arab practices, and then in a passage in which
the Pentagon and CIA are reported to deny using it (though there is no
indication as to who has made such charges). Yet the techniques Risen and
Shanker describe or allude to would certainly qualify as torture, were they not
being used by Americans. (Believe me, if this report were on any other country,
the language and tone would have been quite different.)

The most striking passage in the piece goes as follows:

"Certain techniques that interrogators may wish to apply to elicit information
from important detainees require 'a higher level of scrutiny' by officials
before they can be used, the Pentagon official said. One military officer said
the use of sleep deprivation, for example, must be approved by senior Pentagon
officials."

Imagine that. The use of mental torture -- sleep deprivation can't qualify as
anything but -- has to be, and evidently is being ordered from on high. Our top
Pentagon officials are thus implicated in ordering acts that would have been
right at home in Argentinean prisons under the generals in the 1970s or for that
matter in the NKVD's Soviet prisons. And this, mind you, is a global system
beyond the reach of any law and beholden, in the end, to only one man: George W.
Bush. Now that's an imperial dream for you.

In this context, it's ridiculous to talk of the "Geneva conventions" or any
other codes or agreements, no less "international law." And the President made
that jokingly clear the other day when, on camera, he responded in mock horror
to a suggestion by the German chancellor that the Pentagon's contract bidding
for the reconstruction of Iraq might violate international law: "International
Law?" he said, laughingly. "I better call my lawyer." For the Bush
administration, the only codes, conventions, or agreements that matter are those
laid out by our President and they invariably prove flexible enough to handle
any contingency.

For readers of these dispatches over the last few months, little of what's in
Risen and Shanker's report will come as a surprise. I've been commenting on
America's developing global mini-gulag -- what I've called its international
black hole of injustice or, in relation to Guantanamo, its Bermuda Triangle of
injustice -- for some time now. This is, however, the first time I've seen our
secret penal system put together and headlined, however politely, even
euphemistically, in any American paper of record, no less our major paper of
record. It's a piece -- both for its information and for its limits -- that's
well worth considering beginning to end.

Domestically, American justice first began to visibly morph into imperial
justice just in the wake of the September 11 attacks with the passage of the
Patriot Act by a terrified and supine Congress and with the mass detention of
Arabs immigrants and Arab-Americans. Internationally, the key event -- along
with the spur of the moment employment of all sorts of coercive measures of
captivity and interrogation during the Afghan campaign and the crude
incarceration centers set up on our new bases in Afghanistan -- was the
infernally clever use we made of our old colonial base at Guantanamo, Cuba to
house those swept up in our Afghan War. Not on American soil and just beyond the
reach of our courts, Guantanamo remained within our treaty rights. The Devil's
Island of a prison constructed there under the pressure of and fears engendered
by the September 11th attacks, has provoked remarkably little outrage here.

Our new imperial penal system has the same relationship to our justice system
that the money American corporations send offshore does to the tax system. Where
Americans have challenged our new prison arrangements, the media has paid
remarkably little attention. Here's an example of three challengers who might,
you would think, draw a stare or two. Reporter Frank Davies of the Miami Herald
writes:

"Former Rear Adm. Don Guter felt the Pentagon shudder when an airliner hijacked
by terrorists struck on Sept. 11, 2001. He helped evacuate shaken officers and
later gave the eulogy for a colleague killed that day. ‘'I would have done
anything that day, and I fully support the war on terrorism,'' said Guter, who
served as judge advocate general, the Navy's chief legal officer, until he
retired last year.

That makes Guter part of an unlikely trio -- joining his predecessor as Navy
judge advocate general and a retired Marine general with expertise on prisoner
issues -- challenging the Bush administration's indefinite detention of
suspected terrorists at the Navy base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba... Guter, Hutson
and Brahms worry that Guantánamo may reverse a 200-year tradition of U.S.
efforts to codify and protect the rights of prisoners... 'I'm a little surprised
that [among the military] only three of us signed on to this,'' said Guter,
surrounded in his office by the memorabilia of a 32-year Navy career."

This administration also quickly tested the post 9/11 limits of American justice
by putting two lone citizens in domestic military brigs as presidentially-
designated "enemy combatants": Yasser Hamdi, swept up in Afghanistan, and Jose
Padilla, arrested at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. Both have been
held incommunicado ever since they landed in the brigs, while the American court
system, cowed by the fears of the moment and the power of this administration,
has until recently done little but back its extreme, constitution-busting
decisions.

Just this week, however, two Federal appeals courts struck back, one taking on
the Padilla case, the other the legal status of the prisoners in Guantanamo
whose situation "without the protection of the American legal system" was,
according to David Johnston of The New York Times, declared to be both
"unconstitutional and a violation of international law." Johnston writes:

"The broad presidential powers invoked by the Bush administration after Sept.
11, 2001, to detain suspected terrorists outside the civilian court system is
now being challenged by the federal courts, the very branch of the government
the White House hoped to circumvent. The two separate appellate court rulings on
Thursday swept away crucial parts of the administration's legal strategy to
handle terrorist suspects outside the criminal justice system and incarcerate
them indefinitely without access to lawyers or to the evidence against them...

'The Ninth Circuit decision said that you can't create a legal black hole in
territory controlled by the United States,' [Human Rights Watch Directory
Kenneth] Roth [said], referring to a second ruling on Thursday related to
noncitizens captured in the Afghan war and detained at a naval base in
Guantánamo Bay."

Human Rights Watch also issued a statement on the Padilla case worth checking
out, and Brigid O'Neil of the libertarian Independent Institute has weighed in
with a thoughtful piece on the case which serves as a reminder that the spectrum
of American citizens, right, left, and center, disturbed by the steady erosion
of our democratic values and protections in the name of bringing a muscular,
imperial "democracy" to the world is broad indeed.

One of the great myths of empire is that what must be done in the service of the
imperium among lesser peoples, or at least peoples of lesser standards of
civilization, will not return to the "homeland" (another of these creeping
imperial terms, by the way, which unlike "country" or "nation" implies a
category of lands that are neither "home" nor exactly other, but are ours in
some different way). As it happens, since the imperial is not just an expanse of
territory or of bases or of control, but a state of mind, there are no borders
capable of keeping it out.

We announce ourselves ready to bring "democracy" to an autocratic world, but in
terms of cold, hard achievement, what we've delivered so far, other than a mess
of an occupation of Iraq and a mess of an occupation of Afghanistan, is the idea
of an eternal draconian war on "terrorism" and a global penal system beyond all
oversight or any set of laws. That what we do out among the tributary states of
the "developing world" won't make its way home to us in various forms is a
fantasy. Empires come home. Ours is already here and growing amongst us.

I sensed that erosion this week as I watched the televised spectacle of news and
punditry in the wake of Saddam's capture. Brian Whitaker of The Guardian has
called our Iraq occupation policies "a case of the deaf playing it by ear," a
wonderful description. To extend his image a bit, I think you could say that
we're deaf to ourselves as well.

Wednesday night I listened for a while to Charlie Rose as several "experts"
somewhat gleefully swapped suggestions about how we should plan to interrogate
Saddam; then just after 11:30 I switched over to Nightline only to find yet
another expert (and former interrogator) talking about the coming battle of
wills with Saddam. Such experts turned out to be everywhere for this was the
topic du jour. (As the war brought out all our former generals, so the
occupation is bringing former agents and interrogators out of the woodwork. Our
expertise seems to be all of a piece with our imperial mission.)

Of course, Donald Rumsfeld helped this process along this week by giving us a
peek at the administration's thinking when it came to Saddam's interrogation. He
announced that it would be "entrusted" to the CIA. As Brian Knowlton and David
Stout of The New York Times report, that was an easy choice for our Secretary of
Defense.

"'It was a three-minute decision,' he said, 'and the first two were for coffee.'

Mr. Rumsfeld did not rule out a Pentagon role for keeping the deposed dictator
in custody, or for questioning him. But he said he and George J. Tenet, the
director of central intelligence, had agreed that the C.I.A. should be the
agency to decide just who questions Mr. Hussein, and where and when. 'They have
the competence in that area, they have professionals in that area, they know the
means that we have in terms of counterterrorism, they know the threads that have
to come up through the needlehead.'"

As for complaints out there in the rest of the world that we might be "parading"
or "humiliating" Saddam, Rumsfeld swore that "no aspect of Mr. Hussein's
handling came even 'up on the edge' of violating the Geneva conventions." Of
course, those should really be renamed the Washington conventions under the
circumstances. And then the Secretary of Defense disclosed "that for at least
one stretch Mr. Hussein spent several hours in what appeared to be a taxi. 'He
didn't have the meter running,' Mr. Rumsfeld said."

I kept wondering whether this came directly from Comedy Central or from some
stand-up club in Washington. It should take all our breaths away, but it
doesn't. Instead we've been plunged into a media circus that rappelled down that
"edge" and over to the other side with remarkable speed. Once our officials
began happily considering interrogation techniques in public, the media picked
up on the subject and raced off with it. How should our number-one captive be
interrogated? Should he be kept in total isolation, fed false stories about
what's going on in the outside world, woken from his sleep at uncomfortable
hours, deprived of sleep altogether, shown his own regime's torture videos?
Should we play on his overweening ego and narcissism? Should we insinuate an
Arab (imagine that!) into the interrogation situation, one who professes not to
agree with the U.S. 100%?

Those were among the many suggestions I heard on TV the other night or read
about in the papers. Much of this would, in fact, be torture, even if the
torturing was of a torturer, the former head of a regime of torturers, who had
done unimaginably worse himself. Sleep deprivation, disorientation and so on --
all these methods undoubtedly can be found in American prisons; in prisons just
about anywhere at any time in fact. But are they part of any stated American
tradition? Not that I know of. Are they strategies to be bandied about on
television, or ordered from the highest levels of our government? Do I even need
to answer that? And don't you find it strange that no one in the media seems to
find all this strange in the least? I didn't hear Charlie Rose or anyone else on
TV -- not once -- say, "Hold on, a minute, I can't believe I'm hearing this
stuff..." I didn't notice a follow-up New York Times editorial decrying what its
own journalists reported.

Think of it as part of an atmosphere, one in which imperial strategies are
heading home. There's always a reason. There's always an explanation. The
targets chosen from Saddam to Padilla are unlikely to elicit sympathy from
Americans. And there are always those terrorists to lend a terrifying hand.
(Government officials are supposedly meeting this weekend to decide whether to
raise our yellow alert status to orange. Can you imagine?)

A nation's attention is now focused on interrogation techniques that, politely
put (and who is impolite about such things when it's our nation that's doing
it), at the very least skirt the "edge" of crimes against human beings, if not
humanity. And we're proud to discuss it. Let's trot the experts out and
speculate about how to get the job done in the most efficient way possible. Why
worry about the rule of law when you're dealing with a dark world of
imprisonment meant to be beyond the rule of anyone's laws?

Here's the truth of it: We're getting used to this stuff. It's not just Charlie
Rose who isn't indignant. It's becoming more and more American day by day. And
don't you get the feeling that it's already later in the day than anyone
imagined?

As a little antidote to all this, I'll recommend two pieces with genuine
attitude -- Michael Moore on Saddam's capture, under the circumstances, a breath
of fresh air in an airless land; and Philippine columnist Renato Redentor
Constantino's reminder that our world can have a different look from the vantage
point of one of those "developing countries" where terror may have quite another
meaning.

Additional dispatches by Tom Engelhardt can be read throughout the week at
TomDispatch, a web log of The Nation Institute.

* * *

The Australian:

December 22, 2003

BARRISTERS URGE DETENTION ACTION

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/
0,5744,8236330%255E1702,00.html

(AAP) THE detention of non-American citizens at Guantanamo Bay was a fundamental
violation of human rights and international law, a Victorian lawyers' group said
today.

The Victorian Bar, an organisation representing the state's 1500 barristers,
urged the Australian Government to condemn the "lawlessness" at the US complex.

Chairman Robert Brett said the 600 non-Americans at the military base in Cuba
were being held in contravention of fundamental principles of human rights.

"We're urging the Government to take up with the United States the fact that
these people are being detained in Guantanamo Bay without being charged and
without access to the courts," he said.

Mr Brett said the rights being ignored at Guantanamo Bay were enshrined in
international conventions and treaties to which the United States, Australia and
many other countries were party.

"The legal profession generally, and barristers as part of it, is committed to
upholding the rule of law.

"Everybody should be subjected to the law and that includes governments," Mr
Brett said.

"It's wrong to hold people without trial. Unfortunately that is what is
happening here.

"We'd like to see these people given immediate access to lawyers of their
choice.

"We'd like to see them either released or brought to trial."

He said the recent appointment of a US military lawyer to the case of Australian
David Hicks was a small step in the right direction

* * *



Washington Times:

December 21, 2003

TERROR-WAR, SOUTH-FRONT

By Guy Taylor

U.S. NAVAL BASE

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - More than 600 al Qaeda and Taliban suspects imprisoned
here are being interrogated by "Tiger Teams" during sessions that last as long
as 16 hours, military officials say.

Forty such four- and five-member teams -- consisting of Defense Department
personnel, law-enforcement interrogators, a linguist and an analyst -- work
inside Camp Delta.

The barbed-wire-ringed series of cellblocks is home to the detainees, all of
whom are Muslim men, representing 44 countries and speaking 17 languages. While
the identities of the men have been kept secret, military officials here say all
were arrested in Afghanistan.

The 105-year history of this unique base -- the only U.S. military installation
in a communist country -- has been peppered with such major events of
international consequence as the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis.

Construction of Camp Delta since September 11 again turned the world's eyes
toward here to watch the development of a new situation, one plagued by
questions about the legal status of those held in the war on terror, exacerbated
by charges of misconduct by officials working with the prisoners.

But Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who heads U.S. efforts to obtain
intelligence from the detainees, told The Washington Times that information
being gleaned from them has been "extremely valuable."

He vigorously dismissed the notion that recent charges leveled against some who
worked in or closely with the Tiger Teams suggested the presence of a "fifth
column," or organized group within the prison camp seeking to aid the detainees.

"There's absolutely zero possibility ... with the Tiger Teams that there's any
of that," said the general, a native Texan who has been in the military for more
than 25 years.

'Golden threads'

Gen. Miller said that even as the majority of Guantanamo prisoners have been
isolated from the changing world for nearly two years, they continue to be a
treasure trove of intelligence.

"There are three different kinds of intelligence for which we interrogate:
tactical, operational and strategic," he said.

Tactical is the lowest level, used to lay a base from which deeper interrogation
can be built. It consists of outlining when an individual was captured, what
kind of weapon he had, how many people he was working with and what precisely
they were doing.

Tactical intelligence "decays pretty quickly," Gen. Miller said. "It's not
stale, but it's dated." Much of it, he said, already had been pulled from a
batch of roughly 20 prisoners who arrived at Guantanamo at the end of November.
The new prisoners, he said, "already had been held and interrogated for
approximately one to three months" before arriving at Guantanamo.

The second level of intelligence is operational, such as how a terrorist
organization is organized and recruited, how it maintains itself and who its
contacts are, Gen. Miller said.

"We look for golden threads," he said. "What's the commonality that goes through
this entire process?"

Military officials have revealed little about the information gathered from the
detainees and Gen. Miller declined to discuss specifics.

However, reporters and photographers at Guantanamo recently were allowed inside
the small wooden huts once used as interrogation chambers on the grounds of Camp
X-Ray, a now-closed compound of barbed-wire and chain-link fences used to detain
the al Qaeda and Taliban suspects before the more permanent Camp Delta was
built.

In one hut, a blue duffel bag full of orange uniforms and leather restraining
belts appeared to have been left behind on a table. Affixed to the plywood floor
below the table was a steel hook.

On the wall of another room were scrawled in black marker such words as
"coward," "proud," and "liar" in English and what appeared to be Arabic. In one
room, reporters saw maps of Saudi Arabia and Germany.

Gen. Miller said that the third type of intelligence drawn from interrogations
is strategic intelligence. Suggesting it is the most relevant to current
interrogations, he called strategic "the final level ... how terrorists or
terrorist organizations fund themselves, how does money move."

All of the information goes into the intelligence community's databases to
facilitate further and more effective interrogations, he said.

"We send information up. They send information down."

With the information being passed along the government's intelligence food
chain, one might be able to draw parallels between the types of details sought
from prisoners here and subsequent arrests made in the war on terrorism.

Collection of operational intelligence and strategic intelligence, such as how a
terror cell gets money and how that money moves around, could produce leads for
authorities on the trail of suspects in the United States and abroad.

Translator and detainee

Military officials at Guantanamo stress repeatedly that no individual,
interrogator, prison guard, translator, Muslim chaplain or otherwise is allowed
one-on-one access to the detainees.

"The security here is very, very tight," Gen. Miller said. "If we produce
enormously valuable information, the enemy would like to get that information.
So we work very hard to reduce the opportunity for the enemy to penetrate."

The National Guard and Army Reserve units from seven states and the Virgin
Islands that guard Camp Delta live in Camp America, a series of more than 80
wooden and metal structures called "sea huts," clustered just outside the
prison.

Translators and others involved in interrogations live in apartments around the
naval base, such as Tierra Kay Housing, a series of town houses on a road about
two miles outside a vehicle-security checkpoint separating the prison camp from
the rest of the base.

Civilian translator Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, one of the four persons charged in the
espionage probe at Guantanamo, lived somewhere on the base beyond the
checkpoint.

He was on leave from Guantanamo at the end of September, returning from a visit
with family in his native Egypt, when authorities arrested him in Boston.
Charged with lying to a federal agent, Mr. Mehalba is said to have had in his
possession a list of names mentioned during interrogation sessions.

His was the third arrest in a spy probe that began in July with the arrest of
Air Force Senior Airman Ahmad al Halabi, a Syrian native, who also worked as a
translator at Guantanamo. The airman had pleaded not guilty to 20 charges,
including four counts of espionage and one of aiding the enemy.

The attorney representing the airman announced yesterday that the Air Force had
dropped three of the spying charges. He still faces 17 other counts, including
spying, disobeying orders, making false official statements and mishandling
classified documents.

Airman al Halabi's case was publicized after the arrest early in September of
Army Capt. James J. Yee, 35, a Chinese-American who had served as an Islamic
chaplain at Guantanamo.

No charge of espionage has been filed against Capt. Yee, a West Point graduate
and convert to Islam. An unusual twist in his case last month, however, led the
Army to charge him with storing pornography on a government computer and
committing adultery. The adultery charge, a rarely pursued offense of the
military code, stems from his relations with a female naval officer at
Guantanamo.

A military source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Capt. Yee
initially "got in trouble" with base commanders because he was acting too
sympathetically toward the Muslims held at the prison camp rather than focusing
on his duties as a religious adviser to prison guards.

The highest-ranking official charged in the espionage probe is Col. Jack D.
Farr, an Army reservist who was posted to Guantanamo as an intelligence officer
and is charged with wrongfully transporting classified material without the
proper security container.

Camp dynamics

A tour of Camp Delta on a hillside about 150 yards from the shoreline, revealed
four separate detention areas ranging in levels of security from highest to
lowest.

Reporters, strictly warned against interacting with detainees during the tour,
saw two bearded prisoners in orange cloth outfits gently kicking a soccer ball
around a fenced-in cemented yard at the end of one of the higher-security
cellblocks.

The cells in the higher-security areas are 8 feet deep by 7 feet wide, and
surrounded by steel mesh. Each has a floor-style flush toilet and sink.
Inscribed on the metal bed affixed to the wall in each cell is an arrow pointing
in the direction of the Muslim holy city of Mecca.

The arrows are among the steps military officials said were taken to avoid
infringing on the religious beliefs and practices of the detainees. The
detainees also have access to books, which are wheeled on a cart past their
cells.

Along with the Koran, a base official said books on such topics as "poetry,
fiction, animals, geology, nature, art and music" are available. While not
commenting on the specific books offered, officials said at least one detainee
has requested a copy of the Bible to read and the request was granted.

Detainee placement in and movement among the varying security levels depends on
the degree of his cooperation with interrogators, military officials said. A
"creature comfort" incentive program exists to motivate prisoners to cooperate:
extra time in an exercise yard, special meals or graduation to a cellblock of a
lower security level.

Cooperative prisoners are moved gradually from the highest security areas to the
lowest, where there are picnic tables, a volleyball court and the men are
allowed to mingle and pray with each other in white uniforms rather than the
standard-issue orange suits.

The movement from higher to lower security areas is "an operational decision
based on intelligence gathering," Gen. Miller said. "We move a fairly
significant number of people around. It's intended to encourage cooperation and
it's very successful.

"We work this every day on camp dynamics, where detainees are, where we should
move them, how to best help us prepare the environment for positive
interrogations," he said.

Asked whether the incentive program gets recalibrated, the general answered,
"every day" and explained how some prisoners recently were moved from lowest
security to highest despite cooperating with interrogators and providing
"enormously valuable" intelligence.

"It was a decision on our part to help accelerate the intelligence-gathering
process," he said.

Tension on the fence line

U.S. control of Guantanamo Bay began in 1898 when Marines seized it during the
Spanish-American War. Cuba achieved independence five years later and the United
States entered into a lease with Cuban leaders under an annual fee of $2,000 in
gold.

A 1934 treaty renewed the lease, granting the United States access unless the
lease is terminated with the consent of both countries. The treaty also gave
Cuba access through the 2.5-mile-wide bay on the island's southeastern edge.

Arguments over the 45 square miles of bay and the land around it began with the
1959 communist revolution in Cuba and the rise of Fidel Castro. U.S. officials
say Mr. Castro has cashed only one rent check during his 44 years in office.

Tension along the 17.4-mile fence line between the base and Cuba rose during the
U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and boiled over in 1962, when President
Kennedy announced the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. Tensions still exist,
even if only as a shadow of what they once were.

"There's still some mooning that goes on," said one U.S. soldier of the
interaction between Cubans manning guard towers on their side of the line and
Americans manning towers on the U.S. side.

In 1991, more than 34,000 Haitian refugees were held temporarily at the naval
base. Most recently, with U.S. forces arresting terrorism suspects in
Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks, Guantanamo was picked to house a new
sort of prison.

A philosophical question

The manner in which the United States handles the detainees and what ultimately
it decides will be their fate will determine "how future U.S. prisoners of war
will be treated," says retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, a 28-year veteran and
former judge advocate general of the Navy.

"There is a need for us to provide these prisoners with some sort of due process
as a demonstration of the way we think prisoners like this ought to be treated,"
said Adm. Hutson, now dean of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, N.H.

The question of what to do with terror suspects is more "philosophical than
legal or constitutional," he said. "History's going to judge us by our deeds."

The Bush administration refers to the prisoners as the worst of the worst
arrested in the war on terrorism. When the first batches were brought here early
in 2002, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
told reporters to "remember that these are very, very dangerous people."

However, the ongoing interrogation of the prisoners and their legal status as
indefinitely held "enemy combatants" has prompted criticism from some lawyers
and human rights groups.

The issue has surfaced in U.S. federal courts. On Thursday, a federal appeals
court in San Francisco ruled the prisoners should have access to lawyers and the
U.S. court system.

Another challenge brought in the District of Columbia has gone to the Supreme
Court.

"Those held at Guantanamo are not convicted terrorists; they're suspected," said
Kristine Huskey, a Washington lawyer hired by the families of 12 Kuwaiti
citizens among those held at Guantanamo.

On Nov. 10, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal filed by attorneys for
the Kuwaitis, nine Britons and two Australians among those detained.

The lawyers initially sued the Bush administration in U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia seeking basic legal rights for the detainees, including
an order of habeas corpus to determine if they were lawfully imprisoned.

But the D.C. court ruled it lacked jurisdiction, saying the detainees
technically were being held outside the sovereign territory of the United States
and the jurisdiction of its judicial system.

Should the Supreme Court grant the appeal to the ruling, the case will be sent
back to the D.C. court, which will then consider whether the detainees are being
held illegally.

However, the issue may be moot by then, as the Bush administration appears on
track to try the detainees by military tribunals held secretly here.

President Bush so far has designated six of the detainees to be eligible for a
tribunal. As of Thursday, the Pentagon had said two of those to be tried have
been provided with military lawyers.

The president personally made his position on the fate of the detainees clear
during a joint news conference in London with British Prime Minister Tony Blair
last month.

"These are illegal, noncombatants, picked up off of a battlefield," Mr. Bush
said. "They are being treated in a humane fashion. And we are sorting through
them on a case-by-case basis. There is a court procedure in place that will
allow them to be tried in fair fashion."

* * *


Chicago Tribune:

December 21, 2003

SOME COUNTS AGAINST TRANSLATOR DROPPED

By William C. Mann, Associated Press

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/
chi-0312210349dec21,1,4809347.story

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Air Force has dropped three counts in an espionage case
against a Syrian-born airman who worked as a translator at the Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, prison camp for terrorism suspects.

The lawyer for Senior Airman Ahmad al-Halabi, a supply clerk detailed to the
prison, said Saturday that when those charges were removed, "the gut of the case
was gone."

Dropped was the single count in the charge that accused al-Halabi of "aiding the
enemy," a capital offense. Also dropped were counts that dealt with e-mailing
information about Guantanamo detainees and committing espionage by transmitting
information to unauthorized recipients.

Al-Halabi still faces 17 charges filed against him after his arrest in July. He
spent nine months as an Arabic translator at the prison.

The remaining charges include other espionage counts, disobeying an order,
making false official statements, mishandling classified documents and lying on
a credit application.

He is being held at Travis Air Force in California, his home base, where his
court-martial will be held.

Air Force Lt. Gen. William Welser III, commander of the 18th Air Force at Scott
Air Force Base, Ill., the convening authority for al-Halabi's general court-
martial, gave no reason for his decision to drop the charges Friday.

Donald Rehkopf Jr., al-Halabi's civilian lawyer, said the impact of dropping the
charges was significant because it went at "the very gut charge of how he was
alleged to have done whatever it is they claim or think that he did."

"The common denominator in those three all involved his allegedly having sent e-
mails with classified materials in them. From day one we denied it ever
occurred," Rehkopf said from Rochester, N.Y.

Al-Halabi, a naturalized American, was arrested July 23 at Jacksonville Naval
Air Station in Florida at the start of a leave from Guantanamo, the first of
four service personnel to be arrested by investigators looking into possible
security breaches.

* * *


Los Angeles Times:

December 21, 2003

A FLAWED TERRORIST YARDSTICK

* The Justice Dept. tally of more than 280 suspects detained for prosecution
after Sept. 11 is inflated with dismissed and unrelated cases.

By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-
pittsburgh21dec21,1,2211339.story?coll=la-home-headlines

PITTSBURGH -- In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Ali Alubeidy was in the
cross hairs of the Justice Department, singled out as a potential terrorist by
no less than U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft.

In fact, he was guilty -- of paying off a corrupt bureaucrat to get a commercial
driver's license, including a permit to transport hazardous materials. His
sentence: three years' probation.

But the terrorism case against him never got off the ground. Prosecutors soon
realized he was not a terrorist or involved in any terrorist organization, and
even said so publicly.

To the Justice Department, however, Alubeidy, and a group of 19 other Middle
Eastern men caught up in the driver's license scam, still count. They are
included on a list of more than 280 cases that the department cites as evidence
that it is winning the war on terrorism.

The growing list has been regularly highlighted by Ashcroft and other Justice
Department officials in speeches and congressional testimony, and even by
President Bush. In an address to federal law enforcement officials on the eve of
the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush referred to the "more than 260
suspected terrorists" that the government has hauled to court.

In October, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Christopher Wray,
the Justice Department's criminal division chief, cited the growing number of
charges resulting from terrorism probes -- which then stood at 284 defendants --
as evidence that the department has "enjoyed key successes" in the anti-
terrorism war.

Last month, in a speech before a Justice Department liaison group for federal
attorneys, Ashcroft cited terrorism-related criminal charges against 286 people,
declaring "we have been successful."

But a Times review of a sampling of the cases behind the numbers, based in part
on internal Justice documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act,
paints a more ambiguous picture.

Although the report card largely has been used as a public-relations tool,
courts are starting to weigh in on the substantive aspects of how the department
classifies and treats perceived terrorists. Last week, a federal appeals court
in New York rebuked Bush's decision in May 2002 to declare Brooklyn-born gang
member Jose Padilla an "enemy combatant," and ordered that the government either
charge him with a crime or release him.

The department declined to provide a complete accounting of the terrorism-
related prosecutions that Ashcroft and others cite. A department spokesman,
Bryan Sierra, said officials do not maintain a single roster of cases, and that
the figure is compiled from many different sources.

The Times' request for government records on the cases turned up a highly
redacted accounting covering only about half the number that Ashcroft trumpets.
Some of those cases were on a list that the department produced in the months
after the Sept. 11 attacks in response to a lawsuit by civil liberties groups.

Sierra said the department has taken pains to be clear that the cases mentioned
derive from terrorism investigations, and don't necessarily involve terrorists
or people convicted of terrorism-related crimes. Publicizing the names "would be
prejudicial to those people whose cases do not rise" to the level of terrorism,
he said, adding that public information on the cases is available through the
courts and individual department news releases.

In his speeches and testimony, Ashcroft has homed in on the most notorious
cases, including that of Richard Reid, who was convicted of trying to blow up a
Paris-to-Miami flight with explosive-packed shoes in December 2001, and members
of suspected terrorist cells from Buffalo, N.Y., to Portland, Ore., where
defendants have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for providing material
support to Al Qaeda.

But the list obtained by The Times also includes two New Jersey men, operators
of small grocery stores, who were convicted of accepting hundreds of boxes of
stolen breakfast cereal, in a crime that occurred 16 months before the terrorist
hijackings.

Also included is a Somali who was convicted in federal district court in Boston
of operating an unlicensed money-transfer business, in which the judge rebuked
prosecutors for trying to have him sentenced as a terrorist.

The Bush administration subsequently removed the Somali man's name from a list
of suspected terrorism financiers, although he and a partner remain on the
Justice Department's list of terrorism-related prosecutions.

Justice officials have said gauging the number of people who have been
prosecuted as a result of terrorism-related investigations is a useful tool in
analyzing the department's performance and informing the public, regardless of
whether they turn out to be terrorists.

But critics say the approach misleads the public about the kind of threat that
is being extinguished. Their suspicions were further fueled by a Syracuse
University study this month showing that the median sentence for defendants in
international terrorism cases won by the department is two weeks.

"The masses of Americans, they probably think, if Bush says they are suspected
terrorists, they probably are. They are not going to question that," says Lee
Markovitz, a Pittsburgh attorney who represented Alubeidy, the man put on
probation for paying a bribe to get a driver's license.

"It's easy to be a suspected terrorist," Markovitz adds.

For the defendants, the label can be hard to shake, however, and the
consequences painful and sometimes devastating.

Alubeidy, 36, and a friend from Iraq operated a used-car sale and repair
business in Pittsburgh. Shortly after their names surfaced in the local media in
connection with the Sept. 11 investigation, their garage was destroyed by a
fire.

At about the same time, a neighbor claimed that Alubeidy stole her cable
television signal, and he spent a night in jail. His attorney views the
detention as an act of bigotry, triggered by the terrorism-related publicity.
Alubeidy was threatened with deportation, and the possibility of leaving behind
his American wife and infant child, and he still gets visits from the FBI
inquiring about his activities.

The FBI also investigated the garage fire as a possible hate-crime, and referred
the matter to the Justice Department in Washington, which considers the case
still open but has not taken any action more than two years later.

In an interview, Alubeidy professes affection for his adopted homeland. "I love
this country. I have my own house here. I have my kids here. We have the
business here," he says. "Why you love this country? If you have something here,
you love this country. I feel Pittsburgh now is my city. It is my home."

His journey into the American criminal justice system began with a bad back, and
a customer at the shop who said he knew a way Alubeidy could get a commercial
driver's license.

Alubeidy had injured his back while working as a tire changer. A former truck
driver in the Iraqi army, he viewed a commercial driver's license as a way to
make some money with less physical exertion than his repair work required. He
did not know English well enough to pass the test legally, so "he got the short
cut," said his attorney, Markovitz, noting that in some countries, paying tips
or other under-the-table consideration to get official licenses and other favors
is standard operating procedure.

Alubeidy paid the middleman $600 to get him a license fraudulently. His partner
got one too, bartering free repair work in lieu of a cash payment. Alubeidy
started telling his friends, and in the close-knit refugee world, word of the
availability of the licenses quickly spread around the country.

"It was about chasing the American dream," said Sam Reich, a defense lawyer here
who represented another defendant in the case, who worked at a convenience store
in Texas pumping gas.

Pennsylvania state authorities began investigating the scam in 2000. After Sept.
11, with emotions running high, they tipped off the FBI, which launched a
nationwide roundup two weeks after the attacks. They arrested 20 suspects from
seven states. Like Alubeidy, who had spent five years in a camp in Saudi Arabia
after surrendering to allied troops at the beginning of the 1991 Persian Gulf
War, they were mainly political refugees from Iraq.

One of the defendants, Fadhil Al-Khaledy, 33, of Detroit, had gotten one of the
licenses because his Michigan license had been suspended after a series of
speeding tickets. He runs a cleaning company, and needed a way to get from job
to job.

"I was in the beginning of my life, and my business. I had to drive. I was
driving without a license," Al-Khaledy, who became an American citizen in early
2001, said in an interview.

The business was starting to get off the ground. He got married, in a family
ceremony in Jordan, around the time of the Sept. 11 attacks. On the way home, he
was hauled off a plane in Chicago by FBI agents, and jailed, ultimately for 35
days. He recalls thinking: "I cannot be here, being treated like this, because
of a fake driver's license."

Nonetheless, Ashcroft highlighted the arrests in testimony Sept. 25, 2001,
before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Today I can report to you that our
investigation has uncovered several individuals, including individuals who may
have links to the hijackers, who fraudulently have obtained, or attempted to
obtain, hazardous material transportation licenses," according to a copy of his
testimony, on the Justice Department Web site.

It was a tantalizing theory. But federal prosecutors here quickly determined
that none of the individuals were involved in any terrorist activities. "We said
publicly, beginning shortly after they were charged and we had a chance to look
into it, that they were not terrorists and not connected to any terrorist
organization," said a spokesman for U.S. Atty. Mary Beth Buchanan, whose office
prosecuted the case.

Eventually, all but one of the defendants, who had a prior assault record, got
probation; none were believed to have been deported. A former license examiner
for the Pennsylvania transportation department who was deemed the brains behind
the illegal operation drew 18 months. Alubeidy's friend and business partner,
Mohammed Alibrahimi, recently finished 100 hours of community service imposed as
part of his sentence, by shelving boxes at a local food bank.

Tom Farrell, a former assistant U.S. attorney here who represented one of the
defendants, said that local prosecutors have told him informally that "they
would not have prosecuted this federally before Sept. 11." Farrell was so
incensed by how the case was being handled that he asked the judge for a gag
order against Ashcroft prohibiting him from further commenting on it in public.
The motion was denied.

Sitting on a stool in a chilly, cinderblock garage, puffing on a cigar given to
him by a customer, Alubeidy said he is trying hard to put the affair behind him,
in part by becoming invisible.

He has a new shop, in a new location, under a new business name, which he does
not want disclosed for fear of further reprisal. It is an ethnic name, but one
designed to blend into the Italian American neighborhood where the shop is
located.

"We are hiding behind this name now," he said.

* * *


December 20, 2003

U.S. DROPS 3 CHARGES AGAINST GUANTANAMO TRANSLATOR

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military has dropped three charges against a
U.S. Air Force translator who worked at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp that
holds al Qaeda and Taliban suspects, but six charges, including espionage,
remain in place, a military spokesman said on Saturday.

Senior Airman Ahmad al Halabi of Detroit, Michigan, was arrested on July 23 and
accused of carrying jail maps, letters and other sensitive documents away from
Guantanamo.

Air Force spokesman Larry Clavette said one charge of espionage against al
Halabi was dropped, as well as an allegation that he aided the enemy and
wrongfully e-mailed detainee information.

Charges still pending against al Halabi, Clavette said, include espionage,
failure to obey an order, retaining documents without authority, making false
official statements and executing a fraudulent credit application scheme.

"A number of very significant charges remain referred against him. The
government fully intends to prosecute," Clavette said.

Halabi, 23, has denied the charges.

Clavette said it would be "inappropriate" to discuss the specific reasons the
military dropped the three charges.

Halabi, who is of Syrian descent, is expected to be tried at Travis Air Force
Base in northern California next year.

Halabi worked for nine months as a translator at Guantanamo. He is one of four
men, including another Arabic translator and a Muslim chaplain, charged in
connection with their work at Guantanamo, the U.S. military base on Cuba.

* * *


Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

December 20, 2003

Yee calls being swept up in spy furor 'a harrowing ordeal'

By Claudia Rowe, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Reporter

After being detained in a military brig on suspicion of espionage, Capt. James
Yee, an Army chaplain who was held for 76 days without being formally charged,
spoke out yesterday during a homecoming visit with his family.

His comments were notable for their distinct lack of rancor.

Yee, 35, was stopped in Jacksonville, Fla., in September after leaving
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he had been stationed as a spiritual counselor for
prisoners accused of links to al-Qaida. Federal agents said they found
classified sketches of the military prison in his bags, and he was placed in
solitary confinement in South Carolina.

Yee was never officially accused, but upon his release Nov. 25, he was slapped
with a string of charges, including failure to obey orders and storing
pornography on his government computer, although none approached treason. A
preliminary hearing was postponed after government officials said they needed
more time to determine whether documents found in Yee's luggage were, in fact,
classified. In the meantime, Yee is on a 30-day leave.

Touching down at Sea-Tac Airport after spending several days with relatives in
San Francisco, Yee appeared relieved. He lifted his young daughter into air,
gave her a kiss and embraced supporters who had gathered, holding hand-lettered
signs and banners proclaiming, "Justice for Yee!"

Afterward, he described the past three months as "a harrowing ordeal" and said
he was pleased to be home with his family, who live in Olympia. Yee formerly was
stationed at Fort Lewis.

"I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, a sharp contrast to where I was
sleeping three weeks ago," he said with a slight smile.

The Army maintains that Yee was carrying classified information when he left the
base at Guantanamo, and its investigation is continuing. In such a case, said a
spokesman, Lt. Col. Bill Costello, "It's not unusual to put someone in pretrial
confinement."

But Yee's supporters among the American Islamic community believe his treatment
was based solely on his ethnicity and religion.

"Nobody in history has been held for 76 days in solitary for the innocuous
charge of mishandling documents," said Samia El-Moslimany, of the Seattle
chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. That would never have
happened, she said, had Yee been a white Christian, as opposed to an Islamic
Chinese American.

Yee's wife, Huda Suboh, was equally indignant.

"I have believed from the beginning that the arrest of my husband was wrong and
unjust," she said. "I am convinced the Army is acting in a cold and callous
manner to hurt my husband and by extension, his family. If the military's goal
is to railroad my husband, by the grace of Allah, they will fail."

Speaking by phone from home in suburban Washington, D.C., Yee's lawyer, Eugene
Fidell, vociferously disputed the Army's assertions. He has described Yee's
luggage as containing nothing more that two small notebooks, a typewritten page
and a term paper on Syria he wrote for a college course on international
affairs.

"To this moment, the government has been unable to confirm that anything
connected to the case is classified," he said. "This is a black page in the
history of military justice."

Meanwhile, he said, his client's reputation has been permanently damaged.

"I am struggling with how Yousef will ever be able to shake off the stigma that
arises from being publicly branded in those horrendous terms," he said, using
Yee's Muslim name.

He suggested that Army officials had been operating in a post-Sept. 11 panic, a
hyper-vigilant state of "shooting first and asking questions later."

Fidell, who had instructed his client to answer no questions from the media,
said he expected Yee to return to service as an Army chaplain after the case is
resolved. As his lawyer spoke, Yee played with his daughter's hair, fixing her
barrettes and straightening her dress. His benign expression never varied.

Fidell said he had seen much the same behavior visiting Yee in the brig. At one
point, the two rose to shake hands and Fidell, hearing a clanging sound,
realized that his client was in leg irons. The lawyer said his anger mounted,
but Yee, he said, always remained calm.

"I saw a man that was plainly at peace with himself," Fidell said.

* * *


Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

December 20, 2003

MUSLIM CHAPLAIN ACCUSED OF MISHANDLING DOCUMENTS RETURNS HOME

By Melanthia Mitchell, Associated Press

SEATAC, Wash. (AP) -- A Muslim chaplain formerly stationed at Fort Lewis
returned to Washington state Friday for the first time since his arrest on
accusations of mishandling classified information from the U.S. prison at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Army Capt. James Yee was greeted by his wife, Huda Suboh; their 3-year-old
daughter, Sarah; and about 15 other supporters when he arrived at Seattle-Tacoma
International Airport. They attended a welcoming party at a nearby hotel before
heading to their home in Olympia.

"This is tremendous, very, very tremendous," Yee told supporters. "The support
continues to be needed as the legal aspects of my situation are still ongoing
and I still face some charges."

Yee, 35, is accused of mishandling classified information -- notes found by
Customs officials when they searched him on Sept. 10 at the Jacksonville, Fla.,
airport.

He is also charged with disobeying an order, making a false statement, adultery
and storing pornography on his government computer.

A preliminary hearing in Fort Benning, Ga., was postponed earlier this month
until Jan. 19 to allow the Army time to determine whether documents requested by
Yee's defense are classified.

Yee's attorneys say they want to see the documents taken from Yee as he returned
from Guantanamo, where he worked with detainees captured during fighting in
Afghanistan.

The defense has said the documents include two small notebooks, a typewritten
page and a term paper on Syria that Yee wrote for a college course on
international affairs.

Yee was investigated as part of an espionage probe at Guantanamo but was never
charged with spying.

"I'm very, very happy and I hope all of this ends as soon as possible," Yee's
wife said after a news conference. "I'm happy but there's still a lot ahead of
us. It is a great, great test for us."

The family planned to celebrate daughter Sarah's fourth birthday this weekend.

Advocates contend the charges against Yee are unfounded.

"We really feel that he is getting inequitable treatment because he is an
American Muslim and a Chinese-American," said Samia El-Moslimany, a spokeswoman
with the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "He is a career military man and
his career has been completely damaged."

Yee's attorney, Eugene R. Fidell, characterized the case Friday as "a waste of
time and effort."

"I think the military justice system would be a lot better off without this
case," he said.

The lawyer said he considered the decision to grant Yee leave to see his family
"a good sign."

Government officials have said they did not target Yee because of his ethnicity
or religion.

Yee, a 1990 West Point graduate who left the military for four years to study
Arabic and Islam in Syria, returned as a chaplain and counseled some of the
Guantanamo prison's 660 detainees from more than 40 countries.

Yee noted he flew to Seattle from San Francisco, where he had visited an uncle
and a cousin and had a chance to see the Golden Gate Bridge.

Seeing the bridge, he said, "was a symbol of bridging the gap, bridging people
from all different cultures, from all different religions, from all different
races. All of that has been apparent in this groundswell of support."

* * *

Seattle Times:

December 20, 2003

HOMECOMING TAKES CHAPLAIN AWAY FROM MILITARY STORM

By Janet I. Tu and Ray Rivera, Seattle Times staff reporters

The convoluted odyssey of Muslim Army Chaplain James Yee took one turn yesterday
that was welcomed by his family and supporters: He came home.

Yee, whose wife and daughter live in Olympia, flew into Seattle-Tacoma
International Airport yesterday afternoon to greetings from about two dozen
supporters wearing "Justice for Capt. Yee" buttons and carrying welcome-home
signs. He walked into the baggage-claim area to cheers of "Allahu Akbar" ("God
is the greatest") and hugged his 4-year-old daughter, Sarah, and his wife, Huda
Suboh.

"This is tremendous," Yee said later. "It's really, really, really tremendous."

Yee, an Army captain formerly stationed at Fort Lewis, was arrested Sept. 10 on
suspicion of espionage and sedition after federal agents said he was found with
information on detainees and the prison facilities at Guantánamo Bay, where he
ministered to captured Taliban and al-Qaida suspects. Yee was held in prison for
76 days of solitary confinement awaiting trial.

He was released Nov. 25 after being charged with six considerably lesser
offenses, including making a false official statement, mishandling classified
documents, committing adultery and storing pornography on his government-issued
computer.

His hearing has been delayed several times, first after military prosecutors
discovered they themselves may have mishandled classified documents. Then on
Dec. 9, only a day after his hearing began, officials granted a 42-day delay for
prosecutors to determine exactly what information, if any, found in Yee's
possession is classified. His hearing is scheduled to restart Jan. 19 in Fort
Benning, Ga., where he is stationed.

Supporters, wearing yellow ribbons and surrounded by red, white and blue
balloons, filled a hotel meeting room for a news conference and reception
shortly after Yee's arrival.

Yee, who was granted a leave to visit his family, thanked supporters for
bolstering him during "this harrowing ordeal." But, he warned, "the legal
situation continues to be ongoing."

Yee's wife, Suboh, said: "We have been looking forward to this since September."

At the advice of his lawyer, Yee did not take questions or talk about his case.

Two sides to the story

Yee's arrest has gained national attention. Some saw it as symptomatic of
security breaches at Guantánamo Bay, where 660 prisoners from 44 countries are
being held. Yee is one of four people, including an Army colonel and two Arabic
translators, charged with breaches at the base.

Others saw Yee, who also goes by the name Yousef Yee, as a victim of racial and
anti-Muslim targeting by the government. One of a handful of Muslim chaplains in
the armed services, the West Point graduate had become one of the most visible
spokesmen for Muslims in the military after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,
calling for tolerance in the ranks and instructing people that Islam was a
religion of peace.

The most serious of the charges Yee faces is for allegedly making a false
official statement to investigators, which carries a maximum penalty of five
years in prison under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the criminal code
for the armed forces.

Yee also is accused of committing adultery with another officer at Guantánamo
Bay, an offense punishable by up to one year in jail.

The remaining violations, including allegedly transporting classified material
without proper security containers, each carry a maximum sentence of two years.

Even if Yee is cleared of all the charges, some wonder whether what had been a
stellar military career can be salvaged.

"I am struggling with how Yousef will ever be able to shake off the stigma of
being publicly branded in such horrific terms," said Yee's civilian attorney
Eugene Fidell, who spoke to the gathering via a conference call.

Yee's hearing began Dec. 8 at Fort Benning. The Article 32 hearing, the military
counterpart of a grand jury, will determine if there is enough evidence to refer
the case against Yee to a general court-martial.

42-day delay

During two days of testimony, prosecutors focused mainly on the adultery and
pornography charges. Navy Lt. Karyn Wallace, 36, now based in San Diego,
testified that while she was posted at Guantánamo as a health-and-safety
officer, she had "maybe 20" sexual encounters with Yee, according to The
Associated Press. Wallace was also reportedly given immunity from prosecution in
exchange for her testimony.

Then on Dec. 9, the military commander overseeing the case granted a 42-day
delay so the Army can review documents that Yee's lawyers requested.

The military is doing so to determine what information in the notes and material
in Yee's possession is classified and why it's classified, said Lt. Col. Bill
Costello, a spokesman for U.S. Southern Command, which oversees all U.S.
military operations in Central and South America and the Caribbean.

"There is no question that the documents in (Yee's) possession contained
classified information," Costello said earlier yesterday. "The delay is
necessary because to turn this information over to the defense, it needs to be
properly categorized and labeled as to what is unclassified and what is secret."

Fidell said yesterday that his team had pointed out in October this was a step
the military needed to take and accused prosecutors of not having "done their
homework that brought us to this place.... It's sort of central to the case."

Still, Fidell added, "I think the delay's probably a good thing because it
affords the government time to take another look at this case and decide, as I
believe, that it should be shut down."

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com

Ray Rivera: 206-464-2926 or rayrivera@seattletimes.com

* * *


Boston Globe:

December 20, 2003

Editorial
PRINCIPLES OVER POWER

TWO FEDERAL appeals courts this week reminded Americans of a treasure they have
inherited and of their obligation to preserve it from fanatical terrorists and
the panic that terrorist acts may incite. The treasure is the Constitution's
tensile web of protections for the individual against the danger of unchecked
state power.

In ruling that President Bush must either release the terrorism suspect Jose
Padilla, a US citizen, or grant him a trial in a civilian court, the US Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York found that "the president does not
have the power under Article II of the Constitution to detain as an enemy
combatant an American citizen seized on American soil outside a zone of combat."

The majority opinion cited as the law prohibiting Padilla's detention in a
military brig the 1971 Nondetention Act passed by Congress to ensure that the
shameful roundup of Japanese-Americans during World War II would not be
repeated. Since Article II of the Constitution obliges Bush to faithfully
execute the laws passed by Congress, the court concluded, he exceeded his powers
by denying Padilla the due process to which he is entitled in a civilian court.

Implicit in the judges' reasoning is a steadfast respect for the conservative
wisdom enshrined in the Constitution. By concluding that the president must cede
to the legislative authority of Congress, the judges balanced institutional
powers as the authors of the Constitution intended: to prevent excessive
concentration of power in one person or a single branch of government.

This judicial determination to uphold the Constitution's anxiety about the rule
of men replacing the rule of law was even more evident in what the US Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco said about the 650 people
currently held as "unlawful combatants" at a US military base at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba.

Recognizing "the unprecedented challenges that affect the United States'
national security interests today," the court nevertheless said: "It is the
obligation of the judicial branch to ensure the preservation of our
constitutional values and to prevent the executive branch from running roughshod
over the rights of citizens and aliens alike."

The judges in San Francisco found there was no legal precedent for holding the
detainees indefinitely without trial on Guantanamo, that the detentions there
are undemocratic and appear at odds with international law.

But it was in defending the Constitution against Bush's arrogation of power to
himself that the judges did their part in defending America against one of the
consequences of terrorism.

* * *


December 20, 2003

JEFFERSON FOUND GUILTY IN MOCK TRIAL

By Cain Burdeau, Associated Press Writer

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/
sns-ap-louisiana-purchase-trial,0,922557.story

NEW ORLEANS -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia nodded, agreeing with his
fellow jurists that Thomas Jefferson was indeed guilty of prolonging slavery,
deporting American Indians and discriminating against the French in Louisiana.

Scalia joined federal and state judges to hear the testimony of Jefferson and
French ruler Napoleon Bonaparte in a mock trial to review lingering legal and
historic questions about the Louisiana Purchase.

New Orleans caps a yearlong celebration of the bicentennial of the mammoth land
acquisition with a host of events Saturday.

Friday evening, the verdict ran like lightning through the hushed audience in
the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Jefferson's lawyer jumped to his feet outraged, and demanded an appeal.

Napoleon flashed a grin and a thumbs-up sign after being acquitted of abandoning
the peoples in the Louisiana province when he struck the land deal with
Jefferson in 1803.

On Dec. 20, 1803, the American flag was hoisted in the Place d'Armes, now
Jackson Square.

Friday was the final act of this three-part yearlong trial organized by Cajun
Francophone lawyers. It was performed mostly in French and also celebrated the
movement to preserve the French language in the United States.

"I think this trial proves that the French language in Louisiana is alive and
well," said John Hernandez III, one of the main organizers of the trial.

As the representative of the 5th Circuit on the Supreme Court, Scalia was
invited to attend the "proces simule," as it was termed in French.

"It's gratifying to see that we're remembering the native cultures of the time
of the Purchase," said Warren Perrin, head of the Council for the Development of
French in Louisiana, a pivotal organization for Cajuns.

"Just to get to see a justice of the Supreme Court, state court judges and
federal judges interested in something like this is hard to describe," said
Fortune' Dugan, a New Orleans lawyer in the audience.

Scalia didn't utter a word during the trial, and agreed with a nod -- after
consultation with the bench -- to the verdict: Jefferson guilty, Napoleon
innocent.

The main contention in this legal play was that the development of the United
States has often come with a price: The abused.

Jefferson, played by a lawyer-turned-actor in wig and breeches, took the stand
first.

He was interrogated by representatives of the American Indians, black and white
Creoles, Spanish and Acadians -- the people who called the swamps and pine
forests of the Mississippi River valley home in 1803.

For the Indians, the argument ran, the territories the United States occupied
after the Purchase -- the Great Plains -- became the land for reservations.

"Did you ever hear of the 'Trail of Tears' which was the trail of hardship and
death over which the Cherokee Indians from Georgia were marched by U.S. soldiers
at gunpoint one thousand miles to Indian territory in the Louisiana Purchase?"
Jefferson was asked.

"I have heard rumors of that, but it did not happen during my administration,"
the president replied -- astonished.

For black slaves, the fertile Mississippi River valley -- with its soil so ripe
for cotton and tobacco -- turned into plantation country.

Their representative sneered at Jefferson: "You say you wanted to abolish
slavery, and yet, when you died, were not your slaves sold off at auction to pay
your debts?"

Jefferson conceded: "Yes, I am sorry to admit. As I grew old, I sometimes asked
myself whether my country was the better for my having lived at all."

In his defense, Jefferson added: "I did what I could. I always believed and
proclaimed that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their
creator with certain inalienable rights, that liberty is among these rights."

The Cajuns asked: "Why do you believe that the French language had to be stamped
out?"

Replied Jefferson: "Well, I will quote here a great American, Theodore
Roosevelt, who shares with me a place of honor on the national monument of Mount
Rushmore: 'There is room for but one language in this country, and that is the
English language, for we must assure that the crucible turns out Americans and
not some random dwellers in a polyglot boarding house.'"

* * *


Toronto Globe and Mail:

December 20, 2003 - Page A1

CSIS, RCMP ALERTED U.S. ABOUT ARAR, POWELL SAYS

By Paul Koring

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20031220/ARAR20//

WASHINGTON -- Both the RCMP and CSIS fingered Maher Arar to U.S. anti-terrorist
agencies, Foreign Minister Bill Graham says he was told by U.S. Secretary of
State Colin Powell.

Mr. Graham, who asked for and has now received an accounting of Canadian
involvement from Mr. Powell, also said his U.S. counterpart had confirmed there
was no Canadian involvement in the White House decision to deport Mr. Arar
secretly to Syria, where he was tortured during 10 months in captivity before
being released in October.Wayne Easter, then Canadian solicitor-general,
admitted last month that Canada was among the countries that provided
information to the United States on Mr. Arar, but he did not say who provided
the intelligence.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service had previously said it had nothing to
do with the arrest of Mr. Arar. CSIS director Ward Elcock told the Security
Intelligence Review Committee the service was not involved in the Ottawa man's
arrest or removal to his country of birth on suspicion of terrorism, a
spokeswoman for the committee said.

Mr. Powell telephoned Mr. Graham on Dec. 2 to provide the account.

Mr. Graham had asked Mr. Powell in early November to furnish a full accounting
of Canadian involvement.

"Both [CSIS and the RCMP] provided information to the U.S.," Mr. Graham said.
But no Canadians were informed or consulted about the decision to deport Mr.
Arar to Syria.

"They made the decision to do that entirely on their own," he said, adding that
he has accepted Mr. Powell's assurances that the deportation decision was made
by U.S. officials alone. The two also agreed to work out a set of protocols to
avoid a repeat of the Arar case, which caused widespread outrage in Canada, Mr.
Graham said.

The role, if any, of the RCMP and CSIS during Mr. Arar's 10 days of
interrogation by U.S. anti-terrorist and immigration agents remains murky.

Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen who was born in Syria, was arrested at New York 's
Kennedy Airport on Sept. 26, 2002. He was travelling to Canada on a Canadian
passport.

Canadian diplomats at first were unaware that he had been detained.

An RCMP officer eventually informed Foreign Affairs officials in Ottawa of Mr.
Arar's detention, Mr. Graham said earlier this week in a telephone interview.

During his detention in New York, Mr. Arar says, he was confronted with a lease
he signed in 1997 in Ottawa. It was apparently given to U.S. police or
intelligence agencies by their Canadian counterparts.

The five-year-old lease documents were witnessed by Abdullah Almalki, a man the
United States regards as an al-Qaeda suspect. Mr. Arar says he was friends with
Mr. Almalki's brother and that Mr. Almalki had signed as a witness on the lease
because the brother was busy.

No account has been given of how, or when, the lease got into the possession of
the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation or of immigration agents who were
interrogating Mr. Arar.

Mr. Graham said officials are working on a protocol to prevent recurrences.

At least one preliminary meeting has been held, but hammering out a deal may be
difficult. For instance, although Mr. Arar was entitled to -- and received --
consular visits by Canadian diplomats, Canadians held at Guantanamo Bay fall
outside all normal international legal protections.

Nor is it clear that the White House is willing to give Ottawa any ironclad
guarantees that there will not be similar secret deportations of dual nationals.

* * *


The Guardian (UK):

December 20, 2003

'SECRET' DETAINEE TELLS OF JAIL DESPAIR

Terror suspect held for two years says he suffered mental breakdown that led to
transfer to Broadmoor from high-security prison

By Sarah Boseley, The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1110866,00.html

A man detained in Britain without charge or trial for two years on the basis of
secret evidence he can neither know about nor challenge has told of his despair
at his treatment under anti-terrorist legislation.

Exactly two years after he was arrested at his family home in the early hours
and taken to Belmarsh high-security prison, Mahmoud Abu Rideh is the first of 14
detainees held on suspicion of terrorism to speak out publicly, through a letter
sent to the Guardian.

In it, he tells of his horror at his arrest, his humiliation in prison and the
deterioration of his mental health. He has now been moved to the high-security
Broadmoor psychiatric hospital.

The home secretary, David Blunkett, says the detainees are all suspected
international terrorists with links to al-Qaida or related groups and that the
anti-terrorist legislation under which they are held, passed in the wake of the
September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, is essential to safeguard the
public.

Human rights groups, however, have condemned detentions based on secret evidence
without a criminal trial. On Thursday, the privy counsellors review committee, a
cross-party group of MPs set up by Mr Blunkett, which spent 18 months reviewing
the act, called for it to be scrapped.

Mr Blunkett alleges Mr Abu Rideh has been involved with associates of Osama bin
Laden and was a fundraiser for terrorist purposes. Mr Abu Rideh, a Palestinian
who denies the allegations, says in his letter to the Guardian that he hates
terrorism and that he was arrested without warning or explanation at his home in
Surrey on December 17 2001, two months after the 9/11 attacks.

"The British security services arrested me at 5.30 in the morning. They broke
the door while I am sleeping and scared my children - I have five children
between the ages of three years and nine years." He was taken straight to
Belmarsh prison in south-east London, with no access to a lawyer.

"At 7 o'clock in the morning they told me that you are going to stay all your
life in Belmarsh. There is a unit inside it, it is like a prison in the prison.
They put me alone in a small room where you face bad treatment and racism and
humiliation and biting and swearing.

"They prevented us from going to Friday prayers and every 24 hours there is only
one hour walk in front of the cells and half an hour walking inside a cage. You
do not see sun. You cannot tell whether it is night or day. Every thing is
dark."

Mr Abu Rideh claims his experiences since his arrest are an indictment of
Britain. "Is this the civilisation of London? Is this Europe civilisation in the
21st century?" It was a month before he was allowed to call a lawyer and six
months before he saw his wife and children.

Seventeen men have been detained under emergency measures passed since September
11. The introduction of the Anti-terrorism Crime and Security Act meant Britain
had to suspend its obligations under the European human rights convention, which
guarantees the right to liberty.

The act covers only foreign nationals and allows the home secretary to detain
them in high-security prisons indefinitely. The detainees have the right to
leave the UK at any time. Two have done so and are fighting an appeal from
abroad. One has been removed from the UK under other legislation.

Others are refugees or asylum seekers and the government acknowledges it cannot
deport them because they could be in danger in their home country. Lawyers for
10 of the men have lodged appeals against their detention. In October, the
Special Immigration Appeals Commission upheld the home secretary's decision to
detain them after hearings where much of the evidence was given in private.

Mr Abu Rideh, who lived in Pakistan and Afghanistan after leaving Palestine, was
well known in the Islamic community for his charitable activities, including
setting up schools and digging wells, which may have led him into contact with
extremists. But, say his lawyers, his voluble personality meant he was open
about his work and the people he met.

He had a history of mental illness before he was arrested. In his Guardian
letter he says that in Belmarsh "my mental health became worse and worse and
they moved me to [Broadmoor] where they put the most dangerous criminals in
Britain - people who commit crimes like murder and rape of children".

Amnesty International's UK director, Kate Allen, said yesterday: "The home
secretary has created something close to a Guantanamo Bay in our own backyard."
The cases of Mr Abu Rideh and the other 13 detainees were in defiance of basic
human rights.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said she could not comment, but said the
detainees would be held under the same conditions as all other Belmarsh
prisoners.

* * *


The Guardian (UK):

December 20, 2003

Comment

ONLY DISCONNECT
It's official: there is no link between cause and effect in our crazy world

By AL Kennedy

Now, as we all know, years of flag-burnings, drug use, Anglican gay love discos
and long-term exposure to the records of Billy Bragg cause the leftist brain to
warp irrevocably. This cerebral degradation can cause brief, incoherent bursts
of precognition, which is why a few weirdoes and dissenters were able to predict
that, after the declaration of War Against Evil and the invasion of Iraq, the
world would become hugely unstable and a great many people would die in
grotesque ways. But that is the only reason they got it right.

Just because one event follows another, it doesn't mean one causes the other.
Which is why it would be ludicrous to link resistance to the occupation of Iraq
with the occupation of Iraq. And we shouldn't link the US throwing its weight
around like a drunk sailor at an Amish wedding with turmoil in North Korea,
South Korea, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Bali, the Philippines, Taiwan,
Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Russia, Georgia - oh, just pick a name in your atlas,
if it's not right now it soon will be.

But there are no links. So the Pentagon suddenly takes an interest in the
numbers of dead Iraqi Muslims - so what? There is no connection between the
Pentagon and the dead. Take Riad Khalas Abdallah, for example - one minute he
was 25 years old and driving along in Kirkuk in an unarmed way, the next he was
dead. This had nothing to do with the US troops who shot at him. Muslims die
very easily, they are delicate and can blow up at any time - but this isn't
because of anything. They're just made that way. You simply have to bulldoze
their homes, concentrate them in secured areas and hope. Every Iraqi in Awja is
much safer now it's razor wired shut, and look at the long-term joy those walls
are bringing Gaza.

It's wisest to lock up individuals, too. So Algerian lieutenant Benamar Benatta
has been in a New York prison for 26 months and counting, even though the FBI
admits he's not a terrorist. Benatta will eventually be deported, which brings
us to another link you shouldn't make.

When the US secretly deports Canadian citizen Maher Arar to Syria, it's not
because prisoners are known to be tortured there. And it's a coincidence when he
happens to end up being tortured. And a complete fluke that US companies export
"crime control" equipment to regimes known to torture systematically. Torture is
not US policy.

Which is why you shouldn't link it to claims that British Muslim Moazzam Begg
(currently held in Guantanamo Bay) was tortured to produce his "confession" of
James Bond-style skulduggery. And you shouldn't link that to the recent
appearance of pensioner Fred Korematsu at the US supreme court. Fred was awarded
the Medal of Freedom for his attempts to resist the mass internment of thousands
of innocent Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor and now he's filing a brief on
behalf of detainees in Guantanamo Bay - who can say why?

You also shouldn't link: a) Draconian suppression of US dissent by hardline
police chiefs like Miami's John Timoney, the FBI and private security companies
with Republican funding; b) "embedding" of Republican journalists with police
departments during anti-war demonstrations; c) Cheney and Halliburton kickbacks;
d) Perle and Boeing kickbacks; e) the epidemic introduction of dodgy Diebold
voting software before the next presidential elections; f) the Universal
National Service Act 2003. If you do link them you'll just get this queasy, deja
vu, Nazi feeling and have to lie down.

And there is no Nazi link with George Bush, grandson of one of the Reich's
bankers, now overseeing Operation Iron Hammer - the charming revival of a
Luftwaffe codename for the attempted crushing of the Iraqi resistance. And don't
link George's famous dodging of national service, the last time it was all the
rage, with any trouble he might have relating to (non-Wehrmacht) military types,
leading him to defraud them of benefits, put them in the way of death and
amputation, disappear their casualties, embarrass them with premature victory
banners, jazz up his foreign trips using fake Thanksgiving photo ops involving a
"model" turkey dinner - perhaps because a real one would have been too heavy and
caused George's arms to shake. Lord knows, that's the kind of heart-breaking
distress you wouldn't want to force on anyone.

And don't ever, ever link George with Tony, with (at best) using intelligence
data the way goats use a fondue set and with Rumsfeld's immortal description of
just where those WMD's are - "They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and
east, west, south and north somewhat."

Remember - life is chaos. The fewer the links, the greater the joy.

* * *


Sydney Morning Herald:

December 19, 2003

HICKS DILEMMA: PLEAD GUILTY OR STAY AT GUANTANAMO BAY INDEFINITELY

By Marian Wilkinson, Herald Correspondent in New York

David Hicks will be under intense pressure to make a plea bargain or risk being
detained in Guantanamo Bay indefinitely, his Australian lawyer believes.

After spending five days with Mr Hicks at the US military prison, Stephen Kenny
concluded: "If a deal is struck that is reasonable and acceptable, then I
presume we will go to a military commission. [However], if no arrangement is
reached, David Hicks will be simply moved back down the list, and he may or may
not come before a military commission some time in the future."

US and Australian lawyers say Mr Hicks may be offered a deal early next year if
he is willing to plead guilty to charges that may include conspiring to train
with others to carry out a terrorist act in breach of the laws of war.

Mr Kenny and Mr Hicks's Pentagon-appointed lawyer, Major Michael Mori, are the
first defence lawyers to meet any Guantanamo Bay prisoner since the US detained
more than 600 men and boys and took them to the base from Afghanistan two years
ago. All are suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters.

Mr Kenny said Mr Hicks had not killed or injured any US soldier or civilian in
Afghanistan. He denied reports that Mr Hicks had threatened to kill a US guard
and tried to slip his handcuffs when first detained.

"Those things are untrue," he told reporters in New York on Wednesday, at a
press conference hampered by Pentagon-imposed censorship rules. Major Mori had
orders to make no comment.

Mr Kenny and Major Mori met the prosecution lawyers working on the case against
Mr Hicks.

Asked to describe the Guantanamo Bay prison, Mr Kenny said it was a "physical
and moral black hole" as well as a legal one. But under the agreement with the
Pentagon that allowed him to see Mr Hicks, Mr Kenny could say very little about
what he saw at the base. He did not see any other detainee.

David Hicks is one of just six Guantanamo Bay detainees selected by for trial by
special military commission.

Mr Kenny did not believe Mr Hicks would get a full and fair trail if his case
was heard by a military commission, and argued that Saddam Hussein "is going to
be afforded a trial that represents a fairer system of justice to what David
Hicks will receive".

* * *


VOA:

19 December 19, 2003

LAWYERS FOR SAUDI DETAINEES IN GUANTANAMO
REQUEST MORE INFORMATION ABOUT PRISONERS

By Laurie Kassman

http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=069FBB7E-8905-4A09-B6BEE97A9855382D

audio: http://www.voanews.com/mediastore/kassman_saudi_guantanamo_19dec03.ram

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- The ruling by a U.S. federal appeals court that
prisoners held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be
granted access to lawyers is being followed closely around the world. Lawyers
representing the families of more than 100 Saudi-born detainees are trying to
get more information about the prisoners.

The U.S. administration says it has the right to hold the men indefinitely,
without granting access to lawyers, because they were captured in Afghanistan
and Pakistan and are being held outside the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court says it will rule on whether the prisoners should be
given access to American courts. But that decision is not expected before next
year.

In the meantime, a team of lawyers in Saudi Arabia has met with American
officials to try to gain access to 124 Saudi-born men being held at Guantanamo.

Lawyer Ahmad Mazhar says his team is also pushing for more contact between the
detainees and their families here in Saudi Arabia. He has even suggested using a
form letter that would not pose a security risk, but could reassure families of
the well being of the detainees.

"We know that, from the families here, they are finding it very difficult to
contact the detainees," he explained. "And they are, some of them, spending six
months to receive a message. And, we requested also to have - requested to open
the facilities, to have telephone communications, and we requested also to have
regular letters with a certain text written by the hand of the detainee, which
prove to the families that the detainee is alive and can write."

Mr. Mazhar and four other lawyers representing the Saudi families met with U.S.
State Department officials in Washington in September.

Mr. Mazhar says the lawyers have not received any response to their request to
meet with the detainees. But he says they are cautiously optimistic after
learning that an Australian lawyer had met with an Australian citizen being held
in the Guantanamo Bay prison.

"We requested the authority to visit the detainees in Guantanamo, and they say
it is not possible at this time," he said. "And, last week, we heard they
allowed the Australian lawyer to visit. If it is possible, we want to go and
visit our nationals there."

Mr. Mazhar says Saudi-born detainees charged with any crimes should be handed
over to Saudi authorities for trial.

* * *

San Francisco Chronicle:

December 19, 2003

COURTS AFFIRM RIGHTS OF TERROR SUSPECTS
Judges reject Bush policies on prisoners in Cuba and U.S.

By Reynolds Holding, Chronicle Staff Writer

Two federal appeals courts ruled Thursday that the Bush administration
overstepped its bounds in detaining suspected terrorists, issuing decisions that
favored key civil liberties over the power of the government in the post-Sept.
11 legal era.

The decisions, issued separately by U.S. courts of appeal in San Francisco and
New York, are significant rebukes to the administration's hard- line approach in
combatting terrorism and affirm the rights of both foreigners and American
citizens considered suspect by the government.

In one case, judges in New York ruled 2-1 that President Bush does not have the
power to order that a U.S. citizen captured in this country be held indefinitely
as an enemy combatant. The panel ordered Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to
release Jose Padilla -- the so-called dirty bomb suspect -- from a Navy brig in
Charleston, S.C., within 30 days and then turn him over for possible prosecution
in a federal court with all the legal rights of a U.S. citizen.

Padilla was detained in Chicago 18 months ago on suspicion of plotting to
detonate a radioactive bomb in the country and receiving explosives training
from the al Qaeda network, but he has not been charged with a crime.

Hours later in San Francisco, federal judges ruled 2-1 that the administration's
policy of imprisoning about 660 non-citizens on a naval base in Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, without access to U.S. legal protections "raises the gravest concerns
under both American and international law."

Overshadowing that ruling is the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last month to
review a case that upheld the Bush policy, which denies court access to the
prisoners at the base. Whatever the high court rules will be the final word,
though that did not stop human-rights advocates from praising Thursday's
opinion.

"It reaffirms the courts' critical role in providing a check on unilateral
presidential power," said Lucas Guttentag, head of the national American Civil
Liberties Union's immigrants' rights project in Oakland. "That role is
especially important in times of national crisis."

But a U.S. Justice Department spokesman sounded unfazed.

"Our position that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over non-U.S. citizens being
held in military control abroad is based on long-standing Supreme Court
precedent," said Mark Corallo, director of public affairs for the department.

Corallo did not say what the department will do next, but legal experts see two
options. One would be to ask the San Francisco court to rehear the case. The
other, more likely course would be to ask the Supreme Court to put the decision
on hold and either review it or dispose of it consistent with the outcome of the
cases now before the justices. If the Justice Department does nothing, the case
would go back to U.S. District Court in Los Angeles for a hearing on the merits.

The decision by the San Francisco judges came down to the issue of whether the
naval base at Guantanamo is U.S. territory. If it is, American courts have
jurisdiction to hear the prisoners' complaints that they are being held in
violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva conventions. If the base is
not U.S. territory, as the Justice Department argued, then the prisoners
essentially have no right to complain, a position that the federal appeals court
in San Francisco found untenable.

"We simply cannot accept the government's position," wrote Judge Stephen
Reinhardt for the court's majority, "that the executive branch possesses the
unchecked authority to imprison indefinitely any persons, foreign citizens
included, on territory under the sole jurisdiction and control of the United
States, without permitting such prisoners recourse of any kind to any judicial
forum, or even access to counsel, regardless of the length or manner of their
confinement."

The case came before the appellate court on a petition filed in U.S. District
Court in Los Angeles by the brother of Faren Gherebi, who was captured by
American forces in Afghanistan and, along with hundreds of citizens of
Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Canada, Britain and other countries, transferred to
Guantanamo Bay naval base. They were declared enemy combatants by the U.S.
government and denied attorneys or any means to challenge their incarceration.

The district court decided that the base was not within "sovereign U.S.
territory" and, in a "reluctant" conclusion, denied Gherebi's petition for lack
of jurisdiction.

The court of appeal reversed that decision Thursday, ruling that under any
standard U.S. control over the base, which it leased from Cuba in 1903, was near
absolute, perhaps even abusive.

"Contrary to the relevant provisions of the agreements (with Cuba), the United
States has used the base for whatever purposes it deemed necessary or
desirable," Reinhardt wrote. "Cuba has protested these actions in public and for
years has refused to cash the United States' rent checks."

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Susan Graber said Supreme Court precedent made
clear that the United States did not exercise the degree of control over
Guantanamo Bay that would be necessary to give courts jurisdiction over
prisoners held there.

She wrote that the majority's description of the issues in the case as "new,
important and difficult" was incorrect in one important respect.

"Although the issues that we confront are important and difficult, they are not
new," she said. "Because the issues are not new, we are bound by existing
Supreme Court precedent, which the majority misreads."

As in the San Francisco ruling, the majority in the New York decision regarding
Padilla saw the executive branch's action as an encroachment on individual
rights. While Congress may have the power to authorize the detention of an
American, the judges ruled that the president, acting on his own, did not.

"The president, acting alone, possesses no inherent constitutional authority to
detain American citizens seized within the United States, away from the zone of
combat, as enemy combatants," said the majority, composed of Judges Rosemay S.
Pooler and Barrington D. Parker Jr.

The detention of U.S. citizens arrested on American soil as enemy combatants,
consequently keeping them from the usual legal protections that Americans enjoy,
has been seen as especially alarming by civil liberties advocates.

"This is by far the biggest legal setback the administration has faced in
conducting its war on terrorism," said David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown
University and the author of a recent book on the subject. "That's because this
is the furthest they've gone out on a limb. They had essentially asserted that
the president had unchecked authority to label U.S. citizens as enemy combatants
anywhere in the United States and lock them up."

Padilla has been held incommunicado for 18 months. The court majority said he is
entitled to full constitutional protections, including access to his lawyers.
Padillo's lawyers have not been permitted to see him since Bush declared him an
enemy combatant in June 2002.

"As this court sits only a short distance from where the World Trade Center once
stood, we are as keenly aware as anyone of the threat al Qaeda poses to our
country and of the responsibilities the president and law enforcement officials
bear for protecting the nation," Parker and Pooler wrote.

"But presidential authority does not exist in a vacuum," they said, "and this
case involves not whether those responsibilities should be aggressively pursued
but whether the president is obligated" to share them with Congress.

The majority said that a law known as the Non-Detention Act provides that "no
citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except
pursuant to an act of Congress." The court said the joint congressional
resolution authorizing operations against terrorism after Sept. 11 "contains no
language authorizing detention."

In dissent, Judge Richard C. Wesley said he believes the president had the power
to "thwart acts of belligerency on U.S. soil" and said it was startling that the
majority would find that the president lacked authority to detain a citizen
terrorist who was "dangerously close" to executing a plan.

[ The Boston Globe and the New York Times contributed to this report. E-mail
Reynolds Holding at rholding@sfchronicle.com ]

* * *

Los Angeles Times:

December 19, 2003

Editorial
LOOK TO LAW, NOT LEADERS

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/
la-ed-padilla19dec19,1,2957444.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials

A three-judge appeals panel got it right Thursday when it ruled that President
Bush cannot hold an American citizen who has not been charged with a crime. The
ruling came after a Virginia federal appeals court reached the opposite
conclusion last summer on the rights of another American-born terrorism suspect,
a decision that already has landed in the Supreme Court's lap. These conflicting
rulings may tempt the high court justices to defer to the president; they
shouldn't. Americans derive rights as citizens from the Constitution, not at the
president's largess.

In a forceful 2-1 ruling, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ordered
officials to release Jose Padilla within 30 days from the military brig where he
has been held for 18 months. The government can still transfer him to civilian
authorities and bring charges against him, the New York panel said, but Padilla
must get "the constitutional protections [that are] extended to other citizens."

FBI agents arrested Padilla at O'Hare Airport in May 2002, suspecting he was
plotting to detonate a radioactive bomb. The 31-year-old Brooklyn native has
been in a Charleston, S.C., brig cell since then, subject to continuing
interrogation. He's been allowed no contact with his family or lawyer.

Bush administration lawyers insist that as commander in chief, the president has
the unilateral and inherent power to detain American citizens indefinitely
during wartime and that civilian courts have no authority to intervene. The New
York appeals panel demolished that argument, ruling that the Constitution grants
only Congress the power to pass legislation abridging individual liberties
during national emergencies.

"As this court sits only a short distance from where the World Trade Center once
stood, we are as keenly aware as anyone of the threat Al Qaeda poses to our
country," the judges wrote. "But presidential authority does not exist in a
vacuum."

Thursday's ruling contrasts sharply with the Virginia federal appeals court
decision upholding the government's detention of Louisiana-born Yaser Esam
Hamdi, arrested on an Afghanistan battlefield and held for nearly two years as
an enemy combatant. Although the New York panel said its ruling on Padilla,
arrested on American soil, did not apply to Hamdi, the two decisions set up a
conflict that only the Supreme Court can resolve.

Thursday's carefully reasoned decision gives Bush the opportunity to retreat
from an extreme and pernicious policy that even former members of his
administration now question.

* * *


Los Angeles Times:

December 19, 2003

RULINGS DENT DETENTIONS OF TERROR SUSPECTS

* One appeals court finds the Bush team can't hold in a military brig a U.S. man
seized in Chicago. A second says inmates in Cuba may seek release.

By David G. Savage, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- Dealing a double blow to the Bush administration, federal appeals
courts said Thursday that the government had acted illegally in holding a U.S.-
born "enemy combatant" in a military brig and in denying hundreds of foreigners
at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the right to challenge their
detention.

A federal appeals court in New York ruled that the president did not have the
authority as commander in chief to arrest American citizens on U.S. soil and to
hold them without filing criminal charges.

The president's wartime powers do not extend to the home front, the appeals
courts said, unless Congress authorizes the chief executive to act. And neither
the Constitution nor federal law gives the president an "inherent power" to make
arrests, said the three-judge panel from the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

The 2-1 decision gave the government 30 days to release from a military brig
Jose Padilla, a Brooklyn-born Muslim who allegedly conspired with Al Qaeda
operatives to detonate a radioactive explosive device in the United States.

The judges did not say that Padilla must go free. Instead, they said the
government needs to charge him with a crime if it wants to hold him.

In a separate 2-1 decision in San Francisco, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals said the government needed to give Guantanamo detainees a chance to
speak with lawyers and seek their release through the courts. About 660
suspected terrorists and war criminals are being held at the base.

The Bush administration contends that the captives are being held on foreign
soil. The judges of the 9th Circuit ruled that the U.S. had power over the base
even though the government leased it from Cuba, and thus, the captives were
entitled to access the U.S. legal system.

A Justice Department spokesman said lawyers were studying the decision. Mark
Corallo, the spokesman, reiterated the position that the agency had asserted in
several Guantanamo-related cases in the last two years -- that U.S. courts have
no authority to consider a case involving a noncitizen held by the U.S. military
abroad.

Thursday's ruling in the Padilla case is broad in its sweep and narrow in its
effect. While it puts a clear limit on the president's powers, its holding
applies only to Padilla. The 33-year-old Muslim convert is the only native-born
"enemy combatant" arrested in the United States. The New York court said it was
not contesting the president's authority to hold an enemy combatant who was
picked up on a foreign battlefield.

The White House quickly denounced the ruling and said it would appeal.

"We believe the 2nd Circuit ruling is troubling and flawed," said White House
Press Secretary Scott McClellan. "This is a case in which an individual was
involved with terrorist organization activity and was actively engaged in an
effort to do harm to the American people. The president has repeatedly said that
his most solemn obligation and responsibility is to protect the American people,
and the ... ruling is really inconsistent with the clear authority of the
president."

Administration lawyers will ask the court to put its ruling in the Padilla case
on hold. They can then ask the full appeals court to reconsider the matter.
Failing that, they can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Last month, the high court agreed to hear an appeal filed on behalf of the
Guantanamo detainees. Most were picked up in Afghanistan or Pakistan, and U.S.
authorities said they were working with terrorists or the Taliban. Lawyers
working on their behalf said they deserved at least a hearing to try to show
they were innocent.

Although the plight of the Guantanamo detainees has drawn wide attention in
Europe, the case of Padilla has been most closely watched by civil libertarians
here. They say the Bush administration's claim that the president could order
the secret detention of a U.S. citizen in a military brig was unprecedented in
recent American history.

The only parallel example, they say, was the mass internment of Japanese
Americans on the West Coast shortly after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in
1941. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the internment as a military and
security measure shortly after Congress declared war on Japan.

That order has since been condemned as a tragic injustice. In 1971, to prevent a
recurrence, Congress passed the Non-Detention Act. It says: "No citizen shall be
imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to an Act
of Congress." The appeals court said that law "prohibits all detentions of
citizens ... by the president during war and other times of national crisis."

Civil libertarians hailed Thursday's ruling as reaffirming a basic principle of
American law. "This decision is a victory for the Constitution," said Deborah N.
Pearlstein of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, which organized a
coalition of groups that supported Padilla's claim. "After the internment of
Japanese American citizens during World War II, we learned our lesson as a
nation."

Padilla was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare Airport on May 8, 2002, after a flight
from Pakistan. FBI agents who were aboard the flight then took him to New York,
where he was held as a possible witness in the investigation of the 2001
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

He was assigned a lawyer, Donna R. Newman, who met with him, and she prepared a
motion to seek his release. On June 9, however, Padilla was taken into military
custody and sent to a military brig in Charleston, S.C.

The government said the president had designated Padilla an enemy combatant and
turned him over to the authority of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. In a
dramatic announcement, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, speaking from Moscow, said the
government had interrupted a plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the
United States.

Administration lawyers argued that because Al Qaeda had brought the war on
terrorism to the U.S., the president had the authority to arrest enemy agents
who operated here, even if they were American citizens.

Since Ashcroft's announcement, Newman and Padilla's relatives have been barred
from speaking with him. No charges have been filed.

Newman filed a writ of habeas corpus, contending that her client was being held
illegally. In response, the government said that she had no standing to speak
for him, and that the courts in New York no longer had jurisdiction to rule on
the matter. A federal judge agreed that the government could hold Padilla, but
ruled that the lawyer had a right to speak with her client and to prepare a
challenge to his detention.

Both sides appealed. Last month, the case came before a three-judge panel of the
2nd Circuit -- Judges Rosemary S. Pooler, a Clinton appointee; Richard C.
Wesley, a new Bush appointee; and Barrington D. Parker Jr., who was first named
as trial judge by President Clinton and elevated to the appeals court by
President Bush.

On Thursday, the court's opinion by Pooler and Parker said the administration
acted illegally by holding Padilla in military custody.

"The President does not have the power under ... the Constitution to detain as
an enemy combatant an American citizen seized on American soil outside a zone of
combat," they wrote in the case of Padilla vs. Rumsfeld.

They relied largely on a Supreme Court ruling in 1953 that rejected President
Truman's seizure of the nation's steel mills during the Korean War.

Truman had contended that as commander in chief he needed to keep the steel
mills in operation, despite a strike threat. But Justice Robert H. Jackson, in a
key opinion, said the president's war powers did not extend to the home front,
unless Congress granted the chief executive special authority.

And from giving the president that extra authority, the 1971 law makes clear
that the president cannot order military arrests and detentions at home, said
Pooler and Parker.

In a partial dissent, Wesley said he would have upheld the president's authority
to detain Padilla. At the same time, however, he said he would have allowed
Newman to visit her client and to prepare a challenge to his detention in a
federal trial court.

"This is a powerful and courageous decision," said Steven Shapiro, legal
director for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It makes clear that the war on
terrorism does not suspend the rule of law." One option would be for Congress to
pass a law that authorizes such detentions. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) has
introduced a bill to allow the arrest of designated enemy combatants. It would
give these detainees a right to contest the allegations against them.

So far, Congress has taken no action on this proposal.

Despite his victory, Padilla is unlikely to go free any time soon. An appeal to
the Supreme Court could take several months. And if the administration loses, it
could then file criminal charges against Padilla and hold him pending a trial.

[ Staff writer Henry Weinstein in Los Angeles contributed to this report. ]

* * *


Los Angeles Times:

December 19, 2003

COURT BACKS RIGHTS FOR DETAINEES

* The foreigners held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba can legally challenge their
confinement, appellate judges rule.

By Henry Weinstein, Times Staff Writer

The U.S. cannot indefinitely detain captured foreigners at its naval base in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without giving them the opportunity to challenge their
imprisonment in a U.S. court with the benefit of legal assistance, a federal
appeals court in San Francisco ruled Thursday.

The 2-1 decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals marked the second time
a federal court has issued a favorable ruling on behalf of about 660 prisoners
who are held at the base. The detainees were captured by U.S. forces in
Afghanistan and Pakistan during hostilities following the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks in the U.S.

Many of the prisoners have been held at Guantanamo for nearly two years. The
Bush administration contends that because the prisoners are "enemy combatants"
being held on foreign soil, they have no right to talk with a lawyer or raise
claims in any court.

Earlier this week, the Justice Department said the captives, some of whom
allegedly are affiliated with Al Qaeda or the Taliban, can be held without
access to lawyers or family members until U.S. officials are satisfied that they
have revealed everything they may know about potential terrorist activities.

But the 9th Circuit majority rejected that argument. The judges ruled that
although the U.S. government has leased the base from Cuba since 1903, in
reality it has "total dominion" over Guantanamo, where a U.S. flag flies, and,
consequently, the captives are entitled to due process in the American legal
system.

"We cannot simply accept the government's position that the Executive Branch
possesses the unchecked authority to imprison indefinitely any persons, foreign
citizens included, on territory under the sole jurisdiction and control of the
United States, without permitting such prisoners recourse of any kind to any
judicial forum, or even access to counsel, regardless of the length or manner of
their confinement," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for the majority.

"Even in times of national emergency -- indeed, particularly in such times -- it
is the obligation of the Judicial Branch to ensure the preservation of our
constitutional values and to prevent the Executive Branch from running roughshod
over the rights of citizens and aliens alike," Reinhardt, who was appointed by
President Carter, added.

Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said department lawyers were reviewing
the decision.

"Our position that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over non-U.S. citizens being
held in military control abroad is based on long-standing Supreme Court
precedent," Corallo said. "This position has been upheld unanimously by the D.C.
Circuit Court of Appeals with respect to the detainees in military control at
Guantanamo Bay. The Supreme Court is reviewing the issue."

Last month, the high court reversed a lower court decision and agreed to decide
a case in which two Britons, two Australians and a dozen Kuwaitis contend they
are being wrongly held at the Guantanamo base. In that case, Thedore B. Olson,
the U.S. solicitor general, urged the Supreme Court not to hear it, contending
that the courts have no role in reviewing the situation of prisoners at the
base.

The 9th Circuit issued an order Thursday staying the effect of its decision
until the Supreme Court rules.

The appeals court ruling reversed a decision by a federal district court judge
in Los Angeles. The case was filed by Venice attorney Stephen Yagman on behalf
of Salim Gherebi, a Libyan national imprisoned at Guantanamo.

Gherebi's brother, Bilad, who lives in San Diego, asked Yagman to file a habeas
corpus petition, which challenges an allegedly illegal imprisonment, on his
brother's behalf. Yagman said Bilad Gherebi asked for his help after learning
from FBI agents that his brother had been taken into custody in Kabul and was
being held at the base in Cuba.

Judge Susan Graber, a Clinton appointee, dissented, maintaining that the ruling
flew in the face of a 1950 Supreme Court decision, Johnson vs. Eisentrager,
regarding German prisoners who had been convicted of war crimes by a U.S.
military tribunal in China after World War II and had then been brought back to
Germany to serve their sentences.

In that case, the high court ruled that the German intelligence agents were not
entitled to judicial review of their convictions because they committed crimes
and were captured, tried and detained outside "any territory over which the
United States is sovereign."

Graber said "a straightforward reading of Johnson makes it clear that
'sovereignty' is the touchstone, under current law," for whether a federal court
can exercise jurisdiction. Because the U.S. only leases the Guantanamo base and
the lease granted "ultimate sovereignty" to Cuba, U.S. courts have no authority
over these prisoners, Graber said.

But the majority sharply disagreed, saying that the words "ultimate sovereignty"
have to be analyzed in the context of other words in the lease as well as how
the U.S. exercises total power at Guantanamo.

Reinhardt noted that the lease provided that "the United States shall exercise
complete jurisdiction and control over and within" the base, which was
originally leased as a coal supply station. Among other powers, the U.S. has the
right to seize any property there by right of eminent domain. The lease can only
be terminated with the agreement of both parties.

The U.S. terminated diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961, two years after
Fidel Castro ascended to power. Three years later, "Castro cut off water and
supplies to the base and Guantanamo became and remains self-sufficient with its
own water plant, schools, transportation, entertainment and fast-food
facilities," Reinhardt noted.

Reinhardt also noted that under a supplemental agreement to the treaty, the U.S.
"exercises exclusive criminal jurisdiction over all persons, citizens and aliens
alike, who commit criminal offenses at the base," and they are tried in U.S.
courts.

Reinhardt, an outspokenly liberal judge, quoted the Black's Law Dictionary
definition of sovereignty as "the supreme, absolute and uncontrollable power by
which any independent state is governed." If that definition is correct,
Reinhardt said, "it would appear that there is no stronger example of the United
States' exercise of supreme power" than at Guantanamo.

Judge Milton I. Shadur, also a Carter appointee, joined the majority opinion.

In her dissent, Graber said the case raised "significant and troubling" issues,
but "under existing Supreme Court precedent, however, I do not believe that we
have jurisdiction to reach them."

Several organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, hailed the decision. Attorney Kenneth
Hurwitz of the lawyers group said he was pleased that the court had rejected the
government's argument that Guantanamo was not effectively under U.S. control.

Chapman University law professor John Eastman criticized the decision, saying
"it fundamentally misunderstands the distinction between the judicial power and
the president's war-making or executive power. It has never been the case that
people captured on the field of battle as these people were have access to the
federal courts on habeas corpus grounds to challenge their detention as
prisoners."

Pepperdine University law professor Douglas W. Kmiec, who was a high-ranking
Justice Department official during the administrations of Ronald Reagan and
George H. W. Bush, agreed. "Judicial second-guessing of military decision
neither befits the judiciary nor observes constitutional assignment," he said.

But several other legal scholars said the ruling was well-reasoned and, in the
words of Washington University law professor Leila Sadat, "narrowly drawn."

Harold H. Koh, an international law specialist at Yale University, said: "The
court correctly recognized that the issue is not whether the detainees are in
U.S. territory, but whether they are under territory subject exclusively to U.S.
control and U.S. law. The only power that U.S. officials have to detain aliens
on Guantanamo flows from the U.S. Constitution, and that same Constitution
requires that detainees be able to challenge their confinement by writs of
habeas corpus," the historic remedy for challenging an unconstitutional
confinement, Koh said.

"If this ruling stands, it is a stunning repudiation of the president's sweeping
claim of authority to deny liberty to individuals based on executive
determinations resting on secret evidence," said Northwestern University law
professor Douglass Cassel, who filed a brief on behalf of the 16 Guantanamo
detainees whose case is now pending at the Supreme Court.

Yagman, Gherebi's lawyer, said he was thrilled.

"As a kid growing up in Brooklyn in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I always
pledged allegiance to the flag and believed it stood for freedom." Yagman said.
"This opinion makes me believe that at least some people in the government still
believe the flag stands for freedom."

* * *


Boston Globe:

December 19, 2003

US COURT REJECTS DETENTION POLICY
Says citizen can't be held indefinitely

By Lyle Denniston, Globe Correspondent and Charles Savage, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that President Bush does
not have the power to order that a US citizen captured in this country be held
indefinitely as an "enemy combatant," the biggest judicial setback for the
administration so far in the war on terrorism.

A second rebuff came a few hours later when another federal appeals court ruled
that foreign citizens held at the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
can file challenges in US courts to their indefinite detention -- an issue
already before the Supreme Court.

In both decisions, the courts addressed the tensions between civil liberties and
the nation's security, coming down on the side of individual rights. But the
rulings were limited, and left some significant questions about the detention of
suspected terrorists.

By a vote of 2 to 1, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York
ordered Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to release Jose Padilla from a Navy
brig in Charleston, S.C., within 30 days, and then turn him over for possible
prosecution in a federal court -- with all the legal rights of any other US
citizen. Padilla was detained in Chicago 18 months ago on suspicion of plotting
to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the country and receiving explosives
training from the Al Qaeda network, but he has not been charged with a crime.

The Second Circuit ruled that the president has no authority on his own, and has
been given none by Congress, to designate Padilla as an "enemy combatant" and
hold him with no legal rights until the war on terrorism is over.

"Primary authority for imposing military jurisdiction upon American citizens
lies with Congress," the three-judge panel ruled.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan, calling the ruling "troubling and
flawed," told reporters that Bush had directed the Justice Department to seek
the suspension of that decision "and further judicial review."

That would mean either asking the full bench of the Second Circuit to reconsider
the decision, or taking the case to the Supreme Court.

The Second Circuit confined its ruling to the detention of a US citizen captured
on US soil, stressing that it was not ruling upon presidential power involving
any captive seized "on a foreign battlefield or while actively engaged in armed
conflict against the US" anywhere. The court also said it was not barring the
president from detaining a terrorist "in the face of imminent attack."

Without questioning the government contention that the United States is in an
"undeclared war" with Al Qaeda, the court said a president could not exercise
powers "allocated to Congress" even during a national emergency. The president's
action, the majority said, runs directly counter to a 1971 act of Congress that
bars all detention of citizens during times of war or national crisis -- a law
prompted in part by revulsion over the detention of American citizens of
Japanese ancestry during World War II.

The ruling was written jointly by US appellate judges Rosemary S. Pooler and
Barrington D. Parker Jr. Pooler was named to the appeals court by Bill Clinton.
Parker, initially a District Court judge named by Clinton, was elevated to the
appeals court by Bush. Dissenting was US Appellate Judge Richard C. Wesley, a
Bush appointee.

The family of another US citizen who was captured abroad, in Afghanistan, has
filed a challenge of his indefinite detention in the Supreme Court, which has
not decided whether to consider the case. A different federal appeals court, the
Fourth Circuit, has upheld the detention of Yaser Esam Hamdi and denied the
Saudi-American access to a lawyer or other legal rights. The Defense Department
has recently said it would allow Hamdi to see a lawyer, but that has not yet
occurred.

Besides where Padilla and Hamdi were captured, their cases differ because the
Pentagon has said it has finished questioning Hamdi for information about
terrorism, while US lawyers have said that the Pentagon needs to continue
Padilla's interrogation and does not want him to see a lawyer until its
conclusion.

In the second ruling of the day, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
in San Francisco rejected the administration's argument that the 650 individuals
held at Guantanamo Bay have no legal rights.

The majority opinion in the 2-to-1 decision declared that federal courts have
jurisdiction over the naval base in Cuba because it is so thoroughly controlled
by the US government that it is essentially a part of national territory. The
plea for access to US courts was filed by the brother of a detainee, Faren
Gherebi, a Libyan who was captured in Afghanistan.

The Ninth Circuit decision was written by US Appellate Judge Stephen R.
Reinhardt and joined by Senior District Judge Milton I. Shadur, both appointed
by President Carter. Dissenting was US Appellate Judge Susan Graber, a Clinton
appointee.

Reinhardt, known as one of the most liberal federal judges, strongly denounced
administration policy toward the detainees in Cuba. "It is the obligation of the
Judicial Branch to ensure the preservation of our constitutional values and to
prevent the Executive Branch from running roughshod over the rights of citizens
and aliens alike," he wrote.

But the opinion stressed that the court was not deciding the legality of the
detention, nor was it specifying what challenges detainees could raise in
American courts.

The legal fate of the detainees in Cuba is already before the Supreme Court in a
case the justices agreed in November to hear, filed by relatives of 16 foreign
nationals in custody at Guantanamo.

The administration has taken some steps recently to try to defuse the
international criticism of the indefinite detentions of foreign nationals at
Guantanamo, releasing some and designating six individuals for charges to be
tried before a military tribunal.

Yesterday, the Pentagon said it would allow another detainee there, Salim Ahmed
Hamdan of Yemen, to consult a lawyer. He is one of the six to face military
charges, to be tried at the base in Cuba. Another of those six, Australian David
Hicks, recently met with an attorney from his country after the Pentagon granted
permission. The Pentagon says it would allow access to lawyers when detainees
have been designated for military trials.

Both supporters and critics of the Bush administration's policies in the war on
terrorism called the one-two judicial punch -- coupled with the release of a new
Justice Department inspector general report detailing abuses of illegal
immigrants rounded up after the attacks -- the single most stunning day in the
two-year battle over civil liberties in the post-Sept. 11 era.

Elisa Massimino, Washington director of the Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights,
called the day a triple victory for the rights of different kinds of detainees
in the war on terrorism -- be they US citizens arrested in the country and
accused of links to terrorism, illegal immigrants arrested in the United States,
or foreigners arrested abroad and held at the naval base in Cuba.

"It's a very good day for the Constitution, and it's a good day for the rule of
law," Massimino said. "The fact that the war on terrorism is a `different kind
of war' doesn't mean that you can make up the rules as you go along. It doesn't
mean that the Constitution and the laws of war are irrelevant."

But Brad Berenson, a former associate White House counsel who left the
administration earlier this year, called the rulings "profoundly wrong and
profoundly dangerous." He said the judges, and the civil liberties groups
celebrating the decisions, seemed not to appreciate that the United States is at
war inside its own borders.

"They are very excited because to them anything that reduces the might of the
United States . . . is a victory," Berenson said. "But to conservatives and
supporters of the administration who honestly believe that the future of Western
civilization could be at stake in the successful prosecution of this war, to
have judges stepping in and hampering our ability to fight is intolerable."

* * *


Reuters:

December 18, 2003

COURT DECISIONS SHOW LEGAL BACKLASH TO BUSH

By Alan Elsner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two court rulings on Thursday about the rights of
prisoners held in the U.S. "war on terrorism" represent a rebuke to the Bush
administration's legal tactics following the Sept. 11 attacks, analysts and
human rights organizations said.

The first decision by the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals concerned Jose
Padilla, a U.S. citizen detained on U.S. soil and held incommunicado in a Navy
prison for the past 18 months. The court ruled 2-1 that the government did not
have the right to treat him as an enemy combatant and ordered him transferred to
civilian custody within 30 days or released.

The White House speedily announced it would seek a stay, calling the decision
"troubling and flawed."

Hours later, the U.S. Ninth Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco ruled also 2-1
that the Bush administration lacked authority to imprison foreign "enemy
combatants" indefinitely. The court sent a lawsuit on behalf of a man detained
at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo, Cuba, back to a lower court.

That decision, if it stands, could have wide implications for the 660 men
indefinitely detained in Guantanamo without charges or the right to legal
representation.

The court said indefinite detention was inconsistent with U.S. law and raised
serious concerns under international law.

Human rights activists said the 2-1 decisions were a significant legal rebuke to
the Bush administration, although some said the 9th Circuit decision was
unlikely to stand. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide in the coming months
whether federal courts have any jurisdiction over Guantanamo Bay.

"The two cases are different. It's questionable whether people captured during a
war in Afghanistan are entitled to any of the protections of the U.S.
Constitution," said Robert Levy, a constitutional expert with the libertarian
Cato Institute.

As for Padilla, Levy said his treatment was the single most egregious violation
of civil liberties committed by the Bush administration, which he said had
treated the Constitution in this case as if it were "mere tissue paper."

Mark Graber, a government professor at the University of Maryland, said there
was growing evidence that even conservatives on the bench were uncomfortable
with some of the powers that the administration has assumed.

"This is a sign of concern that the administration has gone too far and seems to
think it can suspend the Constitution whenever it sees a potential danger," he
said.

Amnesty International's U.S. director William Schultz, while welcoming the
Padilla ruling, noted that it opened the way for President Bush to go back to
Congress and request the powers the court denied.

"The Court has clearly said that the President cannot unilaterally detain
individuals without access to a lawyer, but it also laid the groundwork for
future detentions in denial of basic rights providing he has permission from
Congress," he said.

Following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, on New York and Washington, Congress
passed the U.S.A. Patriot Act that broadly expanded law enforcement's
surveillance and investigative powers. Attorney General John Ashcroft argued
that the law was needed to protect the nation against terrorism.

POLICIES UNPOPULAR ABROAD

But some of the administration's other actions, especially the treatment of
foreign detainees in Guantanamo Bay, have been highly unpopular overseas,
complicating U.S. foreign policy.

The government's case against Zacarias Moussaoui, the only individual charged
with involvement in the attacks, has also run into trouble.

District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled in October that prosecutors could not
request the death penalty or present evidence about Moussaoui's alleged
knowledge of, or involvement in, the Sept. 11 attacks to punish the government
for refusing to let Moussaoui's lawyers question the al Qaeda captives.

The government asked a federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, to overturn
that decision earlier this month. The court has yet to rule.

Jamie Fellner of Human Rights Watch said the Padilla decision was narrow and
would affect few people but still carried symbolic weight.

"In essence, the court has said the president can't just do anything he wants
and justify it by saying it's a military decision," she said.

"It's been over two years now since Sept. 11 and it's taken that long for the
courts to begin to have their say. But it's beginning to happen now," Fellner
said.

Some 225 cities, towns and counties have passed resolutions against the Patriot
Act. The latest in the past week were Toledo, Ohio, and King County, Washington.
But the issue is not likely to loom large in next year's presidential campaign.

Polls have shown most Americans support the Patriot Act Gallup survey in October
found that 69 percent of Americans believe the act was "about right" or did not
go "far enough" in restricting civil liberties in order to fight terrorism."

* * *


CNN:

December 18, 2003

PROFESSOR: COMBATANT DECISION 'PAINFUL' FOR BUSH

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/12/18/cnna.wedgwood/

(CNN) -- A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the president does not have
the authority to detain an American citizen seized on U.S. soil as an enemy
combatant. The decision gives the U.S. government 30 days to release Jose
Padilla, who has been in military custody since he was arrested in May 2002 on
accusations he was planning to detonate a "dirty bomb" inside the United States.

Ruth Wedgwood, professor of international law at the School of Advanced
International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, joined CNN anchor Wolf
Blitzer to discuss the legal basis of the court's decision, as well as to
explain some of the legal issues surrounding a possible trial of former Iraqi
leader Saddam Hussein, who was captured Saturday in Iraq.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Professor, thanks very much for joining us. I want to
get to Saddam Hussein's fate shortly, but let's talk about this news that we're
getting right now about Jose Padilla. [It's] a major blow to the Bush
administration that he can't be held as an enemy combatant. They either have to
release him or they have to move him to the civil courts.

RUTH WEDGWOOD, CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER: It is a painful decision for the Bush
administration. It says that the president has to go to Congress to get a
specific statute authorizing the detention of someone like Padilla, who the
president had called an enemy combatant. And the court says, basically, Padilla
was not carrying explosives or carrying a gun, carrying a physical weapon. The
fact that he was a sort of forward target-spotter was not sufficient for the
court, because it says the U.S. is not a zone of combat.

BLITZER: In this two-to-one decision, though, they did say there was ample
evidence against [Padilla].

WEDGWOOD: They say the government has good reason to suspect him of involvement
in a terrorist plot. And of course, the Congress had authorized the president to
use force against combatants in response to 9/11, wherever they were located.
But the court is distinguishing between using force against a combatant and
detaining a combatant if he's a citizen in the U.S. The irony, though, is that
if, in fact, they had arrested Padilla in Pakistan, before he got on the
airplane -- and he was monitored all the way through in his flight by federal
marshals -- you might have had a different outcome.

BLITZER: Because he was on foreign soil, as opposed to U.S. soil. The fact that
an American citizen arrested at O'Hare [airport], in the United States, the
territorial boundaries of the United States, that changes the equation as far as
the court is concerned.

WEDGWOOD: The court is saying that Congress, when it passed something called the
Non-Detention Act in 1971, didn't contemplate allowing detention of any American
citizens, even in the post 9/11.

BLITZER: So what do you think the Bush administration does now? They can appeal
this decision or they can comply.

WEDGWOOD: Well, they will move for reconsideration before the 2nd Circuit Court
of Appeals as a whole. They will, I think, get busy probably talking to Congress
about getting that kind of specific authorization, which we had in the Korean
War in 1950.

BLITZER: Where U.S. citizens are allowed to be held as enemy combatants even if
they were arrested in the United States?

WEDGWOOD: If they're shown to be, by some kind of probable cause or reasonable
cause, in cahoots with the foreign terrorists.

BLITZER: There are two U.S. citizens being held as enemy combatants. Yasser
Hamdi, who was born in Louisiana, is the second one. But he is being treated
differently.

WEDGWOOD: Hamdi is an easier case on the facts, in a sense, because he was
caught with a gun in his hand on the battlefield in Afghanistan. And before, the
Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that he was an enemy combatant, that he was being
held with a threshold showing of some evidence, he had a right to habeas corpus.
He had his case brought to court, but the court was satisfied that he met the
criteria for someone who really is fighting against the U.S.

BLITZER: It's interesting, because he was captured in Afghanistan, brought to
Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. naval base, the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. But
when they realized he was born in the United States, they took the step and
brought him actually to the physical part of the United States.

WEDGWOOD: He probably would have had habeas corpus anyway, because there's a
general view that habeas corpus follows citizenship. But you're right; this was
kind of an act that was not required of them when they chose to do it.

BLITZER: All right. Let's move on and talk a little about Saddam Hussein right
now. Your assessment is what, right now? What is his actual status, legally
speaking?

WEDGWOOD: Well, he has belt, garter, suspenders and then some. He could be held
any of three or four different ways.

He could be called a prisoner of war if he is directing the combatant operations
and we think the war is still ongoing in Iraq. He could be held as the hostile
civilian president of a country in which we're still in a conflict situation.
Under the fourth Geneva Convention, if you have anybody who is definitely
suspected of hostile activity against the occupying authority, he can be
interned indefinitely. So there are a number of ways you could hold him.

BLITZER: But the government has not yet specifically said what his status is,
even though they say he will be treated according to the Geneva Convention?

WEDGWOOD Yes. They're doing an as-if dodge until they make up their minds. It
basically says we will give you what POWs are entitled to while we think about
your legal status.

BLITZER: And assuming he still is in Iraq -- all indications are he is being
held in an undisclosed location in Iraq -- is there any danger that if the U.S.
wants to make sure that they can control what is going on with Saddam Hussein,
that they leave him there? The concern is that, what if the Iraqi authority says
we want to take over custody of this guy? And if he is in Iraq, the U.S. may be
hard-pressed to say, you know what, we have to let them have him.

WEDGWOOD: Well, that would be politically ugly, it's true, because we want to
get as much sovereignty visibly and substantively to the Governing Council as we
can. However, we still are the occupying power. And as someone who has been
fighting actively against our troops and directing attacks -- as may be the case
-- we would have a right to intern him.

BLITZER: Here are a couple of e-mails. Dan in Kentucky wants to know this,
Professor: "Since George Bush cited Hussein's violations of U.N. resolutions for
the justification of going to war, then logically the U.N. should be given the
task of trying him for those violations. Once that is concluded, then the Iraqi
people could try him."

Does Dan have a point?

WEDGWOOD: Well, there are a couple of complications in going to the Security
Council if you wanted to create a new, so-called ad hoc tribunal on the model of
the course that were done for Yugoslavia and Rwanda. One is you have to go to
the Security Council. And as we've seen in the past, the politics of the French
and the Germans and the Russians ...

BLITZER: Because right now there is no authorization to send them to The Hague.

WEDGWOOD: There's no Hague court. There's no court in The Hague that has
jurisdiction over it.

BLITZER: The war crimes tribunal -- The Hague only deals with the cases in the
Balkans?

WEDGWOOD: There's the Yugoslavia court, there's the Rwanda court in Tanzania.
There's a new ICC, which is only prospective from 2002, and we don't belong to
it.

BLITZER: So to get jurisdiction, you need the Security Council to pass another
resolution?

WEDGWOOD: As we say in English, the French willing, yes.

BLITZER: Yes, the French willing.

Let's move on. Jim in Toronto wants to know this: "If there is a trial, will
U.S. officials tolerate a defense that might present a long paper and chemical
trail that goes back to the U.S.'s logistical support for Saddam when he was a
friend of America and a foe of Iran?" That's referring to the 1980s. "At that
time, America looked away while their friend was dealing with so-called internal
matters."

WEDGWOOD: Well, I suspect that Saddam Hussein, like [Slobodan] Milosevic in The
Hague, will try to do kind of a graymail-blackmail defense ... [and say] I was
your SOB in the '80s.

That is not a legal defense. I think he may well exaggerate the facts of the
matter, and a strong trial judge would rule that out of order. One of the
dangers in the trial, though, is that Saddam Hussein will try to use this as a
bully pulpit to make his case for further future Ba'athist rule.

BLITZER: For propaganda purposes.

* * *


San Francisco Chronicle:

December 18, 2003

BAY AREA NEWS ROUNDUP

A federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled today that prisoners captured in
Afghanistan and held at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba are entitled to challenge
their detention in U.S. courts.

The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was made in the case of a
Libyan mechanic, Faren Gherebi, who was captured by the U.S. military during
anti-terrorism operations in Afghanistan in 2001.

Gherebi is one of about 600 people who have been held on the American-run base
in Cuba since 2002 without access to lawyers or court hearings.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court said it will consider similar issues in
another case involving 16 other prisoners at Guantanamo.

But a panel of the 9th Circuit said by a 2-1 vote that the issues are so
important that the appeals court was impelled to go ahead with its own ruling.

The appeals court said it was not deciding on what constitutional protections
may apply to the detainees, but only that they "are not wholly without rights"
to challenge their indefinite detention through habeas corpus petitions in U.S.
courts.

Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote that the government's position "is
inconsistent with fundamental tenets of American jurisprudence and raises most
serious concerns under international law."

The court majority also said U.S. courts have jurisdiction over events at
Guantanamo because the American government exercises exclusive territorial
jurisdiction there.

Gherebi's lawsuit, filed on his behalf by a brother who lives in San Diego, will
now go back to federal court in Los Angeles.

U.S. Justice Department officials had no immediate comment on the ruling, which
could be appealed.

* * *


The Guardian (UK):

December 18, 2003

LAWYER NAMED FOR 2ND GUANTANAMO SUSPECT

By Matt Kelley, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon has appointed a military defense lawyer for
another terrorism suspect held at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval base, the
Defense Department announced Thursday.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen becomes the second Guantanamo prisoner to be given a
lawyer. Australian David Hicks got a lawyer earlier this month and recently met
with an Australian legal adviser.

Both Hamdan and Hicks are among six Guantanamo Bay prisoners designated by
President Bush as candidates for trials by special military tribunals.
Thursday's announcement was the first public acknowledgment by the United States
that it was holding Hamdan.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift will be Hamdan's military lawyer. Prisoners brought
before military tribunals also will be able to hire a U.S. civilian lawyer. Two
lawyers have been approved for that role so far out of 20 who applied.

Swift plans to meet with Hamdan soon, the Pentagon said in a statement.

About 660 suspected members of al-Qaida or the Taliban are being held at the
high-security prison at Guantanamo Bay. Human rights groups and some foreign
governments have criticized their treatment and the lack of trials or access to
lawyers.

The United States says the prisoners are "enemy combatants," not prisoners of
war, and says military tribunals are allowed under international law.

* * *


December 18, 2003

COURT: BUSH CAN'T DETAIN 'DIRTY BOMB' SUSPECT

By David G. Savage, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- In a rebuke to the Bush administration, a federal appeals court in
New York ruled today that the president had no authority to arrest an American
citizen on U.S. soil and jail him in a military brig as an "enemy combatant."

In a 2-1 decision, the court gave the government 30 days to release Jose
Padilla, a Bronx-born Muslim who allegedly conspired with Al Queada operatives
to detonate a "dirty bomb" in the United States.

The judges did not say Padilla must go free. Instead, they say the government
must charge him with a crime if it wants to hold him.

The Padilla case has been closely watched by civil libertarians because it
represented an extraordinary assertion of presidential power.

Bush administration lawyers claimed that the president, as commander in chief of
the armed forces, had the inherent power to arrest and hold in secret persons
who are picked up in the United States and are deemed to be dangerous.

The lawyers who challenged the administration said neither the Constitution nor
federal law gives the chief executive such power, and the appeals court sided
squarely with the challengers.

"The President does not have the power under the Constitution to detain as an
enemy combatant an American citizen seized on American soil outside a zone of
combat," the judges wrote in the case of Padilla vs. Rumsfeld.

While the president's commander-in-chief power extends to overseas battlefields
where American troops are engaged, this same authority does not exist on the
home front, the judges said.

The decision also points out that Congress in 1971 passed a law that makes clear
citizens cannot be detained without charges. It says, "No citizen shall be
imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to an act
of Congress."

Sponsors of that law say they wanted to prevent a recurrence of the World War II
detention of Japanese Americans on the West Coast, a detention that was ordered
by President Franklin Roosevelt.

Though today's ruling broadly rejects Bush's claim of unilateral authority, its
impact is likely to be narrow. It does not forbid the military from holding U.S.
citizens who are picked up on the battlefield and were fighting for the enemy.

The other prominent citizen-enemy combatant held by the U.S. military is Yaser
Esam Hamdi, and the New York court said its ruling applied only to citizens who
were arrested in the United States--outside the zone of combat.

The dissenting judge said he would have allowed the government to hold Padilla,
but would also have allowed his lawyer to challenge the basis for his detention
in a federal court.

The administration can ask the full U.S. court of appeals in New York to
reconsider the ruling, and failing that, its lawyers can appeal to the U.S.
Supreme Court.

* * *


Washington Times:

December 18, 2003

AIR FORCE TRANSLATOR SAYS RIGHTS VIOLATED

FAIRFIELD, Calif., Dec. 17 (UPI) -- The former Arabic translator at Guantanamo
Bay Naval Station, Cuba, is accusing the U.S. Air Force of violating his
attorney-client privilege.

Attorneys for spy suspect Senior Airman Ahmad Al Halabi told the Navy Times the
government confiscated their client's laptop computer, raided a defense counsel
office and interrupted a meeting with their client.

However, Air Force officials said the computer was contained in an envelope
while the accused was being transported and his defense counsel had violated
security policy by leaving his client alone.

"Somebody needs to be with him at all times," said Air Force spokeswoman Lt.
Col. Jennifer Cassidy. "At some point, security forces observed he was not
supervised and they took him into custody."

The Times said Al Halabi is accused of attempting to deliver notes from
detainees held at Guantanamo, along with secret documents concerning U.S.
intelligence gathering, to a citizen of a foreign government.

He's also accused of trying to communicate with an unidentified "enemy" by
transmitting detainees' serial numbers through unsecured e-mail.

* * *


ABC (Aus):

December 18, 2003

The 7:30 Report
HICKS MAY FACE CONSPIRACY CHARGE

Reporter: Tracy Bowden

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/s1013113.htm

TRACY BOWDEN: Now to the continuing saga of Australian David Hicks, who has been
languishing in detention at a US naval base for two years, since being captured
in Afghanistan as a suspected terrorist.

Last week, Hicks became the first inmate at Camp X-ray in Guantanamo Bay to be
granted access to legal representation, ahead of his trial on expected
conspiracy-related charges before a US military tribunal.

Adelaide lawyer Stephen Kenny and Hicks's appointed American military defence
attorney, Major Michael Mori, spoke with their client over five days about the
case against him.

They were also there to assess the conditions of his imprisonment.

Stephen Kenny spoke with me earlier today after his return to New York.

Stephen Kenny, when we spoke to you before you visited Guantanamo Bay, you could
only imagine what it would be like and how David Hicks would be.

Was the reality anything like your expectations?

STEVE KENNY, LAWYER: Yes and no.

In some ways, it was probably slightly better, in that the surroundings of the
bay and the living on the naval base are almost like a normal place, but the
problem contained in this is these detention camps and the reality of those
detention camps did not make me feel good.

TRACY BOWDEN: Can you describe what your feelings were when you were there?

STEVE KENNY: My personal feelings -- there was a mixture of anxiety, I suppose,
concern about, not only David.

But David is the first one who has access to a lawyer and someone from the
outside world and, you know, I was also thinking about the others who have no
idea what's going on and don't have the support that David has.

TRACY BOWDEN: Were conditions better or worse than you'd anticipated?

STEVE KENNY: They were probably pretty much the same as we have seen in the
media -- the wire cages and things like that.

I'm not at liberty, on the directions from the military commission, to describe
David's current living circumstances.

I'd like to, but I've not been given permission to speak about it.

So, in some ways it was as bad as I expected, I suppose you could say.

TRACY BOWDEN: There was a view that your client may be in denial in terms of
what lies ahead.

Did he openly plead his innocence to you in relation to the Al Qaeda
allegations?

STEVE KENNY: All I can say about the facts of the case and the agreement I have
with the US Government, I'm cleared to say that David Hicks has never killed or
injured any civilian or any US military or Australian military personnel.

Unfortunately, that is all I can say.

TRACY BOWDEN: Do you think David Hicks is feeling optimistic about the legal
process that lies ahead?

STEVE KENNY: I think that's a very complex question and to give a short answer
is probably not appropriate.

I think he probably feels a complete range of emotions.

He has now seen somebody for the first time.

I believe that has given him a great deal of hope.

But I'm also certain that it's making him think of home.

We took letters from his family, photographs and things like that, and it has
focused his attention on his current situation, which is not easy.

It is difficult.

And that, I think, will be replayed in his mind and if I were in his position, I
think you would end up with a lot of mixed emotions over the next few weeks as
you contemplate the information that we've given him and he thinks about his
situation.

You know, I think that's going to be a fairly difficult period for him.

TRACY BOWDEN: It must have been particularly emotion charged when you showed him
those photos and letters from his family.

For him, that must have been extraordinary.

STEVE KENNY: Yes.

It was an extraordinary meeting, I think I could say.

He has known about me from his father's letters for some time and has been
wondering why I haven't been there.

That was expressed in his earlier letters.

And then to finally arrive, I mean, it was a very emotional situation and one, I
think, that will require us to spend a lot of time with him to be able to
develop a relationship with him and to be able to really provide the proper
defence that he is going to need in this case.

TRACY BOWDEN: It was the first time you'd met David Hicks.

How would you describe him?

What kind of a bloke is he?

STEVE KENNY: I think, you know, he seems like a fairly decent sort of bloke, a
bit of an adventurer.

I, perhaps, wouldn't have gone to Pakistan and Afghanistan, as he has done, and
probably many Australians certainly wouldn't.

But he seemed like a decent sort of bloke.

TRACY BOWDEN: Who's paying for your visit over there?

STEVE KENNY: The Australian Government have granted me a grant of aid through
the Attorney-General's Department.

There's a special overseas special circumstances fund for legal aid for
Australians in trouble overseas.

It's been used in the past.

The Attorney-General's Department have granted me a grant of aid to do this
particular trip.

Whether or not they will continue to grant aid I don't know.

But it's very clear that an Australian lawyer needs to be involved in his
defence and I hope that the Australian Attorney-General's Department will
continue to fund it.

I think that is the very least that they can do considering the position the
Australian Government has taken in this matter.

TRACY BOWDEN: Was it difficult to engineer that?

STEVE KENNY: I had applied some time ago and aid had been rejected.

On this occasion, when things looked like happening and I was told that it was
possible to get there, I immediately contacted the Attorney-General's Department
and re-applied, and on this occasion aid was granted.

So it's not given readily.

It is subject to reasonable restrictions, and it is on essentially a legal-aid
scale.

But it does mean that I have been able to get here and, without it, it would
have been very difficult.

TRACY BOWDEN: Do you still have concerns about the process, about the likelihood
of there being a fair trial?

STEVE KENNY: Well, I think my opinion is David Hicks will not receive a fair
trial under the current circumstances.

And, look, that's not just my opinion.

There are many other people that have examined these rules.

I don't think that any Australian would want to be tried on those rules of
evidence.

They include allowing in hearsay, testimony from previous trials, unsworn
statements, statements that are obtained in interrogation processes that would
never be allowed in an Australian court.

All those things -- and not to mention the fact that he has been detained for
two years in those circumstances.

The defence is now two years behind the prosecution in terms of being able to
provide an effective defence.

All of those things conspire against there being what I would call a fair trial.

TRACY BOWDEN: So I imagine there is an overwhelming lot of work ahead for you.

What next?

STEVE KENNY: Well, that is right.

Essentially, next what we'll do is try to gather together all the evidence
against David Hicks because we haven't seen it all yet.

We'll need to spend a great deal of time with David to go through all of that
material.

You must remember David in his earlier letters spoke of being interrogated on
numerous occasions.

We know he has been interrogated by the Australian Federal Police and ASIO on
four or five occasions.

We don't know exactly how many days but our calculation is somewhere between
about 10 and 12 days.

We need to go through that material.

We need to look at the allegations.

We then need to get some expert advice in relation to that.

And then we need to go back and talk to David and advise him fully on what his
options are and the circumstances.

I mean, that's the sort of thing that lawyers would normally do.

TRACY BOWDEN: Stephen Kenny, thanks for your time.

STEVE KENNY: Thank you.

* * *


ABC (Aus):

18 December, 2003

AUSTRALIAN LAWYER DESCRIBES VISIT WITH DAVID HICKS

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2003/s1012448.htm

Reporter: Leigh Sales

DAVID HARDAKER: Stephen Kenny, the Australian lawyer representing Guantanamo Bay
inmate, David Hicks, has just returned from his first visit to see his client.

Mr Kenny says Guantanamo is a physical and moral black hole, but that David
Hicks has been treated well by US military staff.

Mr Hicks is apparently in good physical and mental condition but it seems he has
not accepted the possibility of a lengthy jail term.

Stephen Kenny is the first independent lawyer the Pentagon has allowed into
Guantanamo, and he revealed his impressions at a press conference in New York.
North America Correspondent Leigh Sales was there.

STEPHEN KENNY: Despite all that has happened to David, I can say, considering
the conditions and his circumstances, he appears to be reasonable spirits,
although he is quite depressed about his conditions and essentially what has
happened to him.

He does, however, give credit to those individuals who guard him, who have
treated him in a decent and human way within the limits set for them. He has not
been ill-treated since his arrival in Guantanamo Bay, if you ignore the
isolation, his lack of access to the outside world, and his denial of his basic
human rights.

LEIGH SALES: Mr Kenny says David Hicks was extremely pleased to see defence
lawyers.

STEPHEN KENNY: If I remember correctly, I think I said to him: "G'day mate," and
he looked at me and said: "Steve Kenny," and I went: "Yes."

LEIGH SALES: Mr Kenny spent five days at Guantanamo getting up to six hours at a
time with David Hicks.

STEPHEN KENNY: We took him some chocolate, some, a small jar -- a very small jar
-- of vegemite. I think he appreciated that. It caused some amusement amongst, I
could say, Americans, that we would bring such a product. We were able to take
him in food. We brought him in McDonalds. I cooked him a steak. He greatly
appreciated that, I think.

LEIGH SALES: While Stephen Kenny hasn't seen the full evidence against his
client, he has formed an idea about what sort of charges may be laid.

STEPHEN KENNY: I have some limitations on what I can and cannot say but I think
I can say the charge will be some form of a conspiracy charge.

LEIGH SALES: Stephen Kenny still believes the military commissions won't deliver
justice in the way a US civil court would, or even some sort of international
tribunal.

STEPHEN KENNY: It appears to me that Saddam Hussein is going to be afforded a
trial that represents a fairer system of justice than what David Hicks will
receive.

LEIGH SALES: As Stephen Kenny spoke to a room full of reporters, at the back,
Major Michael Mori, the Pentagon Counsel who will actually represent David Hicks
before a military commission, slipped in unannounced, watching in civilian
clothes.

As soon as the press conference ended, Major Mori vanished, but the ABC
followed. Two men were with him.

As soon as he saw the camera, Major Mori hid his face behind papers and one of
the other men threw his jacket across the front of our camera.

MAN ACCOMPANYING MAJOR MORI: No, no, you can't do that. You're going to get the
poor guy fired from his job if you keep taking pictures...

LEIGH SALES: Who are you with?

MAN ACCOMPANYING MAJOR MORI: I'm helping him.

LEIGH SALES: Are you with the Pentagon? Are you with the Pentagon?

MAN ACCOMPANYING MAJOR MORI: No. God help us.

LEIGH SALES: Major Mori, can you say anything?

The lift finally arrived, and as Major Mori walked inside, the second man with
him stood in front to prevent any view.

This is Leigh Sales in New York for AM.

* * *

Boston Globe:

December 17, 2003

TRIBUNAL FOR A HUSSEIN TRIAL CRITICIZED

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON -- On paper, the human rights tribunal prepared by the Iraqis to try
Saddam Hussein looks like a Western court.

The statute passed last week by the Iraqi Governing Council includes a
presumption of innocence, the right to remain silent, the power to question
witnesses, and a guarantee of a speedy trial. The rules call for 20
investigative judges to gather evidence, a prosecutor who will present charges
to a five-judge tribunal, and a nine-judge appeals panel.

But international law specialists warned yesterday that the 7,300-word document
establishing the "Iraqi Special Tribunal for Crimes Against Humanity" contains
critical holes that could undermine the integrity of what will be the most
important human rights trial since Nuremberg.

The statute does not protect witnesses or suspects from coercion, and does not
require that judges be impartial, or that guilt be established beyond a
reasonable doubt.

"The issue of justice for gross violations of human rights and international
humanitarian law is too important to risk that the legitimacy and credibility of
the trials will be undermined by the perception that the special tribunal is not
fair, impartial, independent or effective," the international organization Human
Rights Watch wrote in a lengthy memo suggesting changes to the Governing Council
yesterday.

While the United States has not officially sanctioned the Iraqi tribunal,
President Bush said Monday that Hussein would be tried by Iraqis, rejecting
calls for an international tribunal such as those set up by the UN for Rwanda
and the former Yugoslavia. Attorneys from the US Justice Department assisted in
drafting the rules.

They cover acts between July 17, 1968, when Hussein and other Ba'ath Party
members took power in a coup, and May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared the
end of major combat operations. Those years saw hundreds of thousands of deaths,
the use of chemical weapons against Iranians and Kurds, the invasion of Kuwait
in 1991, the massacre of Shi'ites and Marsh Arabs who rose up after the first
Gulf War, and alleged systematic killings, rapes, and tortures.

Because of the stakes, Human Rights Watch stressed that the tribunal must
conform to international standards for justice. Among the problems it found in a
line-by-line review of the rules:

There is no requirement that judges, prosecutors, or investigators be
disqualified from a case where "their impartiality . . . might be reasonably
doubted," such as if they were involved in the crime itself, had a relationship
with any of the parties, or had expressed opinions about the case.

The rules fail to establish a standard of proof, only that guilt must be proven
"in accordance with the law."

The statute grants suspects and witnesses no protections against arbitrary
detention or from being compelled to confess guilt, and no protection from
coercion -- including threats, duress or torture.

There is little clarity on procedures, which are pegged to Iraqi criminal codes
dating back to 1968, 1969, and 1971. Reliance on those laws could "open the door
to abuse" because they allow some confessions obtained by physical coercion,
closed proceedings, and excluding defense attorneys during questioning of
suspects.

Even if the rules are all brought up to Western standards, finding enough
experienced lawyers outside Hussein's Ba'ath Party will also be a problem,
specialists said.

"It's full of good intentions," said Detlev Vagts, professor of international
law at Harvard University. "But the big question is . . . do they have enough
Iraqis with the experience and stature to handle what may be a very complicated
trial?"

But Ruth Wedgwood, a professor of international law at Johns Hopkins University,
disagreed.

"You don't have to make it to the far side of the moon for this," she said.
"Among the exiles and the people who survived the Ba'athists, there are surely
37 good lawyers."

The rules allow non-Iraqi experts to be involved, and the Governing Council may
appoint international judges to sit alongside the Iraqis. Citing the
"extraordinary complexity" of a genocide trial, Human Rights Watch urged the
Governing Council to require that lawyers from recent international tribunals
join the effort.

The secretive manner in which the statute was written also has raised some
eyebrows. Little is known about how it was drafted aside from the Justice
Department lawyers' role and that Salem Chalabi, nephew of Iraqi National
Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi, was one of its principal architects. The
Governing Council unveiled it as a done deal last week.

In late October, three members of Congress -- Representative Tom Lantos,
Democrat of California, and senators Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, and
Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont -- wrote a letter to L. Paul Bremer III, the
top US administrator in Iraq, asking him to encourage the Governing Council to
allow more public discussion, singling out the "relatively closed, non-
transparent legislative process" used to establish the tribunal.

* * *


WSWS:

December 17, 2003

MILITARY’S "ESPIONAGE" CASE AGAINST GUANTANAMO CHAPLAIN COLLAPSES
By Joanne Laurier

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/dec2003/yeee-d17.shtml

The US military’s attempt to charge Captain James Yee, a Muslim army chaplain
stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with espionage in connection with the
illegally held detainees housed there has collapsed ignominiously.

Having scapegoated Yee, incarcerated him in harsh conditions for more than two
months, and besmirched his reputation, the Army is trying to cover itself by
charging the chaplain with two counts of mishandling classified documents, one
of which is reportedly a term paper on Syria. His lawyers have still not been
given access to the papers. He is also accused of adultery, failure to obey an
order and having pornography on his government computer!

A preliminary hearing for Yee stalled after two days on December 9, when
prosecutors asked for more time to examine the documents found in his luggage
after he left the base. The hearing in Fort Benning, Georgia, was postponed
until January 19.

Yee, 35, was once billed by Pentagon officials as part of a major spy plot. He
was arrested upon arrival at the naval air station in Jacksonville, Florida,
from Cuba on September 10. Custom officials believed that materials in his
backpack were suspicious, possibly containing classified information.

"I am wondering how they can with a straight face persist in prosecuting him
when they don’t know themselves what’s classified and what isn’t," Yee’s
civilian attorney, Eugene Fidell, told Newsday.

Yee, who was assigned to minister to the more than 600 prisoners from the Afghan
war, was placed in solitary confinement after his arrest. Prosecutors initially
told his military defense lawyer, Major Scott Sikes, that they might seek the
death penalty.

Yee now faces an Article 32 proceeding, which is the military’s version of a
pretrial hearing to determine whether an individual will face court martial.

After having spent 76 days at the Navy brig at Charleston, South Carolina, Yee,
who is married and has two children, was released one day after Fidell, a
prominent Washington-based attorney, wrote to George W. Bush. The letter
disclosed that Yee had been held from September 10 to October 24 "in a small
cell for about 23 hours a day, with only one hour of solitary exercise." He was
required to wear hand and leg irons when leaving his cell.

"He was forced to endure several other harsh and illegal conditions of
confinement," explained Fidell’s letter, that were far more onerous than the
charges mandated. Yee, a Chinese-American who graduated from West Point and
later converted to Islam, was the second Muslim chaplain assigned to the
Guantanamo prison camp since its establishment in January 2002.

After the hearing delay, Major Sikes said: "This is the most incredible military
justice proceeding that this military defense counsel has ever been involved
in." Sikes’s statements mark the first time a uniformed officer has publicly
denounced the government’s tactics in the case. The members of Yee’s defense
team have asked prosecutors to allow them to see the "suspicious papers" alluded
to by a Department of Homeland Security agent on the first day of the hearing.

In an interview with the WSWS, attorney Fidell commented: "After the government
got over its hysteria -- the extraordinary claims of espionage and transporting
classified information -- the hearing was postponed because for the 76 days that
Captain Yee was being detained, the government failed to perform the necessary
security review to demonstrate whether the documents were classified or not.

"At the beginning, it was intimated that the case might go capital [capital
punishment]. To this day, I have never seen any classified information. Any time
an individual confronts the state, anything can happen.

"Those responsible for Guantanamo prisoners were handed a terrible, terrible
job. They got spun out on secrecy and reacted in a panicked fashion.

"The legal climate is on a hair trigger and this has generally been increasing
since September11. The maximum permissible sentence for the charges against Mr.
Yee is 14 years. But for charges like these people do not get sent to jail and
he has already spent a good deal of jail time.

"It’s ironic, but in some ways, the government has treated him like a Guantanamo
detainee."

Mr. Fidell thought the charges brought against Yee were added vindictively,
suggesting "a kind of desperation on the part of the US government."

Yee is one of four people charged to date with breaches at Guantanamo. The first
person arrested was Senior Airman Ahmad I. Al-Halabi, an Air Force translator
accused of collecting secrets about the base and messages from prisoners with
plans to transmit them to an unspecified enemy in his native Syria. He has
pleaded innocent to 32 charges, including espionage and aiding the enemy,
charges that carry a possible death penalty. Detained since July 23, al-Halabi’s
arrest was announced shortly after the September arrest of Yee.

A civilian interpreter, Ahmad F. Mehalba, was arrested September 29 as he
arrived in Boston from his native Egypt with ostensibly classified documents. He
was charged on November 12 with gathering defense information and lying to
federal investigators.

Army Colonel Jack Farr, an intelligence officer, became the fourth person
charged. On November 29, he was accused of "wrongfully transporting classified
material without the proper security container on or around Oct. 11," and lying
to investigators, according to a statement from the US Southern Command.

Defense campaign

Captain Yee’s defense fund has been organized by Justice for New Americans,
first formed during the case of Wen Ho Lee, the Taiwan-born Los Alamos National
Laboratory scientist who was arrested by the FBI in 1999 and found not guilty
after 10 months in solitary confinement and the ruination of his career. The FBI
had initially investigated Lee as a potential Chinese spy, but never had any
evidence to back up the charge.

"The media, particularly the New York Times, found Wen Ho Lee guilty before he
was indicted," Cecilia Chang, head of Justice for New Americans, told the WSWS.
"I see the same thing happening with James Yee."

She said that Yee’s situation may be more serious than was Dr. Lee’s because
after the September 11 terrorist attacks and the establishment of the Department
of Homeland Security, attacks on civil liberties have dramatically increased.
Chang claims that the government is retaliating against Yee for speaking up
about human rights violations at Guantanamo -- "the really intolerable
conditions detainees are subjected to."

Chang continued: "James’s family has been in America for three generations-they
don’t even speak Chinese anymore. Out of five siblings, three went into the
military. That’s a loyal American family! It seems like every time we turn
around the government is targeting another ethnic group. During the McCarthy
period, Chinese laundrymen from New York and San Francisco were victimized.
During World War II, the Japanese were put into concentration camps.

"Showing sympathy to the detainees is just being a humanist and that is not a
crime. Being a chaplain means that you listen to people’s suffering and that is
not a crime. It is these kinds of charges and accusations that make people laugh
at the military.

She went on to say that one of the "classified documents" found in Yee’s
possession was in actuality a graduate school term paper on Syria. "James is an
excellent example of just how far the situation with Homeland Security has gone.
It can destroy careers, families and marriages.

"James is a loyal American, not an enemy combatant, but they put him in a Navy
brig for 76 days. In the early part of September and October, the media wrapped
James up with other suspected terrorists. I believe there is some kind of
conspiracy between the right-wing government and the media in criminalizing
immigrant-looking people. But what’s happening is that more Americans are coming
together and people are waking up.

"Homeland Security proves that people can’t take democracy for granted.
Immigrant people can’t just sit back and take democracy for granted. We have to
fight. When we are crucified and ostracized, we have to speak out because we are
speaking out for all people.

"One of the things I thought was interesting was that the first book James
bought when he got out of prison was the Jessica Lynch book."

* * *


Toronto Globe and Mail:

December 17, 2003

THE RIGHTS WE CLAIM FOR OURSELVES HAVE NO
MEANING UNLESS WE EXTEND THEM TO OTHERS

By Paul Knox

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20031217.wknox1217/BNStory/
Front/

If I find Osama bin Laden rooting around in my back yard over the Christmas
holidays, and I pick up a shovel and beat him to death, should I be charged with
murder?

Obviously. Sure, it looks to me like he sent planes into the Twin Towers and the
Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people. Sure, a lot of people would like to see
him bludgeoned to a pulp. But I don't get to do him myself. It's just as wrong
for me to club a mass murderer to death on my own as it would be to poison
Mother Teresa.

Leaving aside the question of capital punishment, Mr. bin Laden has -- or ought
to have -- the right to a fair and open trial. That means clear rules, honest
judges, the lawyer of his choice, the chance to present a coherent defence and
the right of appeal. So ingrained are these principles in the Western world, and
fortunately in a growing number of countries outside it, that even a monster
such as Saddam Hussein inspires a debate about due process.

To many -- particularly for the Iraqis who saw their relatives murdered under
Mr. Hussein -- the discussion must seem surreal. I put the question to Ian
Martin, a former secretary-general of Amnesty International and now the vice-
president of the International Center for Transitional Justice in New York: Why
be humane to the essence of inhumanity? His reply wasn't surprising, but it
bears repeating. "The way you show how you are different," he said, "is
precisely by according people the rights that they refused to accord." And by
extension, the worse the atrocities, the greater the moral power that flows from
applying the rule of law.

Now, if Mr. Hussein's rights are worth all this discussion by the tall foreheads
of the West, let's consider those of Abdullah Almalki, Arwad Al-Bouchi, Ahmad
Abou El-Maati and Hassan Almrei -- minor collateral casualties in the battle
that was unleashed by Mr. bin Laden and joined by Mr. Bush.

Mr. Almalki and Mr. Al-Bouchi are the Canadians languishing in jail in Syria --
a country famous for its torture methods. Little is known of Mr. Al-Bouchi's
case, but the Syrians know that Mr. Almalki was the object of an RCMP terrorism
investigation. Mr. El-Maati, who has also been questioned by the RCMP, would be
in Syria too, except he was handed over some time ago to Egypt. His crime so far
appears to be that he has spent time in the company of the imam of a mosque in
the Toronto suburb of Scarborough. The imam has attracted the attention of the
Canadian Security Intelligence Service, although he hasn't been arrested or
charged.

Mr. Almrei is a different case. A successful refugee claimant, he's in jail in
Toronto because a certificate signed by two federal cabinet ministers says he's
a threat to national security. He may be deported to Syria, the country of his
birth, after being publicly branded by Canadian authorities as a possible
terrorist.

He admits to lying about a bunch of things, including procuring a phony passport
and spending time in training camps in Afghanistan in the early 1990s. But he
says he has never used the weapons skills he acquired there, and does not
sympathize with the al-Qaeda terror network. Nevertheless, CSIS is worried about
him for other reasons, such as the pictures of Muslim warriors found on his
computer.

Heinous stuff? Possibly. But hold on: Procuring phony passports is a criminal
offence. You deal with it not by locking people up indefinitely, but by charging
them, convicting them and passing sentence. As far as computer pictures goes, if
we're jailing people for that one, let's make room for half the country.

And as for weapons training, there's an important principle at stake: You punish
people not for what they ruminate about or fantasize about, but for what they
do. Otherwise, we're sliding down the slope of thought crimes -- right down into
the vast swamp inhabited by people like Osama and Saddam. And you also don't
send people home to places where they use torture to extract "confessions," or
intimidate political opponents, or just for sport on a slow day.

If we never had disagreements we wouldn't need laws. If we were all manifestly
saints, we wouldn't need the concept of human rights. And just as I shouldn't be
able to take Mr. bin Laden's fate into my own hands, neither should Syria be
able to deal arbitrarily with Messrs. Almalki, Al-Bouchi and El-Maati, or Canada
with Mr. Almrei.

The rights we claim for ourselves have no meaning unless we extend them to
others. Either they're universal, or they aren't rights at all -- just the law
of the jungle by a more genteel name.

* * *


Washington Times:

December 17, 2003

SUSPECT PROVIDES VALUABLE DATA ON AL QAEDA'S PLANS
By Jerry Seper

http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20031216-102515-2216r

The American held as an enemy combatant in a suspected scheme to detonate a
"dirty bomb" in the United States has given federal authorities valuable
intelligence information and will not be given access to a lawyer until his
interrogation ends, senior Justice Department officials said yesterday.
"Once the intelligence collection efforts are judged not to be hampered or
jeopardized by access to counsel, then there's no objection to access to
counsel," said one department official.

Federal authorities believe Abdullah al Muhajir, a former Chicago gang member
also known as Jose Padilla, met with leaders of the al Qaeda terrorist network
during trips he made to Pakistan and Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks
and that his continued cooperation is in the interest of national security.

The government has appealed a ruling by a U.S. District Court judge in New York
saying al Muhajir had the right to meet with a lawyer, and at a hearing last
month, a three-judge federal appeals court panel questioned the Bush
administration's decision to classify al Muhajir as an enemy combatant. The
appeal remains under consideration.

Authorities say al Muhajir, a Muslim convert, met with top al Qaeda officials
after the September 11 attacks, including Abu Zubaydah, a top lieutenant to
Osama bin Laden.

The high-level meetings began in December 2001, when al Muhajir first met with
Zubaydah, a major al Qaeda recruiter and a suspect in the September 11 attacks,
they said. Zubaydah was captured March 28 during raids by Pakistani police at a
"safe house" in Faisalabad.

"There is absolutely no doubt al Muhajir talked extensively with Zubaydah
concerning al Qaeda's plans to carry out a variety of attacks in the United
States, including the use of so-called dirty bombs," one U.S. official said
following al Muhajir's May 2002 arrest at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport
on a flight from Pakistan.

Al Muhajir, a New York native and convicted felon whose Arabic name translates
to "the emigrant," was taken into custody by the FBI. He later was turned over
to U.S. military authorities, who are holding him as an enemy combatant.
Authorities said the intended attacks included the detonation of a radiological
dispersion device, or dirty bomb, against a number of targets, including
government buildings in Washington, and separate explosions aimed at hotels and
gas stations.

They said it was Zubaydah who sent al Muhajir to Lahore, Pakistan, after a
meeting in Afghanistan, where he was trained in building and detonating dirty
bombs. Zubaydah then arranged for al Muhajir to meet with several top al Qaeda
leaders in Pakistan to talk about attacking U.S. targets, the authorities said.
His trip to Chicago in May 2002, authorities said, was to begin reconnaissance
for a bombing site and seek a source for the radioactive material for a dirty
bomb.

The conspiracy was pieced together by the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies
from information obtained from Zubaydah, who has undergone extensive
interrogation by U.S. officials since his capture. Authorities said he did not
give up al Muhajir's name but discussed enough of the plan to lead FBI agents to
him.

It was Zubaydah who told interrogators this year that al Qaeda was close to
building a dirty bomb and might try to smuggle one into the United States.
At the time of the Chicago arrest, Attorney General John Ashcroft said the
capture had "significantly disrupted" the dirty-bomb plot. He said the FBI had
obtained "very significant information" about al Muhajir's involvement with al
Qaeda "in very serious terrorist plots."

Zubaydah is the highest-ranking al Qaeda member in U.S. custody and has also
been tied to the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. His capture was an
intelligence and public relations coup for an administration that promised to
bring bin Laden and others responsible for the September 11 attacks to justice.

* * *


ABC News:

December 17, 2003

FEDS OUTLINE PLAN ON ENEMY COMBATANTS
Bush Administration Policy Says Enemy Combatants
Should Get Lawyers Only After Providing Intelligence

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20031217_284.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. citizens classified as enemy combatants have to wait to
get an attorney until they've provided intelligence to the government under a
Bush administration policy that critics say treads on constitutional rights.

"It appears to be a very one-sided administration policy that places a U.S.
citizen at the government's mercy," said Michael Greenberger, a former
counterterrorism official in the Clinton administration who is now a law
professor at the University of Maryland.

Three senior Justice Department officials on Tuesday gave details of the policy
for the first time. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they said it is the
proper way to balance national security and constitutional protections for
people in government custody as part of the war on terror.

One of the officials said the goal never has been to deny counsel, only to delay
it until interrogations are finished.

Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla are two U.S. citizens being held as enemy
combatants.

Critics argue the policy encroaches on a defendant's constitutional right to be
granted quick access to an attorney and the courts. They note the government
argues in federal courts that it has an absolute right to deny access to lawyers
for enemy combatants, including U.S. citizens, and that such a decision is not
subject to review by judges.

"What we're saying is that someone who's arrested in the United States is not to
be treated that way, and instead should be treated in the criminal justice
system," said Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil
Liberties Union.

Captives can be detained as enemy combatants if they were members of al-Qaida,
engaged in or aided terrorism or harbored terrorists, or if it is "the interest
of the United States" to hold an individual during hostilities, according to an
order issued in 2001 by President Bush.

Hamdi, a Louisiana native, was captured in Afghanistan and was transferred to
the United States after officials discovered his citizenship by birth at the
prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Padilla, a former gang member who was born in Chicago, was arrested in May 2002
at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on a flight from Pakistan. He is
suspected of plotting with al-Qaida to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb."
Padilla was designated an enemy combatant a month later.

The Defense Department this month announced Hamdi would have access to an
attorney because he no longer could provide intelligence. Padilla, on the other
hand, continues to sit in a Navy brig without a lawyer.

Padilla's value as an intelligence source, one official said, "would potentially
be hampered and jeopardized by access to counsel." The official did not
elaborate on what kind of information Padilla is providing.

However, law enforcement officials say the intelligence provided by terrorism
detainees goes far beyond simple interrogation. They can verify intelligence
from other sources, identify suspected terrorists and help U.S. officials
determine if other detainees are trying to spread false information.

But legal experts say the Bush administration has not clearly defined when a
suspected terrorist should be tried as a criminal in civilian courts and when
that person should be designated an enemy combatant.

"What's needed is a new system of safeguards," said Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker,
dean of the University of the Pacific law school and former general counsel at
the CIA and National Security Agency. "It's not a situation our criminal laws
were designed to respond to."

The Justice Department officials said it is possible Padilla and Hamdi will be
released when the president decides the war against terrorism has ended, which
isn't expected to come anytime soon.

Padilla's challenge to the government's denial of a lawyer is currently before
the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. The Supreme Court is mulling
whether to accept an appeal brought by Hamdi's father over the initial denial of
an attorney for him.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear another case about the government's
policies in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. It asks whether some 650 detainees
at the government's terrorism prison at Guantanamo Bay may challenge their
treatment in U.S. courts.

The Pentagon recently decided that an Australian prisoner at Guantanamo Bay,
David Hicks, can have access to outside counsel.

* * *


December 16, 2003

TRIAL COULD CAST WAR IN NEW LIGHT

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON -- The coming trial of Saddam Hussein will blanket world media with
the daily evocation of decades of atrocities, potentially recasting the Iraq war
from a campaign rationalized by the still-unproven threat of weapons of mass
destruction to a moral undertaking justified by ending his regime's massive
human rights abuses.

Had Hussein been killed by US soldiers, his final chapter would have made
headlines for only a few days. But the improbable fact that he allowed himself
to be taken alive offers President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain
the opportunity to watch their critics squirm under a sustained flow of
headlines that will emphasize the humanitarian argument for their war -- even if
it was not the one they most often articulated before the fighting.

While the president yesterday offered only a pledge that the trial will be
public and "stand international scrutiny," war supporters envision a televised
tribunal, replete with the surviving victims and relatives of the dead offering
riveting testimony of torture, massacre, and other personal encounters with
horror -- thus obliging opponents to reconsider their assertions that it was a
mistake to invade Iraq.

"Without ever appearing to be partisan, but merely by cataloging Saddam's
numerous heinous crimes . . . it will become implicit in a lot of people's minds
that this was a terrible person and that toppling and catching him was
undoubtedly a moral and practical good," said John Hulsman of the conservative
Heritage Foundation. "That undermines the moralism at the base of left-wing
opposition to the president's Iraq policy. It hits them where they live."

Political analysts doubt that hard-core opponents to the war will be ultimately
swayed by that logic, but most acknowledge that the crucial bloc of the
undecided, who swing elections, would be more likely to be persuaded.

Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia professor of politics, predicted that
supporters of the US occupation of Iraq would schedule the trial with politics
in mind.

There is the chance, however, the trial will not play smoothly for supporters of
US policy. Depending on how far back the charges go and how much opportunity
Hussein is given to defend himself, he could try to implicate the United States
in his crimes, said Leslie Cagan, national coordinator of the antiwar protest
coalition United for Peace and Justice.

"If all that comes out during the trial is the crimes that Saddam committed --
and I'm not saying those shouldn't come out -- then I think it could serve to
buttress the Bush administration," she said. "But if it also comes out about the
role of the US in setting up that regime, then I think there will be even
greater questioning about why this war happened and why this occupation is going
on and what the real interests of the US are at this point."

Yesterday, Iran said that it is preparing a criminal complaint over Hussein's
war crimes from the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, in which about 300,000 Iranians
were killed -- including many who died in chemical weapons attacks by the Iraqi
Army. Iraq was supported by the United States -- and many other nations -- when
Hussein invaded Iran the year after its radical Islamic revolution. According to
the Arab-language television network Al-Jazeera, an Iranian spokesman said
yesterday that after the Iraqis try their former dictator, an international
court "should determine who equipped this dictator to disrupt our region."

But despite that risk, others contend that the trial will have a positive effect
on Arab perceptions of the war.

Ruth Wedgwood, a Johns Hopkins University professor of international law, said
the truth-commissionlike nature of the investigation into Hussein's violence
will "destroy the idea that this man could purport to represent Iraqi
sovereignty" in the Middle East, where the "Arab street" remains bitterly
opposed to the US invasion.

"This will certainly validate the view of the war as necessary to displace
someone who is really a first-class human rights violator," she said. "I also
think that will have a good effect on the region because even if Saddam Hussein
was numero uno in brutality, watching another head of state go on trial for
human rights violations could have a salutory effect on Syria, the Saudis, and
the Iranians."

Inside the United States, the capture and coming trial of Hussein may be giving
an "immediate public relations advantage for the prowar faction," said Tony
Kireopoulos, associate general secretary for international affairs and peace for
the National Council of Churches. But he said the problems created by the war
will not vanish despite the competing story line.

The human rights justification "was really a third and distant reason for
entering into this war," after purported weapons of mass destruction and links
to the Al Qaeda terror network, "and it still begs the questions of how long our
troops will be there," he said.

Nevertheless, a "very interesting shift in the mental atmosphere" among some
liberal war opponents may already be underway, according to Michael Ignatieff,
director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University's
Kennedy School of Government. While it's important to remember that human rights
was not the government's chief motive, others who supported the war from the
beginning on human-rights grounds -- including himself -- have started feeling
"vindicated" since the announcement that the former dictator will face trial.

"His human rights violations were a scandal, but no one was actually prepared to
support military force to topple him," Ignatieff said. "There's some funny shift
in the ground here. Liberal opponents of the war always understood that there
was a human rights ground for getting rid of him, but said, you know, 'We can't
trust Bush' or 'We don't like violence,' or whatever their reason was. I think
everybody has just remembered that he's an extremely bad guy and it's good to
get rid of him."

* * *


CBC:

December 16, 2003

FAMILIES OF BRITISH DETAINEES AT GUANTANAMO ASK FOR HELP

LONDON - In the U.S.-led war on terror, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has become a focal
point: a prison where the United States keeps hundreds of prisoners, so far
without trial or charge.

Washington says they're somehow involved in attacks or planned attacks against
the U.S.

On Tuesday, a demonstration across the street from British Prime Minister Tony
Blair's office was held to call attention to nine British detainees, among more
than 600 prisoners.

Among the prisoners is Mozzam Begg, the son of Azmet Begg. No prisoner is
allowed legal help. Azmet has had no letter from his son for five months.

"While Mr. Blair is laughing and mocking, the children and parents of Mozzam
Begg are in tears day and night, day and night," said Azmet Begg.

A few minutes later Begg led a delegation carrying a petition with tens of
thousands of names to Blair's prime ministerial office. The goal is to have the
British detainees brought to Britain.

British civil rights lawyers go further. They talk of a Guantanamo on the
Thames; of sweeping British anti-terror laws which have put 16 refugees in
prison and a legal black hole for the past two years.

Gareth Pierce represents some of the imprisoned men. The British government put
them in prison claiming a national emergency. She tells audiences that while
they can have legal help, they've never been charged and may never be.

"Parliament was misled, the public has been misled, there is no national
emergency here and these 16 are undoubtedly wrongfully detained," she said.

The families and lawyers of detainees came out after meeting Britain's junior
foreign minister for a frequently-postponed meeting. In spite of government
hints after the state visit of U.S. President George W. Bush, there was no good
news.

"It's hopeless. This is the fifth occasion we've been rebuffed by the Foreign
Office and it means the families are in total despair," said Jaffer Clarke,
deputy leader of the Muslim parliament of Great Britain.

For the British detainees and their families the deep legal limbo continues. The
British government may be the closest ally of the Bush administration but it can
offer the Guantanamo families nothing, except another meeting in February.

[ Written by CBC News Online staff. ]

* * *


The Daily Times (Lahore):

December 17, 2003

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GUANTANAMO KIDS
By Brian Cloughley

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_17-12-2003_pg3_2

Three Afghan children have been imprisoned for over a year, and not one leader
in the west has spoken out against this bizarre case of illegal punishment

There is no truth in the allegation that a thirteen year old child is being held
in the military prison at Guantanamo Bay. No: the child is now fourteen, having
had his birthday in a hellhole from which his release date is unknown. Happy
birthday, kid, from all of us, and especially from those caring family folks,
Messrs Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, who just love the young so much they can’t
bear to let them go.

Three Afghan children have been imprisoned for over a year, and not one leader
in the west has spoken out against this bizarre case of illegal punishment.
There are citizens of Britain in the Bush concentration camp, but Tony (‘I’m a
pretty straight sort of guy’) Blair is content to have them rot to death in
captivity.

They are not white, of course. They are mainly of west Asian origin, and that
sort of person doesn’t seem to matter very much. If their names were Smith or
Jones we can be sure that British tabloids would carry such blazing headlines as
‘Get These People OUT, Tony!’ but it appears to be the opinion of the UK public
that the prisoners are not quite British. Apparently they don’t matter to the
government or people.

Guantanamo prisoners are shackled when taken out of their cages (7 by 8 feet),
and blindfolded and given no information about where they are or why they are
there. The spotlights on the cages are never turned off. The prisoners have not
been charged with any crime and do not know the length of their sentence because
none has been passed. They don’t receive visits and are not allowed legal
representation. One of the 40 or so released prisoners said last year that
prisoners were locked in their cells all the time, with two 15-minute breaks a
week for exercise.

Hell, it’s practically the Ritz. And this captive actually received mail. Yes:
he got a four month-old letter from his family exactly three days before he was
let go. He hadn’t been charged. He hadn’t been sentenced. There was no legal
process of any sort. He was abducted by US troops, shackled and blindfolded,
flown several thousand miles away, left to rot for eleven months, and then set
free without explanation of why he was caged like an animal for so long. This is
liberty and the pursuit of happiness, Bush-style.

America’s senior military officer, General Myers, justified his imprisonment of
children by saying "[they] are very dangerous. Some have killed, some have
stated they are going to kill again... they’re on a major league team and it’s a
terrorist team and they’re in Guantanamo for a very good reason, for our safety,
for your safety." So who had the children killed? Where is the evidence for them
having killed someone? Myers said categorically that ‘some’ of the three
children ‘have killed’. That is a flat statement of fact.

Right: let’s have ‘some’ of the children (presumably two) who killed people
placed in front of a court. Any court; anywhere. Myers made the statement eight
months ago. There has been plenty of time to have the process of law engaged.
Why has it not been engaged? What is the reason for keeping these children in
prison without trial? Few politicians give a damn about the Gitmo Kids, but
there is one group that is concerned about their illegal imprisonment: stand up
to receive our thanks, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

I have two friends who work for the ICRC. They never tell me anything about
their travels, or who they see, or what they talk about. This is frustrating,
because I would very much like to know what they do, but they stick rigidly to
the ICRC code of never speaking about any aspect of their activities. It is
vital they do not, because the Red Cross guarantee of silence ensures access to
all sorts of prisoners held in hellish conditions throughout this horrible
world.

ICRC representatives (called ‘delegates’) are trusted by even the vilest regimes
whose captives receive at least some solace from visits by caring people. So the
ICRC is never publicly critical of any country. Or it has never been until
recently when it stated "the ICRC does not consider Guantanamo an appropriate
place to detain juveniles. It is especially concerned about the fact that they
are held away from their families and worries about the possible psychological
impact this experience could have..."

In terms of Red Cross diplomacy this was a major outburst, and in an address to
the 28th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in early
December its president, Jakob Kellenberger, stated bluntly that "The struggle
against terrorist activities, necessary and legitimate as it is, must not
undermine the values on which society must be founded."

In particular, he said, "the preservation of human dignity according to
international law" is paramount. I don’t suppose Bush and Rumsfeld will lose a
moment’s sleep about the concerns of a wimpish outfit like the Red Cross,
because they are utterly without heart or compassion, but it is obvious to the
rest of us, the human beings of the world, that there is a serious moral and
legal problem in detaining children without charge, trial or hope.

The commandant of Guantanamo, Major General Miller, was quoted by Charlie Savage
of the Boston Globe on 16 November as having "recommended that the defense
department send [the children] home because he had determined they had been
‘kidnapped into terrorism’, posed a low risk, and had no further intelligence to
provide." This is entirely at variance with Myers’ claim that they had killed
and are going to kill again. Someone is telling lies, but who cares?

Some other news about Afghan children surfaced last week, when it was discovered
that fifteen were killed by two US airstrikes. According to an official
spokesman it was their own fault in the first incident, because "If non-
combatants surround themselves with thousands of weapons... in a compound known
to be used by a terrorist, we are not completely responsible for the
consequences". That must make their grieving families feel lots better.

The second lot of killings was not so easy to explain away, and it had to be
admitted that nine infants were slaughtered by mistake. Those fifteen Afghan
kids will never have another birthday, unlike the ones held prisoner in
Guantanamo Bay. Happy birthday, kids.

[ Brian Cloughley is a former military officer who writes on international
affairs. His website is www.briancloughley.com ]

* * *


December 16, 2003

OFFICIALS: AFTER THEY TALK, ENEMY COMBATANTS CAN HAVE LAWYERS
Justice leaders defend policy that critics say treads on rights

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/nation/stories/
121703dnnatenemy.97814.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. citizens classified as enemy combatants should gain
access to attorneys only after they have disclosed everything they know about
terrorist operations, federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

Three senior Justice Department officials, briefing reporters on condition of
anonymity, outlined the policy for the first time, calling it the proper way to
balance national security and constitutional protections for people in
government custody as part of the war on terrorism.

One of the officials said the goal never has been to deny counsel, only to delay
it until interrogations are finished.

Critics say the policy gives the government too much leeway and treads on the
constitutional right of a defendant to be granted quick access to an attorney
and the courts. They note the government still is arguing strenuously in federal
courts that it has an absolute right to deny access to lawyers for enemy
combatants, including U.S. citizens, and that such a decision is not subject to
review by judges.

"What we're saying is that someone who's arrested in the United States is not to
be treated that way, and instead should be treated in the criminal justice
system," said Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil
Liberties Union.

Two U.S. citizens are being held as enemy combatants, Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose
Padilla.

An order by President Bush in November 2001 allows captives to be detained as
enemy combatants if they were members of al-Qaeda, engaged in or aided terrorism
or harbored terrorists, or if it is "the interest of the United States" to hold
an individual during hostilities.

Mr. Hamdi, a Louisiana native, was captured in Afghanistan and was transferred
to the United States after officials discovered his citizenship by birth at the
prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Mr. Padilla, a Chicago-born former gang member, was arrested in May 2002 after
flying in from Pakistan and designated an enemy combatant a month later. He is
suspected of plotting with al-Qaeda to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb."

Earlier this month, the Defense Department abruptly announced that Mr. Hamdi
would have access to an attorney because he no longer had great value as an
intelligence asset. But, Mr. Padilla is still in a Navy brig without a lawyer.

Mr. Padilla's value as an intelligence source, one official said, "would
potentially be hampered and jeopardized by access to counsel." The official did
not elaborate on what kind of information Mr. Padilla is providing.

Law enforcement officials say the intelligence provided by terrorism detainees
goes beyond simple interrogation. They can verify intelligence from other
sources, identify suspected terrorists from pictures and help officials
determine if other detainees are trying to spread false information.

Mr. Padilla's challenge to the government's denial of a lawyer is before the 2nd
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. The Supreme Court is mulling whether
to accept an appeal brought by Mr. Hamdi's father about the initial denial of an
attorney.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear another case about the government's
policies that followed the Sept. 11 attacks. That case asks whether 650
detainees at the government's prison at Guantanamo Bay may challenge their
treatment in U.S. courts.

* * *


December 16, 2003

OFFICES OF INTERPRETER'S LAWYERS SEARCHED

By Matt Kelley, Associated Press Writer

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/
sns-ap-guantanamo-interpreter,1,4139591.story

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Military authorities searched offices of lawyers who
represent an Air Force interpreter charged with spying at the Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, prison, one of the man's lawyers said Tuesday.

The Air Force delayed a preliminary hearing for Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi
because of the search and other actions last week that defense lawyers say have
interfered with al-Halabi's preparations for his military trial. The hearing,
which had been scheduled for Monday, was rescheduled for Jan. 13, the Air Force
said in a brief statement issued Tuesday.

Al-Halabi is charged with espionage and aiding the enemy for allegedly e-mailing
secrets from the prison camp to an unidentified person and planning to carry
notes from some of the prisoners to his native Syria. His lawyers say he is
innocent.

Air Force investigators searched the offices of al-Halabi's military lawyers
Thursday at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, his civilian lawyer, Donald
G. Rehkopf Jr., said Tuesday. The investigators, who had a military warrant,
copied the hard drive of one of the defense lawyers' computers, Rehkopf said.

The search raised the possibility that military defenders, Majs. James Key III
and Kim London, could be called as witnesses in proceedings against al-Halabi.
That could mean they would have to be taken off the case and new military
defense lawyers would have to start from scratch.

Air Force agents also burst into a room where al-Halabi was meeting with his
lawyers Wednesday and took hours to return documents and a laptop computer to
him Dec. 10 when he was taken from a jail at Vandenberg to Travis Air Force
Base, Rehkopf said. Travis, also in California, is al-Halabi's home base, where
proceedings against him will be held.

"This conduct by the government is unprecedented and can only be interpreted as
a conscious disregard of the attorney-client relationship," Rehkopf said in a
statement. He said al-Halabi's defense team vigorously protested the incidents
to Col. Barbara G. Brand, the military judge handling the case.

The Air Force statement said Brand delayed the hearing "to allow resolution of
questions raised by defense counsel related to the ongoing investigation
involving Airman al-Halabi."

An Air Force spokesman did not return a telephone message seeking comment
Tuesday.

The airman was the first of four workers at Guantanamo Bay to be arrested as
part of an investigation into possible security breaches at the prison for some
660 suspected al-Qaida or Taliban members.

A former Muslim chaplain at the prison, Army Capt. James Yee, has been charged
with mishandling classified information, disobeying orders, committing adultery
and storing pornography on his military computer. This month, military officials
postponed a hearing in his case until January. Yee has pleaded innocent.

A civilian interpreter, Ahmad F. Mehalba, was arrested in Boston and charged
with lying to federal agents by denying computer discs he was carrying had
classified information from Guantanamo. He also has pleaded innocent.

On Nov. 29, Col. Jack Farr, an Army Reserve intelligence officer on six-month
assignment to Guantanamo Bay, was charged with transporting secret documents
without proper containers and with lying to investigators.

* * *


Reuters:

December 16, 2003

US ENEMY COMBATANT MAY GET ACCESS TO LAWYERS

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen being held incommunicado as
an enemy combatant, can meet with a lawyer once the government decides it would
not hamper his interrogation, Justice Department officials said on Tuesday.

Senior department officials said "dirty bomb" suspect Padilla, a U.S. citizen
held without access to a lawyer for more than 18 months, may eventually meet
with an attorney. Lawyers for Padilla have been arguing for access to him and
the case is pending before a U.S. appeals court in New York.

"Once the intelligence collection efforts are judged not to be hampered or
jeopardized by access to counsel, then there's no objection to access to
counsel," one of the officials said.

Padilla is a suspect in an al Qaeda plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb"
in the United States. He was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare airport last year as
he arrived from Pakistan and is being held in isolation at a navy jail in South
Carolina.

Earlier this month the Pentagon said it would allow Yaser Esam Hamdi, another
American citizen being held as an enemy combatant, access to a lawyer. Hamdi was
with Taliban fighters when he was captured by U.S. forces in late 2001. He has
also not yet been charged.

The official said the Defense Department would make the determination that could
eventually lead to Padilla's getting access to a lawyer.

Prosecutors have said Padilla should not have access to lawyers because he poses
a threat to national security. The government has appealed a district court
order that Padilla must be allowed to meet with his lawyers.

One official said the U.S. government was not trying to prevent enemy combatants
from having access to lawyers.

"Denial of access to counsel has never been an objective for anybody," he said.

"The objective is intelligence collection, prevention of further attacks,
national security," he said. "Sometimes in order to accomplish those objectives,
there may be a delay in access to counsel," he added, referring specifically to
Hamdi.

* * *


US Air Force:

December 15, 2003

PROCEEDINGS DELAYED FOR TRANSLATOR

http://www.af.mil/stories/story.asp?storyID=123006209

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. (AFPN) -- The military judge appointed to preside
over the court-martial case involving an Air Force translator has been delayed.

The initial session of Senior Airman Ahmad I. Al Halabi's court-martial was
scheduled for Dec. 15.  It has been postponed until Jan. 13 to allow resolution
of questions raised by defense counsel related to the ongoing investigation
involving Al Halabi.

The military judge, Col. Barbara G. Brand of the Central Circuit Judiciary at
Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, is expected to arraign Al Halabi and hear
motions at the session on Jan. 13.  The date of the proceedings before the court
members remains tentatively set for April 20.

* * *


Toronto Star:

December 15, 2003

CAN SADDAM GET FAIR TRIAL IN IRAQ?
Homegrown court could do the job, Arbour says Talk of tribunal seen as 'immense'

LONDON -- An Iraqi court can try Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity if
it meets international standards for fair trials and has prosecutors equipped to
investigate crimes of such magnitude, Supreme Court of Canada Justice Louise
Arbour says.

"It doesn't necessarily have to be international to be legitimate," Arbour said
yesterday, referring to the type of court Saddam should be tried in.

"There are lots of national courts that are perfectly legitimate by any kind of
a standard," she added in a telephone interview. "The question is whether or not
the courts of Iraq ... will be seen both in Iraq and internationally as
adequate."

Arbour, who until 1999 was chief prosecutor for the international criminal
tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, said it's too early to say
whether the newly formed special tribunal in Iraq has the legal competence to
try Saddam.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a televised address the Iraqi people
would decide Saddam's fate.

In a statement issued earlier, Blair said his capture "gives an opportunity for
Saddam to be tried in Iraqi courts for his crimes against the Iraqi people."

Blair made clear that Saddam will have to answer for some 400,000 people found
buried in mass graves throughout Iraq.

U.S. President George W. Bush said in his televised address yesterday that
Saddam would be tried, but didn't say where or when. No one expects the trial
for months.

Arbour said trials such as Saddam's can either "exacerbate or appease a
political crisis" in the short term. But the jury is still out on the long-term
effects, although Arbour said she finds "credible" the argument that "there's no
long-term peace without justice."

The trial could also prove embarrassing to Western governments, including
Britain and the United States, who supported and helped arm Saddam during some
of the bloodiest periods of his regime.

Arbour described as an "immense" step forward the fact that the international
community seems to take for granted Saddam will be put on trial.

"Ten years ago, I'm not even sure that the question would have been asked as to
whether Saddam Hussein should be tried," she said.

Back then, leaders accused of genocide or war crimes were often allowed to enjoy
retirement in exile. Today, the international community demands accountability
--
a legacy Arbour attributes to the tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which
today is trying the federation's former president, Slobodan Milosevic.

"It really launched this movement for accountability, which I think now is
really quite irreversible," she said.

But Arbour believes it would be "a bit naïve" to think that this newfound
accountability will have a deterrent effect on other possible tyrants just yet.

On the issue of where Saddam should be tried, Arbour noted that local tribunals
are always the preferred place for such trials unless they're judged to be
inadequate.

"Essentially, you need what you would expect of any court; that is, a very
professional investigative branch, and an independent and impartial judiciary.
These would be the very minimum conditions that you would look at," she said.

Last week, Amnesty International questioned whether humanitarian law gave the
U.S.-led coalition occupying Iraq the authority to set up an Iraqi tribunal to
try Saddam and other members of his former regime.

In a statement, the human rights group said it was concerned about reports the
tribunal will use the Iraqi criminal code, some aspects of which are
"inconsistent with human rights standards."

Amnesty spokesperson Judit Arenas said the existing Iraqi criminal code allows
for such punishments as the amputation of hands and the cutting off of ears.
There is also concern about the U.S.'s tainted legal track record when it comes
to its "war on terror." For almost two years, the United States has detained
more than 600 people suspected of terrorist activities in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
without trial or access to lawyers, in conditions Amnesty International says
"can amount to cruel and degrading treatment."

The Bush administration has announced plans to try some in long-disused
"military commissions" -- widely condemned by lawyers and civil rights groups as
breaching the most basic principles of justice.

Rosemary Hollis, a Middle East expert with the London-based Royal Institute of
International Affairs, believes the newly formed Iraqi special tribunal won't
receive international legitimacy at least until next summer.

That's when the United States plans to have an interim Iraqi executive chosen
that it hopes will get the blessing of the international community as Iraq's
legitimate representative. Only when that happens can any local court receive
the same recognition, Hollis argues.

Arbour said questions about an Iraqi tribunal's legitimacy may be asked as long
as the United States occupies Iraq. She notes that the same questions were
raised about the Nuremberg trials for Nazi leaders, set up by the Allied powers
after World War II.

"To some extent, despite the amazing legacy that (Nuremberg) has left, it has
always suffered from that original kind of fault line structure," she said.

Aurel Braun, a professor of international relations at the University of
Toronto, argues legal help from countries like Canada would be enough to ease
concerns about any Iraqi tribunal.

"There is not a tremendous amount of expertise in Iraq itself with these kinds
of trials, but they certainly can draw on external experts and distinguished
jurors from many countries," he said.

Braun said there's no incentive to "rig" the trial in any way because the
evidence against Saddam is overwhelming.

"It will be part of a healing process for the people of Iraq," Braun said. "And
in the rest of the Arab world it would be an example of what a proper judicial
process would look like."

* * *


ABC (aus) News:

December 14, 2003

CORRESPONDENTS REPORT - HICKS MEETS WITH LAWYER AMID TIGHT CONTROL

http://www.abc.net.au/correspondents/content/2003/s1009388.htm

Reporter: Leigh Sales

HAMISH ROBERTSON: But first, over the past 10 days there's been more obvious
movement in the case of David Hicks, the Australian detained at Guantanamo Bay,
than during the entire two years of his detention.

The Pentagon announced it was appointing a military defence counsel to Mr Hicks,
and his Australian lawyer, Stephen Kenny, was whisked to Washington for
discussions.

A couple of days later, Mr Kenny was en route to Cuba -- the first defence
lawyer to see any of the 600 detainees.

Our North America Correspondent Leigh Sales has been closely following the
story.

LEIGH SALES: "Who gave you that information in your story last week?" A Pentagon
staffer asked me the other day.

"Well, I can't tell you," I replied, for obvious reasons.

"Would a stint at Guantanamo Bay help?" He responded jokingly, or at least, I
hope so.

Dealing with the Pentagon on the Hicks story has been a fascinating exercise.

Generally, the staff who deal with the media try to be as helpful as possible.
But their job is to safeguard information that their superiors believe will
violate national security if it gets into the public arena, and so it can take
days to get questions answered and weeks or months to negotiate interviews.

Australian lawyer Stephen Kenny has had an insight into the system this week. He
arrived in Washington on Tuesday and was allowed to speak to the media for one
day, something he knew would come to an end.

STEPHEN KENNY: There is a requirement that I comply with all the rules, and one
of those rules does require that I have the permission of the appointing
authority, which ultimately is Mr Wolfowitz as to what I can say to the media.

LEIGH SALES: And you're happy to sign that undertaking?

STEPHEN KENNY: Well, no. I can't say that I'm happy at all. All I can say is so
far I haven't signed it, we are having discussions and I'm concerned about the
restrictions that are being placed on me.

LEIGH SALES: The following day Mr Kenny did sign the affidavit; otherwise his
chance to see David Hicks would have been taken away.

After two years on the case, Stephen Kenny’s finally in Guantanamo Bay, meeting
David Hicks for the first time.

Despite the close Pentagon control of public comments, the ABC managed to get
Major Michael Mori on tape this week, the military lawyer the Pentagon’s just
appointed to David Hicks' case.

We staked out the Australian Embassy in Washington, knowing Major Mori was
inside for meetings with the Ambassador.

On his way out, he seemed surprised to find a camera waiting, but agreed to
answer a few questions.

MICHAEL MORI: I'm limited on when I can talk to the media and I'm going to seek
further guidance on being able to hopefully speak to you more freely about all
the information you'd like to know, especially the procedures and the rules by
the commissions.

LEIGH SALES: So what sort of things are you allowed to talk to us about?

MICHAEL MORI: Just basically who I am.

LEIGH SALES: The ABC was refused permission to travel to Guantanamo Bay this
week in order to speak to Stephen Kenny and Michael Mori as soon as their
meetings with David Hicks concluded.

But the Pentagon has assured both the ABC and the Australian Embassy that the
Australian media will be given access to any military commission in which Mr
Hicks appears.

Despite the movement in the case in the past 10 days, there's still no
indication as to when that might be. With the defence lawyers starting work, it
appears that things are moving forward.

But the only certainty is that the United States Government decides what to do
with Guantanamo inmates on nobody's timetable but it's own.

This is Leigh Sales in Washington for Correspondents Report.

© 2003 Australian Broadcasting Corporation

* * *


The Independent (UK):

December 13, 2003

Argument

MARK SEDDON: IS THERE ANOTHER GUANTANAMO BAY ON BRITISH SOIL?

Diego Garcia is an island where terrorist suspects may be being 'rendered' at a
place called Camp Justice

http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=472751

First there was Camp X-Ray on the American-owned base of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Now there is a Camp Justice in the Indian Ocean on the British-owned island of
Diego Garcia, which is leased to the Americans.

Camp Justice is officially a temporary home for US personnel supporting
Operation Enduring Freedom, but satellite pictures of the camp show something
rather more permanent and on a large scale. The island is home to American B52
and Stealth bombers - and has been home to US support staff and other military
services since the early 1970s - but Camp Justice is new. The question is: what
is the camp's real purpose and how far does British jurisdiction stretch?

The Liberal Democrats' Foreign Affairs spokesman, Menzies Campbell, might be
interested to look at these same satellite pictures of Camp Justice. (They can
be found on the website of a US-based security and risk assessment company,
Global Security, on www.globalsecurity.org.) Last week Mr Campbell demanded to
know whether information from "rendered" - in other words, tortured - al-Qa'ida
and other suspects could be acceptable as evidence in a British court.

[ http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/images/diego-garcia-ims4.jpg ]

He did so in the knowledge that serious claims have been made in The Washington
Post that some suspects have been sent for "rendering" in Yemen, Jordan and
Syria, where unjustifiable interrogation techniques are often used.

More significantly for our own government, The Washington Post has claimed that
prisoners are now being held on the island of Diego Garcia for "rendering",
before being transferred to Camp X-Ray. These reports were strenuously denied by
the then Foreign Office Minister, Baroness Amos. Replying to the former Labour
MEP and veteran peace and justice campaigner, Professor Ken Coates, Baroness
Amos had this to say: "The United States government would need to ask for our
permission to bring any suspects to Diego Garcia. It has not done so."

However, Time magazine has recently claimed that Riduan Isamuddin, otherwise
known as Hambali, who is believed to be operations chief of Jemaah Isalmiyah -
the group behind the Bali bombing - has or is still being held on Diego Garcia.
Meanwhile, Mauritius-based campaigners Lindsey Collen and Ragini Kistnasamy, who
seek the closure of the US military base on the island, had this message for
campaigners in Britain: "Now there is the whole Guantano-isation of Diego
Garcia, with people on terrorism charges and members of the Iraqi leadership
being held there."

When it comes to obfuscation over Diego Garcia, successive British governments
have become past masters at doublespeak. It was a Labour defence minister, Lord
Chalfont, who bundled the original inhabitants of the island to the slums of
Port Louis in Mauritius, 30 years ago to make way for one of America's largest
military bases. Ever since ministers have sought to avoid embarrassment over a
sordid episode they - and the courts - would rather forget.

Barton Gelman, The Washington Post gumshoe, has this to say of Baroness Amos's
original denial: "Our experience with spokesmen most likely mirrors yours. They
persuade themselves sometimes that they avoid a lie (while appearing to call
something true, false) by using private definitions of ordinary language. What
we have from our sources is that some al-Qa'ida suspects are indeed being held
and questioned at Diego Garcia. The British Government could go some way to
clearing this up by permitting an unrestricted visit."

Chance would be a fine thing, if the experience of the original inhabitants were
anything to go by. The islanders won their High Court battle to be allowed to
return home three years ago. A fortnight ago I came across a group of them
huddled in the rain in Parliament Square under their national flag - a Union
flag on a shield supported by two turtles. They told me that they were still
being prevented from returning because the US didn't want them and the British
say that the cost of restoring a basic infrastructure is too much.

The island of Diego Garcia, some 17 square miles, is a permanent floating
aircraft carrier, where despite government denials, terrorist suspects may be
being "rendered" at a place called Camp Justice, a camp where no journalist has
been permitted entrance. There could be no objections if terrorist suspects were
brought to Diego Garcia and immediately handed over to the judge and magistrate
who, along with the "BritRep" and 50 or so Marines, have responsibility for what
is known as the British Indian Ocean Territory, and of which Diego Garcia is
part. There they could be charged under British law on what remains British
territory.

But The Washington Post, Time magazine and all of us who have been campaigning
over Diego Garcia for as long as we can remember doubt that is what is happening
and simply do not believe what we have been told by Baroness Amos. And if it is
the case that prisoners are being held on Diego Garcia in contravention of
British law, it might go some way to explaining the lacklustre attempts by Tony
Blair to persuade George Bush to budge on British-born prisoners held at
Guantanamo Bay.

Campaigners Menzies Campbell, Helena Kennedy, Tam Dalyell, Ken Coates - all of
them could demand open and unrestricted access to Camp Justice on Diego Garcia.
It is now the only way of establishing the truth.

* * *


ABC (aus) News:

December 13, 2003 - 11:27 ACST

HICKS FINALLY MEETS WITH LAWYERS

The father of Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks says he is relieved his son is
finally meeting his lawyers.

David Hicks and 100s of other detainees have been held at the US military base
for almost two years without charge.

A lawyer for the Hicks family, Stephen Kenny, and the lawyer appointed by the
military to defend David Hicks are at Guantanamo Bay meeting the Australian
prisoner.

David Hicks is the first detainee at the base allowed to meet with his lawyers.

His father, Terry, expects it will be several days before he is contacted by Mr
Kenny about the outcome of the meetings.

"I think this is a good opportunity for David now and, as I say, I won't really
know how things went until I hear from Stephen, which will probably be a few
days at this stage," he said.

"Unfortunately Stephen will only be there as an observer, I don't think he'll
have too much to play when it comes to the tribunal, if there's one, so we've
just, we've just got to play it by ear at the moment."

* * *


Reuters:

December 12, 2003 - 09:09 PM ET

GUANTANAMO TRANSLATOR HEARING DELAYED UNTIL JANUARY

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=3986552

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The arraignment of a U.S. Air Force translator who
worked at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp that holds al Qaeda and Taliban
suspects has been delayed until mid-January, the Air Force said on Friday.

A military judge was to open the trial for Senior Airman Ahmad al Halabi of
Detroit, Michigan, on Monday at Travis Air Force Base in northern California,
but has elected to delay the initial session until after the first of the year,
a base spokeswoman said.

She did not give a reason for the delay.

At the first session, the presiding judge, Air Force Col. Barbara Brand, will
likely arraign the suspect and hear pretrial motions in the case.

Al Halabi, 23, who denies the charges, was arrested on July 23 and is accused of
carrying jail maps, letters and other sensitive documents away from Guantanamo.
He is one of four men, including another Arabic translator and a Muslim
chaplain, charged in connection with their work at Guantanamo.

Al Halabi, who is of Syrian descent, was on temporary duty at Guantanamo as a
translator for nine months before he was arrested in Florida as he returned to
the United States. He is expected to enter a plea at the trial's opening
session.

* * *


Toronto Star

December 12, 2003

NEW WATCHDOG TO OVERSEE RCMP INTELLIGENCE
Move follows questions about Arar case

OTTAWA (CP) - The federal government is creating a new watchdog to oversee the
RCMP's intelligence activities, a move that comes amid growing concern about the
behind-the-scenes role the Mounties play in the fight against terrorism.

The independent "review mechanism" to keep an eye on RCMP actions in the area of
national security was among the changes announced today by new Prime Minister
Paul Martin.

Critics have long expressed concern the RCMP's security work undergoes little
scrutiny compared with the attention given the activities of the Canadian
Security Intelligence Service, the national spy agency.

The criticism reached a peak recently with questions about any part the RCMP may
have played in the arrest of Ottawa engineer Maher Arar in the United States and
his subsequent deportation to Syria on suspicion of terrorism.

Arar, a Canadian citizen who denies any terrorist involvement, endured months of
torture behind bars in the Middle Eastern country where he was born.

It was not immediately clear how the new review agency would work with the
existing Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, which recently began
an investigation into the Arar case.

Complaints commission chairwoman Shirley Heafey said today she was "thrilled"
the government plans to bring in the new watchdog.

The RCMP "will co-operate fully" with the decision to create the new body, said
Staff Sgt. Paul Marsh, a force spokesman.

For decades, the RCMP had broad responsibilities for security and intelligence
as well as policing. But scandals and civil rights breaches - including opening
mail and burning down a barn - led to disbandment of the RCMP Security Service.

In 1984, many of the RCMP's security functions were handed to the newly created
CSIS.

However, the RCMP has continued to conduct undercover security investigations,
sometimes working alongside CSIS to probe radical animal rights activists,
suspected Islamic terrorists and anti-globalization protesters.

* * *


The Independent (UK):

December 12, 2003

ANGRY BLUNKETT THREATENS TO RESIGN FROM AMNESTY

By Nigel Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent

David Blunkett threatened to resign from Amnesty International yesterday after
it accused ministers of creating a Guantanamo Bay on British soil by holding
foreign terror suspects without trial.

The Home Secretary was furious after the human rights organisation denounced his
emergency internment powers, under which 14 men have been jailed, as a
"perversion of justice". He said he was now considering quitting the charity, to
which he has made donations during 20 years' membership, in protest at the
report. Mr Blunkett said: "When I became a patron and supporter of Amnesty many
years ago, I did so to support them in tackling death and torture, the threat of
people having their lives taken away and their well-being destroyed.

"I didn't join Amnesty to see them support those who, through every part of the
system that we have set up, have been accorded and recognised as being correctly
certificated as being a threat to us." He said the British detainees had been
legally represented and were free to leave, providing they went to another
country, were kept in decent conditions and a system had been set up to review
their detention. "It's a very sad day for Amnesty International and a very sad
day for me as a patron." He said he was "weighing up" whether to resign his
membership.

Amnesty International, formed 42 years ago in London by Peter Benenson, a
journalist, to highlight the treatment of political prisoners, now has 1.4
million members in more than 150 countries. Over the last year it has produced
several reports critical of Government policy, including the return of asylum-
seekers to Afghanistan and arms sales to Israel and Indonesia.

In its report yesterday, UK: Justice Perverted under the Anti-terrorism, Crime
and Security Act 2001, it accused Mr Blunkett of presiding over a "shadow"
criminal justice system for foreigners. By allowing them to be locked up
indefinitely without charge or trial, ministers had failed to meet international
standards, creating "a Guantanamo Bay in our own backyard".

Fourteen people are being held in high-security prisons as terrorist suspects.
Six have been held for two years.

Last night, a spokesperson for Amnesty International said: "We hope David
Blunkett will not conclude it is incompatible to be Home Secretary and a member
of an organisation that champions human rights, fair trials and international
standards of justice.

"Many MPs of all parties, including ministers, are members of Amnesty
International, clearly believing that worldwide human rights and justice are of
critical importance."

It said it had praised the Government on a number of issues, including the
introduction of the Human Rights Act and planned legislation on domestic
violence. "We also have a very important job to do in holding the government to
account when we believe that human rights are under threat," Amnesty said.

The Home Secretary also disclosed yesterday he had met Muslim community leaders
this week in an effort to reassure them minority groups were not being targeted
by the security services following several arrests over the past week under
anti-terrorism laws.

In a new pamphlet, Mr Blunkett called for museums to do more to "promote
powerful messages about embracing the rich diversity of our cultural heritage".
And he said staff in the Immigration and Nationality Directorate were being
encouraged to build stronger links with local schools to achieve "better
understanding of diversity and difference within our country".

* * *


Inter Press Service:

December 11, 2003

NEW ACTIVIST NETWORK SLAMS GROWING ABUSES UNDER BUSH
by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON (IPS) - Key U.S. civil liberties and social justice groups marked
International Human Rights Day Wednesday by launching a new "U.S. Human Rights
Network" dedicated to raising awareness about international human rights
standards and focusing attention on the U.S. failure to enforce them.

More than 50 groups, ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to
the New York-based Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), said they had
agreed to join forces to address what they said was "the alarming rate of human
rights violations in the U.S.", particularly as it pursues its "war on
terrorism".

They called for U.S. citizens to speak out against these abuses, as well as to
fight "U.S. exceptionalism", the view pushed strongly by the administration of
President George W. Bush, that the United States should not be constrained by
international law or human rights standards, especially relating to economic and
social rights.

"The demonstrations that we are currently seeing against the U.S. around the
world are a reaction to the perception that the U.S. -- and particularly the
Bush administration -- thinks that it is above international law -- laws the
rest of the world are required to abide by," said Ajamu Baraka, who works for
Amnesty International USA's (AIUSA) Atlanta office and is part of the network's
secretariat.

"The rights of ordinary Americans and others residing in the U.S. are being
trampled on a daily basis -- in violation of a host of international laws and
standards," said Cathy Albisa, a secretariat member who is based at CESR.

"These include the right to economic security and a decent standard of living,
the right of children convicted of crimes not to be executed, the right to a
fair trial, the right to seek asylum, and the right to be free from torture and
cruel and inhuman treatment, among any others," she added, noting that the U.S.
has the developed world's highest child poverty rate and that 20 percent of
adults are functionally illiterate.

The network, which has been several years in the making, marks its birth from a
meeting last year at Howard University in Washington, DC on the subject of
"Ending Exceptionalism: Strengthening Human Rights in the United States".

Most of the network's founding organizations -- which include advocacy groups
for immigrants, ethnic minorities, welfare recipients, the disabled, prison
rights, among others -- took part in the conference, organizing themselves into
specific caucuses regarding such issues as the death penalty, discrimination and
sovereignty.

Among the best-known groups are the ACLU, the American Friends Service
Committee, AIUSA, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, the
Indian Law Resource Center, the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, the National
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and the National Association for the
Advanced of Colored People Defense Education Fund.

The network is to be guided by six "core principles", including acceptance that
that all rights enumerated in the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights
are interdependent and universal; that they include economic, social, and
cultural (ESC) rights, as well civil and political rights that are generally
given more recognition in the U.S.; and that rights are most effectively
protected through building social movements whose leadership should be
accountable to those who are most directly affected by their work.

These principles challenge the work of a number of major U.S.-based human rights
groups, many of which have historically been dominated by professional elites
and have generally ignored ESC rights, in part because of their failure to
accept the Universal Declaration and international human rights law as a
sufficient juridical basis for their work. They have tended instead to rely on
the rights provided under the U.S. Constitution.

In recent years, however, U.S. courts -- even the Supreme Court -- have
increasingly cited international human rights standards in their decisions
regarding, for example, the death penalty for juveniles and the mentally
retarded, women's rights, and the accountability of U.S. companies for wrongful
conduct overseas.

Many of the network groups have been pushing courts in this direction. "The ACLU
decided several years ago to integrate more international principles in our
work," said Gregory Nojeim, a staff attorney who represents the ACLU in the
network.

"A lot of groups that have traditionally focused on political and civil rights
have expanded their mandates," said Albisa, who cited both Amnesty and Human
Rights Watch, which has produced a number of reports on cases where civil and
political rights have intersected with ESR rights, such as the impact of
practices by multi-national corporations on local communities.

"There's a growing recognition that you cannot separate economic rights from
political and civil liberties," she added, noting that groups that have tried to
use international law to broaden the panoply of rights recognized in the U.S.
have until now been fragmented.

"We are pulling together in a way that can build movements," she said. The
network's launch is the first step.

Both the inclusion of ESC rights into the broader human rights pantheon and the
use of international human rights law by U.S. courts are anathema to the Bush
administration and key policy-makers, about two dozen of whom are members of the
Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy, a legal association whose recent
national convention here featured half a dozen major presentations on the
dangers allegedly posed to U.S. national sovereignty by international human
rights standards that have not been ratified by the U.S. government.

Among others, the Society was addressed by White House Chief of Staff Andrew
Card, Attorney General John Ashcroft, U.N. Ambassador John Negroponte, and the
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton,
who argued that the International Criminal Court (ICC) represented a
particularly grave threat to U.S. sovereignty and that Washington obtained all
the legitimacy it needed in invading Iraq by following its own Constitutional
processes rather than deferring to the U.N. Security Council.

This kind of "exceptionalism" is precisely what the network is trying to
organize against, however.

"As the U.S. indulges an increasingly unilateralist bent in both domestic and
foreign policy, the cost to rights at home and abroad is growing," said Baraka,
who noted the rise in racial profiling, the summary detention and deportation of
Muslim immigrants after Sep. 11, 2001, and the indefinite detention as "illegal
combatants" at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, of hundreds of
foreigners seized in Afghanistan and elsewhere as examples.

The international human rights framework, including ESC rights, he said, remains
underutilized in the U.S. "due in large part to a deliberate, long-standing
effort by the U.S. government to deny human rights laws and standards when it
applies to situations internal to the U.S. and to U.S. actions around the
world".

Washington's exceptionalist policy has been most vividly on display in the
administration's refusal to request ratification of the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); its
renunciation of the ICC treaty; its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile
treaty; its walkout at the World Conference Against Racism; and its failure to
adhere to the Geneva Conventions protecting prisoners of war, according to the
network.

* * *


Reuters:

December 11, 2003

CRITICS QUESTION SUCCESS OF SOME U.S. ANTI-TERROR MOVES

By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Once touted as major advances in the U.S. war on
terrorism, a number of high-profile cases have later fallen short, leading
critics to ask whether officials exaggerated their successes in the first place.

They highlight examples such as the cases of "dirty bomber" suspect Jose
Padilla, Muslim Guantanamo Bay chaplain James Yee, a controversial color-coded
terror alert system and a foreigner registration scheme -- all of which have
fizzled to some extent since they were announced with much fanfare.

Critics also cite widespread investigations and large numbers of arrests in the
aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks which led to few terror-related
convictions.

"Certainly I believe that the administration is very good at press conferences
and messages with respect to homeland security," Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a
California Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on
Homeland Security, told Reuters. "Much of it has been fluff, in my opinion."

Evaluating success is difficult in the war on terror, a scourge analysts say can
only be curbed, not defeated. Officials say an absence of militant attacks on
U.S. soil since Sept. 11 shows anti-terrorism strategies appear to be working,
even if some efforts did not bear the desired fruit.

"This administration's strategy of preventing terrorism has helped protect
America for over two years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Our commitment
to preventing another attack on U.S. soil has not, and will not, waver," Justice
Department spokesman Mark Corallo said in a recent statement.

But critics -- many but not all of them opposition Democrats -- doubt the anti-
terrorist track record is as good as official announcements make it seem.

"The administration is engaged in what I call the Nike approach to homeland
security, which is: 'just do something,"' said Charles Pena, analyst at the
libertarian Cato Institute.

A PATTERN EMERGING?

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft himself announced in June 2002 that Padilla
had been arrested for planning to use a "dirty bomb." Eighteen months later, he
is still held as an "enemy combatant" but has not been charged, and judges have
raised questions about the case, now being watched as a key constitutional
challenge to the administration's anti-terror campaign.

Yee was arrested in September in an espionage probe. He was eventually charged
with a number of less serious crimes, none of which are related to espionage.

The government launched the color-coded alert system in 2002 to help Americans
prepare better for future attacks. But Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has
admitted concerns about its credibility and said it should be amended.

Early this month, the government also said it was partially scrapping a
controversial post-Sept. 11 control on foreign visitors saying anti-terror
resources could be used better elsewhere.

Critics say the pattern is also evident in other areas such as maritime security
and intelligence programs, which were introduced with much aplomb but which they
say have made little progress to genuinely enhance U.S. safety.

"We need more than window-dressing. We need to shift the focus from photo-ops to
tightening our security," said Rep. Carolyn Mahoney from New York, who chairs
the House Democratic Homeland Security Task Force.

U.S. officials say critics are only telling part of the story by focusing on a
few examples of difficulties and ignoring other advances or developments behind
the scenes.

A spokeswoman for the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, chaired by
Rep. Christopher Cox, a Republican from California, said the criticism was
counter-productive: "On matters this important to the safety of Americans, the
only type of criticism that is useful is constructive criticism."

She did not comment on whether a trend of announcements and consequent setbacks
was emerging.

A European diplomat in Washington said the pattern was clear, but was not a
deliberate effort to mislead the public.

"They (the U.S. government) are under a lot of pressure to produce successful
results. Not only do they perhaps bite off more than they can chew sometimes,
but they are also given more than they can do," the diplomat said.

* * *


December 11, 2003

Jewish World Review:

ANALYSIS: WHITE HOUSE SOFTENS ANTI-TERROR TACTICS

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1203/soften_terror_watch.asp

(KRT) In the two years since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration
imposed harsh tactics in its war on terrorism:

It held two U.S. citizens in naval brigs without access to lawyers or the
outside world.

It imprisoned hundreds of foreigners indefinitely at a U.S. naval base in Cuba.

It subjected thousands of foreign visitors to mass interviews at home.

Yet over the past three weeks, the government has softened all of those tactics.

It has done so on the eve of an election year when Democrats have charged that
the administration's anti-terrorism policies have caused setbacks for civil
rights. The administration's moves also came as challenges of some of the
policies have landed before the Supreme Court, which would rule on their
constitutionality by early summer - in mid-campaign.

"A big part of politics is timing, and what have the Democratic candidates been
talking about but the attack on basic fundamental liberties?" said Christine
Harrington, a professor of politics with the Institute for Law & Society at New
York University law school. She said the administration "looks like they're
responding to their critics. But I think they're taking the winds out of their
critics' sails."

Washington-area Republican political strategist Neil Newhouse said he doesn't
believe that recent shifts in policy were politically motivated - but they will
have a political impact.

"It softens some of the edges of what some of the Democrats may hit him or would
like to hit him (with) on the rights of these individuals, and it takes away a
potential avenue of attack," he said.

On Dec. 2, the Pentagon announced it would allow one of two U.S.-born suspects
designated as enemy combatants and held incommunicado to have access to a
lawyer. The day before that, the Homeland Security Department ended the
controversial mass interviews of foreign male visitors started by the Justice
Department last year.

The week before, the Defense Department announced a kinder, gentler version of
military trials for some terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In a
pact with the Australian government, the U.S. military said it would not seek
the death penalty in any military trials for Australian detainees. It also
agreed to hold open proceedings.

For one of the detainees, David Hicks, the government pledged to allow
unmonitored lawyer-client discussions and to let him serve any sentence in an
Australian prison.

That same week, the Pentagon leaked word that more than 100 of the 660 detainees
being held at Guantanamo would soon be released to their home countries.

But the first sign of a changing tide came on Nov. 17, when Deputy Solicitor
General Paul Clement for the first time suggested that Brooklyn, N.Y.-born Jose
Padilla, designated as an enemy combatant, would be afforded access to a lawyer
once interrogations of him ended.

Like the other policy changes, the administration maintains that allowing
Padilla a lawyer should be left to the government's discretion.

"Trust the executive to make (a) judgment about intelligence value," Clement
told a panel of appellate judges.

President George W. Bush designated Padilla an "enemy combatant" 18 months ago
after intelligence sources said he had offered to help al-Qaida unleash a
radiological "dirty bomb" on U.S. soil. Padilla has been held incommunicado
since then in a naval brig in Charleston, S.C. The government has fought
attempts by his lawyers to gain access to him, citing the president's authority
to designate enemy combatants and hold them for the duration of the war.

That argument hasn't changed. What has changed is the Padilla case is one step
away from a Supreme Court appeal.

A federal judge in New York has ordered the administration to give Padilla
access to a lawyer. Clement was appealing that decision on Nov. 17, when he
suggested Padilla could at some point be allowed an attorney.

With that appeals court decision pending, the Defense Department Dec. 2 took
that approach even further in the case of the other U.S.-born man accused of
being an enemy combatant, Yaser Esam Hamdi, captured with Taliban fighters in
late 2001.

After three months at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo and 20 months in a naval
brig in the United States, Hamdi can now have access to a lawyer, officials
announced, "because DOD has completed its intelligence collection with Hamdi."

Hamdi's case has already reached the Supreme Court. The administration is trying
to persuade the high court that it doesn't need to review the legality of
Hamdi's detention, which was upheld by a federal appeals court in Virginia.

The softening of policy toward the foreign terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo
also came on the heels of activity in the Supreme Court. On Nov. 10, the
justices agreed to take up the case filed on behalf of 16 detainees who want to
challenge their detention in American courts. The Bush administration has argued
that because they're being held on foreign soil, detainees have no access to
U.S. courts.

A former Justice Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity said
the recent tweaking of administration policies may reflect a political pitch to
the court - not necessarily to voters.

"From a purely political perspective, if the court is concerned about the basic
balance between civil liberties and government power, and the government has
become more flexible on other issues, it might make the court less concerned if
it sees the government is granting lawyers at home," said the official.

Eugene Fidell, a Washington-based military law expert, said some of the policy
changes - particularly the U.S.-Australian accord over the treatment of their
detainees in military tribunals - may ignite, rather than dampen, controversy.

"Observers of this field wonder, 'How can you have distinctions made between
detainees based on nationality?' " said Fidell, who noted that the third Geneva
Convention bans discrimination of prisoners of war based on nationality. The
Bush administration has said the Geneva Convention doesn't apply because the
detainees were "unlawful" combatants.

"There's going to be a traffic jam outside the State Department as numerous
countries line up saying, 'Where's mine?' " Fidell said.

James Zogby, president and co-founder of the Arab-American Institute in
Washington, welcomed the Homeland Security decision last week to end the mass
interviews of male visitors from 25 nations, most of them Arabic or Muslim
nations. But he said that change, by itself, will not be enough to overcome
soured opinions of the Bush administration among Arab-Americans.

Of the 83,519 called in to local immigration offices in the past year, 13,799
were sent to deportation hearings mainly for visa violations, even though in
some cases they had applications pending to change their status.

"These are the guys that obeyed the law, and we argued for them to go in and
register," Zogby said. "So, until they resolve all of those cases, the damage
that was done remains damage done. In the most recent polling we did back in
July, Bush had dropped down to the low 30 (percent), among those Arab-Americans
who would vote to re-elect, and it was at 45 percent in 2000. ... I'm glad that
we're beginning to deal with some of these problems, but we've got a lot more to
do before the house is clean."

Homeland Security spokesman William Strassberger said such public outcry over
the program did not affect the decision. With almost 83,000 interviews scheduled
over the next months, the department decided to scrap the mass approach and do
more targeted interviewing.

"The change wasn't done as a result of pressures or other influences,"
Strassberger said. "The program was too manpower-intensive. We feel we can be
more effective in meeting national security needs by targeting our resources."


TIME LINE:

Nov. 17 - Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement suggests that the government
might eventually allow a lawyer for suspected enemy combatant Jose Padilla, a
U.S. citizen. An appeals court is considering an appeal of a judge's order to
let Padilla meet with a lawyer.

Nov. 25 - The Pentagon announces an agreement with Australia on the conduct of
military trials for Australian detainees held at the U.S. Naval Base at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The United States agreed not to seek the death penalty and
to open the proceedings.

Nov. 30 - Time magazine reports that more than 100 of the 660 detainees held at
Guantanamo Bay are scheduled for release. Military officials say the releases
likely will take place in December and January.

Dec. 1 - The Department of Homeland Security announces it is halting mass
interviews of male visitors to the United States, mostly from Muslim countries,
set up by the Justice Department last year.

Dec. 2 - The Pentagon announces it will allow Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S.-born
designated "enemy combatant," to see an attorney.

* * *


Newsday:

December 11, 2003

SEN. MCCAIN CRITICIZES GUANTANAMO DELAYS

By Ian James, Associated Press Writer

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Sen. John McCain said Thursday he is concerned about
the failure to move ahead with prisoners' trials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where
after nearly two years the military has allowed just one detainee to meet his
lawyers.

Speaking by phone from Washington a day after touring Guantanamo, McCain said
"bureaucratic inertia and fear of making a wrong decision" led to delays in the
cases of some 660 people held on suspicion of links to Afghanistan's ousted
Taliban government or the al-Qaida terror network.

"I think the conditions are adequate, in some cases more than adequate. But my
concern is the disposition of the prisoners," McCain told The Associated Press.

"The bureaucratic process has been unnecessarily slow," said McCain, who was a
prisoner of war for nearly six years in Vietnam. "These cases have to be
disposed of one way or another. After keeping someone two years, a decision
should be made."

The Arizona Republican's comments came as an Australian prisoner, David Hicks,
was expected to become the first detainee at the base to be allowed to meet with
defense lawyers.

His Australian lawyer, Stephen Kenny, said this week that he planned a five-day
visit starting Thursday, along with Hicks' military-appointed attorney, Marine
Corps Maj. Michael Mori.

Hicks, 28, is one of six prisoners designated by President Bush as possible
candidates for trial by military tribunals.

He was allegedly fighting with the Taliban when captured in Afghanistan, and
also allegedly threatened to kill an American at Guantanamo. He still faces no
formal charges.

Kenny said in Washington on Monday that he hopes to discuss with Hicks "what has
happened, what his rights are, what may happen in the future, and to advise him
of what his options are."

U.S. officials assured Australia that Hicks would not face the death penalty or
have his conversations with lawyers monitored.

McCain said he will be "communicating with the Pentagon my concerns about the
failure to move the process forward."

"I plan to urge that we have hearings," McCain said. He said some detainees are
surely "killers" and that "there are others who should clearly be released."

McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, visited along with Sen.
Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.

McCain noted the Bush administration is under pressure from other countries,
such as Britain and Australia, to deal with the cases of the detainees from 44
nations.

Sweden, which has one citizen at Guantanamo, announced Wednesday it will seek to
host an international seminar in the coming months on whether the United States
is violating international law by keeping prisoners without charge.

U.S. officials classify the captives as unlawful combatants and say important
intelligence is still being gleaned in interrogations.

Kenny says he believes a U.S. Supreme Court decision to hear a case involving
Hicks and other British and Kuwaiti detainees may have prompted the U.S.
government to allow Hicks to see lawyers. The court agreed last month to
consider whether foreigners held at Guantanamo should have access to American
courts.

* * *


The Economist:

December 11, 2003

BRINGING THE OLD REGIME TO TRIAL

The plan for an Iraqi tribunal worries human-rights campaigners because it will
be run by local judges rather than the United Nations, and thus may be seen as a
tool for vengeance

http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2262314

IT SHOULD be cause for satisfaction, even catharsis, if not celebration. A
special tribunal is being set up to try top people in Saddam Hussein’s regime
for genocide, torture, mass slaughter and other atrocities. Human Rights Watch,
a respected international lobby group, reckons that at least 290,000 Iraqis were
murdered in the last two decades of Mr Hussein’s rule; that figure excludes
those -- probably many more -- who died as a result of wars started by Saddam.
Nor does it include the millions of Iraqis who suffered in other ways. Bringing
the chief perpetrators to book and creating a new system of law must surely be
applauded.

Not yet. The trouble is over who should oversee a new judicial process. This
week, Iraq’s American-appointed Governing Council announced that a tribunal
would be set up to try the miscreants -- and that it would be run entirely by
Iraqis. International human-rights groups, the United Nations, and even Britain,
America’s main partner in Iraq’s ruling Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA),
are worried. They fear that the tribunal may fail to comply with international
standards of fairness. It may seek to impose the death penalty on the worst
culprits. Most worryingly and self-defeatingly, it risks being seen by both
Iraqis and outsiders as a tool for vengeance rather than as the beacon of a new,
clean and impartial judiciary.

Most tribunals set up over the past decade -- to try war crimes and crimes
against humanity in such troubled places as Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia,
Sierra Leone, and, most recently, Cambodia -- are under the auspices of the UN
and have at least a strong component of international judges. All are conducted
in accordance with international law. None permits the death penalty. But the
planned Iraqi court is being set up, with America’s encouragement, without
reference to the UN. It will be run entirely by Iraqi judges, mainly under Iraqi
criminal law and procedure, which often clash with international law. Once the
CPA hands over formal sovereignty to a transitional government in July, the new
rulers may insist that the tribunal be empowered to re-impose the death penalty
the Americans suspended after toppling Saddam in April.

The British, in particular, were alarmed by the plans for the court, and quietly
urged Bertrand Ramcharan, the UN’s acting High Commissioner for Human Rights, to
write last week to Paul Bremer, the American proconsul who heads the CPA, to
mark his concern over the draft plan’s apparent incompatibility with
international humanitarian law. Mr Ramcharan also suggested that international
judges, prosecutors and investigators with experience in human-rights cases
should be more involved. The Governing Council’s draft mentioned international
lawyers only as possible advisers.

Thanks to Mr Ramcharan’s intervention, the council made some last-minute
amendments. Details of the court’s statutes have yet to be published. But the
council is believed to have decided, for example, to let international lawyers
be brought in as investigators, though not as judges. And defendants are to have
a right to legal representation and to an appeal. But no explicit ban on capital
punishment is included in the tribunal’s statutes. Indeed, some council members
have hinted that it could well be resuscitated and imposed on Saddam, in
absentia if necessary, and on his closest aides. This would make it virtually
impossible for Britain and any other European Union country to hand over
prisoners to the tribunal.

"It will be a noble experiment," says Adnan Pachachi, a former foreign minister
who is in the Governing Council. "It shows we want to apply the rule of law and
not let the desire for revenge take over." Human-rights groups are not
convinced. Richard Dicker, legal director of Human Rights Watch, worries that
"this could degenerate into political show trials."

Motes and beams

In any event, finding qualified and impartial Iraqi judges and lawyers to man
the proposed five-judge tribunal will be hard. Many of those who worked under
the old regime are likely to be seen as tainted, while the objectivity of those
returning from exile, many of whom were victims of Saddam, may be queried too.
The CPA is vetting all present Iraqi judges for their integrity and for their
past membership of Saddam’s Baath Party. The records of half of them have so far
been examined; only one in five has been disqualified.

Hitherto, the Americans have supported UN-sponsored war-crimes tribunals. But in
Iraq, from the outset, they have promoted the idea of an all-Iraqi court with no
UN involvement, arguing that the Iraqis themselves, as the main victims of
Saddam, were entitled to try their own persecutors. They have even offered $75m
to support the court. But many suspect that the Americans’ opposition to an
international tribunal for Iraq is part of their campaign against the UN’s
International Criminal Court, not because of a genuine change of opinion. In the
case of the former Yugoslavia, they certainly took the opposite view, even
threatening to cut loans to a reforming Serbian government if it did not hand
over Slobodan Milosevic to the UN’s war-crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Of the 7,000 or so people still being held by coalition forces in Iraq, only
around 100 are classified as prisoners of war: that is, uniformed soldiers
captured on the battlefield. Under international law, they must either be freed
or brought before a military court when hostilities have officially ceased.
Around 2,200 are "criminal detainees", looters and the like, who will eventually
be handed over to the Iraqi authorities for trial in normal Iraqi courts. The
remaining 4,800-odd are so-called "security internees": suspected insurgents,
al-Qaeda terrorists, would-be suicide bombers, and anyone else deemed to pose a
threat to the coalition’s forces or to Iraqis in general. They include 101
"high-value detainees" suspected of the worst atrocities under Saddam, including
38 of the most wanted 55 people (two of whom have been killed) in the Americans’
"deck of cards".

Unlike America’s 660 prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, all its security internees in
Iraq are being held in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. Though they have
not been charged and have no access to a lawyer, their cases must be -- and are
being -- subject to regular review. If no longer considered a danger, they may
be freed or, if suspected of a crime, switched to the criminal-detainee category
to await trial in an ordinary court. But those still deemed a security threat
can continue to be held by the "occupying power", namely the CPA, for as long as
the occupation continues.

What will happen to the detainees come July 1st next year, when the Iraqis are
supposed to take over? No one is sure. Most of the mass murderers and other
gross violators of human rights will probably end up before the new special
tribunal, which is expected to start operating next year. Others may be freed.
But the Americans will probably ask to keep those thought likely to provide
useful information for its war on terror. So they could then fall into the same
legal limbo as the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.

* * *


Taipei Times:

December 11, 2003

SELF-DETERMINATION GETS SUPPORT

Speaking at a seminar, international experts said the UN Charter and the reality
of the nation's separation from China make self-determination a right

BY Debby Wu, Staff Reporter

"Over the past 400 years, Taiwan has been the subject of dispute over who has
the right to the island, but the island itself has never had the right to say
anything about itself."

Peng Ming-min, senior adviser to the president International experts said
yesterday that various international laws and acts had bestowed Taiwanese people
with the right to self-determination and to decide their own future.

Academic Historica and the Preparatory Office of the National Human Rights
Museum held a meeting yesterday dubbed the International Human Rights
Roundtable: Rights for All, All for Rights."

They invited University of Houston Law Foundation professor Jordan Paust,
International League for Human Rights president Scott Horton, senior adviser to
the president Peng Ming-min and presidential adviser Chen Chu-lung as speakers.

Paust said that Taiwan's right to self-determination has its basis in
international law.

"Both human rights and the related precept of self-determination of peoples are
enshrined in the United Nations Charter and the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights," Paust said.

Paust also stressed the physical reality of Taiwan's separation from China.

"Taiwan is physically separated from the mainland of China and has a population
of some 23 million people who mainly consider themselves to be Taiwanese with
their own independent political processes," Paust said.

He also pointed out if China used force to deny a people self-determination and
human rights, it would violate the UN Charter and become a threat to
international peace and security.

But Paust also joked that self-determination meant Taiwanese people had the
right to choose to become oppressed by communists too.

Horton, meanwhile, said the war on terror had taken a toll on international
humanitarian law.

"While invoking the mantle of human rights protection to justify its various
military campaigns, the Bush administration is doing serious damage to
international humanitarian law by asserting that somehow its conduct is always
beyond the reach of that law," Horton said, citing the US violation of Geneva
Conventions in its treatment of Taliban and al-Qaeda POWs.

"American policy is now captive to this very radical world view filled with
fundamental hostility to the system of international humanitarian law," Horton
said.

Peng said, "Over the past 400 years, Taiwan has been the subject of dispute over
who has the right to the island, but the island itself has never had the right
to say anything about itself.

"We want to be at peace with other countries, including China, but it's China
that doesn't want to leave us alone," he said.

Peng said that the basic human rights of Taiwanese people, such as the right to
elect the nation's president and the right to hold referendums, were all deemed
provocative in China's eyes.

"Unfortunately the US government seems to agree with China's stand, and by doing
so the US is giving the word 'provocative' a new definition," Peng said.

Meanwhile, Chen called China's threat to use military force against Taiwan "a
form of state terrorism."

Chen also said China's demands on Taiwan were unreasonable.

"Sovereignty nowadays means not ties to property but to people. China's concept
of sovereignty is an outdated 18th or 19th century concept. Sovereignty should
mean responsibility and a government that protects the human rights and welfare
of the people," Chen said.

* * *


The Australian:

December 11, 2003

ANTI-TERRORISM LAW SLAMMED

From correspondents in London

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/
0,5744,8131589^1702,00.html

HUMAN rights group Amnesty International today attacked British emergency
internment laws, introduced in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks on
the United States, as a "perversion of justice".

"This legislation has created a Guantanamo Bay in our own backyard," Kate Allen,
Amnesty's director for Britain, told The Independent newspaper, referring to the
US military base in Cuba.

In a hard-hitting report, Amnesty said that the emergency legislation adopted by
Britain had created a "shadow" criminal justice system for foreigners suspected
of being "terrorists".

By allowing foreign nationals to be locked up indefinitely without charge or
trial, the Government had failed to meet international standards, Amnesty
claimed.

Its report, entitled UK: Justice Perverted under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and
Security Act 2001, examined the laws that have led to 14 people being detained
at high-security prisons.

Six of the terrorist suspects will have been in detention for two years on
December 19, said Amnesty.

"The Act is discriminatory - there is one set of rules for British citizens and
another for nationals of other countries," the group claimed.

"If there is sufficient evidence to warrant holding these individuals
indefinitely they should be charged and tried in proceedings which meet
international fair trial standards. Otherwise they should be released."

Amnesty also had misgivings about the workings of the Special Immigration
Appeals Commission, which was set up to allow the men to appeal against their
detention.

Amnesty said the commission appeared to have accepted evidence obtained through
the torture of suspects detained by the US at Bagram air base in Afghanistan and
at Guantanamo Bay.

"By indicating that they are prepared to rely on evidence extracted under
torture, the UK legal process has effectively given a green light to torturers,"
the rights group charged.

Guantanamo Bay is the site where more than 660 people picked up during the US
"war on terror" are being held. The United States does not consider them
prisoners of war and is holding them indefinitely without setting trial dates.

* * *


Amnesty International:

December 11, 2003

Press Release
UNITED KINGDOM: A SHADOW CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR450302003

The UK government has effectively created a shadow criminal justice system for
non-UK nationals which fails to meet international standards for a fair trial a
new report by Amnesty International says. The system permits potentially
indefinite detention on the basis of secret "evidence" and allows the use of
"evidence" extracted under torture.

UK: Justice Perverted under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001
examines Part 4 of the Anti-terrorism Crime and Security Act, 2001 (the Act)
which permits the potentially indefinite detention of non-UK citizens without
charge or trial. There are currently 14 people held under this legislation, six
of whom will have been in detention for two years on 19 December.

[ See: http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR450292003?open&of=ENG-GBR ]

"The Act is discriminatory - there is one set of rules for British citizens and
another for nationals of other countries. It effectively allows non-nationals to
be treated as if they have been charged with a criminal offence, convicted
without a trial and sentenced to an open-ended term of imprisonment. In no
respect can this be considered just," Amnesty International said.

Amnesty International has monitored the open sessions of the proceedings brought
by a number of detainees to appeal against their certification by the Home
Secretary as "suspected international terrorists". During the course of the
hearings - some parts of which were closed - the Special Immigration Appeals
Commission (SIAC) made a number of disconcerting rulings. In particular it
effectively denied the detainees the presumption of innocence. The burden of
proof used to detain these individuals is lower than that even of a civil case.

"These individuals face indefinite detention on the basis of a lower standard of
proof than would be necessary in a civil court case to recover damages following
a car accident."

"What is more, they can be held indefinitely on the basis of secret 'evidence'.
Evidence that neither they nor their legal representatives can access and
challenge."

Amnesty International is deeply concerned that SIAC also ruled, during the
appeal hearings, that "evidence" extracted by torturing a third party is not
only admissible, but may also be relied upon by the SIAC in reaching its
judgments.

"By indicating that they are prepared to rely on evidence extracted under
torture, the UK legal process has effectively given a green light to torturers.
Using evidence tainted by allegations of torture is contrary to any notion of
justice and respect for the law," Amnesty International stated.

"The UK government should repeal Part 4 of this legislation and ensure the same
legal safeguards for all individuals regardless of their origin."

"If there is sufficient evidence to warrant holding these individuals
indefinitely they should be charged and tried in proceedings which meet
international fair trial standards. Otherwise they should be released."

Public Document
****************************************
For more information please call Amnesty International's
press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566
Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW.
web: http://www.amnesty.org

* * *


The Financial Times:

December 10, 2003

SECURITY IN IRAQ MAY WORSEN, WARNS ANNAN

By Mark Turner at the United Nations and Christopher Adams in London

Kofi Annan, United Nations secretary-general, on Wednesday warned that security
in Iraq was unlikely to improve in the short to medium term and called on the
US-led coalition to intensify its commitment to human rights in the country.

In a report to the Security Council, Mr Annan ruled out a quick return by the UN
barring an "unexpected" improvement in security, and suggested it could
"deteriorate further".

However, he said the UN would "make available to the Iraqi people its expertise
on the constitutional and electoral process envisaged to take place in the
latter half of 2004 and throughout 2005 . . . If the Iraqis so request, and as
circumstances permit." The UN pulled its international staff out of Iraq after
its Baghdad headquarters were bombed in August and September.

Mr Annan also demanded greater clarity from Iraqis, regional powers and UN
members as to the role they wanted the organisation to play, and called for a
more inclusive political transition process.

"A solution entails [bringing in] additional groups and individuals that have
thus far been excluded, or that have excluded themselves," he wrote. Sir Kieran
Prendergast, the UN political affairs head, said "more mainstream Arab
nationalist opinion and mainstream Shia opinion" were needed to broaden the base
of the provisional government.

Mr Annan said "special care" was needed to avoid inflicting casualties on
innocent civilians, calling for a "proportionate and discriminating" response to
threats. "All detainees should be protected in accordance with Iraqi law and the
Geneva conventions," he added.

"Intensified efforts by coalition forces to demonstrate that they are adhering
strictly to international humanitarian law - even in the face of terrorist
attacks - would make it that much more difficult for the insurgents to rally
support for their cause."

Britain has indicated it wants a more detailed mandate outlining the UN's
involvement in next year's handover and hopes a new Security Council resolution
will endorse the legal basis on which an Iraqi government would operate.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Tony Blair's political envoy to Iraq, is due to meet Mr
Annan and mission heads next week to discuss the UN's role.

* * *


December 10, 2003

TENTATIVE TRIAL DATE SET FOR INTERPRETER

By Matt Kelley, Associated Press Writer

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-guantanamo-interpreter-
trial,0,2961222.story

WASHINGTON -- The Air Force has set a tentative court-martial date for an Arabic
interpreter accused of spying at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorism
suspects.

Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi is scheduled for a court-martial on April 20,
the Air Force said Wednesday. He is charged with espionage, aiding the enemy and
several lesser offenses in connection with his work at the Navy base in Cuba.
Al-Halabi's lawyers say he is innocent.

The military judge in al-Halabi's case, Col. Barbara G. Brand, scheduled an
arraignment for al-Halabi for Monday at Travis Air Force Base in California, the
Air Force said in a statement. Al-Halabi had been stationed at Travis before
being sent to Guantanamo.

Al-Halabi's court-martial also will be at Travis. He is being held in a jail at
Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Agents arrested al-Halabi July 23 as he got off a flight from Guantanamo to
Florida. He is accused of gathering secrets about the base, such as the names
and cell numbers of prisoners and messages from the inmates. Al-Halabi is
accused of transmitting some of that information to an unidentified enemy and
someone in the Middle East, possibly in Syria, his home country.

Al-Halabi's lawyers say the airman was arrested while he was about to take leave
to marry his fiance in Syria.

The airman was the first of four workers at Guantanamo Bay to be arrested as
part of an investigation into possible security breaches at the prison for some
660 suspected al-Qaida or Taliban members.

A former Muslim chaplain at the prison, Army Capt. James Yee, has been charged
with mishandling classified information, disobeying orders, committing adultery
and storing pornography on his military computer. Military officials this week
postponed a hearing in his case until next month. Yee has pleaded innocent.

A civilian interpreter, Ahmad F. Mehalba, was arrested in Boston and charged
with lying to federal agents by denying computer discs he was carrying had
classified information from Guantanamo. He also has pleaded innocent.

On Nov. 29, Col. Jack Farr, an Army Reserve intelligence officer on six-month
assignment to Guantanamo Bay, was charged with transporting secret documents
without proper containers and with lying to investigators.

* * *


Wilmington Star-News:

December 10, 2003

CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION VISITS GUANTANAMO
BEFORE FIRST MEETING BETWEEN DETAINEE, LAWYERS

By Ian James, Associated Press Writer

Three U.S. senators toured the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on
Wednesday - a day before authorities were to allow a prisoner access to a
defense lawyer for the first time.

Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican and former prisoner of war, traveled to
the base for the one-day trip with Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina
Republican and Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat. Specifics of their
talks with military commanders weren't revealed.

"They're basically going to observe and assess the situation," said Andrea
Jones, a spokeswoman for McCain, who was captured in Vietnam and held for nearly
six years.

McCain and Graham are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The senators are the latest politicians to file through in the nearly two years
that detainees have been held at Guantanamo on suspicion of links to
Afghanistan's ousted Taliban or al-Qaida terror network.

Until now, none of the approximately 660 prisoners from 44 countries has been
allowed to meet with a lawyer.

Stephen Kenny, a civilian lawyer representing Australian David Hicks, said he
planned a five-day visit starting Thursday, along with Hicks' military-appointed
attorney, Marine Corps Maj. Michael Mori.

Hicks, 28, is one of six prisoners designated by U.S. President George W. Bush
as possible candidates for trial by military tribunal.

The Australian has yet to be charged, and no trial date has been set. He was
allegedly fighting with the Taliban when captured by U.S.-led forces in
Afghanistan, and also allegedly threatened to kill an American at Guantanamo.

In Washington earlier this week, Kenny said he believes a U.S. Supreme Court
decision to hear a case involving Hicks and other British and Kuwaiti detainees
may have prompted the U.S. government to allow Hicks lawyers.

In that case, the court agreed last month to consider whether foreigners held at
Guantanamo should have access to U.S. courts.

A lawyer representing detainees in the challenge, Michael Ratner of the Center
for Constitutional Rights, said he suspects that by allowing Hicks to meet
lawyers, U.S. officials "want to show the court, 'Don't worry, we can do some
things.'"

Wednesday's visit by the senators followed a similar one-day tour Tuesday by
five U.S. House members.

Speaking by telephone Wednesday, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said she thinks "the
United States is bending over backward" in fulfilling its obligations and
treating prisoners humanely in interrogations.

The Florida Republican was accompanied by Reps. Jeff Flake, an Arizona
Republican; Joseph Crowley, a New York Democrat; Diane Watson, a California
Democrat; and Mark Foley, a Florida Republican.

During talks with commanders, the lawmakers discussed tighter security measures
introduced following recent lapses, Ros-Lehtinen said, adding she is satisfied
the military is doing an "extraordinary job."

Four people who worked at Guantanamo have been detained in the past several
months and are facing charges from espionage to mishandling classified
information.

(imj-pd)

* * *


December 10, 2003

40-DAY DELAY IS ORDERED IN TRIAL OF EX-CHAPLAIN

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff

FORT BENNING, Ga. -- After just one day of testimony that was more about sex
than security, a military commander ordered a 40-day delay in the case of Army
Captain James J. Yee to determine whether documents seized from the former
Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base prison were classified and, if so,
how sensitive they were.

Pending the results of the security review, no one involved in the hearing,
including Army Colonel Dan Trimble, the investigating officer who is to judge
whether the charges against Yee merit a court martial, is allowed to see the
only security-related evidence against the former chaplain.

The Guantanamo commander, Major General Geoffrey Miller, ordered the hearing to
start this week but delayed it after prosecutors said they could not proceed
with the classified-information charges against Yee until the security review
was complete.

Prosecutors presented evidence Monday that Yee had an extramarital affair with a
fellow officer last summer and kept pornography on his government computer. But
they were unable to present much evidence of the charges that Yee mishandled
classified information.

Late in the afternoon, Miller ordered the hearing delayed until Jan. 19 to
finish evaluating the papers, which were described by a Customs agent Monday as
consisting of several dozen pages of handwritten notes and one typewritten page
with "names and numbers next to those names" pertaining to Guantanamo detainees
and interrogators.

Prosecutors did not explain why the hearing started before the evidence had been
fully examined, and a military spokesman was unable to answer the question.

Adding to the sense of disarray, Yee's civilian attorney, Eugene Fidell,
suggested that the delay may trample upon a "speedy trial" rule that defendants
be arraigned within 120 days or the charges against them be dropped. Yee was
arrested on Sept. 10.

"I want the clock running every second," Fidell said.

Miller has authorized a 45-day extension to the speedy trial rule, but Fidell
said that the extension was vulnerable to challenge. A military spokesman
disputed that interpretation.

Meanwhile, during the seven-hour idle period before Miller's decision yesterday,
Army Major Scott Sikes, the military defense lawyer assigned to Yee, revealed
that a prosecutor told him several months ago that he would need to add someone
with death penalty qualifications to his team.

Instead, Yee, who was released from confinement last month after 76 days in a
brig, faces a maximum penalty of 13 years in prison for charges related to
allegedly taking classified information home and transporting without proper
covers, making a false statement, adultery, and accessing pornography on his
government laptop.

"It concerns me that this case was raised to a level echelons above reality
early on and it seems like we've been in steady decline in terms of the
seriousness of the allegations since then," said Sikes. "This is the most
incredible military proceeding that I've ever been involved with."

Sikes also said that the level of charges that remained would be better
addressed with an administrative reprimand rather than a criminal case, and
suggested that the government's pushing forward with a full court martial for
the charges it was able to make is "face-saving" because of the original level
of the suspicions against Yee.

The government's admission that the unfinished security review meant the case
could not proceed was made in public only after a confrontation between Trimble
and Fidell, who began the day storming into the courtroom and complaining to
observers that the judge wanted to discuss the problem behind closed doors in
violation of his client's right to a public hearing.

"We have become concerned about the extent to which there have been conferences
with the investigating officer in private and we have this morning declined to
do it any longer," Fidell said. "Any further business will be conducted in the
courtroom."

The defense team has also requested information on security procedures at the
base, an independent security specialist to review documents, and access to two
detainees who were "material witnesses" in the alleged false statement incident,
which has to do with whether a compact disc Yee gave one detainee had been
cleared for his use.

Making a rare public statement afterward, Yee said he intended to request
permission for a leave from Miller today.

"That gives me some needed time with my family, some lost time that I spent in
pretrial confinement," he said. "The first thing on my mind is spending some
time with my family."

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

* * *


December 10, 2003

COURTS TEST U.S. STRATEGY IN LEGAL WAR ON TERROR

By Toni Locy, USA TODAY

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-12-09-terror-cases-usat_x.htm

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's legal war on terrorism faces a series of
critical tests in the coming months as federal courts examine some of the most
controversial aspects of the White House's strategy.

The key question for the courts is whether President Bush, in the name of
protecting national security after the 9/11 attacks, went too far by denying
U.S. citizens and non-citizens some of the most fundamental rights the
Constitution gives to the accused.

With a series of legal challenges to such policies at turning points in federal
courts, "things are finally coming to a head," says Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean
of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International
Affairs.

The administration's policies -- along with plans to use military tribunals to
try some terrorism suspects -- have been criticized by foreign governments and
civil liberties advocates.

In recent days, the administration has signaled its concern about federal
courts' desire to weigh in.

Last week, the Pentagon said that Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen captured in
Afghanistan and held by the military for nearly two years without being charged,
finally could meet with a lawyer. Military officials said they were finished
interrogating him.

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a request to review Hamdi's case, which
civil libertarians consider a significant test of the administration's decision
to label U.S. citizens as "enemy combatants" who can be held incommunicado as
long as the war on terrorism lasts -- in essence, indefinitely.

In court papers, public defenders say that Hamdi, as a U.S. citizen, is entitled
to challenge his detention at a military prison in South Carolina.

Legal analysts say the government's move could backfire if the high court views
it as a ploy to try to convince the justices that a key issue in Hamdi's appeal
-- the government's prior refusal to give him access to a lawyer -- is now moot.

The Pentagon also assigned a military lawyer to David Hicks, an Australian
captured while fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Hicks, who could face
trial by a military tribunal, is the first of about 660 detainees held at the
U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to get access to a lawyer. Hicks has
been held for nearly two years without being charged. Sources close to the
tribunal system say a plea bargain is possible.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear cases involving Hicks and 15 other
detainees who are challenging their detentions at the military base, which they
claim is, in effect, U.S. soil. The administration disagrees, and says the
detainees are held outside the territorial USA and so should not have access to
U.S. courts.

Besides the Supreme Court, federal appeals courts in New York and Virginia are
reviewing cases that challenge the cornerstones of the administration's legal
war on terrorism:

  * Designating U.S. citizens as "enemy combatants."

    The administration says that the "battlefield" in the war on terrorism spans
    the globe and that suspected terrorists can be held indefinitely without
    being charged or having access to a lawyer. U.S. officials say that U.S.
    citizens -- no matter where they are captured -- also can be held as enemy
    combatants to protect national security if they are associated with groups
    fighting the United States.


  * Detaining non-citizens indefinitely.

    The administration argues that the suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives
    held at Guantanamo Bay are enemy combatants who can be held as long as the
    war on terrorism lasts. In past wars, the United States has released most
    enemy combatants, without charging them, after hostilities ended.

    The White House is not treating the detainees as "prisoners of war," as
    defined under the Geneva Conventions. The administration says the detainees
    are not entitled to POW protections, such as military hearings, because they
    did not follow the laws of war by, among other things, belonging to a
    regular army or wearing uniforms.


  * Withholding potential witnesses.

    Prosecutors say they should be allowed to seek the death penalty against
    terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen charged in the
    conspiracy to carry out the 9/11 attacks, even as they deny him access to
    three captured al-Qaeda operatives who he says can help his defense.
    Allowing such access would jeopardize national security, the government
    says.


By taking on cases that raise such issues, the courts are signaling that
"someone is looking over the (executive branch's) shoulder," says Douglas Kmiec,
a Pepperdine University law professor.

U.S. citizens detained

Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla traveled far different paths. But they wound up in
the same situation: in a Navy brig in South Carolina, held without charges as
"enemy combatants."

Hamdi, who was born in Louisiana and left the USA with his family as a child,
was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 while fighting for the Taliban. He
initially was taken to Guantanamo Bay but was moved to South Carolina after
officials realized he was a U.S. citizen.

Padilla, a former Chicago gang member, converted to Islam while in prison in
Florida. He moved to Egypt and eventually traveled to Pakistan, where U.S.
officials believe he met with al-Qaeda operatives. Padilla returned to the USA
in May 2002, allegedly to attempt to acquire radioactive material to make a
"dirty bomb."

Michael Nardotti, a former Army judge advocate general, says there is an
important inconsistency in how the two men have been handled: Unlike Hamdi,
Padilla was not immediately designated as an enemy combatant. He was held on a
"material witness" warrant by a civilian court--and was assigned a lawyer -- for
a month before he was taken into military custody. Material witnesses are kept
in custody when prosecutors believe that they have evidence in an investigation
and that they might flee.

"It's what makes the case weak" for the government, Nardotti says. He says that
it might be difficult for appellate judges to ignore that Padilla initially was
given rights in the civilian court system.

Supreme Court petitions

Of all the matters pending before the courts, many analysts say, the most
important for the government are the petitions that the Supreme Court will hear
from 16 British, Australian and Kuwaiti detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Attorneys for Hicks and 15 other detainees argue that the base in Cuba is under
U.S. control and should be subject to review by American courts. They say that
means all captives held there should be able to challenge their detentions in
U.S. courts.

Nardotti, the former Army lawyer, and Slaughter, the academic, agree that the
administration created problems for itself by failing to give the detainees some
semblance of due process.

Under the international law of war, captives are entitled to so-called Article 5
hearings to evaluate whether an enemy combatant is a POW and entitled to legal
protections under the Geneva Conventions. "This is a self-inflicted wound,"
Slaughter says. "Had the military held the hearings, we would not be vulnerable
to a complaint of complete hypocrisy."

U.S. allies also are concerned about the administration's planned use of
military tribunals to try terrorism suspects. Critics oppose the tribunals
because defendants would receive fewer rights than they would in civilian
courts.

No tribunals have been held, but Bush has designated six detainees -- including
Hicks -- for possible trials. The White House has promised Great Britain and
Australia that it will not seek the death penalty against any of their citizens.

Moussaoui's challenge

Perhaps the most legally troublesome case involves Moussaoui, who was arrested
while taking flight lessons in Minnesota a few weeks before the 9/11 attacks.

An appeals court in Virginia is considering whether a federal judge erred when
she ruled that prosecutors cannot seek the death penalty against Moussaoui while
denying him access to witnesses he says could clear him of any role in the 9/11
plot. If prosecutors lose the appeal, U.S. officials say the administration will
transfer Moussaoui's case to a military tribunal.

But legal analysts say that wouldn't make the case any easier to prosecute.
Kmiec says the military could not ignore the trial judge's rulings that question
the government's core theory: that Moussaoui, as an al-Qaeda operative, can be
executed even if he had no direct role in the 9/11 plot.

Nardotti says Defense Department officials aren't eager for the case to be
transferred. "They hate hearing that," he says, "because it makes it look like
the military process is not respectable."

Kmiec says that because courts usually try to avoid sweeping rulings on thorny
legal issues, the decisions in the pending cases could focus on legal
technicalities.

If that happens, he says, the public might not feel that justice has been served
for the victims of the 9/11 attacks. "It may be," Kmiec says, "that only time
gives us that."

* * *


International Herald Tribune:

December 10, 2003

DETAINED AT THE WHIM OF THE PRESIDENT

Deborah Pearlstein IHT

NEW YORK - The Bush administration has taken several important steps in recent
days to resolve the legal status of some of the hundreds of people that the
United States has detained without access to lawyers for the better part of two
years.

Last weekend, the administration indicated that it would begin repatriating some
of the 660 people detained without any judicial review at the U.S. naval base at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A few days later, the Pentagon announced that it would
begin making arrangements to allow Yasser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen, access to
a lawyer after more than 20 months of incommunicado military detention.

These steps are welcome. But they should be understood as part of a broader
strategy. The announcement on Guantanamo comes just weeks after the Supreme
Court decided to review a lower court holding that the federal courts had no
jurisdiction to evaluate the legality of the Guantanamo detentions. And the
decision to allow Hamdi access to a lawyer was announced on the day final briefs
were due to the Supreme Court, which is now deciding whether to take the case.
It is difficult to see the timing as coincidental. For the past two years, the
Bush administration - far more so than previous "wartime" executives - has been
very effective at keeping the courts out of the business of checking executive
power.

In the two years since the Sept. 11 attacks, the administration has established
a set of extra-legal structures designed to bypass the federal judiciary. It has
maintained that those detained by the United States outside U.S. borders - at
Guantanamo and elsewhere - are beyond the jurisdictional reach of the U.S.
courts altogether. Individuals subject to military commission proceedings -
which two years after their announced creation have yet to begin - are to have
their fate decided by military personnel who report only to the president.

In the "enemy combatant" cases involving U.S. citizens that have made their way
into lower courts, the administration has balked at observing a federal court
order requiring that it give its detainee-citizens access to counsel, and has
consistently demanded of the courts something less than independent judicial
review.

This refusal to be bound by established rules - to pursue ad hoc justice at best
- is what makes the recent steps of small comfort. And while the military
released 20 Guantanamo prisoners last week, those released were simultaneously
replaced with the same number of new prisoners. It is unclear who the new
arrivals are, where they were held before arriving at Guantanamo, and what will
be their fate now that they are there. Likewise, it remains unclear how the
administration determined which prisoners should be released, which must stay,
and which - if any - will eventually be brought before military commissions for
actual determinations of their status as prisoners of war, or their guilt or
innocence of any particular offense.

What is more striking is that the Pentagon, in announcing that it would be
making arrangements for Hamdi to have access to a lawyer "over the next few
days," insisted that such access was only being granted "as a matter of
discretion and military policy," not to comply with any requirement of domestic
or international law. Indeed, the Pentagon maintains that its decision for Hamdi
should not in any way "be treated as a precedent" to be used in any other such
"combatant" case.

In any event, the decision to grant Hamdi access to counsel after nearly two
years did not commit the administration to providing any more than that - for
example, international law protections for the treatment of prisoners of war, or
constitutional requirements that he be afforded notice of any charges against
him and an opportunity to be heard by an independent court.

As made clear in the cases that the administration has cited in support of its
sweeping claims of authority - including the use of military tribunals and the
internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II - the Supreme Court has not
always acted to enforce rights in favor of the individual against the executive
asserting special "wartime" power. But the Supreme Court's involvement in those
cases conveyed a critical message that even in times of greatest strain,
executive power remained subject to the rule of law. The court's published
opinions clarified the nature of the executive's claims of authority, and
provided a basis against which to judge the executive's subsequent conduct.

In vigorous and public dissenting opinions, minority justices in those cases
gave expression to the strong opposing arguments on the resolution of the legal
questions presented. Perhaps most important, the Supreme Court's decisions
provided Congress, legal scholars and the American public a means for
understanding and, in the relative calm of postwar decision-making, for re-
evaluating the political wisdom of the executive's conduct.

In 1971, Congress established that "no citizen" shall be "detained by the United
States except pursuant to an Act of Congress." And in 1988, Congress awarded
reparations to the remaining survivors and descendants of Japanese-American
citizens interned by the military during World War II.

Despite the Bush administration's best efforts of late to convey the appearance
of action, the Supreme Court - poised to hear the Guantanamo case, and now
deciding whether to hear the case of Hamdi - should not be misled by
atmospherics. At stake in the cases now at the court's doorstep is one of
America's most basic ideals as a nation - that the rule of law is a matter of
right, not a matter of grace.

[ The writer directs the U.S. Law and Security Program for the Lawyers Committee
for Human Rights, and is editor of "Assessing the New Normal," a book on liberty
and security in the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks. ]

* * *


Sydney Morning Herald:

December 10, 2003

PLEA OFFER LIKELY SOON, SAYS HICKS'S LAWYER

By Marian Wilkinson, Herald Correspondent in Washington

David Hicks may be offered a plea bargain by US military prosecutors as early as
this week, his Australian lawyer said after meeting Pentagon officials in
Washington.

"It is my expectation there will be some discussion with the prosecutor's office
about a possible plea bargain," Stephen Kenny, Mr Hicks's lawyer, told the
Herald on Monday after talking to Mr Hicks's Pentagon-appointed defence lawyer,
Major Michael Mori, and a senior legal adviser to the Deputy Defence Secretary,
Paul Wolfowitz.

Mr Kenny said a military prosecutor could offer a deal to Mr Hicks at Guantanamo
Bay after the Australian prisoner meets him and Major Mori this week. "It may
occur while we are down there," he said.

Mr Kenny is due to fly from Washington to the military base in Cuba today. He
and Major Mori will be the first defence lawyers to meet a Guantanamo Bay
detainee since the prison camp was opened for low-level al-Qaeda and Taliban
suspects two years ago.

Mr Kenny said that while he had not yet met military prosecutors to discuss Mr
Hicks's case or discovered what charges he might face, the possibility of a plea
bargain was "an indication I have been given".

Mr Hicks is one of six Guantanamo Bay detainees out of 660 selected by the US to
be tried by special military commission. The commissions have been strongly
criticised by human rights lawyers. The US Supreme Court recently agreed to hear
a case on the lack of due process for the detainees, including Mr Hicks. Soon
after the court's decision, Mr Hicks was given access to a defence lawyer.

Mr Kenny faced several problems on Monday in his efforts to defend Mr Hicks. He
was told it would not be possible for any US civilian lawyers to accompany him
to Guantanamo Bay because they were not able to get security clearances in time.

* * *


Legal Times:

12-09-2003

TACTICS SHIFT IN WAR ON TERRORISM
by Vanessa Blum

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1069801699305

Since Sept. 11, 2001, government lawyers have argued that normal rules of law do
not apply to terrorists -- whether they are picked up on the battlefield or
inside U.S. borders.

But with former DOJ officials raising questions, allied nations crying foul, and
Supreme Court review on the horizon, the Bush administration seems to be
maneuvering to beat back criticism of its most controversial policies.

Last week, the Pentagon announced that after nearly two years in custody, Yaser
Esam Hamdi, an American citizen held in a military brig as an enemy combatant,
and David Hicks, an Australian citizen held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo
Bay, would each be permitted to meet with a defense attorney.

The timing of the announcements -- on the eve of a Justice Department filing to
the Supreme Court in response to Hamdi's petition for certiorari and three weeks
after the Supreme Court agreed to take up a case challenging military detentions
at Guantanamo Bay -- may have been a calculated effort to influence the Court's
consideration of both cases, say several legal experts.

"The question of whether the government can pick up anybody, anywhere in the
world, and lock them up without reasonable legal limits is now going to be
reviewed," says Georgetown University law professor David Cole. "The
administration is trying to reassure those who will be assessing the validity of
these detentions that the government can be trusted."

But Supreme Court review is just one source of increasing pressure on the
administration's terrorism policies.

Two former Justice Department officials drew attention recently by suggesting
that the detention of U.S. citizens as enemy combatants should be reconsidered.

In their DOJ posts, Michael Chertoff, former head of the Criminal Division, and
Viet Dinh, a chief architect of the USA Patriot Act, served as aggressive
spokesmen for the administration's war on terrorism, so their criticism, while
temperate, is particularly powerful.

"To have former officials come out and say, 'I don't know if these legal
positions are sustainable,' has got to shake them up," says Timothy Lynch,
director of the Project for Criminal Justice at the Cato Institute, a
libertarian think tank.

And additional dissent may soon come from another surprising corner.

In an unusual move that will place them at odds with their commander in chief,
uniformed military defense lawyers in the Pentagon's Office of Military
Commissions are preparing an amicus brief in the Guantanamo habeas case
supporting detainees who are seeking federal court review of their detentions,
say sources familiar with the brief.

The defense team, led by Air Force Col. Will Gunn, is likely to argue that
preserving ultimate Supreme Court review is essential to the integrity of
military commissions, according to those sources. Gunn declined to comment.

Meanwhile, diplomatic concerns have delayed the start of military commission
proceedings at Guantanamo Bay and continue to cause friction with the British
government.

After publicly guaranteeing that Australian and British citizens charged before
commissions will not face the death penalty, the Pentagon is now being accused
of offering more protections to detainees who come from Western countries.

"How can you say there is one set of procedures for our allies and a separate
set for everyone else? How is that going to look to the world?" asks Robert
Goldman, an international law professor at American University Washington
College of Law.

Military commission spokesman Maj. John Smith insists that each case will be
analyzed on the same criteria. "We evaluate each detainee on an individual
basis. We look at the facts of that specific case," Smith says. "Our review is
not based on the country, it's based on the facts."

HAMDI AND HICKS

The indefinite detention of individuals caught up in the war on terrorism has
stirred intense debate about the powers of the executive branch during a time of
war. The cases of Hamdi and Hicks -- both captured in Afghanistan while
allegedly fighting for the Taliban -- have moved to the forefront of the clash
between individual rights and national security.

Hicks, an Australian citizen, has been detained since January 2002 at Guantanamo
Bay, along with roughly 660 other individuals, mostly those suspected of being
Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. According to family members, Hicks, who had
fought in Yugoslavia with the Kosovo Liberation Army, had traveled to Pakistan
to study Islam. In July, the 28-year-old Hicks was selected by the White House
to potentially face charges before a military commission.

Hamdi was also initially sent to Guantanamo Bay, but later transferred to a U.S.
military prison in Norfolk, Va., when it was discovered that he was an American
citizen. Since July, Hamdi has been held at a naval brig in Charleston, S.C.

Both are parties in habeas corpus proceedings that have landed in the lap of the
Supreme Court. The two cases challenge separate aspects of government detention
policies that blend principles of criminal and military law and rely on courts
granting great deference to the executive branch.

On Nov. 10, the Supreme Court agreed to review a March 2003 ruling by the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that federal courts lack jurisdiction to
review the detentions of Hicks and several other prisoners at Guantanamo. The
justices are currently considering whether to take up Hamdi's petition.

Lawyers involved in the cases say that allowing Hicks and Hamdi to consult with
lawyers now signals that the administration may be responding to the pressure of
judicial review.

"This happened because the Supreme Court said it might have jurisdiction. It
would never have happened otherwise," says Thomas Wilner, a partner in the D.C.
office of New York's Shearman & Sterling who represents 12 Kuwaiti citizens held
at Guantanamo Bay in the case before the Supreme Court. "It's a shame the
administration needs to be put under pressure to do what's right. Allowing
someone to see a lawyer should be the normal course of events."

Former DOJ official John Yoo, who analyzed legal issues related to terrorism and
detentions as an attorney in the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel, says he does not
feel that the administration is attempting to influence the Supreme Court.

"I see this as a sign of a system that is still developing," says Yoo, a
visiting professor at the University of Chicago Law School. "There is always
going to be a fundamental tension between the purpose and processes of our
criminal justice system and the military-intelligence world. We're still
figuring out what rules apply."

While providing Hamdi access to a lawyer, the administration does not back off
from its position that individuals designated enemy combatants -- even those who
are U.S. citizens -- can be held indefinitely without access to legal counsel.

In a Dec. 2 statement, the Defense Department asserts it will allow Hamdi to
meet with an attorney as "a matter of discretion" because it has completed
interrogations and intelligence gathering.

"In one sense, they've softened, but they haven't really changed the legal
standard," says Lynch of the Cato Institute. "When push comes to shove, they are
still arguing that once the president designates someone an enemy combatant,
that person is stripped of all rights to due process in our civilian court
system."

The limitless detention of Hamdi and Jose Padilla -- the only other known U.S.
citizen to be declared an enemy combatant -- has been the subject of recent
commentary by Chertoff and Dinh.

Chertoff, now a judge on the 3rd Circuit, spoke up in a Nov. 30 article in The
Weekly Standard. "We need to debate a long-term and sustainable architecture for
the process of determining when, why and for how long someone may be detained as
an enemy combatant, and what judicial review should be available," Chertoff
wrote.

Dinh, a Georgetown University law professor who served as assistant attorney
general for legal policy in the Justice Department, has gone even further in
questioning the administration's case.

"The initial government position that would not provide access to counsel and no
process for these individuals was flawed," Dinh said last week on National
Public Radio. "The granting of access to counsel is a significant step to making
the case sustainable, and it can move further by promising some sort of legal
process for these persons to challenge the facts of their detention."

FOREIGN PRESSURE

The pressure from foreign governments has focused on the lengthy imprisonment of
hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. More than 40 nations have citizens held
at Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-Ray.

By naming Hicks and two British citizens in the initial group of six eligible to
face a military commission, administration officials hoped to indicate that all
detainees would meet equal treatment and to deflect the concerns of U.S. allies
that their citizens would be held indefinitely without receiving due process.
Instead, the designation sparked unforeseen protest in both Australia and
Britain over military commission procedures and has resulted in extensive
negotiations with both nations.

On Nov. 25, the Pentagon reached an agreement with Australia by consenting not
to monitor conversations between Hicks and his attorney; not to rely on secret
evidence that would require closed proceedings; and to consider allowing Hicks
to serve his sentence in Australia if convicted.

A similar resolution was expected to be reached with the British government
during President George W. Bush's recent trip to the United Kingdom, but
negotiations are ongoing.

"We have discussed the entire range of options -- returning the detainees back
to the U.K., trying them before military commissions, or it could be a mix,"
says Smith, the spokesman for military commissions.

Last week, the Pentagon assigned Hicks military defense counsel in accordance
with military commission rules that require a defense attorney to be provided in
advance of trial. The move to involve defense counsel before official charges
have been brought suggests that lawyers may be working out a plea bargain.

According to a Dec. 3 statement released by the Pentagon, Hicks' designated
military lawyer, Marine Corps Maj. Michael Mori, will "inform [Hicks] of his
choices to retain a civilian defense counsel and an appropriately cleared
Australian attorney consultant."

Mori, who graduated from Western New England School of Law in Massachusetts, has
spent seven years as a military trial lawyer, including a stint as a senior
defense counsel for U.S. Naval Legal Services Office Pacific.

Steven Watt, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York,
which filed the habeas petition on behalf of Hicks, says the government's
approach to detention and trial has been arbitrary.

"Obviously, the government made significant concessions on behalf of Australian
nationals," Watt says. "The same concessions should be applied across the board.
It shouldn't depend on how vigorously your country of origin advocates on your
behalf."

He adds, "I don't think it's coincidence that all these changes came after the
Supreme Court granted cert. It feels like they're trying to step up matters and
show the Supreme Court they're actually affording some process, albeit -- in our
view -- sham process."

* * *


CNN:

December 9, 2003 - 22:29 GMT

MUSLIM CHAPLAIN'S DEFENSE CRIES FOUL

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/12/09/yee.hearing/index.html

FORT BENNING, Georgia (CNN) -- Attorneys for a Muslim Army chaplain alleged to
have mishandled classified information at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, accused the lead investigator in the case of misconduct Tuesday.

Eugene Fidell, lead attorney for Capt. James Yee, told reporters he questioned
the conduct of Col. Dan Trimble, the chief investigating officer who is
presiding over Yee's Article 32 hearing, now in its second day at Fort Benning.

An Article 32 proceeding is the U.S. military's version of a pretrial hearing to
determine whether Yee will face court-martial on charges ranging from the
mishandling of classified documents to adultery.

According to Fidell, Trimble has asked Yee to participate in private, off-the-
record conferences with defense and prosecuting attorneys. The conferences dealt
with procedures and were not necessary to protect legitimate, classified
information, Fidell said.

"We have become concerned about the extent to which there have been conferences
of one kind or another with the investigating officer in private," he said. "Any
further business should be conducted in the courtroom."

Trimble declined to comment on Fidell's allegations about conferences.

Fidell said that Yee refused Tuesday to participate in more conferences and that
he won't either.

"Everyone has to be confident" in the integrity of these trials, Fidell said.
"This is deadly serious business, and we're certainly not going to do it behind
closed doors."

Fidell said he was offended in one private conference when Trimble accused him
of grandstanding. Fidell complained further that a review of documents Yee is
accused of mishandling has not determined that they are classified.

The rest of the hearing was delayed until January 19 to give prosecutors time to
review the documents and decide which ones can be introduced at the hearing.

Yee has been charged with three counts of failing to obey an order and one count
each of adultery, making a false official statement and conduct unbecoming an
officer. Two of the charges relate to allegations that he used a government
computer to view and store pornography.

He was released from detention November 25 after his arrest in September at the
Jacksonville, Florida, airport on suspicion that he was carrying classified
materials. He then was held at a Charleston, South Carolina, Navy brig for 76
days on charges of espionage and aiding the enemy. But he was never charged with
spying.

Yee's attorneys said the charges against him were trumped up because he
complained about the treatment of detainees. The Army had chosen Yee to interact
with the Muslim detainees because of his faith.

The Army's member of the defense team, Maj. Stephen Sikes, also questioned the
government's conduct in the case.

"This is the most incredible case I've ever been involved with, and that's an
understatement," Sikes said.

* * *


Boston Globe:

December 9, 2003

MILITARY UNVEILS CASE ON CHAPLAIN
Charges fall short of espionage; prison materials at issue

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/343/nation/Military_unveils_case_on_chaplain+.
shtml

FORT BENNING, Ga. -- The military unveiled its long-awaited case against Army
Captain James "Yousef" Yee yesterday as a customs agent testified that the
Muslim chaplain stepped off a plane from Guantanamo Bay Navy Base carrying a
backpack that held notes about the war on terrorism detention and interrogation
operation.

Homeland Security special agent Sean Rafferty, testifying via speakerphone, said
agents from the FBI and military counter-intelligence services were at the
Jacksonville air station where Yee was arrested on Sept. 10. They had warned the
customs team that the chaplain might be carrying classified materials from the
war on terror prison base.

"I began to go through his luggage, starting with his backpack, and found
numerous handwritten notes and diagrams of a suspicious nature," Rafferty said.

The agent explained that he found several pads of notes about the camp as well
as a typewritten military document about the detainees and their interrogators
that contained "names and numbers next to the names."

But under cross-examination, Rafferty said the suspicious document was not
stamped "classified." And the prosecutor later acknowledged that the material
has not yet been screened to determine its security level.

Yee, whose arrest in September prompted widespread fears of a spy ring at the
prison where terror suspects are held, faces six charges that could bring 13
years in prison. But the charges so far stop well short of espionage: He is
accused of taking home classified material from the prison and transporting it
without the proper covers.

The military later added unrelated charges of accessing pornography on a
government computer, making a false statement, and adultery -- a criminal
offense under military law.

Because the latter charges have nothing to do with national security, his
lawyer, Eugene Fidell, said they were "completely trivial and frivolous." Fidell
has said the morality charges were brought by prosecutors to save face because
more serious suspicions could not be proved after Yee was held in a Navy brig
for 76 days alongside "enemy combatants."

Yesterday's hearing, which was widely viewed as the moment when the military
would reveal the extent of the wrongdoing perpetrated by Yee, was dominated by a
discussion of Yee's alleged sexual proclivities and not national security.

Underscoring the gap between the initial suspicions and the lesser charges that
were finally brought against him, the military began the day by calling one of
Yee's fellow officers who said she had an affair with the married chaplain and
closed it with testimony from a computer investigator who catalogued evidence
that Yee had visited pornographic websites on his laptop -- which was uncovered
by the FBI during its search for classified materials.

Warrant Officer Jennie Lee Callahan, a forensic computer specialist, said she
found that Yee had conducted 13 web searches for websites that contained
keywords such as "black teen models nude."

But, under cross-examination, she testified that the military rarely prosecutes
adult pornography computer charges and that she had been asked to expedite her
examination of his computer for pornography two weeks ago.

Yee's parents -- Joseph and Fong Yee -- sat in the courtroom alongside his wife,
Huda -- a Palestinian from Syria. James and Huda Yee's 4-year-old daughter,
Sarah, wore a pink coat with a yellow "Justice for Captain Yee" button.

Navy Lieutenant Karyn Wallace was granted immunity in exchange for her
testimony. She told the court that she met Yee in June when she was housed next
door to him at Guantanamo and that they had sex on numerous occasions from July
to early September.

Yee listened impassively during Wallace's testimony, occasionally conferring
with one of his attorneys. His wife sat with arms folded.

Much of the day was spent in sparring between Fidell and the judge. Fidell
complained that many of the witnesses he wanted to call would only be available
over speakerphone. He objected that the military had hurt his ability to prepare
by dragging its feet on granting his security clearance and not giving him
documents until the last minute. "This is trial by ambush," he said during one
break. "This would never fly in federal court."

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

* * *

Los Angeles Times:

December 9, 2003

AGENT SAYS HE GOT TIP ON CHAPLAIN

* Airport screening yielded 'suspicious'
papers on captain, official testifies.

By Rennie Sloan, Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-yee9dec09,1,3040272.story

FT. BENNING, Ga. -- A U.S. customs agent testified Monday that a tip from
another federal agency led to the discovery of "suspicious" documents stashed in
a backpack belonging to Army Chaplain Capt. James Joseph Yee, who is accused of
mishandling classified materials from the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison.

During a preliminary hearing here to determine whether Yee would face a court-
martial, special agent Sean Rafferty said that two notebooks, two smaller
notepads and a list of typed names and phone numbers were seized from Yee in
September when he arrived in Jacksonville, Fla., on a flight from the Cuban
base. Some of the documents, Rafferty said, appeared to be related to security
at Guantanamo, as well as the Afghan war and Islamic terrorist detainees held
there.

"It was determined the documents were of interest to national security," the
agent said. Rafferty added that one "piece of paper typewritten from the
military" contained "information on detainees and also interrogators."

Yee, 35, an Islamic chaplain who refers to himself as Yousef, faces a two-day
hearing to decide whether he should face an Army court-martial board on
accusations that he mishandled classified documents and made false statements.
Monday's session was presided over by an Army investigating officer, Maj. Daniel
Trimble, who questioned witnesses, along with military prosecutors and Yee's
civilian defense lawyer, Eugene Fidell.

Yee's detention, followed by three other arrests of military personnel from
Guantanamo, raised concerns about security inside the installation, where 660
prisoners have been held since the Afghan war. But initial concerns about an
espionage ring inside the base foundered when Yee was later charged on lesser
military counts of mishandling documents and conduct unbecoming an officer.

Fidell asserted Monday that military officials were stacking the deck against
the chaplain by not providing him with long-sought documents until the last
moment. The lawyer said he repeatedly had demanded to see copies of seized
classified materials, records of Yee's interrogations and search warrants. But a
sheaf of documents was delivered Monday, Fidell said, after the hearing had
begun.

The defense lawyer also complained that Army officials notified him Monday that
he had finally been granted a security clearance to review classified materials.

"They're playing trial by ambush," Fidell said. "This would never happen in a
[civilian] federal court."

Fidell made little headway in learning more about the classified documents in
open court. Rafferty said he could not detail what was found in the documents or
divulge the name of the federal agency that requested Yee's detention Sept. 10
after a flight to the naval air station in Jacksonville.

The customs agent said that the chaplain was detained after "I observed Capt.
Yee trying to leave the baggage claim area without being cleared by inspectors."

After his arrest, Yee was held for 67 days in a Navy brig in Charleston, N.C.;
the Army released him Nov. 25. During that period, military authorities also
charged an Air Force Arabic translator with espionage and accused a civilian
interpreter and an Army colonel of mishandling classified materials from
Guantanamo.

The New Jersey-born Yee, a 1990 West Point graduate, left the military for four
years to travel to Syria, where he studied Arabic and Islam. He returned to the
Army as a chaplain before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and was assigned
to counsel some of the Guantanamo detainees.

Married with a 4-year-old daughter, Yee also has been accused by the Army of
adultery and of loading pornography on his computer.

On Monday, Navy reserve Lt. Karyn Wallace said under questioning from Trimble
that she began an affair with Yee in July. Wallace laughed nervously as she
described having more than 20 sexual encounters with Yee in the following
months. Army prosecutor Maj. Timothy McDonnell also introduced a photograph that
showed Yee and Wallace together during a conference in Orlando, Fla.

Yee's wife, Huda, remained composed as she sat through portions of the hearing
with the couple's daughter, Sarah. But she finally left and sobbed outside the
courtroom door.

Approached by a reporter afterward, Huda Yee said she supported her husband. "I
don't imagine this is really happening in the U.S.," she said.

[ Times staff writer Stephen Braun in Washington, D.C., contributed to this
report. ]

* * *


The Guardian (UK):

December 9, 2003

ISRAEL TRAINS US ASSASSINATION SQUADS IN IRAQ

By Julian Borger in Washington

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1102869,00.html

Israeli advisers are helping train US special forces in aggressive counter-
insurgency operations in Iraq, including the use of assassination squads against
guerrilla leaders, US intelligence and military sources said yesterday.

The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has sent urban warfare specialists to Fort Bragg
in North Carolina, the home of US special forces, and according to two sources,
Israeli military "consultants" have also visited Iraq.

US forces in Iraq's Sunni triangle have already begun to use tactics that echo
Israeli operations in the occupied territories, sealing off centres of
resistance with razor wire and razing buildings from where attacks have been
launched against US troops.

But the secret war in Iraq is about to get much tougher, in the hope of
suppressing the Ba'athist-led insurgency ahead of next November's presidential
elections.

US special forces teams are already behind the lines inside Syria attempting to
kill foreign jihadists before they cross the border, and a group focused on the
"neutralisation" of guerrilla leaders is being set up, according to sources
familiar with the operations.

"This is basically an assassination programme. That is what is being
conceptualised here. This is a hunter-killer team," said a former senior US
intelligence official, who added that he feared the new tactics and enhanced
cooperation with Israel would only inflame a volatile situation in the Middle
East.

"It is bonkers, insane. Here we are - we're already being compared to Sharon in
the Arab world, and we've just confirmed it by bringing in the Israelis and
setting up assassination teams."

"They are being trained by Israelis in Fort Bragg," a well-informed intelligence
source in Washington said.

"Some Israelis went to Iraq as well, not to do training, but for providing
consultations."

The consultants' visit to Iraq was confirmed by another US source who was in
contact with American officials there.

The Pentagon did not return calls seeking comment, but a military planner,
Brigadier General Michael Vane, mentioned the cooperation with Israel in a
letter to Army magazine in July about the Iraq counter-insurgency campaign.

"We recently travelled to Israel to glean lessons learned from their
counterterrorist operations in urban areas," wrote General Vane, deputy chief of
staff at the army's training and doctrine command.

An Israeli official said the IDF regularly shared its experience in the West
Bank and Gaza with the US armed forces, but said he could not comment about
cooperation in Iraq.

"When we do activities, the US military attaches in Tel Aviv are interested. I
assume it's the same as the British. That's the way allies work. The special
forces come to our people and say, do debrief on an operation we have done," the
official said.

"Does it affect Iraq? It's not in our interest or the American interest or in
anyone's interest to go into that. It would just fit in with jihadist
prejudices."

Colonel Ralph Peters, a former army intelligence officer and a critic of
Pentagon policy in Iraq, said yesterday there was nothing wrong with learning
lessons wherever possible.

"When we turn to anyone for insights, it doesn't mean we blindly accept it," Col
Peters said. "But I think what you're seeing is a new realism. The American
tendency is to try to win all the hearts and minds. In Iraq, there are just some
hearts and minds you can't win. Within the bounds of human rights, if you do
make an example of certain villages it gets the attention of the others, and
attacks have gone down in the area."

The new counter-insurgency unit made up of elite troops being put together in
the Pentagon is called Task Force 121, New Yorker magazine reported in
yesterday's edition.

One of the planners behind the offensive is a highly controversial figure, whose
role is likely to inflame Muslim opinion: Lieutenant General William "Jerry"
Boykin.

In October, there were calls for his resignation after he told a church
congregation in Oregon that the US was at war with Satan, who "wants to destroy
us as a Christian army".

"He's been promoted a rank above his abilities," he said. "Some generals are
pretty good on battlefield but are disastrous nearer the source of power."

* * *


CNN / Time:

December 8, 2003

A SOFTER APPROACH?

The Attorney General scales back its prosecution of suspected terrorists

By Viveca Novak

Is Attorney General John Ashcroft -- so often at odds with civil libertarians --
going soft? It might seem that way to those watching recent actions in the war
on terrorism. Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen captured in Afghanistan and held
without charges for two years, last week was finally allowed to meet with a
lawyer for the first time.

Australian David Hicks became the first of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay to
gain access to lawyers, one military and one from Australia. Meanwhile, the
chief author of Ashcroft's controversial Patriot Act, Viet Dinh, a former
Justice official who is now a professor at Georgetown University, has called for
providing more legal rights to those in custody in the U.S. who are deemed
"enemy combatants."

But the story is more complicated. In the cases of Hamdi and Hicks, it appears
that Ashcroft's Justice Department has gained ground in a long-simmering behind-
the-scenes struggle with the Pentagon, which has jurisdiction in the cases and
has taken an even harder line in its treatment of those captured in the war on
terrorism.

Justice has long argued that Hamdi -- along with Jose Padilla, who has been
imprisoned but not charged in a suspected "dirty bomb" plot -- should be given
an attorney and other legal rights. The Pentagon relented just before a filing
deadline in a Supreme Court challenge to Hamdi's detention.

Justice has also pushed to have the detainees in Guantanamo charged and given
lawyers more quickly. Another source of friction, a former Justice official
tells TIME, is the Pentagon's refusal to let FBI agents question two of the
three "enemy combatants" being held in the continental U.S.

Justice officials argue that charging suspects and giving them access to
attorneys actually offers the defendants more incentive to cooperate in hopes of
bargaining for a lesser sentence. Justice lawyers are also acutely aware that
these policies must withstand constitutional scrutiny. "Justice takes a longer
view," says a former department official, "and wants cases set up to survive in
the Supreme Court."

* * *


CNN:

December 8, 2003

MUSLIM CHAPLAIN FACES ARMY HEARING

FORT BENNING, Georgia (CNN) -- Army prosecutors begin laying out their case
Monday against a Muslim chaplain once charged with espionage but now facing
lesser allegations.

Capt. James Yee, who had been stationed at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, is accused of mishandling classified documents, making a false
statement and conduct unbecoming an officer, charges that investigators said
were related to pornography allegedly found on his computer and alleged adultery
with a female officer.

Six witnesses are set to testify at the hearing at Fort Benning, a large Army
post at Columbus. The hearing could last two days.

Defense attorney Eugene Fidell told reporters Monday that the charges levied
against his client are trivial and should be dropped immediately.

Monday's evidentiary hearing is before an investigative officer, who will
recommend to the commanding general at Guantanamo Bay if Yee should face a
court-martial and if so, on what charges. The officer can recommend dropping,
amending or adding charges.

"We're hoping these charges, which are completely trivial and inconsequential,
will go away," Fidell said. "We invited the government to just drop this
proceeding immediately."

Yee -- freed November 25 after 76 days in a military brig -- accompanied Fidell,
holding his 4-year-old daughter, Sarah. Yee's wife, Huda, stood silently next to
him.

Yee declined to answer questions but told reporters he eventually would have a
chance to speak.

The Army arrested Yee on September 10 as he arrived in Jacksonville, Florida, on
leave from his duties ministering to Islamic prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The
military initially charged him with espionage and sent him to the U.S. Navy's
brig in Charleston, South Carolina.

The four charges now involve allegations that Yee had classified documents on
his computer and lied to investigators. He also allegedly had pornography on his
computer, an offense considered unbecoming of an Army officer. A fourth charge
involves the allegation that Yee committed adultery with a female military
officer at the Guantanamo Bay base.

Fidell criticized the military, saying officials had damaged Yee's reputation
with the initial spy charge.

"I think it's quite disgraceful that this officer's reputation was tarnished in
a way that can probably never be repaired because of that," Fidell said.

"I don't know how you can unring the bell on something like that. It was
completely unfair. And I think it explains to some extent why we're here today
on these completely inconsequential charges."

* * *


Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

December 8, 2003

MUSLIM CHAPLAIN IN HEARING AT FORT BENNING

FORT BENNING (AP) -- A Muslim chaplain accused of mishandling classified
information from the U.S. prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo, Cuba, was
detained after he was found with a paper about Syria and two pocket-sized
notebooks in this backpack, a U.S. Customs agent testified Monday.

Army Capt. James Yee, 35, is charged with taking classified documents home with
him on a flight to Jacksonville, Fla., where he was detained Sept. 10. He was
charged with disobeying an order by taking the material and with transporting
classified documents improperly.

Yee served 67 days in a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., before the Army released
him. The government then filed additional charges of making a false statement,
storing pornography on a government computer and adultery -- a criminal offense
under military law.

Monday's preliminary hearing will determine if there is enough evidence against
Yee to warrant a court-martial.

Special Agent Sean Rafferty, who works as a U.S. Customs inspector in
Jacksonville, Fla., said he was tipped off to watch for Yee at the airport there
as Yee returned from the Cuba base.

Rafferty said he stopped Yee and found two pocket-sized notebooks, a paper on
Syria and a typed list of names and numbers with the top torn off in the
backpack Yee carried off the plane.

"I found numerous notes of a suspicious nature," Rafferty said during a
conference call to the courtroom, being careful not to describe the papers. "It
was determined the documents were of interest to national security."

When questioned by Yee's attorney, Eugene Fidell of Washington, Rafferty said
none of the material was marked "secret" or "classified." Fidell also said the
paper on Syria was part of Yee's work as a graduate student in international
studies.

Rafferty refused to say who in federal law enforcement told him to look for Yee.

The first witness to testify Monday was Navy reserve officer Lt. Caren Wallace,
who said she had sex with Yee at his quarters in Guantanamo, Cuba, and at a
motel in Orlando, Fla., where he was attending a conference.

Wallace, now assigned to San Diego, is being given immunity from prosecution for
her testimony. Photographs of the two were entered into evidence, including one
showing Yee and Wallace hugging.

Yee's wife, Huda Yee, who arrived at the courthouse Monday along with her 4-
year-old daughter and Yee's parents, sat stone-faced during Wallace's testimony.
But during a break, she sat on a bench outside the courtroom and dabbed at her
eyes with a tissue. Yee's mother comforted her.

She later confronted Wallace outside the courtroom.

"You happy now? You broke up a family," Hude Yee yelled at the woman.

Wallace responded: "You'll have to speak to him (Yee)."

Monday's hearing had been delayed for a week after prosecutors discovered the
legal staff at Guantanamo had mistakenly released a classified document to the
hearing officer and to Yee's attorney.

During a break in the hearing, Fidell was given the papers granting him security
clearance to examine the documents used to prosecute Yee. Although the clearance
was delivered Monday, it was dated Dec. 1 and Fidell questioned why there had
been a delay.

Yee is a 1990 West Point graduate who left the military for four years to study
Arabic and Islam in Syria. After his return to the Army as a chaplain, he
counseled some of the 660 suspected terrorists from 44 nations being held at the
remote base on the eastern tip of Cuba.

He is one of four who served at Guantanamo facing charges.

Air Force Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi, a Syrian-born Arabic translator, has
pleaded innocent to charges of espionage and aiding the enemy.

A civilian interpreter, Ahmad F. Mehalba, was arrested last month in Boston and
charged with lying to federal agents by denying computer discs he was carrying
had classified information from Guantanamo. He also has pleaded innocent.

On Nov. 29, Col. Jack Farr, an Army Reserve intelligence officer on six-month
assignment to Guantanamo Bay, was charged with transporting secret documents
without proper containers and with lying to investigators.

* * *


WXIA-TV Atlanta:

December 8, 2003

LIEUTENANT ALLEGES SEX WITH CHAPLAIN

(Fort Benning-AP) -- A Navy lieutenant testified Monday that she had sex with
the Muslim chaplain accused of mishandling classified documents 20 times between
June and September.

A Navy reserve officer -- Lieutenant Caren Wallace -- testified that she had sex
with Army Captain James Yee at his quarters in Guantanamo, Cuba, and at a motel
in Orlando, Florida, where he was attending a conference.

Wallace -- now assigned to San Diego -- is being given immunity from prosecution
for her testimony during the preliminary hearing at Fort Benning at Columbus.

The 35-year-old Yee is accused of mishandling the documents from the U.S. prison
for terror suspects at Guantanamo. He is charged with taking the classified
documents home and with him on a flight to Jacksonville, Florida, where he was
detained September tenth.

The judge in the hearing -- Colonel Dan Trimble -- submitted a packet of
photographs showing her and Yee together including hugging. Wallace testified
under questioning from the judge that her relationship with Yee was sexual.

Yee's wife -- Huda Yee -- sat stone-faced during Wallace's testimony. But,
during a break, she sat on a bench outside the courtroom and dabbed at her eyes
with a tissue. Yee's mother comforted her.

* * *


December 8, 2003

FOREIGN OFFICE SNUBS GUANTANAMO FAMILIES (FOR FIFTH TIME)

By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent

Ministers have cancelled - for the fifth time - a meeting with the families of
the Guantanamo detainees, signalling fading hopes for an early release of the
British suspects.

The fathers of two of the detainees as well as representatives of the British
Muslim community were to meet the Foreign Office minister, Baroness Symons,
today for a progress report and for the families to air their grievances.

But, on Friday, they were told the minister had priority commitments and would
be unable to meet them.

Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, the leader of the British Muslim Parliament, who was to
accompany the families to Westminster, described the last-minute cancellation as
"shameless". He said: "Time and time again we are let down by the Government who
simply can't give us the assurances we are seeking. This is very disappointing
and frustrating. It shows that Tony Blair has no leverage with George Bush
whatsoever."

For Azmat Begg, father of Moazzam Begg, 36, arrested in Pakistan in February
2002 and transferred to Guantanamo Bay, this is the fifth time in two years
ministers have cancelled his meeting.

Dr Siddiqui said: "We are dealing with ministers who have no shame or concern
for the detainees' well-being. I would like to ask the ministers how they would
feel if it was their son who had been taken to such a place ... How would they
sleep?"

Riasoth Ahmed, father of Rhuhel Ahmed, 20, who was captured in Afghanistan where
he was attending a wedding, said that he was very "disappointed" that Baroness
Symons could not see him. "I was looking forward to it very much but at the last
minute I got a telephone call saying the meeting had been cancelled. They didn't
give me any reason," said Mr Ahmed, from Tipton, Staffordshire, who has met once
with ministers. He said that he suspected the Government had failed to secure a
deal with the Americans.

Mr Begg, a retired bank manager from Birmingham, says his son's only crime was
to be travelling in a country invaded by the Americans.

The Begg family want to raise with the Government the conditions under which
Moazzam, a Birmingham bookshop owner, is being held. "There is evidence that he
may have been tortured - not just psychologically tortured but physically
tortured," he said.

Louise Christian, the solicitor representing the family of Feroz Abbasi, from
London, said yesterday that Mr Abbasi's mother had given up seeking answers from
ministers. She said: "This latest failure to meet with the families shows there
are now splits within the Cabinet about whether the detainees should be
repatriated." Ms Christian said reports that that the Home Secretary, David
Blunkett, was blocking such a move appeared to be confirmed by the decision to
cancel the meeting.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said Baroness Symons cancelled the meeting
because she had to travel abroad on the request of the Prime Minister. He said
she deeply regretted cancelling the meeting and hoped to reschedule. He said:
"Ministers have already met a number of the families and their lawyers." But he
declined to discuss the details of any individual family's meeting.

Last night, Ms Christian cast doubt on reports of the possibility of an early
release of the British suspects. She said they had been expecting progress
during President George Bush's state visit but after the Istanbul bombing of the
British embassy the political atmosphere seemed to change.

* * *


The Age (Melbourne):

December 8, 2003

AUSTRALIAN LAWYER TO VISIT HICKS
By Penelope Debelle

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/07/1070732070846.html

An Australian lawyer for captured Australian Taliban fighter David Hicks will
become the first independent legal authority to visit the US military terrorist
prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, later this week.

Armed with Vegemite, chocolate, family videos and a magazine on Australian
fishing, Stephen Kenny left Adelaide yesterday for talks in Washington with
Major Michael Mori, the US defence lawyer assigned to Hicks by the Pentagon last
week.

An adventurer, former rodeo rider and Muslim convert, Hicks, 28, of Adelaide,
has been held at Guantanamo Bay for almost two years.

Of the 660 detainees imprisoned by the US military as enemy combatants in the
"war on terror", Hicks was the first to receive legal representation.

The move caused speculation in the US media that Hicks, who trained with al-
Qaeda in Pakistan, was negotiating a plea bargain with US authorities, pleading
guilty to a lesser terrorist offence that would avoid trial by a military
commission.

"I imagine a plea bargain will be on the table, that's a normal matter in the US
court system, and I expect there will be some discussions about it," Mr Kenny
said. "I don't have any fixed attitude to it. It would depend on whether it was
fair and reasonable in the circumstances and I would have to see what the
allegations against him were before we could advise him in relation to it."

Mr Kenny will travel with Major Mori to Cuba midweek and could see Hicks - held
incommunicado by the US military since he was captured fighting with the Taliban
in northern Afghanistan in December 2001 - on Thursday.

He will meet US military authorities and American embassy representatives over
the next two days and will be briefed by the international Human Rights Watch
organisation before travelling to Cuba on Wednesday.

Mr Kenny said he was prohibited from seeing Hicks without Major Mori present and
was still negotiating over a US military demand that he not speak to the media
without authorisation.

Hicks's legal team so far consists of US marine corps lawyer Major Mori and Mr
Kenny who was requested by Hicks in a phone call to Major Mori from Cuba late
last week.

Mr Kenny said it was hoped US civil rights lawyer Joe Marguiles, who has acted
for six foreign nationals in a US court case challenging their detention, would
be appointed Hicks's US lawyer.

David Hicks's father, Terry Hicks, stepmother Bev Hicks, and sister Stephanie
made supportive videos for Hicks yesterday and Mr Kenny took other messages of
encouragement from the South Australian-based "Fair Go for David" campaign.

"I told him he's got plenty of support here in South Australia, and
Australiawide and internationally," Mr Hicks said.

* * *


Aljazeera:

December 7, 2003 - 13:26 GMT

UK MINISTER BLOCKING GUANTANAMO RELEASES

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4D22F6A6-2694-41FA-A54B-C0CAC08A417E.htm

Britain's Home Secretary David Blunkett is blocking moves to repatriate British
detainees held by the United States in Guantanamo Bay, raising the ire of civil
rights lawyers.

Blunkett fears he would have to release the detainees soon after their arrival
back home, according to a British newspaper, The Sunday Times.

The United States had offered to send at least some of the nine Britons held at
the US military base in Cuba back to Britain for trial, but a decision on their
future was being delayed because British government ministers were split over
the proposal.

Civil rights lawyer, Sadiq Khan, whose firm is representing two of the detained
Britons, said he was astonished that the home secretary was refusing "to do the
just thing and repatriate these men home".

"If these men have committed a criminal offence, there is a provision within UK
law to try them even if the offences are alleged to have been committed
overseas".

The prospects of an early resolution had been clouded after Blunkett warned that
any proceedings in British civilian courts would probably end with acquittals
through lack of admissible evidence, the paper reported.

It added British intelligence chiefs were concerned that any agreement to return
the men could result in potentially dangerous al-Qaida supporters being allowed
to go free at a time when the authorities were nervous amid fears of a
"terrorist attack" in Britain.

But Khan, speaking to Aljazeera.net, said that "there can be no excuse to keep
these men locked up out of sight in Guantanamo Bay".

This saga, he said, "flies in the face of the long and proud history the English
have of justice and open justice".

"We should be ashamed", he added.

Hundreds detained

More than 660 people from about 40 countries picked up during the US "war on
terror" are being held at Guantanamo. The United States does not consider them
prisoners of war and has held them indefinitely without setting trial dates.

The Sunday Times said the US had agreed to allow British detainees not sent home
to be represented by British civilian lawyers.

Washington had also privately indicated that it did not intend to seek the death
penalty for any of the British detainees, the paper reported.

But official sources told The Sunday Times that several British concerns had not
been resolved about the fairness of US military tribunals which some prisoners
could face.

Such detainees would still be denied the right to see all the evidence against
them and their ability to question witnesses would be restricted, according to
the paper.

Families outraged

The family of one of the British detainees, Rhuhel Ahmad, was too distraught to
talk to Aljazeera.net on the moves by Blunkett.

Rasul Ahmad, Rhuhel’s father, would only say that they remained confused about
his son’s detention at the US military base in Cuba.

He said the Foreign office had not issued him with any details as to his son’s
situation, adding that "the only time we hear about Rhuhel is when the media
calls us".

"We just want him back home", he said.

* * *


Khaleej Times (UAE):

7 December 2003

BRITAIN’S HOME SECRETARY BLOCKS RETURN OF GUANTANAMO BAY DETAINEES

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=
data/theworld/2003/December/theworld_December147.xml&section=theworld

LONDON (AFP) - Britain’s Home Secretary David Blunkett is blocking moves to
repatriate British detainees held by the United States in Guantanamo Bay,
fearing he would have to release them soon after their arrival back home, a
newspaper reported on Sunday.

The United States had offered to send at least some of the nine Britons held at
the US military base in Cuba back to Britain for trial, but a decision on their
future was being delayed because government ministers here were split over the
proposal, The Sunday Times said.

The prospects of an early resolution had been clouded after Blunkett warned that
any proceedings in British civilian courts would probably end with acquittals
through lack of admissible evidence, the paper reported.

It added British intelligence chiefs were concerned that any agreement to return
the men could result in potentially dangerous Al Qaeda supporters being allowed
to go free at a time when the authorities are nervous amid fears of a terrorist
attack in Britain.

More than 660 people from about 40 countries picked up during the US "war on
terror" are being held at Guantanamo. The United States does not consider them
prisoners of war and has held them indefinitely without setting trial dates.

The Sunday Times said the US had agreed to allow British detainees not sent home
to be represented by British civilian lawyers.

Washington had also privately indicated that it does not intend to seek the
death penalty for any of the British detainees, the paper reported.

But official sources told The Sunday Times that several British concerns had not
been resolved about the fairness of US military tribunals, which some prisoners
could face.

Such detainees would still be denied the right to see all the evidence against
them and their ability to question witnesses would be restricted, according to
The Sunday Times.

However, some British ministers argued that "if the alternative is putting back
on the streets people who have been trained by Al Qaeda, we should go for the
form of US trial that is on offer," one unnamed official told The Sunday Times.

A Home Office source added: "The home secretary wants the men to be treated
fairly but he doesn’t want them in Britain without there being a tight legal
hold on them."

* * *


Charleston Post and Courier:

December 6, 2003

LAWYER FOR BRIG INMATE HAMDI UNSURE WHEN HE GETS TO MEET CLIENT

By Tony Bartelme, Post and Courier Staff

http://www.charleston.net/stories/120603/ter_06hamdi.shtml

Yaser Hamdi, the alleged Taliban fighter being held in the Navy's brig in
Hanahan, has never met his lawyer, Frank Dunham.

And he may have no idea that Dunham has spent the past year and a half working
on his behalf -- even petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case.

But Dunham, a federal public defender in Virginia, said Friday he may soon get a
chance to see his client, "though I don't know whether it will be in two days or
two weeks."

On Tuesday, in what has been called a major course change, the Pentagon decided
to allow Hamdi access to a lawyer, "subject to appropriate restrictions." Dunham
said the Pentagon hasn't discussed the restrictions.

"They're still making arrangements," he said. "I'm taking them at their word
that they're expediting this meeting, but I don't know at what point I'm going
to get on a plane to South Carolina."

A Pentagon spokesman said Friday the arrangements would be completed "in a
matter of days."

Dunham's client also may not know that his case has become a cause celebre to
civil rights activists and constitutional scholars. They argue that it's
unconstitutional for the Bush administration to designate Hamdi and other
terrorism suspects "enemy combatants" and then hold them without charges or
access to a lawyer.

Hamdi, a Saudi born in the United States, was captured in November 2001 in
Afghanistan and transferred to Guantanamo, Cuba, where he was held with more
than 600 other terrorism suspects.

When officials learned Hamdi was a U.S. citizen, they transferred him to a brig
in Norfolk, Va., where Dunham took his case.

Last summer, Hamdi was transferred to the Naval Consolidated Brig in Hanahan,
where two other designated enemy combatants, Jose Padilla and Ali al Marri, are
being held.

In a statement Tuesday, the Pentagon said allowing Hamdi access to a lawyer
would "not compromise the national security of the United States" and shouldn't
be viewed as a precedent.

Pentagon officials said months ago that they had suspended the interrogation of
Hamdi because of the legal challenges, but didn't change their stance on
allowing Dunham access to his client.

Earlier this year, Dunham asked the Supreme Court to force the Bush
administration to identify why it was holding Hamdi and allow him to see his
client.

Dunham said before he can meet with his client, the military has said it needs
to hammer out security arrangements.

"It's not as simple as going down to Charleston and walking into the brig," he
said. "I haven't detected any foot-dragging on their part."

Before taking Hamdi's case, Dunham already had his hands full. Dunham is a
court-appointed lawyer for Zacarias Moussaoui, dubbed the "20th hijacker."

* * *


Toronto Star:

December 6, 2003

ARAR LAWYER URGES NEW RULES WITH U.S.
Case stresses need for change

Public inquiry sought to clear air

By Graham Fraser, National Affairs Writer

OTTAWA -- The Maher Arar case has made it essential for Canada to reach a new
consensus on how Canadians should be treated abroad, Toronto lawyer Lorne
Waldman said yesterday.

Waldman, who is acting on behalf of Arar, told a conference on managing the
Canada-U.S. relationship that the case has highlighted the need for a new
discussion with the United States.

"We need a public inquiry in order to come to a new consensus so that we can say
to the Americans, 'These are our rules. This is our expectations of how
Canadians should be treated. Can you accept that?'" Waldman told the conference.

"We need to establish clarity in Canada as to what our values are."

He told reporters later that the consequences might be a refusal to share
intelligence information with the United States, or travel advisories warning
Canadian citizens that they would be at risk if they travelled to the United
States.

Arar, 33, is the Syrian-born Canadian who was deported by the United States to
Jordan and Syria in September, 2002, and imprisoned and tortured for a year.

On Thursday, when questioned about the Arar case, U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci
told the conference that the United States reserves the right to act
unilaterally when it feels its security is at stake.

Waldman, the author of "Immigration Law and Practice," said that the security
concerns since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have raised the pressure
for harmonizing Canadian and U.S. immigration and refugee regulations and
practices.

* * *


The Arizona Republic:

December 6, 2003

ARIZONANS TO VISIT CUBA BASE
McCain, Flake to inspect Guantanamo

By Billy House and Jon Kamman

WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain and U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake will make separate visits
next week to the U.S. detention center where suspected terrorists are being held
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The trips by the two Republican lawmakers from Arizona come as the government,
under increasing domestic and international pressure, moves toward releasing 100
or more prisoners and putting others on trial in military courts after as long
as two years.

More than 600 detainees from 44 countries are being kept at the seaside naval
base in eastern Cuba. Most are suspected of having links to the ousted Taliban
regime in Afghanistan or to al-Qaida but have not been charged or allowed access
to lawyers.

Flake will visit the prison Tuesday as part of a House International Relations
Committee delegation. McCain will accompany Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on a
one-day visit on Wednesday. Both are members of the Senate Armed Services
Committee.

Graham, a lawyer and Air Force reservist, has been a member of the Judge
Advocate General staff since serving on active duty in the 1980s.

McCain said Friday in Phoenix that he and Graham "want to assess the general
situation" in view of planned releases and military tribunals. The trip has long
been in their plans and was scheduled now because the Senate is in recess, he
said.

Other members of Congress, including Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., have visited the
camp since the first group of prisoners was flown to Guantanamo in January 2002.

But McCain's visit and what he says afterward could be a significant
development, said Alistair Hodgett, a spokesman for Amnesty International here.
His group is one of a number of human rights groups that have joined with
lawyers in criticizing the Bush administration's treatment of Guantanamo
prisoners.

"(McCain) obviously has personal, firsthand experience with what it is to be
mistreated as a prisoner," Hodgett said. The former Navy pilot spent six years
in a Vietnam prisoner of war camp under conditions far less humane than those
described at Guantanamo.

Flake has a different reason for wanting to visit the base. His spokesman, Matt
Specht, said he wants to examine the terrorist detention facilities "in light of
recent security breaches."

President Bush has described the Guantanamo detainees as "illegal non-combatants
picked up off the battlefield," and has promised that military prosecution would
be "in line with international accords."

But groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have complained
that the detainees have been isolated without due process and that proposed
military tribunals would make the U.S. government prosecutor, judge and jury.

* * *


December 5, 2003

Guantanamo ruling seen triggering shift in policy on detainees

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/339/nation/
Guantanamo_ruling_seen_triggering_shift_in_policy_on_detainees+.shtml

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court's surprise decision last month to hear the
Guantanamo Bay detention cases appears to have prompted major changes in US
treatment of terror-related prisoners -- a shift intended to strengthen the Bush
administration's contention that it is dealing with detainees in a fair and
orderly way so that there is no need for judicial interference in national-
security decisions, legal analysts say.

For two years, the Bush administration has been unyielding about its war on
terrorism legal policies. Yet since the court's Nov. 10 announcement, change has
proceeded at a dizzying pace.

During an appeals court argument on Nov. 17, the Justice Department said for the
first time that Jose Padilla, the US citizen who is accused of plotting a
radiological bomb attack and has been held without charges since last year,
would get access to a lawyer after his intelligence value was exhausted.

On Nov. 21, the Defense Department released 20 of the 660 Guantanamo detainees,
saying they had no more useful intelligence. On Nov. 25, it announced a review
of military tribunal rules "to incorporate [legal] assurances where
appropriate." News reports soon after quoted unnamed officials as saying 100 or
more detainees will soon be freed.

The military announced on Monday that it would allow a lawyer to meet with
another enemy combatant, US citizen Yaser Esam Hamdi, who has been held without
charges for two years after being captured in Afghanistan. Then, on Tuesday, it
appointed a defense attorney for Guantanamo detainee David Hicks of Australia,
the first foreign enemy combatant to get a lawyer and a sign that a long-delayed
tribunals process may finally begin.

"It's interesting that there's this flurry of activity since the Supreme Court
decided to hear the Guantanamo cases," said Steven Watt, a fellow with the
Center for Constitutional Rights. "A cynic would take the view that this is the
government trying to put on a show for the Supreme Court to demonstrate that
they are going to give a process that they consider appropriate under the
circumstances."

Supporters of the Bush administration agreed that some of the changes were
prompted by the court, though they suggested that granting Hamdi a lawyer was
not a radical change and may not much improve his chances of overturning the
minimal standard for how much evidence the government must show before labeling
him an enemy combatant.

"What this does is help to reassure the federal courts that the administration
has no intention of holding detainees incommunicado indefinitely, which is the
most extreme specter that the administration's critics often raise," said Brad
Berenson, former associate White House counsel to Bush. "The court now knows the
government means what it says when it claims that this is all about intelligence
gathering."

Because the timing of the changes seem to have been influenced by political
concerns and judicial deadlines, however, Ken Hurwitz of the Lawyer's Committee
for Human Rights objected that "there is no process going on -- they're still
just saying 'trust us.' "

David Rivkin, who served as associate White House counsel in the first Bush
administration, said the influence of these other concerns demonstrates that
pressures less formal than a judge's order, such as media scrutiny and the
criticism from civil liberties groups, will keep the government honest and so
the judiciary need not interfere. "In our political system, even in the absence
of highly intrusive judicial review, there are sufficient political and
institutional and bureaucratic pressures for the executive branch to move
forward on these issues and not to just sort of sit on them indefinitely,"
Rivkin said.

The "trust us" defense of expanding government power against individual rights
has been overwhelmingly upheld by courts in the two years since the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks. Courts have cited deference to presidential judgment to uphold
closing deportation hearings for hundreds of people swept up after the attacks;
denying of Freedom of Information Act requests for detainee names and how the
Patriot Act has been used; holding people without charges as material witnesses;
and freezing assets of Islamic charities.

The Supreme Court's willingness to hear the Guantanamo cases, however, has
opened the possibility that it may draw a new line of where deference stops. On
Tuesday, in the second setback for the government in three weeks, the US Court
of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that people cannot be convicted of
violating a 1996 federal law against "material support" for terrorist
organizations unless they knew the organizations were involved in terrorist
activity.

Now, seeking to avoid further judicial setbacks, the government may be
voluntarily changing its policies, analysts said. Soon, they said, the judiciary
may move to resolve a question that has emerged since the World Trade Center was
destroyed: whether the legal standards of the battlefield or those of the
criminal justice system will govern the country.

"People presume that anything that happens with detention or the use of force is
governed by the criminal justice system because that is what we've seen all
around us since the Civil War," said former Justice Department official John
Yoo. "But the military and intelligence agencies feel part of the battlefield is
within the United States and so apply very different standards. There is a
tension on how to accommodate both that society must figure out."

[ Charlie Savage can be reached at csavage@globe.com ]

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

* * *


Toronto Star:

December 5, 2003

U.S. WILL PROTECT ITSELF, SAYS AMBASSADOR
But Martin says our passport must be respected
Cellucci can't say Arar-type case won't reoccur

By Graham Fraser, National Affairs Writer

OTTAWA -- The United States reserves the right to act unilaterally to protect
itself, U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci said yesterday, when questioned about the
case of Maher Arar.

"The president will always reserve the right to act unilaterally to protect the
security of the United States," he told a conference on managing Canada-U.S.
relations, adding that any leader of a sovereign country reserves the same
right. "That is a given."

However, he said the United States recognizes that it needs to work with other
countries to achieve its goals.

Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian, was travelling on a Canadian passport when he was
deported from the United States to Syria in September, 2002. He was detained for
a year and says he was tortured in Jordan and Syria.

At a fundraising reception in Vancouver last night, Prime Minister-designate
Paul Martin repeated his comment that "what happened in the case of Mr. Arar is
unacceptable.

"A Canadian passport must be respected," he told reporters before addressing
1,500 people.

Earlier, Liberal MP John Godfrey reacted indignantly to Cellucci's remarks.

"The United States is behaving as it always does, in which it essentially
asserts that U.S. interests and the U.S. constitution takes precedence over
anything else," said Godfrey (Don Valley West). He said he doubts the United
States would accept it if Martin, who will become prime minister a week from
today, said Canada could not guarantee that U.S. citizens here would not be
treated the same as Arar was treated in American hands.

"The real issue is: Are all countries sovereign in the same way? That's what
we've got to sort out."

Cellucci made it clear in remarks to reporters that U.S. policy is not going to
change as a result of the Arar case.

"The United States will continue to do what it has to do, and at times act
unilaterally if we believe it is in the security of the people of the United
States," he said.

Cellucci said that in the wake of the Arar incident, Canada has sent a proposal
to help avoid such situations, and the Americans are studying it. Canada's
Solicitor-General Wayne Easter said there will be areas where the two countries
have differences.

"We believe that Canadian citizenship rights and the passport must have value,"
he told reporters. "Our citizens should be treated as they would be treated
under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. "That hasn't always happened, and
we're concerned about that."

Martin played down suggestions that Cellucci's comments will harm the
relationship with Washington that he vows to improve, suggesting the ambassador
was "unequivocal" in stating the Canadian passports would be respected by the
U.S.

"He understood and agreed with our position," Martin said.

Cellucci said Canada and the United States have a very strong relationship,
despite the disagreement provoked by the Arar case. In his speech, Easter told
the conference that Canada is "joined at the hip with the United States" in
national security, dealing with issues such as terrorism, cross-border and
transnational crime involving people, drug smuggling, telemarketing fraud and
Internet crime.

Cellucci also told the conference that Canada is close to signing on to
participate in the U.S. ballistic missile defence program. "I am optimistic that
we will soon have an agreement in principle on Canadian participation in missile
defence," Cellucci said.

Martin has said Canada needs to be a part of such discussions. Yesterday,
Australia announced it would participate in the missile defence program.

[ With files from Les Whittington and Daniel Girard. Additional articles by
Graham Fraser. ]

* * *

December 4, 2003

Army Chaplain's Lawyer Gets Secret Data

* The attorney for a Guantanamo Muslim accused of mishandling classified
material will raise 'double-standard' issue at a hearing.

By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer

FT. BENNING, Ga. -- When Army Capt. James Joseph Yee goes to a military court
hearing here next week, the government may find itself faced with the same
accusation it has leveled against the Muslim chaplain who ministered to
detainees at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: Mishandling classified
material.

That odd turn of events occurred this week when Yee's hearing was abruptly
delayed after military authorities discovered they had compromised secret
intelligence by giving classified material to Yee's defense team. One of Yee's
lawyers, a civilian, has not yet obtained government security clearance.

That lawyer, Washington-based attorney Eugene R. Fidell, head of the nonprofit
National Institute of Military Justice, said Wednesday that he would raise a
"double-standard" issue when the military court's preliminary hearing, known as
an Article 32 examination, gets underway here Monday.

"I don't see how they can proceed on this against Chaplain Yee," Fidell said.
"If they don't know what's classified and what isn't, how is a chaplain supposed
to know? And if they don't properly mark things that are classified, how can
they prosecute Chaplain Yee for the same thing?"

But Army Lt. Col. Bill Costello, spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, which
oversees the Guantanamo camp for suspected terrorists, said although the
government "inappropriately" turned over classified material to Fidell,
prosecutors quickly notified authorities and retrieved it.

He said that is far different from what Yee, 35, a West Point graduate, is
accused of doing.

"What Capt. Yee is alleged to have done is just the opposite," Costello said.
"He kept the information and took it to an unsecure location and did not alert
the appropriate officials."

The preliminary hearing had been scheduled to begin Tuesday morning at Ft.
Benning. In preparation for the session, military officials sent a packet of
material to Fidell's home in the Washington area on Nov. 28, the day after
Thanksgiving, because the defense lawyer was not at his office that day.

"They left it in my mailbox at my home," Fidell said. "They put it in the mail
slot in my house."

Among the materials was what Fidell would only describe as a handwritten "day-
timer" journal that included notes Yee had made before his arrest last
September. Fidell said he read and studied the material, thought that some of it
might be references to classified information and then made plans to fly to Ft.
Benning the following Monday.

In fact, he said, he was sitting on the plane about to depart the Ronald Reagan
Washington National Airport about 5:30 p.m. Monday when his cell phone rang. The
call was from a prosecutor telling him not to come to Georgia, that the hearing
was being delayed because of the problem with the classified material.

"Are you telling me I should get off the plane?" Fidell said he asked the
prosecutor. "He said yes. So I persuaded the cabin crew to let me off."

Costello, the Guantanamo Bay spokesman, said it was only by chance that military
officials discovered they had sent classified information to Fidell.

He said the government was also preparing for the hearing over the weekend, and
learned that Yee referred to secret information in the handwritten notes and
that Fidell had not been cleared to review such material.

The problem, Costello said, was that although Yee's handwritten notes were not
labeled or stamped classified, they referred to classified information.

"It wasn't at first like a bad apple stuck in a pile that somebody should have
readily seen," Costello said.

Fidell said that assertion would not deter him from his course.

"I've already suggested they should abandon the case," Fidell said. On Tuesday,
he sent an e-mail to prosecutors and the hearing officer that said, in part:

"I would hope this incident would furnish the government an opportunity to take
stock and consider whether, based on all the facts and circumstances, including
Chaplain Yee's ... pretrial confinement, the public interest is truly served by
continuing with this case."

Yee was recently released from a military brig and has been reassigned to Ft.
Benning, where he is assisting the chaplain's office.

Along with two counts of mishandling classified material, Yee also is charged
with downloading pornography on his government computer and engaging in
adultery, which is punishable in the military.

He was the first of four officials at the Guantanamo Bay prison to face charges
in a scandal over security procedures there.

Fidell said he believes the case can be resolved without a court-martial trial.

* * *


CBC:

December 4, 2003

ARAR CASE MAY BE REPEATED: CELLUCCI

'We will reserve the right to act unilaterally,' U.S. ambassador says

OTTAWA (CP) - The United States can't guarantee there won't be a repeat of the
Maher Arar deportation case, the American ambassador said today.

Paul Cellucci, commenting after speaking to a conference on Canada-U.S
relations, said that the United States respects the Canadian passport, but
reserves the right to act unilaterally when it sees a need to protect its
security.

His remarks came a week after Paul Martin, the incoming prime minister, spoke
strongly about the need to respect Canadian passports to prevent a recurrence of
the incident in which Arar was arrested in New York and deported to his Syrian
birthplace, rather than to Canada.

Arar, a Canadian citizen, spent a year in a Syrian jail, where he says he was
tortured. He was released without charges in October.

The Americans said he was an Al Qaeda terrorist suspect, although he was never
charged with a crime in any country.

Martin took issue with the American action and said it might threaten security
co-operation.

"I believe that what happened was simply unacceptable and that, if in fact we're
going to have the kinds of exchanges of information which are so important in
terms of the security of North America, that there is going to have to be an
understanding that, in fact, the Canadian passport will be respected and that
fundamental rights will be respected," he said.

Cellucci said the United States will protect itself.

"We certainly respect the Canadian passport and we will continue to respect the
Canadian passport, but we will do what we have to do to protect the security of
the people of the United States," he said.

If that means acting unilaterally, so be it, he added.

"The president has no more solemn obligation than to protect the safety of the
people of the United States. We will reserve the right to act unilaterally in
very rare cases."

* * *


Radio Free Europe:

December 4, 2003

U.S.: CRITICS OF GUANTANAMO DETENTION SAY POLICY SHIFT LATE BUT WELCOME
By Andrew F. Tully

http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2003/12/05122003153722.asp

In the past week, there has been much activity surrounding the more than 600
suspected Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters who have been held without access to
lawyers at the U.S. naval base at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay for nearly two years.
First, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has decided to free
at least 100 of the prisoners, and now one of the captives is being allowed to
consult with an attorney. Critics of the detention program say it is about time
Bush began changing a policy they call both unfair and unlawful.

Washington, 5 December 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Shukri Abed does not mince words when he
speaks about the treatment of the terrorist suspects being held at Guantanamo
Bay -- and the damage he believes it is doing to the credibility of American
justice.

"From all the reports we have, [the Americans] are treating [the prisoners] like
animals, putting them in a land -- in a part of Cuba where they have no legal
status," Abed said. "The U.S. should be legal, even when it's being attacked.
The U.S. should not compromise its wonderful liberal views or legal system. They
are judged before they are tried, and that's un-American, really."

Abed specializes in Arab and Islamic issues at the Middle East Institute, a
private policy center in Washington. In an interview with RFE/RL, he said that
German prisoners were treated far better after World War II, despite the
atrocities their government committed against Jews, Poles, Roma, and others.

U.S. President Bush tries to appear as a "sweet and nice man," as Abed puts it.
But Abed said this is in sharp contrast to what he sees as hostility to Arabs
and Muslims harbored by the so-called neoconservatives in Bush's administration.

"The whole administration attitude is very harsh toward Arabs and Muslims," Abed
said. "These neoconservatives are very, very unfriendly toward Arabs and
Muslims, to say the least."

Abed said he welcomes the news that many of the Guantanamo prisoners might be
released soon, and he applauds the pressure -- both political and legal -- that
he believes prompted the administration to soften its detention policy.

Besides releasing the group of prisoners, the administration is allowing one of
the Guantanamo inmates -- David Hicks, an Australian suspected of having trained
with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan -- to have access to a lawyer. Hicks is one of six
prisoners designated as candidates for trial before a special military court.

Separately, U.S.-born Yaser Esam Hamdi -- a suspected Al-Qaeda member who is
being held at a different facility in the United States -- also is being allowed
to see a lawyer. Although he lived only briefly in the United States before his
detention, Hamdi is an U.S. citizen because of where he was born.

The Bush administration is permitting legal representation for Hicks and Hamdi
as it faces a challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court -- the country's highest court
-- about the legitimacy of its detention policy.

The administration has contended since the war began in Afghanistan more than
two years ago that those captured during the fighting do not merit the treatment
that the Geneva Conventions require for prisoners of war (POWs). Instead, it has
said, they are "unlawful combatants" because they themselves did not follow the
conventions' rules for war -- primarily because they did not wear uniforms that
identify the side for which they were fighting.

Abed said he believes the sudden decision to allow the prisoners to have lawyers
is a grudging effort to make the administration's policy more palatable to the
Supreme Court. He also pointed to the timing of news that some of the other
prisoners in Guantanamo will finally be facing trial.

"Notice the proximity of this move to the visit of [Bush] to London about two
weeks ago," Abed said. "Remember, there are nine British detainees [at
Guantanamo]."

Wendy Patten is the Washington-based U.S. advocacy director for the New York-
based Human Rights Watch. She is less certain that the Bush administration is
buckling under pressure, or that its policy shift is a cynical effort to win the
Supreme Court case. Still, she told RFE/RL, the pressures cannot be ignored.

"I think certainly the kinds of criticisms that have been raised about the
failure to comply fully with the Geneva Conventions at Guantanamo, and the
broader questions about the rule of law, certainly formed the context in which
these actions are being taken," Patten said.

From the standpoint of international law, she said, the Bush administration's
arguments about the prisoners' status is untenable. First, she said, Taliban
prisoners should be treated as POWs because they were Afghanistan's regular
army, whether they wore uniforms or not.

As for Al-Qaeda fighters, Patten said the United States classifies them somewhat
accurately, but that the conditions of their detention are still unlawful.

"The U.S. government is probably right that the Al-Qaeda members are not
eligible for prisoner-of-war status, although they should have had an
individualized determination of their status," Patten said. "But even those who
would not be eligible for POW status -- if they were captured in and around the
battlefield in Afghanistan, then they're still protected by the Geneva
Conventions and international humanitarian law more broadly -- not as prisoners
of war, but they're still nonetheless protected."

Patten said she is not qualified to assess the prisoners' living conditions. She
said only the Red Cross has been able to inspect Guantanamo, and that its
reports are shared only with the U.S. government and the governments of the
prisoners' home countries. Yet, she said, there have been no broad reports of
torture and the suspects' housing appears to be adequate.

But Patten said Human Rights Watch is concerned about the limited time prisoners
are permitted outside their cells for exercise, which she said can have a
detrimental psychological effect on them. She also commented wryly on reports
that some of the prisoners are eating better than they have in their entire
lives: "At what price freedom? When someone is being deprived of their liberty,
it's no response that they're being given three square meals a day."

Patten said her organization welcomes news that a large group of Guantanamo
prisoners might be sent home soon. But she said these suspects' freedom,
whenever it comes, will highlight a new problem.

"Those releases will leave unanswered all of the legal questions that have
surrounded the detentions at Guantanamo," she said. "And obviously it still
leave us with the issue of the 500-plus detainees who will remain at Guantanamo
after these releases. When and how will their cases be resolved?"

* * *


LA Times:

December 4, 2003

WHITE HOUSE DEFENDS HAMDI'S LIMITED RIGHTS
* In a high court brief, the Bush administration
says war customs allow denying suspect counsel.

By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/
la-na-hamdi4dec04,1,1923850.story

WASHINGTON -- A day after saying it would provide a lawyer to a U.S. citizen
captured with Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan, the Bush administration argued in
a brief to the Supreme Court that the rights of such "enemy combatants" remained
extremely narrow, and that the government could detain such suspects for the
duration of hostilities without charging them.

On Tuesday, the Defense Department announced that Yaser Esam Hamdi -- who has
been detained for almost two years without access to counsel or to court --
would be allowed to see an attorney.

In doing so, the administration appeared to be extending an olive branch to
critics of its anti-terrorism policy who have expressed concern that Hamdi, as
an American citizen, was being denied fundamental rights under the Constitution.

The decision also comes as federal appeals courts are stepping up their review
of administration anti-terrorism policies.

But in the filing Wednesday with the high court, which is considering a
challenge to Hamdi's detention brought by a federal public defender, the
government underscored that it viewed those rights quite narrowly.

Rather than being compelled by the law, officials said they acted to grant Hamdi
access to a lawyer only "as a matter of discretion and military policy," and
only after they had completed interviewing him and concluded that a lawyer would
not interfere with intelligence gathering.

They added that there was "no general right to counsel under the laws and
customs of war," and that the military had the power to detain alleged
combatants "at least for the duration of the conflict," without having to file
charges against them.

"The special context in which this case arises -- wartime detention of
combatants, not criminal punishment -- significantly diminishes the due process
rights that Hamdi enjoys, even as a presumed American," the government asserted.
In effect, it argued, the authority of President Bush, as commander-in-chief,
trumps that of the civilian courts in times of war.

Separately, the Pentagon announced Wednesday that an Australian prisoner at the
U.S. Navy Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would become the first foreign terrorist
suspect to be given a U.S. military lawyer. David Hicks is one of six Guantanamo
prisoners whom Bush has named as possible candidates for trial by a special
military tribunal.

In the Hamdi case, administration critics, including defense lawyers, civil-
liberties groups and Democratic members of Congress, said they viewed the
providing of a lawyer as only a first step, and questioned its significance
without additional rights being afforded Hamdi, such as a hearing to challenge
his detention.

"Even if Mr. Hamdi is afforded his overdue right to see an attorney, it means
little without allowing him access to the courts," Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-
Burbank) said in a statement. "Contrary to the administration's contention, the
plight of citizen detainees -- who have yet to be formally charged with a single
offense -- should not be beyond any court's reach."

Schiff introduced legislation in Congress in February that would require the
administration to establish clear standards and criteria for labeling citizens
as enemy combatants, and procedures guaranteeing them timely judicial review of
their detentions.

In a separate statement, the American Bar Assn. said it hoped that the decision
in Hamdi's case would be "the first step in correcting a policy that could tear
at the Bill of Rights."

Two other men have been designated enemy combatants by the president, including
a Brooklyn-born former gang member, Jose Padilla, who was picked up by the FBI
18 months ago at a Chicago airport and is being held at the same South Carolina
military brig as Hamdi.

The case of Padilla, whom the government has linked to an Al Qaeda plot to
detonate a radioactive explosive device in the United States, has been even more
of a rallying cry for civil libertarians than that of Hamdi, because Padilla was
an American citizen captured on U.S. soil.

Donna Newman, a New York lawyer who had advised Padilla before the government
barred her from having contact with him, said she had not heard from the
government about when she might be able to meet with her client again.

Padilla's detention is pending before a federal appeals court in New York.

At a hearing last month, a Justice Department lawyer indicated that the
government was close to concluding its questioning of Padilla, and was
considering offering him legal counsel when it was finished.

Newman questioned the policy of providing a lawyer after a client had already
been interrogated.

"Aren't you putting the cart before the horse?" she asked.

 "The government, in effect, is saying, 'We have already questioned him. So now,
 you can have him',"  Newman said.

* * *


December 3, 2003

BUSH URGED TO END GUANTANAMO 'CHARADE'

By David Barrett, Legal Affairs Correspondent, PA News

Human rights group Amnesty International today called on the US government to
"end the charade" of Guantanamo Bay.

The call came after reports that military lawyers assigned to the inmates
accused of international terrorism believe tribunal rules violate their own
professional and ethical codes.

Some 660 Taliban and al Qaida suspects, including nine Britons, are being held
as "unlawful combatants" at the US naval base in Cuba.

Amnesty International’s Rob Freer said: "It is time for the US to end the legal
charade of Guantanamo Bay.

"Reports that military lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees have refused to take
part in planned trials by military commissions only underlines the rampant
unfairness of the whole process."

It was reported yesterday that lawyers representing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay
were planning a lawsuit against the US government, claiming that fair trials for
the detainees were not possible.

American lawyers said the rules governing the forthcoming military tribunals
were so restrictive that they effectively prevented due process of law.

Mr Freer added: "It is not too late for the US authorities to scrap plans for
these trials, replacing them with an open process that would mean detainees have
immediate access to lawyers -- with interrogations meanwhile suspended -- and
proper trials with full appeal rights and no resort to the death penalty.

"Anyone who is not to be charged with a recognisable criminal offence should be
immediately released."

None of the inmates held as part of the war on terror has had a court hearing --
a situation which civil rights groups say is illegal.

Vanity Fair magazine reported that military lawyers assigned to the inmates had
significant concerns about the tribunal plans.

The lawyers were putting their complaints to their respective state bar
associations, which were expected to give the go-ahead for a suit in the US
Federal Court, the magazine said.

The suit would claim that the orders given to the military lawyers were
unlawful.

If successful, it could derail the controversial tribunal process.

Following months of political pressure, there is increasing speculation that
some of the British detainees will be released soon.

* * *


The Guardian (UK):

December 3, 2003

US FIRES GUANTANAMO DEFENCE TEAM
By James Meek

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1098618,00.html

A team of military lawyers recruited to defend alleged terrorists held by the US
at Guantanamo Bay was dismissed by the Pentagon after some of its members
rebelled against the unfair way the trials have been designed, the Guardian has
learned.

And some members of the new legal defence team remain deeply unhappy with the
trials - known as "military commissions" - believing them to be slanted towards
the prosecution and an affront to modern US military justice.

Of the more than 600 detainees at the US prison camp at Guantanamo, none has
been charged with any crime, and none has had access to a lawyer, although some
have been in captivity of one kind or another for two years.

But the US has repeatedly promised that at least some of the prisoners will be
charged and tried by military commissions, an arcane form of tribunal based on
long-disused models from the 1940s.

When charged, a prisoner will be assigned a uniformed military defence lawyer.
The prisoners have a theoretical right to a civilian lawyer, but the US has
placed financial and bureaucratic obstacles in the way of this.

A former military lawyer with good contacts in the US military legal
establishment said that the first group of defence lawyers the Pentagon
recruited for Guantanamo balked at the commission rules, which insist, among
other restrictions, that the government be allowed to listen in to any
conversations between attorney and client.

"There was a circular that went out to military lawyers in the early spring of
2003 which said 'we are looking for volunteers' for defence counsel," said the
ex-military lawyer. "There was a selection process, and the people they selected
were the right people, they had the right credentials, they were good lawyers.

"The first day, when they were being briefed on the dos and don'ts, at least a
couple said: 'You can't impose these restrictions on us because we can't
properly represent our clients.'

"When the group decided they weren't going to go along, they were relieved. They
reported in the morning and got fired that afternoon."

The Pentagon's recently set up Office of Military Commissions denied the claim.
"That is not true, never happened," said its spokesman, Major John Smith. "The
military commission is a tool of justice. I expect some of these individuals [on
Guantanamo] will plead not guilty, and will be represented zealously by their
lawyers."

Yet the Guardian understands from a uniformed source with intimate knowledge of
the mood among the current military defence team, six lawyers strong, that there
is deep unhappiness about the commission set-up.

"It's like you took military justice, gave it to a prosecutor and said, 'modify
it any way you want'," the source said. "The government would like to say we
have done these commissions before. But what happened after [the Nazi cases] was
the military justice system changed. What we have done is stupid. It is, I would
say, an insult to the military, to the evolution of the military justice system.
They want to take us back to 1942."

Two Britons, Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abassi, are among the Guantanamo prisoners
that President George Bush has "designated" for trial. The military defence
lawyers in Washington are still waiting for permission to fly to Guantanamo.

In an investigation into the Guantanamo prison camp, the Guardian has also
learned that a number of prisoners, thought to be between two and five, are kept
permanently isolated in a super-secure facility within the main prison camp at
Guantanamo, Camp Delta.

* * *


The Gaurdian (UK):

December 3, 2003

PEOPLE THE LAW FORGOT
By James Meek

It is almost two years since the Guantanamo prison camp opened. Its purpose is
to hold people seized in the 'war on terror' and defined by the Bush
administration as enemy combatants - though many appear to have been bystanders
to the conflict. Images of Camp Delta's orange-jumpsuited, manacled detainees
have provoked international outrage. But the real horror they face isn't
physical hardship, it is the threat of infinite confinement, without trial or
access to legal representation. James Meek has spent the past month talking to
former inmates and some of those involved in operating the Pentagon's Kafkaesque
justice system. He has built an unprecedented picture of life on the base, which
we present in this special issue.


PART ONE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1098604,00.html

One summer's day in Cuba in 2002, a 31-year-old Pakistani teacher of English
named Abdul Razaq noticed something unusual in the familiar patterns of movement
among the orange-suited figures in the mesh cages on either side of him. Two or
three cages along from his own, a fellow Pakistani prisoner, Shah Mohammed, was
silently going about trying to hang himself from a sheet lashed to the mesh. He
had the cloth around his throat and he was choking.

Other prisoners in neighbouring cells had noticed and, as they usually did when
a detainee in the United States prison camp in Guantanamo Bay tried to kill
himself, they raised a hue and cry in their many languages.

"First we shouted at Shah Mohammed to stop, but when he didn't, we called the
guards," says Razaq, who was released from Guantanamo in July, and returned to
his home town in October after three months' detention by the Pakistani
authorities. "The guards came in and saved him. It was the first time he
attempted this in my block, then he was taken to another place. He appeared to
be unconscious."

It was one of four suicide attempts by Mohammed while he was in Guantanamo. He
was released in May and lives in the Swat Valley, on the far side of the
Malakand Hills from Peshawar, a few dozen miles from Razaq's home. It is a
district of God-fearing, conservative, cricket-loving yeomen, who are passionate
about their land and liberty, and protective of their right to bear arms; the
fields of sugar cane and tobacco are well tended, and prices in the gun shops
are more reasonable than their counterparts in America. In the mornings, a
crocodile of small boys in black berets, walking to school, stretches for miles.

Mohammed, who is 23 and a baker by trade, is 5ft 3in and light on his feet. He
has been having nightmares ever since he came back. His face peers out from
behind a lustrous black beard and long hair like a child hiding between the
winter coats in a wardrobe. In Kandahar and Guantanamo, he was interrogated 10
times.

His face only lights up when you ask about fishing. He has been doing a lot of
it - mostly for trout - since his return. The other day he caught a five-pounder
with his Japanese rod. "The biggest damage is to my brain. My physical and
mental state isn't right. I'm a changed person," he says. "I don't laugh or
enjoy myself much."

Asked why he tried to commit suicide so often, Mohammed is vague. He talks about
worries over troubles at home; his mother's health, his brother's business, and
"my own problems". But his attempts at self-harm at Guantanamo began after he
was confined, without explanation, in a sealed punishment cell for a month -
not, it seems, because he had broken camp rules, but because the American
authorities had nowhere else to put him while they were finishing new
facilities.

In India Block, as the block of punishment cells is known, "there were no
windows. There were four walls and a roof made of tin, a light bulb and an air
conditioner. They put the air conditioning on and it was extremely cold. They
would take away the blanket in the morning and bring it back in the evening. I
was kept in this room for one month. We'd ask them: 'Is this a sort of a
punishment?' And the translator would say, 'No, this is being done on orders
from the general.'"

As treatment for Mohammed's suicidal state of mind, US medics injected him with
an unknown drug, against his will. "I refused and they brought seven or eight
people and held me and injected me," he says. "I couldn't see down, I couldn't
see up. I felt paralysed for one month - this injection, the effect, I couldn't
think or do anything. They gave me tranquillising tablets. They just told me:
'Your brain is not working properly.' They were forcing me to take these
injections and tablets and I didn't want to do that. Some people were being
injected every month."

In trying to learn what life is like at the US prison camp at Guantanamo, the
few score of released detainees - almost all Pakistanis and Afghans - are among
the scant sources available. Journalists are allowed to "visit" the facility;
the Guardian has been three times, and I was offered a slot, but journalists,
like family members, lawyers and human rights investigators, have no access to
the detainees themselves. Like a tour of the White House, the visits offer a
superficial openness about the lives of the main occupants.

Yet the testimony of those former detainees, together with rare scraps of
information from censored mail, official statements and the odd comment from
guards and others who have been inside, overlaps into a coherent portrait. In
the almost two years since the Guantanamo prison camp opened to hold people
seized by the US in what the Bush administration has designated "the war on
terror", it has settled from a rough and ready, occasionally brutal place of
confinement into a full-grown mongrel of international law, where all the
harshness of the punitive US prison system is visited on foreigners, unmitigated
by any of the legal rights US prisoners enjoy. To this is added the mentally
corrosive threat, alien to the US constitution, of infinite confinement, without
court or appeal, on the whim of a single man - the president of the US. The
question, "What is Guantanamo really like?", has all the appeal of the unknown.
But inside it lurks a darker question, with all the implications for freedom in
America and beyond that its answer contains: "What is Guantanamo?"

One of the few political statements to slip past the censors by a man still
detained there is contained in a short postcard from a French prisoner, Nizar
Sassi, to his family, dated August 2002. "If you want a definition of this
place," he wrote, "you don't have the right to have rights."

The US executive acted quickly in the weeks following the September 11 terrorist
attacks on New York and Washington. Within 26 days, Afghanistan was being
attacked from the air; Kabul fell in nine weeks. Eleven weeks after the World
Trade Centre was destroyed, resistance by Taliban fighters and their non-Afghan
allies in northern Afghanistan was crushed.

But, as US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the military in a revealing
slip in April 2002, "We have been successful in not eliminating al-Qaida."
Having failed to find the suspected mastermind behind 9/11, Osama bin Laden, his
Taliban ally, Mullah Omar, or much in the way of terrorist infrastructure, the
US set about constructing, behind razor wire on a secure Caribbean island, an
incarcerated model of what its "war on terror" rhetoric implies. It has gathered
terrorism suspects from all over the world, imposed discipline and order on
them, encouraged them to hate the US and kept them together for years. It was as
if the Bush administration so wanted the Hollywood fantasy of a central
terrorist campus to be true that they built it themselves.

Because the roughly 660 detainees still on Guantanamo have no voice, and because
the US has never explained case by case why it locked them up, the outside world
has only the accounts of their families and the catch-all US definition of
"enemy combatant" to understand who they are and why they are there.

Most were arrested in Afghanistan but many were handed over to the US by other
countries. "They are an extremely heterogenous group. There are some 40
different nationalities, there's 18 different languages," says Daryl Matthews, a
forensic psychiatrist based in Hawaii who spent a week at the Guantanamo prison
camp in May. "There's a big division between Arabic-speaking and Urdu-Pashto-
speaking ones. There are some people who are extremely well educated and
westernised, and some people who are not at all. There are some very young
people and some very old and wise people. There are people who speak English
well, people who don't speak English at all. There are some who go in with
mental disorders there are some very secular, and some deeply devout."

There is Shafiq Rasul from Tipton in the West Midlands, who took his wardrobe of
designer clothes with him to Pakistan, was captured with his friends Asif Iqbal
and Rhuhel Ahmed by the Northern Alliance, and was handed over to the US in
Shebergan in northern Afghanistan in December 2001. Jamil al-Banna and Bisher
al-Rawi, two refugees living in Britain, were arrested in the Gambia in west
Africa and handed over to the US by the Gambians. Moazzam Begg and Richard
Belmar, two other Britons, were arrested in Pakistan and handed over to the US
by the Pakistanis. David Hicks, an Australian, who had previously led a life of
shark fishing and kangaroo skinning, and had fathered two children, ended up in
the Shebergan prison after fighting with the KLA in Albania and the Kashmiri
insurgency group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Mehdi-Muhammed Ghezali, who grew up in the
Swedish town of Rebro and whose father was Algerian and mother Finnish, had a
promising career as a footballer ahead of him before turning up with the Taliban
in Afghanistan and being captured. Nizar Sassi and Mourad Bechnellali grew up in
Venissieux, a suburb of Lyons. Their lives came to revolve around the mosque on
Lenin Boulevard before they travelled east. Ibrahim Fauzee, a citizen of the
Maldives, was arrested in Karachi while staying in the home of a man with
suspected al-Qaida links. Tarek Dergoul, from east London, thought to have been
arrested during the battle for Tora Bora in southern Afghanistan, is reported to
have had an arm amputated as a result of wounds. Sami al-Haj, a Sudanese
assistant cameraman with the al-Jazeera TV station, was picked out and held
while leaving Afghanistan for Pakistan after the fall of Kabul with the rest of
his crew. They never saw him again. Another Briton, Martin Mubanga, from north
London, was handed over to the US by Zambia. Jamal Udeen, from Manchester, born
into a devout Catholic home, and converted to Islam in his 20s and was seized in
Afghanistan only three weeks after he left England. Airat Vakhitov, one of eight
Russians on Guantanamo, thought he had been liberated when a reporter from Le
Monde discovered him in a Taliban jail, where he had sat in darkness and been
beaten for seven months on suspicion of spying for the KGB. But he only
exchanged the Taliban prison for an American one. And there is Mish al-Hahrbi, a
Saudi schoolteacher. After he tried to kill himself on Guantanamo, he suffered
severe and irreversible brain damage.

The road for many detainees, including the small number who have since been
released, began with, they claim, a non-combatant reason for being where they
were when they were caught. Mohammed says he went to work for the Taliban as a
baker; Razaq says he was a missionary. They were held by the Northern Alliance
in northern Afghanistan, selected by the Alliance to receive a cursory interview
from US special forces or the CIA, and flown to Kandahar, where they were held
for weeks or months before being flown to Cuba.

Razaq, in his first interview with a journalist, told me he was convinced the
only reason he was sent to Cuba was because he spoke English. He had been held
by the Northern Alliance for a month in Shebergan prison, in crowded conditions
with little food, when Alliance soldiers came and asked the group of Pakistani,
Arab and Uzbek captives who among them spoke English. Razaq stepped forward.

His hands were tied and he was taken to a small room with mud walls where he was
made to kneel on the ground in front of two Americans in uniform, one sitting on
a mud bench projecting from the wall and the other standing. The interview took
three or four minutes, and consisted of two questions: "What is your name, and
why have you come to Afghanistan?" Afterwards he was taken outside. He just had
time to see a group of bound men with hoods on their heads sitting in a row
before he, too, was hooded. They were taken to an airfield and flown to
Kandahar. No signal had passed between his interrogators and the soldiers who
hooded him. In other words, on the basis that he knew English, the US had
already decided to take him to Kandahar, whatever the result of this initial
interview.

Another released Pakistani, Mohammed Saghir, a grey-bearded sawmill owner who is
now 53, tells me that he had not even had a cursory interview at Shebergan
before he was bound hand and foot, blindfolded and helicoptered to Kandahar.

Shah Mohammed was held at a prison in Mazar-i-Sharif, near Shebergan, before
being sent to Kandahar. He met Hicks, the Australian, while he was there. There
were early signs of the differential treatment, apparently according to national
background and skin colour, that was to be one of the characteristics of the US
handling of terror suspects. "I spoke to the Australian, he knew a bit of Urdu,"
says Mohammed. "He said he had come for Jihad. He was asked a lot of questions
[by the Americans], more than us. He was taken to a navy ship and I was taken to
Kandahar." Mohammed was to see Hicks again.

The released detainees recount the roughness with which they were treated at
Kandahar, from the moment of their transport there. "One thing I've learned
about the Americans is they are very harsh when they transport people around,"
says Razaq. "They had tied up my hands so tight that for two months I couldn't
use my right hand. They haul you from your neck and drop you off the plane in a
very disrespectful manner. For a long time we didn't know it was Kandahar. We
thought they were going to kill us there."

"They would just pick us up and throw us out [of the plane]," says Saghir. "Some
people were hurt, some quite badly." Mohammed says: "They kicked us out of the
plane and threw us on the ground."

The accommodation at Kandahar was uncomfortable. Prisoners slept and sat in
small groups under canvas canopies, on the bare earth, surrounded by razor wire
and under constant surveillance. They were given a single blanket each. It was
winter. Razaq says that the bottled water they were given to drink would be
frozen in the mornings. He said that for the first 20 days, a strict no-talking
rule was enforced. Saghir describes how no one had been allowed to sleep for
more than an hour. "If someone slept for an hour they would yell at him: Get him
up!"

The prisoners were interrogated steadily, with long intervals between sessions.
"We used to ask them: 'Why are we being kept here?'" says Mohammed. "They would
reply: 'You will be interrogated, and whoever is found innocent will be allowed
to go.' They never told us we would be taken to Cuba.'"

Razaq was one of the last to leave Kandahar. He saw the camp emptying around
him. From his testimony, it appears that once a detainee was committed to
Kandahar, the vast US military bureaucracy could only send people to Guantanamo.
"I don't know what made them suspect me, but there were rumours that they
arrested me because they thought I was a very senior Taliban official," he says.
"In fact, in the last interrogation at Kandahar, the American interrogator gave
me water to drink and assured me I would be released.

"This assurance was given to me on several occasions. I never knew where they
were taking the people who disappeared. We asked the Red Cross, but they
wouldn't give us any information. But there was this gate through which we could
see people in red costumes in the distance. At the end, it seemed they just
wanted to send everyone to Cuba and I was in the last group."

The last thing the US captors did before dispatching the Kandahar detainees to
Cuba was shave off their beards, a process they found humiliating. Razaq was
told it was because, without showers, they had picked up lice. "We resisted, but
four or five commandos came and they had a machine and just shaved off my beard
and moustache," says Saghir.

For the flight to Cuba, the prisoners were given the orange jumpsuits familiar
from television footage of their arrival at Guantanamo. They were bound hand and
foot, blindfolded, gagged, and their ears were muffled. Once on board the
military transport plane, their feet were chained to the floor, their hands
bound to the handrests, and restraining straps stretched across their bodies.
"The translator told us: 'Don't make any movement, don't worry, you are being
taken home,'" says Mohammed. "I don't remember how many hours but we left at
night from Kandahar and arrived in Cuba in the evening. We stopped somewhere and
changed planes."

Saghir says that, as with the arrival at Kandahar, the detainees, still bound,
gagged and blindfolded, were thrown off the plane on arrival in Cuba. Some had
their noses broken, he says. "I got a bruise under my left eye where my face hit
the ground."

The first prisoners were moved from the runway to a truck, from there to a
launch across the bay, and from there to the bare mesh cages which would be
their home for the first few months of 2002, the original detention centre, Camp
X-Ray. Those initial images of blinded, deafened, mute and bound men in glaring
orange became a potent weapon in the hands of those who opposed the manner in
which the Bush administration was coping with terrorism, particularly in Europe
and the Muslim world. A country which would not countenance an international
criminal court, the pictures seemed to say, had built a harsh international
jail. The bizarre setup of Guantanamo itself, a fortified American toehold in
one of the world's last outposts of communism, added to the sense of prisoners
being cast into the centre of concentric circles of isolation. Cubans remember,
if few others do, that the world's first concentration camps were built on their
island by the Spanish in the 1890s.

In the first few weeks of Camp X-Ray's existence, the regime was even harsher
than it looked from the pictures of tiny cages. The prisoners were not allowed
to speak to each other, not even in a whisper. "I spent the first month in utter
silence," says Mohammed.

According to Saghir, in this initial, relatively brutal phase of Guantanamo,
there was little tolerance for the practice of Islam, with its requirement of
prayer five times a day. "In the first one-and-a-half months they wouldn't let
us speak to anyone, wouldn't let us call for prayers or pray in the room," he
says. "We were only given 10 minutes for eating. I tried to pray and four or
five commandos came and they beat me up. If someone would try to make a call for
prayer they would beat him up and gag him. After one-and-a-half months, we went
on hunger strike."

US officials at the camp have admitted hunger strikes did take place there - in
some cases, prisoners were force fed - but in the minds of the detainees, they
have been associated with protests that have achieved results. According to
Saghir, it was only after a mass four-day hunger strike that the no-talking rule
was lifted, a loudspeaker was put up to broadcast the call to prayer, more time
was given for meals, and Korans and other books were provided. Mohammed says
that an eight-day hunger strike when a guard had thrown the Koran on the ground
had ended with a personal apology from a senior officer and a promise that the
Koran would not be touched again.

Razaq, who arrived after Camp X-Ray had already shut down, said that the culture
of protest was a feature of life in Guantanamo. "In the beginning there was a
mass hunger strike, but later on there were individual cases of people not
eating," he says. In other cases detainees would take off their plastic tags
carrying their US identification codes and throw them at the guards, or would
bang on their metal benches. Sometimes the guards would use a disabling gas in
response.

"When we threw off our tags the guards asked us to hand over our blankets, but
two of our colleagues didn't oblige, so they sprayed them to make them
unconscious, tied them up and took them to the punishment block; during that
transfer they were quite brutal," says Razaq. "But I didn't see any slapping."

Life in X-Ray became easier after the no-talking rule was lifted. The camp
authorities appear to have instituted a kind of linguistic mosaic, giving
detainees a reasonable chance of finding someone to talk to, but without
allowing too large a cluster of people speaking the same language. Mohammed
sketches out the group of 10 cages he was in in X-Ray. His immediate neighbours
were Hicks, a Bangladeshi, two Arabs whose names he does not remember, and
Rokhanay, from northern Afghanistan. Slightly further away, but still in talking
distance, was Asif Iqbal from Tipton, another Arab, Abu Nakar, and two southern
Afghans, Wasiq and Nurullah. "Asif was at an advantage because he was able to
speak to the Americans in English," says Mohammed. "He was like my translator.
He had just come for a visit to Pakistan and then went to Afghanistan. He never
intended to wage Jihad. He would swear at the guards from time to time.
Sometimes, on some issue, he would just start yelling at them but the Americans
would not respond. David Hicks knew some Urdu as well, so I would speak to him,
and he would speak to Asif."

The Guantanamo prisoners have no way of knowing what is happening in the outside
world, whether it concerns football scores or the war in Iraq. Apart from the
guards and interrogators, the only contact the prisoners have is with officials
of the international committee of the Red Cross and with occasional visitors
from the intelligence services and foreign ministries of their home countries.
The ICRC never talks about conditions in Guantanamo and little else has leaked
out.

Swedish activists campaigning for the release of Mehdi Ghezali have used
Sweden's freedom of information laws to obtain a censored version of a report by
an intelligence officer, Bo Eriksson, on a visit to Guantanamo with another
Swede in February 2002. It and other documents reveal that the US was so
obsessed with security that it drafted in a Swedish-speaking US army officer to
listen in on the meeting between the agents and Ghezali, and, even so, got an
envoy in Stockholm to ask the Swedes for a copy of their report into the meeting
that they had already listened in on.

"The cells measure approximately 2x3 metres with walls of wire mesh, concrete
floors and metal ceilings," wrote Eriksson. "Inside the cells, the detainees
have a mattress, a blanket, a hand towel, a couple of buckets and water bottles
made from soft plastic. Outside their cells, the detainees wear orange overalls
and plastic slippers. Their freedom of movement is not restricted to the cells,
although outside their cells they wear hand and feet restraints. The handcuffs
are fastened to a belt around their waist allowing them only restricted movement
with their hands and arms. [Ghezali] only just managed to drink water from a mug
with hand restraints on.

"The leg restraints mean that when detainees are moved they have to move forward
taking very small steps. One of the guards keeps a hand on the back of the
detainee's neck the whole time, bending the detainee's head forwards so that he
is looking at the ground the whole time he is being moved.They are not tortured,
nor do they receive any other degrading treatment. The mesh cell walls mean of
course that the detainees never have a moment's privacy. On one occasion,
detainees had suspended a plastic sheet on the fence to prevent people from
looking in but they had been forced to remove it since it became unbearably hot
despite the cool breeze from the sea."

In April 2002, the prisoners were moved to new accommodation, Camp Delta, and
Camp X-Ray was closed. Their beards grew back. The new facilities, which make up
the main part of the prison camp to this day, feature blocks of 48 cages each,
with two rows of mesh cages separated by a narrow corridor. The blocks have no
external walls, only a pitched roof; they stand on concrete bricks in areas of
raked gravel surrounded by high, opaque green fences topped by razor wire. The
cages are about as long and wide as a tall man lying down, and contain a metal
bunk, a tap and a toilet. Besides this standard type of accommodation, there are
at least six others. There is the more relaxed regime of Camp Four, where
docile, cooperative prisoners are rewarded with dormitory-style living and free
association with other detainees. Within Camp Four, there is a further category
of prisoners, believed to include Britons Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi, kept
isolated from other prisoners in preparation for being put on trial. In Camp
Delta, there is a special block set aside for three juvenile prisoners, with a
view of the ocean and a less repressive confinement. There is Delta Block, where
prisoners with mental problems are kept under special observation; and India
Block, and possibly one other block, which contain the punishment isolation
cells.

The Guardian has also learned that a very small number of prisoners, thought to
be between two and five, are kept permanently isolated in a special, super-
secure facility within Camp Delta.

Mohammed, Saghir and Razaq all had experience of the punishment cells. Saghir
says that he was locked up in one of the windowless metal boxes for more than a
week when an Arab spat at a guard and the entire line of 24 cages was punished
with solitary.

One of the US justifications for holding the Guantanamo prisoners for so long in
isolation is that they need to be interrogated for valuable intelligence. There
has been an enormous amount of interrogation; each prisoner has typically been
questioned between 10 and 20 times, which would, assuming interviews last 90
minutes on average, have generated some 15,000 hours of transcripts, containing
perhaps 200 million words, the equivalent of around 250 Bibles. Yet without
exception, the detainees say they were questioned by different interrogators
each time, and each time the questions were the same.

Prisoners describe the interrogation room as a small, windowless, air-
conditioned, plywood space, lit by fluorescent ceiling tubes. One, two or three
Americans ask questions, through a translator if necessary. The only furniture
is a wooden table with metal legs and metal chairs. Interviews are recorded on
tape and by written note. There is a metal ring fixed to the floor; while they
are being interrogated, the prisoners sit in a chair and have their chains fixed
to the ring.

"They would ask: 'Where is Osama? Do you know any of the al-Qaida leaders? Have
you met them?' Things like that," says Saghir. "They would not get angry with my
answers. We would ask them and they would say: 'We don't know when you will be
let free. Only our bosses know, we are here to do our job.'"

Sometimes it seemed that the interrogators wanted the detainees to show sympathy
with the victims of 9/11. Saghir was once told by a translator that he had got
closer to being released by giving a "right" answer. "In my last interrogation I
was asked: 'These people who attacked the twin towers, would you call them
Muslims?' I answered: 'I won't call them Muslims, but I'm not a religious
scholar, I couldn't judge these people.' The translator then said: 'You have
gone one stage further, there will be no more interrogations.'"

After Kandahar, none of the released prisoners has described torture or even
aggression by the interrogators, but Razaq said detainees who refused to answer
questions were sometimes put in isolation cells as punishment.

The interrogated and the interrogator do attempt mind games with each other. In
one interrogation, the interrogators effectively told Razaq he was free to go.
"They said: 'OK, your file is clear. Where do you want us to drop you?'"

Daring to hope, Razaq answered: "Peshawar?" Immediately, the interrogators began
questioning him again as if for the first time, and made him take a lie-detector
test. "Maybe this was one of their tactics," says Razaq. "They first made me
happy and accept that I will be free, then they changed direction."



PART TWO: http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1098604,00.html

Wednesday December 3, 2003
The Guardian

Guantanamo is a bleak, dull, repressive place for its inmates. Yet there is
something about it which may not be immediately apparent to Europeans dismayed
by the level of security, the chains and the punitive, degrading way the
prisoners are caged: it is not dissimilar to