Andy Worthington's Blog, page 37

Ali Al-Marri, Held and Tortured on US Soil, Accuses FBI Agents of Involvement in His Torture

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I wrote the following article  for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012, on the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, with the US attorney Tom Wilner. Please join us — just an email address is required to be counted amongst those opposed to the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, and to receive updates of our activities by email.

On Thursday April 26, in Amsterdam, Ali al-Marri, one of only three men held and tortured as an “enemy combatant” on the US mainland in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, spoke for the first time publicly, since his release in 2015, about his long ordeal in US custody, and launched a report about his imprisonment as an “enemy combatant,” implicating several FBI agents and stating that he is an innocent man, who only pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorism in May 2009 because he could see no other way to be released and reunited with his family in Qatar.

Primarily through a case analysis of 35,000 pages of official US documents, secured through Freedom of Information legislation, al-Marri, supported by the British NGO CAGE and his long-standing US lawyer, Andy Savage, accuses several named FBI agents, and other US government representatives, of specific involvement in his torture. The generally-accepted narrative regarding US torture post-9/11 is that it was undertaken by the CIA (and, at Guantánamo, largely by military contractors), while the FBI refused to be engaged in it. Al-Marri, however, alleges that FBI agents Ali Soufan and Nicholas Zambeck, Department of Defense interrogator Lt. Col. Jose Ramos, someone called Russell Lawson, regarded as having had “a senior role in managing [his] torture,” and two others, Jacqualine McGuire and I. Kalous, were implicated in his torture.

Al-Marri’s story is well-known to those who have studied closely the US’s various aberrations from the norms of detention and prisoner treatment in the wake of the 9/11 attacks — at Guantánamo, in CIA-run “black sites,” in proxy prisons run by other governments’ security services, and, for al-Marri, and the US citizens Jose Padilla and Yasser Hamdi, on US soil — but it is a sad truth that the majority of Americans have not heard of him.

The torture of Ali al-Marri

Al-Marri had arrived in the US the day before the 9/11 attacks, to pursue post-graduate studies. He brought his wife and five children with him, and was registered as a legal US resident. In December 2001, as I explained in The Last US Enemy Combatant: The Shocking Story of Ali al-Marri, an article I wrote in December 2008, “he was arrested at his home by the FBI, and taken to the maximum security Special Housing Unit at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, where he was held in solitary confinement as a material witness in the investigation into the 9/11 attacks.”

As I also explained in my December 2008 article:

In February 2003, al-Marri was charged with credit card fraud, identity theft, making false statements to the FBI, and making a false statement on a bank application, and was moved back to a federal jail in Peoria, but on June 23, 2003, a month before he was due to stand trial, the charges were suddenly dropped when President Bush declared that he was an “enemy combatant,” who was “closely associated” with al-Qaeda, and had “engaged in conduct that constituted hostile and war-like acts, including conduct in preparation for acts of international terrorism.” Also asserting that he possessed “intelligence,” which “would aid US efforts to prevent attacks by al-Qaeda,” the President ordered al-Marri to be surrendered to the custody of the Defense Department, and transported to the Consolidated Naval Brig in Charleston, South Carolina.

Al-Marri had already been held for 18 months, and had suffered in the Metropolitan Correction Center, where, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Muslim immigrants — 762 of the 1,200 men in total who were rounded up for investigation — were subjected to physical and verbal abuse, held in conditions of confinement that were “unduly harsh,” and often denied basic legal rights and religious privileges, according to a 2003 report by the Justice Department. However, his ordeal began in earnest at the brig.

As was … revealed through the disclosure of military documents following a Freedom of Information request (PDF), al-Marri, along with two American citizens also held as “enemy combatants” — Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla — was subjected to the same “Standard Operating Procedure” that was applied to prisoners at Guantánamo during its most brutal phase, from mid-2002 to mid-2004. This involved the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including prolonged isolation, painful stress positions, exposure to extreme temperature, sleep deprivation, extreme sensory deprivation, and threats of violence and death.

Although the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo was disturbingly harsh, it can be argued — with some confidence, I believe — that the treatment of al-Marri, Hamdi and Padilla was worse than that endured by the majority of the Guantánamo prisoners, as all three suffered in total isolation.

In May 2009, I wrote the following about the first 16 months of his imprisonment in the Charleston brig:

[T]he first 16 months that he spent as an “enemy combatant” took place in a state of almost unprecedented isolation, which, outside of the horrors endured by the “high-value detainees” in CIA custody, was shared only by the other two US “enemy combatants,” Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla, and a handful of prisoners in Guantánamo. His isolation was such that, according to a psychiatric assessment conducted on behalf of his lawyers, he began suffering from “severe damage to his mental and emotional well-being, including hypersensitivity to external stimuli, manic behavior, difficulty concentrating and thinking, obsessional thinking, difficulties with impulse control, difficulty sleeping, difficulty keeping track of time, and agitation.”

As his lawyers also explained in court documents filed last May [May 2008], during this period interrogators told him that “they would send him to Egypt or to Saudi Arabia to be tortured and sodomized and forced to watch as his wife was raped in front of him,” and threatened to make him “disappear so that no one would know where he was.” They also explained, “He was denied any contact with the world outside, including his family, his lawyers, and the Red Cross. All requests to see, speak to, or communicate with Mr. al-Marri were ignored or refused. Mr. al-Marri’s only regular human contact during that period was with government officials during interrogation sessions, or with guards when they delivered trays of food through a slot in his cell door, escorted him to the shower, or took him to a concrete cage for ‘recreation.’ The guards had duct tape over their name badges and did not speak to Mr. al-Marri except to give him orders.”

Even after al-Marri was granted access to counsel in October 2004, the conditions of his confinement “remained unbearably brutal and harsh,” as his lawyers described it, explaining how he “continued to be confined to a 9 by 6 foot cell,” and was “denied regular opportunity for exercise,” and also stated, “The single window in Mr. al-Marri’s cell remained darkened with an opaque covering that prevented Mr. al-Marri from seeing the outside world or knowing the time of day. His cell had only a sink, toilet and hardened (metal) bed affixed to the wall. Mr. al-Marri had no chair on which to sit and no blanket, pillow, or any other soft item inside his cell. For more than two years, Mr. al-Marri was denied a mattress, causing him discomfort and pain whenever he lay down.”

The lawyers added, “Mr. al-Marri was confined to his cell for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for months at a time. Once Mr. al-Marri was forced to spend more than 20 days in his metal bed in his freezing cell, shivering under a thin, stiff ‘suicide blanket,’ unable even to stand because the floor was too cold and his socks and footwear had been taken away from him.”

As I explained in my December 2008 article, “As part of a deliberate policy of controlling almost every aspect of his life ‘to cause disorientation, discomfort, and despair,’ al-Marri continued to be deprived of all external stimuli — he had no access to books, newspapers, magazines, TV or radio — and began showing evidence of … mental collapse.”

I also noted, “His conditions of confinement improved after August 2005, when his lawyers first filed a formal complaint about his treatment,” and they noted in May 2008 that he was “permitted to move about his cell block” (although he was the only prisoner there) and was “given adequate time for recreation.” He was also “in regular contact with his family by telephone, although his first phone call was not allowed until April 29, 2008, and was only arranged after his lawyers discovered that his father had died.”

When President Obama took office, he moved immediately to resolve al-Marri’s case, as the last outstanding US “enemy combatant” case. Yaser Hamdi, a US citizen who had moved with his family to Saudi Arabia when he was a child, had been seized in Afghanistan and was held at Guantánamo until the authorities realized that he was a US citizen, when he was moved to the brig, where he spent over two years before being returned to Saudi Arabia in August 2004, after renouncing his citizenship. Jose Padilla, meanwhile, initially seized in connection with a non-existent “dirty bomb” plot, was transferred into the federal court system in 2005, and, after a trial, given a 17-year sentence in January 2008, punitively increased to 21 years in 2014. His ordeal, however, seems to have effectively destroyed him, According to the psychiatrist Dr. Angela Hegarty, who spent 22 hours with him in 2006, “What happened at the brig was essentially the destruction of a human being’s mind.”

Al-Marri pleaded guilty to material support in May 2009, and was given a 15-year  sentence in November 2009, with the judge accepting defense requests for his previous imprisonment to count as time served. He was released in January 2015.

The new report

Documents recording the torture of al-Marri, Padilla and Hamdi were first released many years ago, but as CAGE explain in their introduction to the new report, although logs from the brig “provide details about the actions taken against Ali al-Marri and the other men … largely it is unknown who is interrogating him when he leaves for interrogation sessions.” However, “The SHU [Secure Housing Unit] Visitation Log provides detailed dates, times and names of all those who were involved in meeting and interrogating Ali al-Marri,” and on one particular day, March 11, 2004, when al-Marri was “dry-boarded” – with socks stuffed down his throat and duct tape wrapped around his head — CAGE “was able to verify that the three interrogators logged into the prison” that day “were the FBI agents Ali Soufan and Nicholas Zambeck, and the Department of Defense interrogator Lt Col Jose Ramos.”

When the report was released, former Guantánamo prisoner Moazzam Begg, the outreach director for CAGE, said in , “Up until today US federal agents have insisted that they do not torture. However, during my incarceration, I was questioned by members of the FBI during every leg of my journey and threatened with rendition to Egypt or Syria in their presence, if I did not cooperate – an experience related to me by many others. Today, this evidence suggests that the FBI does in fact take part in systematic abuse. For this they, and the contractors that collaborate with them, must be held accountable.”

Andy Savage, al-Marri’s lawyer, after mentioning “the uproar about the use of torture at Guantánamo,” added, “Most Americans don’t realise that it also happened in their own country in Charleston, South Carolina. More specifically, that this torture was carried out by a rogue agent of the FBI, as proven from the prison logs.”

Ali al-Marri also spoke, telling CAGE, “Ali Soufan, one of the interrogators who abused me markets himself as an anti-torture advocate. This man continues to benefit from this label despite threatening me with rape, with kidnapping and torturing my family, and attempting to suffocate me so that I could confess falsely. I hope that this information leads to him, and the others involved in my torture, being brought to justice.”

Ali al-Marri speaks

Ali al-Marri also spoke to the Guardian, which noted that his “allegations of torture are supported by detention logs which are set to reignite the controversy over the US handling of al-Qaida suspects before the impending appointment as CIA director of Gina Haspel,” who ran a CIA “black site” in Thailand in 2002.

Remembering the events of September 11, 2001, al-Marri said that, as images of 9/11 appeared on the TV screen in the family’s hotel room, while his children were searching for the Cartoon Channel, “I had a sense. I rang the airline immediately – could we get home? But everything was grounded. I didn’t think al-Qaida could do it. In my hotel people were yelling at me. it was clear what was happening.”

He was arrested three months later after “he went to collect a trunk shipped from home,” and “the FBI were alerted,” and the Guardian noted how “FBI officers found an encyclopaedia bookmarked at US waterways, internet searches for toxic chemicals, and printouts of hundreds of American credit card numbers,” adding, “His claim to have come to the US to study was in doubt, as he had arrived two weeks late for the start of his course and 10 years after completing his first degree in the country.”

As the Guardian also noted, “FBI agents said he wanted to poison lakes with cyanide and disrupt the US banking system. They claimed he had visited al-Qaida training camps in Pakistan, and was in contact with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.”

Now, however, al-Marri is challenging the perception of his guilt established by his plea deal. He “claims his encyclopaedia was bookmarked by his wife when she tidied his desk – ‘I was reading about the biggest lake, the longest river, I like these kind of facts’ – and says the chemical research was because he was considering importing chemicals from his brother-in-law’s Qatar company.” As he said, “It was not just cyanide, it was 200, 300 different chemicals.” He also claimed that the credit card numbers “were down to idle research on algorithms, while the trips to Pakistan were on business.”

“What is undisputed,” as the Guardian proceeded to explain, is his torture. Speaking of the “dry-boarding” experience, he said, “I was choking, I was dying. The suffering, you taste the pain, you taste it. Threatening to sodomise me, threatening to rape my wife, threatening to bring in my kids, that’s torture. Threatening to send me to a black site, to become a military lab rat, choking me to near death. This is torture.”

Responding to the fact that the log explains how his interrogators, “frustrated with his chanting of verses from the Qur’an, had taped his mouth,” al-Marri said, “I knew I had no rights, I was down the rabbit hole. It was dark times. My cell was six steps one way and, to lay down the other way, I’d have to bend my knees. I cannot see if it’s day or night. I felt as though I was buried in a concrete grave. I know the Americans were angry, but that gave them no right to treat me like that. In times of test your morals and values should not change. Unfortunately, at that time you were guilty until proven innocent – all the bragging about American justice and American constitution, all this goes out of the window. My thought was they will shoot me, hang me.”

He also said, “Yes I was scared, I was afraid of death, I was homesick for my kids, I wanted to smell the air. But I didn’t want to let that show, I was non-compliant from day one. I was treated the worst of any inmate in America. I had no mattress, no blanket, no pillow, no Qur’an or prayer rug. I had no idea which way is Mecca, so I prayed each way each time.”

Speaking of his plea deal, al-Marri insisted that he “pleaded guilty to get home.” As he said, “Everything in that plea bargain that has to do with al-Qaida and terror is 100% false,” adding, “My battery was at 1%, I’m done. From seven years of isolation, I missed my kids, my wife. To kiss my mum before she died outweighed my need to show innocence. In the military jail there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.” As he also said, “My best time was getting [to the end of] my sentence: 18 January 2015. Finite, out.”

On his return to Qatar, as the Guardian proceeded to note, “al-Marri received a hero’s welcome. The prime minister telephoned him and celebrations were held.” As he said, “People were stopping me in the street, taking selfies. What were they celebrating? An inmate who has spent his time in jail and got out? They do not believe I am a terrorist. Terrorist is a relative term; one man’s terrorist is another’s hero. America’s founding father George Washington was a terrorist to the British. To the west, yes, I am a terrorist, but to the Arabs I’m not, I’m a hero. So Osama bin Laden is a hero? When they call me terrorist, or they call me hero, I don’t see that.”

He added, “I was planning a master’s degree and maybe a PhD. I ended up with a PhD in American hospitality. Nobody has been held accountable. There are people who admit they have done this and people who deny it. I do not need apologies, I need accountability. What they said and did to me was torture.”

In a statement, the FBI told the Guardian that they “would not comment on the case,” but insisted that “the FBI does not engage in torture and we maintain that rapport-building techniques are the most effective means of obtaining accurate information in an interrogation.”

It is certainly true that FBI officials generally do insist that rapport-building is the only viable way of conducting interrogations, but in light of al-Marri’s allegations, and lingering doubts about when exactly the FBI walked away from the CIA’s abusive interrogations in 2002, it seem to me that a proper official analysis ought to be established, to ascertain how much, in the early years of the “war on terror,” those guidelines were stretched or even broken.

Note: Please also check out this ITV News interview with Ali al-Marri, and this Middle East Eye article, and if you’re in the UK, you can sign this petition to the Director of Public Prosecution by al-Marri’s son AbdurRahman “seeking the arrest of Ali Soufan so that the United Kingdom Director of Public Prosecutions can investigate the allegations against him further.”

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and see the latest photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (click on the following for Amazon in the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US), and for his photo project ‘The State of London’ he publishes a photo a day from six years of bike rides around the 120 postcodes of the capital.

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of a new documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June that killed over 70 people, and he also set up ‘No Social Cleansing in Lewisham’ as a focal point for resistance to estate destruction and the loss of community space in his home borough in south east London.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

Lawyers for Guantánamo Torture Victim Mohammed Al-Qahtani Urge Court to Enable Mental Health Assessment and Possible Repatriation to Saudi Arabia

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.

 

Last Thursday, lawyers for Mohammed al-Qahtani, the only prisoner at Guantánamo whose torture was admitted by a senior official in the George W. Bush administration, urged Judge Rosemary Collyer of the District Court in Washington, D.C. to order the government “to ask for his current condition to be formally examined by a mixed medical commission, a group of neutral doctors intended to evaluate prisoners of war for repatriation,” as Murtaza Hussain reported for the Intercept. He added that the commission “could potentially order the government to release him from custody and return him home to Saudi Arabia, based on their evaluation of his mental and physical state.”

A horrendous torture program, approved by defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was developed for al-Qahtani after it was discovered that he was apparently intended to have been the 20th hijacker for the 9/11 attacks. As Hussain stated, court documents from his case state that he was subject to “solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, extreme temperature and noise exposure, stress positions, forced nudity, body cavity searches, sexual assault and humiliation, beatings, strangling, threats of rendition, and water-boarding.” On two occasions he was hospitalized with a dangerously low heart rate. The log of that torture is here, and as Hussain also explained, “The torture that Qahtani experienced at Guantánamo also exacerbated serious pre-existing mental illnesses that he suffered as a youth in Saudi Arabia — conditions so severe that he was committed to a mental health facility there in 2000, at the age of 21.”

The high-level acknowledgement of al-Qahtani’s torture, mentioned above, came just before George W. Bush left office, when Susan Crawford, the convening authority for the military commission trial system at Guantánamo, told Bob Woodward, “We tortured Qahtani. His treatment met the legal definition of torture.” She was explaining why she had refused to refer his case for prosecution.

Shayana Kadidal, Senior Managing Attorney at the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, said, “Mr. Al Qahtani was already suffering from psychosis when he was brought to Guantánamo and systematically tortured. His psychosis casts serious doubt on all the government speculations that led them to torture him in the first place. He belongs in a psychiatric hospital in Saudi Arabia, not talking to the walls of a cell in Guantánamo.”

Another of his lawyers, Ramzi Kassem, a City University of New York law professor, said, “The government knew from very early in his detention that this man was manifesting serious psychiatric conditions. As early as 2002, a senior FBI official reported observing ‘behavior consistent with extreme psychological trauma’ in Mr. Qahtani, like ‘talking to nonexistent people, reportedly hearing voices, crouching in a corner of the cell covered with a sheet for hours on end.’”

Kassem added, “That was before the worst phase of torture in US custody, which only compounded those conditions. Torture can make a sane person lose their mind, but for someone who had documented mental health issues going back to the age of 8, this treatment was even more harmful.”

Murtaza Hussain also explained that, in 2008, six year after the arrived at Guantánamo, al-Qahtani “attempted to kill himself after being informed that he may face charges that would carry the death penalty.”

Since the charges against al-Qahtani were dropped, he has “continued to be held in a state of legal limbo,” as Murtaza Hussain described it. In 2016, when he faced a Periodic Review Board, an Obama-era parole-type process, which ultimately upheld his ongoing imprisonment, I noted that his lawyers had recently “succeeded in getting an independent psychiatrist, Dr. Emily Keram, to be allowed to visit Guantánamo … to assess al-Qahtani, and what she found — evidence of severe mental health problems predating his capture, and that can only have been exacerbated by his torture in US hands — would seem to suggest that, if he is not to be prosecuted — if, indeed, he is mentally unfit to stand trial — then he should not continue to be held under the laws of war that the US draws on to justify holding prisoners without charge or trial at Guantánamo, and should be returned to his home country.”

Dr. Keram’s evaluation was also included in last week’s submission, which, as Hussain put it, “found that he exhibited symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia,” adding, “In addition to these conditions, Qahtani is reportedly afraid to sleep due to a fear of ‘ghosts,’ a fear which is consistent with the phenomenon of post-traumatic nightmares.”

The medical evaluation also noted that “Mr. al Qahtani’s symptoms of PTSD and schizophrenia are chronic and are worsening,” adding that “these symptoms will therefore continue beyond one year, will probably continue to worsen, and will be present throughout his lifetime.”

No high-level official has been held accountable for the use of torture by US forces since 9/11, even though, in December 2014, the Senate Intelligence Committee released what Hussain described as “a landmark report about CIA torture that documented the systematic torture of terrorism suspects in agency custody.” He largely blamed Barack Obama’s decision “not to conduct backward-looking prosecutions” for the failure to hold anyone accountable, and with reference to the nomination as CIA director of Gina Haspel, who oversaw a CIA “black site” in 2002, he adds, “This failure to provide legal accountability — even in cases like Qahtani’s, in which U.S. officials acknowledged the torture — has since opened the door for Bush-era officials who authorized torture to return to government service at even higher levels under President Donald Trump.”

Ramzi Kassem told Hussain, “President Obama admitted in 2014 that the US government had ‘tortured some folks,’ but he never named names. So we had a crime but no officially acknowledged victims and, crucially, no identified perpetrators held to account. Mr. Qahtani is therefore the only person in the entire so-called U.S. war on terror who the government has publicly admitted torturing. Repatriating Mr. Qahtani to be committed and treated in a Saudi psychiatric facility would be in everyone’s interest. The United States cannot viably prosecute a man it has admitted torturing, nor can it treat him.”

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and see the latest photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (click on the following for Amazon in the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US), and for his photo project ‘The State of London’ he publishes a photo a day from six years of bike rides around the 120 postcodes of the capital.

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of a new documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June that killed over 70 people, and he also set up ‘No Social Cleansing in Lewisham’ as a focal point for resistance to estate destruction and the loss of community space in his home borough in south east London.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

As Two Former Guantánamo Prisoners Disappear in Libya After Repatriation from Asylum in Senegal, There Are Fears for 150 Others Resettled in Third Countries

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.

 

Congratulations to the New York Times for not giving up on the story of the two former Guantánamo prisoners who were recently repatriated to Libya despite having been given humanitarian asylum in Senegal two years ago, on the understanding that they would not be sent back to Libya, as it was unsafe for them. The story is particularly significant from a US perspective, because of the role played — or not played — by the State Department, which, under President Obama, facilitated the resettlement of the men, and many others, and, in general, also kept an eye on them after their release.

The story first emerged three weeks ago, when I was told about it by former prisoner Omar Deghayes, and the Intercept published an article. My article is here. A week later, the New York Times picked up on the story, reporting, as Omar Deghayes also confirmed to me, that one of the two men, Salem Ghereby (aka Gherebi) had voluntarily returned to Libya, as he desperately wanted to be united with his wife and children, and because he hoped that his connections in the country would prevent him from coming to any harm. My second article is here.

Unfortunately, on his return, Salem Ghereby was imprisoned at Tripoli’s Mitiga Airport, where human rights abuses have been widely reported, and the British NGO CAGE then reported that the other Libyan, Omar Khalifa Mohammed Abu Bakr (aka Omar Mohammed Khalifh), who didn’t want to be repatriated, had also been sent back to Libya, where he too was imprisoned at the airport. I wrote about that here, and then exclusively published Salem Gherebi’s letter explaining why he had chosen to be repatriated.

That was eight days ago, and since then the trail has gone cold, as the New York Times noted in its most recent article, ‘Deported to Libya, Ex-Gitmo Detainees Vanish. Will Others Meet a Similar Fate?’ written by Charlie Savage, Declan Walsh, and, in Senegal, Dionne Searcey, and published on April 23.

The Times article stated that the Senegalese government’s decision to deport the two men “to their chaotic birth country of Libya” has “raised the prospect that the resettlement system is starting to collapse under President Trump,” explaining how, after “a traumatic journey,” the two men “apparently fell into the hands of a hard-line militia leader who has been accused of prisoner abuse — and then they vanished.”

As the article’s authors recognize, the resettlement program, part of “President Barack Obama’s drive to close the Guantánamo prison,” involved “deals with about three dozen nations to take in lower-risk detainees from dangerous countries.” The article added that officials argued that “[r]esettling them in stable places would increase the chances they would live peacefully … rather than face persecution or drift into Islamist militancy.”

Current and former officials told the Times that the case “sets a worrisome precedent,” the danger being that other countries “may follow Senegal in forcibly moving more of the nearly 150 Obama-era resettled former detainees home to unstable places where they risk being killed — or could end up becoming threats themselves.”

With an inexplicable sense of understatement, the Times stated that the breakdown of the Senegal resettlement also “appears to be at least partly a consequence of the disorganization that has afflicted the State Department since Mr. Trump took office.” It would make more sense, I think, to have stated that the breakdown of the Senegal resettlement is a direct “consequence of the disorganization that has afflicted the State Department since Mr. Trump took office.”

President Obama, as the Times noted, “set up a high-level, centralized office charged with monitoring former detainees indefinitely and dealing with any problems” — the office of the special envoy for Guantánamo Closure. However, under Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump’s first secretary of state, that office was shut down, its function “added to the long list of things individual embassies are supposed to track.”

Daniel Fried, Obama’s first special envoy for Guantánamo Closure, pulled no punches in criticizing the Trump administration, telling the Times, “This is what is going to happen when you close down the Office of Guantánamo Closure for political reasons. Countries conclude that we don’t care anymore, and there is no follow-up.”

A State Department official, speaking anonymously, refuted this assessment, but his protestations, to be frank, sounded feeble.

Analyzing the resettlement program, most of which took place under Obama, although some prisoners were also resettled under George W. Bush, the Times noted that some “have gone well,” explaining, “Former detainees learned their new local languages, found jobs and even married. Others have been rockier. In countries like Uruguay and Kazakhstan, former detainees have struggled to fit in while complaining of inadequate support, distance from relatives and heavy-handed security. In still other countries, like Ghana, the former detainees appear to be doing better, but the government there was heavily criticized by political opponents for agreeing to resettle them.”

As the Times also explained, “Nearly all resettled detainees impose some level of headache on host governments, which generally provide basic assistance while monitoring them. Typically, the receiving countries also agreed not to let the former detainees travel for two or three years, leaving ambiguous what would come next. Against that backdrop, there are reasons to believe Senegal may be the first of many nations that could seek to shed that burden by deporting resettled detainees.”

This is deeply troubling, of course, not just because of the vulnerability of the men in question, but also because of the context — stripped of their rights as human beings in Guantánamo, redefined as “enemy combatants,” who could be held forever without charge or trial, and who, even when released, continue to be regarded by the US as “enemy combatants,” no body of law provides for their treatment. If they become disposable chess pieces, no legislation is in place to stop their abuse, a situation that clearly needs to come to an end now they are facing such a horrendous threat under Donald Trump, and it’s a situation which I fervently hope that lawyers and the United Nations are looking at closely.

The Times specifically mentioned “a Yemeni man resettled in Serbia in 2016,” who “has struggled to learn the local language while complaining that a Guantánamo stigma was wrecking his job and social-life prospects.” That man is Mansoor Adayfi, a talented writer, who, most recently, was interviewed by BBC Radio 4 for a powerful and moving program about the prisoners’ artwork, which the Pentagon recently announced its intention to destroy, after an exhibition in New York revealed the prisoners as human beings with emotions and sensibilities.

As the Times noted, Adayfi “was resettled alongside a former detainee from Tajikistan, who has more readily adapted.” Crucially, however, “both lack legal status, and a Serbian official told one of their lawyers that the government is reviewing whether to deport them this summer, after the two-year travel ban ends,” although a government spokesman “said no decision has been made.”

Beth Jacob, Adayfi’s lawyer, said her client “fears repatriation but she could ‘not even find someone in the US government to discuss our concerns with.’” Matthew O’Hara, who represents the other former prisoner, from Tajikistan, “said his client would likely be persecuted or tortured in Tajikistan, which revoked his citizenship.” As O’Hara put it, “My level of concern went through the roof when I saw what happened in Senegal.”

Regarding the two men resettled in Senegal, the Times noted that it was “a favor to Mr. Obama by its president, Macky Sall,” and that they “were given apartments in Dakar, with a minder living nearby.” Although they had complained about aspects of their treatment, the Times noted that “there were also signs the resettlement was working,” with Khalifa, who “said he was engaged,” being “warmly greeted by his neighbors.”

Senegalese officials, in the Times’ words, “have refused to discuss what prompted them to consider deporting the men,” although the newspaper noted that “[r]elations between African countries and the United States have generally deteriorated under Mr. Trump, especially since reports surfaced in January that he insulted African nations using a crude term.”

Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at the City University of New York who represents Khalifa, told the Times that his client “was first told in January he might not be allowed to stay in Senegal.” Kassem said he emailed the US Embassy “but received no reply.” The men were told in writing that they would be deported on March 26.

While Ghereby did not object because at least in Libya he could be reunited with his family,” Khalifa “was terrified,” telling the Times reporter who visited the two men “that he feared he would be killed.” Neighbors said that the two were taken away by Senegalese security officials just after the interview.

Nothing was heard of them until later that week, when Ghereby “called a human rights organization, from an airport in Tunisia, apparently during a layover to Libya.” Khalifa’s fate “was even more mysterious.” Lee Wolosky, Obama’s second special envoy for Guantánamo Closure, who had negotiated the Libyans’ resettlement, was told by a Senegalese official that Khalifa “would not be forcibly deported,” but that was evidently untrue.

The Times noted that “it now appears that he, too, was sent to Tunisia,” with both men then “flown on to Tripoli and taken into custody by a hostile militia, according to both an intelligence official with Libya’s Government of National Accord, an interim body that is backed by the United Nations but exercises little real authority, and a Libyan airline employee.”

Separately, a spokesman for Libyan Airlines told the Times that “both men took its flight from Tunis to Tripoli, although he did not know what happened to them after,” while Lee Wolosky was eventually told by the Senegalese official that Khalifa was no longer in Senegal.

The intelligence official and the airline employee also explained to the Times that, while in Tunis airport, “one of the men — it was not clear which — began protesting loudly and bloodied his head by banging it against a hard surface,” also explaining that both men had wanted to be flown “to Misrata, a city about 130 miles east of Tripoli,” and “sought to avoid the Tripoli airport because it is controlled by Abdulrauf Kara, a militia commander who runs a counterterrorism detention camp where human-rights groups say mistreatment is rife.” However, “Mr. Kara was determined to take the two men into custody, and sent a group of guards to Tunis to escort them back.”

However, “adding to the murkiness,” in the Times’ words, “Ahmed bin Salam, a spokesman for Mr. Kara’s group, later denied it was holding the men.” In English, he said, “I think they are with the mukhabarat” (the intelligence service), although he “declined to elaborate.”

After the Times article was published online, Stephen Yagman, who had represented Salem Ghereby many years ago, “said his former client and his wife told him last week that Mr. Ghereby was in eastern Libya with his family,” although that could not be independently verified. Yagman said they “did not discuss his journey,” and he “refused to detail how they had communicated.”

Ramzi Kassem, meanwhile, stressed that international law “prohibits forcibly sending people to places where they are likely to be abused,” and “said he held both Senegal and the United States responsible for any harm Mr. Khalifa might suffer.”

However, he also pointed out that the issue at stake “was bigger.” As he put it, “If the other countries that took in Guantánamo prisoners interpret the deafening US silence throughout the Senegal debacle as a signal that the Trump administration no longer cares about past undertakings, then it could soon be open season on those former prisoners. Nothing could be less conducive to the humanitarian ideals the United States professes, nor even to the security objectives it often proclaims.”

The State Department made a woolly statement about who it had “reiterated to the Government of Senegal our expectation that it will uphold its international obligations with respect to both individuals,” which literally means nothing.

Lee Wolosky, in contrast, “said he believed the State Department, under previous administrations, would have persuaded Senegal to take steps to keep the men safe while making its leaders feel like the United States still cared about successfully resettling them.” He added that “[t]he human-rights concerns raised by the fact that the two men apparently ended up in cells in Tripoli … should be cause for alarm.”

As he put it, “The last two administrations tried to responsibly release individuals in a way that took into account both legitimate US security interests and also human rights and the rule of law. This result just utterly frustrates that policy.”

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and see the latest photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (click on the following for Amazon in the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US), and for his photo project ‘The State of London’ he publishes a photo a day from six years of bike rides around the 120 postcodes of the capital.

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of a new documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June that killed over 70 people, and he also set up ‘No Social Cleansing in Lewisham’ as a focal point for resistance to estate destruction and the loss of community space in his home borough in south east London.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

The 34 Estates Approved for Destruction By Sadiq Khan Despite Promising No More Demolitions Without Residents’ Ballots

Please support my work as a reader-funded investigative journalist, commentator and activist.

 

Anyone paying any attention to the sordid story of council estate demolitions in London will know how hard it is to take politicians seriously — and especially Labour politicians — when it comes to telling the truth about their actions and their intentions.

Perfectly sound estates are deliberately run down, so that councils can then claim that it’s too expensive to refurbish them, and that the only option is to knock them down and build new ones — with their developer friends who are conveniently waiting in the wings.

In addition, a collection of further lies are also disseminated, which divert attention from the fundamental injustice of the alleged justification for demolitions — false claims that the new housing will be “affordable”, when it isn’t; that part-ownership deals are worthwhile, when they are not; and that building new properties with private developers will reduce council waiting lists, when it won’t.

The biggest lie of this whole “regeneration” racket, therefore, is that structurally sound estates must be knocked down, while, on a day to day basis, the second biggest lie permeates all discussion with the success of Goebbels-style propaganda — the lie that “affordable” housing is affordable. Boris Johnson, in his crushingly dire eight years as London’s Mayor, decided that “affordable” meant 80% of market rents, but that is clearly not affordable, as market rents are so dizzyingly overblown — and completely unfettered by any form of legislation — that people are often paying well over half their incomes in rent, when what was long regarded as fair was a third (similarly, buying a home is now unaffordable for most people, as prices have spiralled out of reach, with a huge deposit needed for a property that costs ten times a buyer’s annual salary, when the fair model of the past used to be that it should cost no more than three and a half times one’s annual income).

Genuinely affordable rents are social rents, paid by council tenants and housing association tenants, which are generally a third of market rents, but it is these rents that central government, councils and, most recently, large housing associations, are trying to get rid of entirely. Behind it all is the stranglehold of Tory austerity, cynically implemented to destroy all public services, but few of those responsible for social housing are fighting back, and many — including many Labour councils — are actually gleefully engaged in social cleansing their boroughs of those they regard as an impediment to gentrification and wealthier incomers.

But here the extent of the delusion ought to become clear. These coveted aspirational professional young people do exist, but they can barely afford to pay the kind of costs associated with a property racket that is only really interested in couples who earn over £70,000 a year, while anyone who earns less — and is regarded as “poor” by bloated public servants who have lost touch with reality — will probably end up being priced out of the future of endless towers of new housing that are largely being bought off-plan by foreign investors, who often leave their investments empty.

Ironically, to keep most workers able to live in London, where, we should note, the mean income is no more than £20,000, compared to the average income, which is around £35,000, the government will end up having to subsidise cynically inflated new build rents, to add to the £26bn housing benefit bill, most of which goes to private landlords, when the only sensible way out of this spiral of greed is to defend social rents, stop knocking estates down, and embark on any number of visionary and large-scale not-for-profit social homebuilding projects to deliver new homes for social rent. City investors will be supportive of such a plan, because guaranteed rents over decades, even at socially rented levels, are actually a good investment, whose rationale has been lost in the forest of greed in which we currently find ourselves that is making life miserable for most renters, or driving them out of the capital altogether.

Over the last few years, the horrors of the housing market have started to become more apparent to more people, with the Heygate development in Southwark as a grim template. There, Southwark Council sold off a Brutalist estate that could easily but mistakenly be portrayed as a sink estate, to Lendlease, rapacious international property developers. The council made no money out of the deal, but Lendlease stands to make £200m from the Heygate’s replacement, Elephant Park, which will contain just 82 units of housing for social rent, when the original estate had over a thousand socially rented flats.

The Heygate provided a template for the effective scrutiny of “regeneration”, but Southwark Council, greedy and contemptuous of its own constituents, failed to heeds its lessons, and has now started demolishing the Aylesbury Estate down the road, one of Europe’s largest estates. There has been noticeable resistance in Lambeth, to proposals to destroy two very well-designed estates, Central Hill and Cressingham Gardens, and the false rationale for destruction becomes more transparent when architects and heritage bodies become involved. A powerful example of this is Robin Hood Gardens in Tower Hamlets, a visionary Brutalist estate, shamefully neglected, whose destruction is, however, well under way despite high-level support for its preservation.

Another key battleground has been Haringey, in north London, where campaigners successfully derailed the first phase of proposals by the council to enter into a giant stock transfer programme with Lendlease, and last June the Grenfell Tower disaster brought into sharp relief, how, in the most horrific manner imaginable, the lives of those who live in social housing are regarded as inferior to those with mortgages.

In autumn, Jeremy Corbyn intervened in the debate about social housing, using his conference speech to say that there must be no more estate demolitions without residents’ ballots. It was a high-profile intervention in the debate, and it set a marker for campaigners, and for the Labour left, but it lacks the teeth to stop destructive Labour councils from continuing with their destruction, and Corbyn has persistently failed to follow up on this grand gesture by engaging in ground-level criticism of people like Peter John and Lib Peck, the leaders of Southwark and Lambeth councils respectively.

Corbyn’s promise was picked up on by Sadiq Khan, London’s Mayor since 2016, who also promised that there would be no estate demolitions without ballots, but was then rumbled by hard-working and tenacious Green London Assembly member Sian Berry, who revealed, a month ago, that, as she put it in the headline of a well-read article on her website, ‘Mayor quietly signs off funding for 34 estates, dodging new ballot rules.’

Berry produced a list of the estates, which are listed below, and stated that the information showed Sadiq Khan “signing off at least over 9,000 home demolitions, leaving around 3,000 homes we can count in schemes that will subject to ballots.” She added, “In total, since the consultation closed nearly a year ago (when the Mayor knew he would have no choice but to introduce ballots) he has signed off funding for 34 estates. And 16 of these schemes have been signed off since 1 December when the Mayor and his team were finalising the new policy and gearing up to announce it.”

As she also stated, “This information paints a sorry picture, and is a harsh slap in the face to many residents on estates under threat who – thanks to his actions – will be denied a ballot at the last moment before his new policy comes in. They include the Fenwick, Cressingham Gardens, Knights Walk and other estates in Lambeth (though not Central Hill), Ham Close in Richmond, Cambridge Road in Kingston and the Aylesbury in Southwark.”

She also stated, “I am appalled by this behaviour, and with the delaying tactics involved in trying not to admit he was rushing through major schemes like this”, and added, “It is a betrayal of the residents on these 34 estates, but it will also disappoint the Mayor’s wider electorate, who are just about to vote in local elections in London. I commissioned YouGov to poll Londoners as a whole on this issue and 64 per cent backed ballots for estate residents, with only 13 per cent against, in results revealed this week.”

A spokesman for the Mayor sought to contradict Sian Berry’s claims, telling the Architects’ Journal, “The mayor made a firm public commitment not to sign off any contracts for new estate regeneration schemes during the consultation [on ballots, which ran from February to April]. No contracts for new estate regeneration schemes have been signed since the consultation on ballots opened.”

The Architects’ Journal added, “According to the mayor, the majority of the 34 decisions were made before last summer, and 16 [other] contracts signed after 1 December were for schemes already allocated funding.”

What actually happened, as careful readers will realise, is that Khan was told — by his advisors, and by councils and developers — that deals that were considered to already be underway — even if they weren’t — had to be approved before any inconvenient new hurdles like ballots could even be considered.

As Sian Berry put it, The mayor needs to think again about how the people on the estates he’s rushed through should be treated. Their right to a ballot can’t be brushed off just because he’s decided to restrict his policy only to questions of funding and pushed these deals through. Many of these estates, including Cressingham Gardens, do not yet have planning permission and the mayor could be asking for ballots to be held on these schemes, and using the results as a consideration in his planning decisions.”

The list of estates, whose destruction was approved after the end of the consultation on the guidance for estate demolition (March 14, 2017) is below, and please follow the links for further information. And what’s particularly interesting, of course, is how only 17 of London’s 32 boroughs are involved, although most of those are Labour-controlled, which is surely something worth reflecting on with London’s local elections taking place next Thursday, May 3.

The 34 estates approved for destruction from March 2017 to January 2018 by Sadiq Khan

SOUTH

Southwark (2)

Aylesbury Estate, SE17 – 3,500 new properties, with Notting Hill Housing Trust, approved October 25, 2017.

Ongoing destruction, particularly resisted by leaseholders facing Compulsory Purchase Orders, who secured a brief but significant success in 2016. Also see ‘The State of London’, and check out the 35 Percent campaign’s detailed account here.

Elmington Estate, SE5 – 632 new properties, with Peabody Trust, approved January 22, 2018.

Ongoing destruction. See ‘The State of London’, and check out the 35 Percent campaign’s detailed account here.

Lambeth (5)

Cressingham Gardens, SW2 – 464 new properties, approved December 1. 2017.

This is a well-designed 1970s low-level estate on the edge of Brockwell Park, with a close-knit community who have mobilised impressive resistance to Lambeth Council’s cynical plans, which clearly involve the attraction to developer son the parkside setting. See ‘The State of London’ for more, and the Save Cressingham Gardens website.

Fenwick Estate, SW9 – 508 new properties, approved December 1. 2017.

Estate near Clapham North tube station, subjected to ‘managed decline’ by council. No tenants’ perspective available online. Do, however, check out Brixton Buzz‘s report from July 2017 about murky goings-on with the proposed development.

Knights Walk, SE11 – 84 new properties, approved September 29, 2017.

Small estate, partly saved in previous resistance involving ASH (Architects for Social Housing).

South Lambeth, SW8 – 363 new properties, approved September 29, 2017.

No tenants’ perspective available online. Lambeth Council’s page is here.

Westbury Estate, SW8 – 334 new properties, approved September 29, 2017.

No tenants’ perspective available online. Lambeth Council’s page is here.

Lewisham (2)

Frankham Street, SE8 (aka Reginald Road) – 209 new properties, with Peabody Trust, approved January 22, 2018.

Long-standing battle to save a block of 16 council flats (Reginald House) and Old Tidemill Garden, a community garden, from destruction as part of the redevelopment of the old Tidemill School. Alternative plans could easily preserve the garden and flats, but the council and Peabody aren’t interested. For the resistance, see here and here.

Heathside & Lethbridge, SE10 – 459 new properties, with Peabody Trust, approved January 22, 2018.

Ongoing destruction of two estates, only one of which, the Brutalist Lethbridge Estate, is still standing. No tenants’ perspective online. See ‘The State of London.’

Greenwich (1)

Connaught, Morris Walk and Maryon, SE18 – 1,500 new properties, approved January 15, 2018.

Planned destruction of three estates. Connaught has already been demolished, and is being replaced by a new development. Morris Walk and Maryon are subjected to serious ‘managed decline.’ No tenants’ perspective online. For Maryon, see ‘The State of London.’

Bexley (1)

Arthur Street, DA8 – 310 new properties, with Orbit Group Limited, approved December 22, 2017.

Proposed development of an estate including three tower blocks in Erith. See Orbit Homes’ plans here, and this Bexley Times article.

Wandsworth (1)

St. John’s Hill, SW11 – 599 properties, with Peabody Trust, approved January 22, 2018.

The continuation of the destruction of a 1930s estates and its replacement with new properties because, as Peabody alleges,”the accommodation does not now fit the needs of residents.” They also note, “Phase 1 of the redevelopment (153 homes) was completed in April 2016 and includes 80 homes for social rent, 6 shared ownership and 67 private sale.” See Peabody’s page here.

Merton (1)

High Path, SW19, Eastfields, Ravensbury, CR4 – 2,800 properties, with Clarion Housing Group, approved December 21, 2017.

See development information about these estates in South Wimbledon (High Path) and Mitcham (Eastfields, Ravensbury) on the website of Clarion (formed from the merger of Affinity Sutton and Circle Housing in 2016) here. A local news article last May stated, “Clarion estimate there are currently 608 homes in High Path, 465 in Eastfields and 192 in Ravensbury. Including the replacement houses, about 1660 homes will be built in High Path, 800 in Eastfields and up to 180 in Ravensbury. This means that after the replacement homes have been built for the existing tenants, an extra 1,800 homes will be available to rent and buy.” No mention was made of what these new rental costs might be.

Richmond upon Thames (1)

Ham Close, TW10 – 425 properties, with Richmond Housing Partnership Limited, approved November 17, 2017.

See the Ham Close Uplift website for further information.

Kingston (1)

Cambridge Road, KT1 – 2003 properties, approved October 10, 2017.

See the council’s plans here for the redevelopment of the site, which includes three tower blocks. For the residents’ association, see here, and also check out this local news article from 2016.

EAST/NORTH

Tower Hamlets (4)

Aberfeldy Estate (phases 4, 5 & 6), E14 – 206 properties, with Poplar HARCA Ltd, approved October 18, 2017.

Ongoing destruction of an estate in Poplar — a 12-year project involving the creation of over 1,000 new properties. For more information, see the website of architects Levitt Bernstein, and also see Poplar HARCA’s site. Rather pretentiously, I think, the architects claim, “The site’s illustrious past is made visible through art installations including case concrete tea crates and brass cotton reels in the landscape and paisley patterns etched in the paving. Crisp detailing and a limited material palette give the buildings a modern warehouse aesthetic.”

Blackwall Reach, E14 – 1,575 properties, approved March 23, 2017.

This is a much-criticised project that involves the destruction of Robin Hood Gardens, the acclaimed Brutalist masterpiece, which was, indeed, an extraordinary creation, although it was severely neglected by Tower Hamlets Council as part of very deliberate “managed decline.” For more, see ‘The State of London’ here and here.

Chrisp Street Market, E14 – 643 properties, with Poplar HARCA Ltd, approved October 18, 2017.

This contentious project involves the destruction of the first purpose-built pedestrian shopping area in the UK, created for the Festival of Britain in 1951, and associated housing, although it has met with strong local resistance, and was put on hold by the council in February 2018. See a City Metric article here.

Exmouth Estate, E1 – 80 properties, with Swan Housing Association, approved March 23, 2017.

The estate is just off the Commercial Road, but I can’t find any information available online. However, Swan Housing Association came in for serious criticism after the stock transfer from the council in 2006, which Socialist Unity reported in 2009.

Barnet (1)

Grahame Park (phase B, plots 10, 11 & 12), NW9 – 1,083 homes, with Genesis Housing Association Ltd, approved November 24, 2017.

For the council’s plans for this estate in Colindale, see here. They claim that, with Genesis, as “the developer and resident social landlord”, who have now merged with Notting Hill, they will build approximately 3,000 homes by 2032, including around 1,800 new private homes, around 900 new “affordable” homes. In addition, “Approximately 25 per cent (463) of the original homes will be retained and integrated into the new development.” Also see the Notting Hill Genesis page here.

Brent (1)

South Kilburn Estate (various phases), NW6 – 2,400 homes, with Notting Hill Housing Trust, Network Homes Ltd, L&Q and Catalyst Housing Group, approved October 23, 2017.

Ongoing destruction. For the Observer, Rowan Moore was full of praise for the new development in 2016, stating, “Thanks to the enlightened thinking of Brent council and Alison Brooks Architects, a notorious London estate that featured in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth is now the site of some of the best housing in the neighbourhood.” See Brent Council’s page here, and also see a review on the Municipal website here.

Enfield (1)

Alma Estate, EN3 – 993 homes, with Newlon Housing Association and Countryside, approved November 15, 2017.

Ongoing destruction of four big tower blocks in Ponders End. See ‘The State of London.’

Havering (5)

Napier House and New Plymouth House, RM13 – 200 homes, approved January 31, 2018.

See Havering Council’s page for the planned redevelopment of these two tower blocks in Rainham here.  And see this Romford Recorder article from 2016 about the first consultations with tenants. Also see Edinburgh University’s ‘Tower Block’ site, which shows both towers, and describes them, collectively, as Dovers Farm Estate.

Waterloo Estate, RM7 – 994 homes, approved January 31, 2018.

See Havering Council’s page for the planned redevelopment of this estate in Romford here. And see this Romford Recorder article from 2016 about the shock felt by residents when they first received the news.” As the article noted, “Ruth Crabb, who has lived on the Waterloo Estate for 18 years, said she was concerned residents had no idea about the proposed plans to potentially demolish the estate and build an additional 220 homes. ‘The fact that they haven’t even bothered to write to us as tenants and explain what they have planned … we are quite shocked,’ she said.”

Orchard Estate (former Mardyke), RM13 – 55 homes, with Clarion Housing Group, approved December 21, 2017.

The approval for further development at the Orchard Village Estate in Rainham came despite huge problems with earlier development on the site. From February 2017, in the Guardian, see Leaking sewage and rotten floorboards: life on a ‘flagship’ housing estate, Housing association agrees to buy back homes on ‘substandard’ development and Chairman of housing association behind ‘substandard’ development resigns.

Queen Street Sheltered Housing Scheme, RM7 – 6 homes, approved July 17, 2017.

See Havering Council’s page for the redevelopment of this small block of sheltered housing in Romford here.

Solar, Serena, Sunrise Sheltered Housing Scheme, RM12 – 54 homes, approved July 17, 2017.

See Havering Council’s page for the redevelopment of this sheltered housing in Hornchurch here.

Barking & Dagenham (1)

Gascoigne West (Barking Town Centre), IG11 – 850 homes, approved July 27, 2017.

For the outline planning application in September 2017, see this article on the ‘BOLD’ website, dealing with development and regeneration in Barking and Dagenham. The redevelopment of Gascoigne East was approved under Boris Johnson, and began in 2015.

WEST

Kensington & Chelsea (2)

William Sutton Estate, SW3 – 270 homes, with Clarion Housing Group, approved December 21, 2017.

The Sutton Estate in Chelsea was built in 1913 by the philanthropist William Sutton expressly to provide “houses for use and occupation by the poor”, as the Guardian explained in 2016, when their then-owners, Affinity Sutton, a housing association, which has since merged with Circle Housing to become the Clarion Housing Group, planned to bring a century of social housing to an end on the site, proposing to “replace more than 200 affordable homes with luxury apartments for private sale.” That plan was turned down by Kensington & Chelsea Council, but Clarion has appealed the ruling, and a hearing will be held on May 9, 2018. I can only wonder if Sadiq Khan’s premature approval of the redevelopment will affect the decision. For more information, see the Save the Sutton Estate website, and also see Clarion’s position.

Wornington Green, W10 – 1,000 homes, with Catalyst Housing Ltd, approved January 8, 2018.

The estate, as Catalyst explain, “originally comprised 538 flats and houses (accommodating approximately 1,700 residents) which were constructed between 1964 and 1985 in predominantly large deck-blocks, typical of public housing of the period.” Work has already begun on the replacement, with Phase One “includ[ing] the building of 324 new homes, a mix of 174 for affordable rent and 150 homes for private sale.” And here, as usual, that word “affordable” is misleading. Phase Two of the project began in Autumn 2017, but it is difficult to take Catalyst’s claims at face value — that there will be “no loss of social housing”, because “all current tenants will be offered new homes in the development.”

Ealing (4)

Friary Park, W3 – 476 homes, with Catalyst Housing Ltd, approved January 8, 2018.

The estate is in Acton, and as Catalyst explain, “Friary Park was originally built for private sale by Laing Construction. It was purchased by Catalyst (then Ealing Family Housing Association) in 1987. We’ve been considering a range of options to improve the neighbourhood and have decided that the best route is to redevelop the estate – demolishing existing homes and replacing them with new, high-quality, energy-efficient ones.” In 2015, when plans were first proposed, locals expressed concern that the new development would feature a 29-storey tower that would be “West London’s tallest building”, and “would loom over much of Acton including some of the area’s most expensive streets.”

Havelock Estate, UB2 – 922 homes, with Catalyst Housing Ltd, approved January 8, 2018.

The estate is in Southall, and on their website town planning consultants Barton Willmore enthused about how outline permission had been granted “for the demolition of 695 homes to replace with 922 new homes, whilst retaining 154 of the existing homes”, adding, “This includes 367 affordable social rent homes, 121 intermediate tenure homes and 434 new market sales homes. Combined, this will result in 1,076 homes across the site.” As usual, it take serious scrutiny to assess quite how severe is the loss of social rents. For Catalyst’s page, see here.

Green Man Lane, W13 – 770 homes, with A2Dominion Homes and Rydon/FABRICA, approved November 7, 2017.

Conran & Partners are the “masterplanners and project architects” for this development in Ealing, in which an entire 1970s estate of 464 homes will be demolished to make way for 764 new properties, For an 88-year old resident’s memories of the old estate from 2010, see this local news article.

South Acton, W5 – 2,600 homes, with L&Q, approved November 7, 2017.

As Ealing Council explains, “South Acton is the council’s largest estate”, built over 30 years from 1949 with several tower blocks and slab blocks, which “eventually became one of the largest municipal housing estates in West London, with almost 2,100 homes.” In 2008, the council decided to “comprehensively regenerate the area, as this is considered to be the best way to acheive [sic] the transformative effect desired by residents and the council”, and Acton Gardens (a collaboration between L&Q and Countryside) became the council’s chosen development partner in 2010. 

Sian Berry’s document also contained a list of eleven estates whose destruction was approved by Boris Johnson. They are listed below.

Eleven additional estates whose destruction was approved by Boris Johnson

Barking & Dagenham: Gascoigne Estate (Blocks A1, A2, B1, C1, D1), IG11 – 175 homes, with East Thames (now L&Q), approved March 23, 2015.

Camden: Abbey Area (phases 1, 2 & 3), NW6 – 241 homes, approved March 11, 2016. See Camden Council’s page.

Camden: Agar Grove, NW1 – 513 homes, approved March 11, 2016. See Camden Council’s page.

Ealing: Rectory Park, UB5 – 425 homes, with Network Homes Ltd, approved February 2, 2015. See Ealing Council’s page for this development in Northolt.

Ealing: Greenford – Allen Court, UB6 – 89 homes, with Notting Hill Housing Trust, approved December 8, 2014. See this page for information about this development in Greenford.

Enfield: Ladderswood Way Estate, N11 – 517 homes, with One Housing Group Ltd, approved October 17, 2014. See the website here.

Hammersmith & Fulham: Lisgar Terrace (Phase 4), W14 – 36 homes, with Southern Housing Group, approved January 12, 2015. See Southern’s website here.

Lambeth: Loughborough Park, SW9 – 487 homes, with the Guinness partnership, approved October 31, 2014. See ‘The State of London.’

Tower Hamlets: New Union Wharf (Phases 2 and 3), E14 – 75 homes, with East Thames (now L&Q), approved March 25, 2013. See the website here.

Tower Hamlets: Ocean Estate (Site H), E1 – 121 homes, with East Thames (now L&Q), approved March 25, 2013. See Levitt Bernstein’s page here for this development in Stepney.

Waltham Forest: Marlowe Road Estate, E17 – 436 homes, approved December 14, 2015. See the council’s website here.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and see the latest photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (click on the following for Amazon in the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US), and for his photo project ‘The State of London’ he publishes a photo a day from six years of bike rides around the 120 postcodes of the capital.

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of a new documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June that killed over 70 people, and he also set up ‘No Social Cleansing in Lewisham’ as a focal point for resistance to estate destruction and the loss of community space in his home borough in south east London.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

Ex-Guantánamo Prisoner Discusses Prison Artwork with the BBC, While Lawyers for “High-Value Detainee” Demand His Right to Continue Making Art

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.

 

I wrote the following article  for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012, on the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, with the US attorney Tom Wilner. Please join us — just an email address is required to be counted amongst those opposed to the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, and to receive updates of our activities by email.

Last October, an exhibition opened in the President’s Gallery, in John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, that might have attracted little attention had the Pentagon not decided to make a big song and dance about it.

The exhibition, ‘Ode to the Sea: Art from Guantánamo Bay,’ featured artwork by eight former and current Guantánamo prisoners — four freed, and four still held — which was given by the prisoners to their lawyers and their families, and it was not until November that the Pentagon got upset, apparently because the promotional material for the exhibition provided an email address for anyone “interested in purchasing art from these artists.” The obvious conclusion should have been that “these artists” meant the released prisoners, who should be free to do what they want with their own artwork, but the Pentagon didn’t see it that way.

On November 15, as I explained in my first article about the controversy, a spokesman, Air Force Maj. Ben Sakrisson, said that “all Guantánamo detainee art is ‘property of the US government’ and ‘questions remain on where the money for the sales was going,’” while, at the prison itself, Navy Cmdr. Anne Leanos said in a statement that “transfers of detainee made artwork have been suspended pending a policy review.”

Ramzi Kassem, a professor at CUNY School of Law, whose legal clinic represents Guantánamo prisoners, said that one particular prisoner was told “art would not be allowed out of the prison,” and added that, if any prisoner were to be allowed to leave Guantánamo (which, crucially, has not happened under Donald Trump), “their art would not even be allowed out with them and would be incinerated instead.”

I subsequently followed up on the story, as Erin Thompson, a professor of art crime and one of the curators of the show, responded robustly. In a powerful op-ed in the New York Times, which I cross-posted here, with my own commentary, she stated, “Art censorship and destruction are tactics fit for terrorist regimes, not for the US military. The art poses no security threat: It is screened by experts who study the material for secret messages before it leaves the camp, and no art by current prisoners can be sold. Guantánamo detainees deserve basic human rights as they await trial. Taking away ownership of their art is both incredibly petty and utterly cruel.” 

Erin Thompson then wrote another article for Tom Dispatch, which I cross-posted here, and I also cross-posted a Washington Post op-ed by former prisoner (and best-selling author) Mohamedou Ould Slahi, and in January, on my annual visit to call for the closure of Guantánamo on the anniversary of its opening, I visited the exhibition myself, just before it closed, an inspiring occasion that I wrote about in an article entitled, Reviewing the Guantánamo Art Show in New York That Dared to Show Prisoners As Human Beings, and Led to a Pentagon Clampdown.

As I stated:

The show was powerful, but in a genuinely understated way. Some of the prisoners showed a real artistic talent; others less so. Of particular note was the work by Mohammed al-Ansi (aka Muhammad Ansi) and Djamel Ameziane, both released, and the elaborate sculptures of ships made of discarded materials by “forever prisoner” Moath al-Alwi, a Yemeni still held not because he has ever been accused of any significant involvement with terrorism, but because he has been a long-term hunger striker, and is not regarded as having been sufficiently cooperative. In a similar position is Khalid Qassim, who has produced interesting paintings through a variety of media.

Above all, however, the prisoners’ work, generally featuring uncontentious subject matter, did nothing more shocking than daring to show that they are human beings.

Recently, an extremely powerful program about the prisoners’ art was broadcast by BBC Radio 4, and is still available on iPlayer, featuring, in particular, former prisoner Mansoor Adayfi, a Yemeni who was resettled in Serbia in 2016, and who wrote a truly inspiring article about the significance of the sea for the prisoners, which was published by the New York Times in September (taken from the exhibition catalog), and which I cross-posted here.

As the introducton to the show on the BBC’s website states, Mansoor Adayfi “guides us vividly” through the exhibit. He “takes us behind the headlines and tells the story of his years at Guantánamo through the lens of art — the insight it gives us into the detainees’ lives and captivity and their imaginations.” 

The show also features contributions from Erin Thompson, Alka Pradhan, a defense attorney in the military commissions, and the painter Gail Rothschild.

More recently, Alka Pradhan submitted a motion to those responsible for the military commissions, calling for her client Ammar al-Baluchi (aka Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali), the only “high-value detainee” whose work featured in the exhibition, to continue to be allowed to make art and to make it available to his lawyers and his family. His piece, “Vertigo at Guantanamo,” described by the website artnet as “a series of multicolored dots in a pattern that evokes a tornado,” drew on his experiences of torture in a CIA “black site.”

As Alka Pradhan said in an email to artnet, “Both the creation and public dissemination of Mr. Al-Baluchi’s artwork has become incredibly important for his mental health; both in terms of mitigation value in his death penalty case, and for the therapeutic value to alleviate the effects of his torture.” She added, as artnet put it, that his artwork “could make him seem more sympathetic when it comes time to sentencing at the military tribunal.”

Since the Pentagon’s clampdown, artnet noted, al-Baluchi has not had “access to art supplies to make new work,” describing this as “a situation Pradhan hopes to rectify in the coming weeks,” and also explaining that he “has been forced to turn down numerous requests to exhibit his work since the New York art show.” I understand that other prisoners — the boat-maker Moath al-Alwi, for example, who made his boats relentlessly — have also had their artistic activities curtailed, even though there is nothing contentious about their work, and it is beneficial for their mental health, something that prisoners are allowed to have in the federal prison system, and as they clearly should at Guantanamo too.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and see the latest photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (click on the following for Amazon in the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US), and for his photo project ‘The State of London’ he publishes a photo a day from six years of bike rides around the 120 postcodes of the capital.

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of a new documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June that killed over 70 people, and he also set up ‘No Social Cleansing in Lewisham’ as a focal point for resistance to estate destruction and the loss of community space in his home borough in south east London.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

A New Media Milestone: 3,000 Articles Published (Including 2,200 on Guantánamo) Since I Began Writing Online as an Independent Journalist and Activist in 2007

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.

 

Dear friends, supporters, and any stray passers-by,

My most recent article, WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Guantánamo Prisoner Salem Gherebi’s Letter Explaining Why He Voluntarily Returned to Libya from Senegal Despite the Danger in Doing So, was something of a milestone for me — my 3,000th article published here on my website since I first began publishing articles here, on an almost daily basis, nearly eleven years ago. 

Almost 2,200 of those articles have been about the prison at Guantánamo Bay and the men held there, the main focus of my work as a writer and a campaigner since the spring of 2006, when I began working on the manuscript for my book The Guantánamo Files, which I completed in May 2007, and which was published that September.

If you’ve been with me all that time — as some of you, perhaps, have been — you’ll know that I started publishing articles here after the fourth prisoner at Guantánamo died, a man named Abdul Rahman al-Amri, allegedly by committing suicide. After spending 14 months researching and writing about the prisoners, based on a forensic analysis of the many thousands of pages of information about them that the Pentagon had been obliged to release after they lost a Freedom of Information lawsuit, I think it’s fair to say that I knew more than anyone in the world about the prisoners at that point, but although I pitched a proposal to the Guardian, I was told that they’d pick up on the Associated Press’s wire, and so I published it myself, as I already had a website up and running (technically, a WordPress blog), and hoped people would notice.

That was perhaps a wild hope, in the days before social media, but in fact, Maryam at Cageprisoners almost immediately picked up on my writing and started cross-posting it, and I then approached a number of other sites, who also began cross-posting my work or allowing me to publish with them — in particular, CounterPunch, the Huffington Post and Antiwar.com. 

In Bush’s last year, when there was still great hesitation in general in the US to challenge the notion that the “war on terror” — and all the crimes committed in its pursuit — was actually a heroically patriotic endeavour, and that any criticism of it was treasonous, and some of us were still wondering if there would be some kind of coup to keep Bush and Cheney in power, I worked relentlessly on Guantánamo, covering stories no one else was writing about, and also worked for Reprieve, wrote for the Guardian and even had a front page story with Carlotta Gall published in the New York Times — an one-off occurrence, as the Bush administration immediately put pressure on the Times to pull the plug on me.

As Obama came to power, I and many others thought that Guantánamo’s days were numbered, but that, of course, didn’t happen. In his first year in office, I took the advice of American friends and first started asking my readers to support me financially — a crucial step for anyone wanting to establish themselves in the brave new world of the internet, in which it is, unfortunately, far too easy to not make any money at all. I have since issued a fundraiser every three months, and am always happy to receive donations if you want to support me.

I also worked for the United Nations, on a groundbreaking report about secret detention, based on my research, and a documentary film I co-directed with Polly Nash, ‘Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo’ was released, which I took on an extensive tour throughout 2010. I also hooked up for the first time with Debra Sweet of the World Can’t Wait, who organized a visit to the US, and has been organising visits every year since — in January, to coincide with the opening of the prison (on January 11).

In 2011, working relentlessly on Guantánamo for five years took its toll on me, as I contracted a rare blood disease, and, after a blood clot, was fortunate that two of my toes, which had gone black, were only saved because of truly wonderful care by the NHS.

My ordeal should have made me slow down, but Julian Assange then got in touch with me, asking me to be a media partner for the release of the classified military files about the Guantánamo prisoners that Chelsea Manning had released to WikiLeaks. Analyzing those files took up most of 2011, and it was not until 2012 that I  fundamentally re-thought my life, inspired in particular by the fact that, far from closing, Guantánamo had hit a fundamental impasse, as appeals court judges had shut down the habeas corpus process that had been fought for for so many years, and that had led to dozens of prisoners having their release ordered by federal court judges, and lawmakers had passed laws that made it difficult for Obama to release any prisoners without expending considerable political will, which he was unwilling to do.

That January, I set up the Close Guantánamo campaign with the US attorney Tom Wilner, but as the months passed and Obama refused to engage with Congress, I resumed an interest in photography that had lapsed in my five non-stop years of feverish writing about Guantánamo, and began cycling around London taking photos, an endeavour designed to enable me to get fit, and to keep fit, after my recent health scare, and which, as I became more enthusiastic about it, developed into a project to visit and take photos in all of London’s 120 postcodes. This project — ‘The State of London’ — is still ongoing, and last year I began posting a photo a day from my archives on Facebook and Twitter.

In this period, I also began focusing on British politics under the Tory-led coalition government, as their cynical age of austerity began to do serious damage to the structure of British society, and, in particular to the public services that are at the heart of what makes Britain a generally decent place to live. I did a lot of work on the NHS from 2011 to 2013, including the successful campaign to save my local hospital, Lewisham Hospital, from being severely downgraded, and I also tried to keep tabs on other aspects of the Tories’ cruel policies — the shameful treatment of the disabled, for example, and their general assault on the welfare state.

In 2013, the focus shifted back to Guantánamo, after two and a half years in which just five men had been freed, even though nearly a hundred had been approved for release by high-level government review processes, when the prisoners embarked on a prison-wide hunger strike, which awoke the world to the ongoing injustice of Guantánamo, and finally compelled Obama to find a way to resume releasing prisoners.

In Obama’s last years in office, I continued to do what I could to exert pressure to try to make sure that he fulfilled his long-lapsed promise to close Guantánamo before he left office, via relentless campaigning, including the We Stand With Shaker campaign that I launched with Joanne MacInnes, to get Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo released, which was a campaigning success, and which helped to secure Shaker’s release in October 2015. In 2016, I ran a photo campaign via Close Guantánamo, and in the end, although Obama failed to close the prison, he left only 41 men still there, although they, of course, have found themselves newly re-imprisoned in a place that seems to have no exit door by Donald Trump, a uniquely poor excuse for a functioning president.

In Trump’s first 15 months in office, I have continued to do what I can to keep the focus on Guantánamo, but, as in Obama’s desperate years of inertia, I have also had more time to focus on other issues — my long-standing interest in social housing, which has led to me narrating a documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, currently on tour in the UK, and my band The Four Fathers, and our two albums of, largely, rock and roots reggae protest music, ‘Love and War’ and ‘How Much Is A Life Worth?’ In both these fields, a truly galvanizing incident was the Grenfell Tower fire in west London last June, in which over 70 people died, their deaths the direct result of a bureaucratic system that regards those who live in social housing as inferior to those with mortgages. My first articles written after the Grenfell disaster is here, and please also feel free to watch the video of the song I wrote, calling for justice, recorded with The Four Fathers.

As I wrap up this, my 3,001st article, may I thank everyone who takes an interest in my work, whatever form it takes. I hope you’ll be with me for the next thousand articles — and will meet me to reflect on that next milestone, perhaps sometime in 2023 …

Andy Worthington

London

April 19, 2018

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and see the latest photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (click on the following for Amazon in the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US), and for his photo project ‘The State of London’ he publishes a photo a day from six years of bike rides around the 120 postcodes of the capital.

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of a new documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June that killed over 70 people, and he also set up ‘No Social Cleansing in Lewisham’ as a focal point for resistance to estate destruction and the loss of community space in his home borough in south east London.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Guantánamo Prisoner Salem Gherebi’s Letter Explaining Why He Voluntarily Returned to Libya from Senegal Despite the Danger in Doing So

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.

 

Two weeks ago, I published an article about the Senegalese government’s disgraceful intention to repatriate two Libyans released from Guantánamo and given humanitarian asylum in Senegal two years ago, and expressed my alarm that doing so was a fundamental betrayal of the terms of the agreement made by the US when the men’s resettlement took place, which was supposed to guarantee that they wouldn’t be sent back to Libya, because of the dangerous instability in their home country.

That initial article drew on reporting by the Intercept, and also on correspondence with the former prisoner Omar Deghayes, a British resident and Libyan national who knows both men, and who I got to know during the filming, and subsequent touring of the documentary film I co-directed, ‘Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,’ which was released in 2009. A week later the New York Times — and Omar Deghayes, again — confirmed that one of the two men, Salem Gherebi (aka Ghereby), had returned to Libya voluntarily, because he wanted to be reunited with his family, and because he hoped that his connections in the country would prevent him from coming to any harm. My update on the story is here.

Unfortunately, on his return, Salem Gherebi was imprisoned by a militia, Rada, that has a prison at Tripoli’s Mitiga Airport, where human rights abuses have been widely reported. The British NGO CAGE subsequently reported that the other Libyan, Omar Khalifa Mohammed Abu Bakr (aka Omar Mohammed Khalifh), who didn’t want to be repatriated, had also been sent back to Libya, where he too was imprisoned at the airport. I provided an update about this yesterday.

As CAGE noted, in light of this news, the very minimum that is required is for the US government “to fulfil its obligation towards these men who it imprisoned and abused without charge, trial or redress for 14 years,” and to “ensure beyond all reasonable doubt that they are safe from further arbitrary imprisonment and torture.”

Below I’m posting the translation of a letter, originally written in Arabic, that Salem Gherebi (described as Salem Ghariba) wrote, explaining why he voluntarily decided to leave Senegal and return to Libya. Omar Deghayes told me that he “gave a copy to the Senegalese government and the Libyan Embassy” and also told me that he “asked me to publish it if he was locked up in Libya.” He has made the translation of the letter available to me, which is posted below.

The letter reveals a catalog of complains about the treatment he received from the Senegalese government, which, he says, severely restricted his movement (and that of Omar Khalifa), and claims that they did not even feed them properly. He also says that they failed to cater to his medical needs, and refused to provide them with any kind of ID. On his core complaint as reported previously — the refusal of the Senegalese government to allow his family to visit — it turns out that his wife and children were allowed to visit him, but it took a year to arrange, and, on their arrival, the length of their stay was restricted, and Gherebi was not provide with any kind of financial assistance to support them, even though he evidently had no sort of independent income.

It is, of course, not possible to independently verify Salem Gherebi’s assessment of his treatment, but it is not unusual for men resettled from Guantánamo in third countries to receive less than adequate treatment, and what it highlights above all is the need for responsible monitoring by the US — something that, sadly, has conspicuously failed to happen under Donald Trump, who has abolished the role of special envoy for the closure of Guantánamo, which was established under President Obama, and which involved liaising with other countries regarding the transfer of prisoners, as well as monitoring those transferred. This was obviously useful for America’s national security, but it also helped to ensure that those resettled in third countries after being approved for release by high-level US government review processes (like Gherebi and Omar Khalifa) don’t get mistreated because of their fundamental status as stateless people with no essential rights and no body of law to draw on to ensure their protection. 

This fundamental problem for former prisoners — their fundamental lack of any rights whatsoever — is clearly something that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency, especially as former prisoner Moazzam Begg, CAGE’s Outreach director, stated last week, “Our fear now is that handing ex-Gitmo prisoners over to abusers may be a new phase in the US ‘resettlement policy’, and that other countries may follow suit. I have been told by another ex-Gitmo prisoner that he has now been threatened with the same treatment by the country in which he has been resettled.”

Salem Gherebi’s Letter Explaining Why He Voluntarily Returned to Libya

In the name of God the Merciful the Beneficent,

My name is Salem Abdus Salam Imran Ghariba, a Libyan national. For the following reasons I made the difficult decision to return to Libya even though I know that the situation there is very bad and dangerous and there is no central government:

1) The Senegalese authorities have refused to allow my wife and children to reside in Senegal with me and even after they came to visit me after a request that took one whole year, they were not allowed to stay with me for longer than the time granted to them and they did not assist me with any expenses during their stay.

2) I have not received any of the medical care I require.

3) I have not received any identity documents. Instead they have placed us under continual 24 hour guarded surveillance and we did not get any ID documents. 

4) When we arrived, they treated us extremely badly and did not allow us to leave the flat for two months and did not even provide us with personal hygiene items. They continued to control what we eat and only gave us a small amount which was not even enough for one person. As a result we lost weight. This continued for ten months.

5) There has been no initiative by the Senegalese government to improve our situation or to grant us residency. They surprised us with the decision to deport us to Libya.

6) I also hold them responsible for the theft of our flats.

For all of these reasons I made the decision to return to Libya.

Date: 3 April 2018

Signed

Salem Abdus Salam Imran Ghariba

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and see the latest photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (click on the following for Amazon in the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US), and for his photo project ‘The State of London’ he publishes a photo a day from six years of bike rides around the 120 postcodes of the capital.

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of a new documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June that killed over 70 people, and he also set up ‘No Social Cleansing in Lewisham’ as a focal point for resistance to estate destruction and the loss of community space in his home borough in south east London.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

Sad Confirmation that Second Ex-Guantánamo Prisoner Resettled in Senegal Has Been Forcibly Returned to Libya, Where His Life Is At Risk

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.

 

Two weeks ago, I reported the terrible news that two former Guantánamo prisoners, both Libyans, who had been given humanitarian asylum in Senegal two years ago, were about to be sent back to Libya by the Senegalese government. The two men, Omar Khalifa Mohammed Abu Bakr (aka Omar Mohammed Khalifh) and Salem Gherebi (aka Ghereby), had been approved for release by high-level US government review processes, but they had been resettled in Senegal because it was unsafe for them to be returned to Libya. In negotiations between the US State Department and the Senegalese government, the understanding was that their resettlement would not involve any efforts to repatriate them.

My initial information about the men’s dire situation came from the Intercept, and from discussions with the former prisoner Omar Deghayes, also Libyan, who I got to know well during the filming and touring of ‘Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,’ the documentary film I co-directed with Polly Nash, which was released in 2009.

I continued to liaise with Omar Deghayes, and on April 5 the New York Times got involved, noting that Salem Gherebi had “apparently consented to repatriation,” and it would seem that he did so because he was desperate to be reunited with his wife and children, and was disappointed that they “had not been permitted to stay with him in Senegal,” and also believed he had connections that would protect him on his return.

Unfortunately, on his return, he was imprisoned. As I explained in an article last week, following an email exchange with Omar Deghayes:

“One insider friend told us they took him to Tripoli Mitiga Airport,” Deghayes told me, adding that for three days his family had not been told where he was, even though two of his children, 16 and 18 years of age, had asked about his whereabouts. Deghayes added that he had spoken to his brother, who said he had “no idea where to find him.” He also said that the militia holding him were running a notorious prison at the airport, where some people had died, and others, who had survived their imprisonment, sought to bring a case against their captors for the use of torture.

At the time, it seemed that Khalifa was still in Senegal, and there were hopes that his repatriation was preventable. The New York Times spoke to Lee Wolosky, the special envoy for the closure of Guantánamo in Barack Obama’s second term as president, who “negotiated the 2016 deal to resettle the two men in Senegal,” and who said that he “had been told by a Senegalese diplomatic official that Mr. Ghereby had left the country but that Mr. Khalifa was not being forcibly deported, though he had been relocated within Senegal.” He added that “his inquiry appeared to bring to the attention of high-level Senegalese officials that mid-level civil servants were trying to send both men to Libya,” and, as a result, last Sunday “Omar Baldé, an official with the Senegalese ministry of communications, “said Mr. Khalifa was not going to be deported.”

On reading this comment, I couldn’t help but wonder how strong this promise was, and within days its flimsiness became apparent. Last Wednesday, CAGE, the British NGO formerly known as Cageprisoners, issued a press release entitled, “Refoulement: Former Guantánamo prisoner Omar Khalifa Abu Baker forcibly taken from Senegal to Libya.”

As CAGE stated, “This alarming situation has developed over the past few days during which time Salim Ghereby, the first of the prisoners to be deported, was flown via Tunis and handed over to the Rada militia. Our sources have confirmed that Omar Khalifa has also been sent to the Mitiga Air Base in Tripoli and is in the custody of the same militia.”

The NGO added, “We understand that the situation in Libya is complex and uncertain. Ghereby opted to return home voluntarily, primarily to be reunited with his wife and children in the west of the country, near Tripoli. However, the situation in eastern Libya, where Omar is from and may be sent, is far more unsafe, volatile and unstable. It is further clear now that both men have been subjected to refoulement and a breach of both international law and agreements between the governments of the USA and Senegal.”

CAGE’s Outreach director, the former Guantánamo prisoner Moazzam Begg, said, “I have been reliably informed that Omar was beaten and forcibly removed from Senegal to a place where he feared persecution and repression. When he first told me of his fears about this happening I really did not think that Senegal and the US would permit this to happen. Now it has, he is facing arbitrary imprisonment, torture and cruelty after 14 years of the same. This is in contravention of international law and basic human decency.”

Begg also said, “Our fear now is that handing ex-Gitmo prisoners over to abusers may be a new phase in the US ‘resettlement policy’, and that other countries may follow suit. I have been told by another ex-Gitmo prisoner that he has now been threatened with the same treatment by the country in which he has been resettled. These men have long been cleared of any wrongdoing. This torture of Guantánamo survivors must stop.”

Moazzam Begg was undoubtedly correct to wonder if this is “a new phase in the US ‘resettlement policy’” regarding former prisoners, because of Donald Trump’s clear enthusiasm for keeping Guantánamo open, and his deliberate failure to maintain the office of special envoy for the closure of Guantánamo, which President Obama introduced, and which, crucially, not only dealt with efforts to resettle prisoners approved for release, but also monitored those already freed.

The failure to maintain this role not only indicates a lack of interest in diplomacy, but also reveals a disdain for America’s national security, as monitoring former prisoners is evidently sensible. Moreover, it is impossible to find a reason to doubt Moazzam Begg’s suspicion that other countries who took in former prisoners might now renege on their own deals, perhaps even calculating that doing so will endear them to Donald Trump and his administration.

I checked in with Omar Deghayes today, to see if he had any further information, but he was only able to confirm that he had heard that both men are now with the Rada militia and there is no other news as yet. “As expected,” he said, “if anyone enters those lock-ups in Mitiga Airport, they are lost without any due process.”

While we await further news, I’ll leave you with CAGE’s demands, which strike me as both sensible and necessary, but which also reinforce how perilous it is for all manner of nuanced relationships involving diplomacy and security to have someone as blunt and narrow-minded as Donald Trump in the White House. A close friend, who used to have high-level contacts within the US government, laments that he now has no contacts at all — a situation faced by numerous formerly well-connected people in America, whose government is now closed to them.

In its list of necessary demands, CAGE called for:

1) The government of the USA to fulfil its obligation towards these men who it imprisoned and abused without charge, trial or redress for 14 years. They must ensure beyond all reasonable doubt that they are safe from further arbitrary imprisonment and torture.

2) We also seek assurances on behalf of other ‘resettled’ former Guantanamo prisoners that they will not be subject to refoulement.

3) The US must ensure and monitor the provision of amenities for former prisoners who are resettled. The US must also guarantee that they have access to facilities that afford them a chance to engage in society in a meaningful way and are not left destitute and isolated. This means they must have access to language courses, housing, education, gainful employment, communicability, social interaction and freedom of movement. They must not also be unnecessarily harassed or intimidated by local authorities as has been the case in many instances.

4) In the case of the Libyan deportees, we call on the US to ensure that Omar Khalifa and Salim Ghereby are not imprisoned or tortured but are sent to places of their choice to live in safety.

5) The governments of USA and Senegal to be held accountable for the treatment of these men. We request full disclosure as to why and how the decision to breach international law was reached.

6) The Tunisian government must explain how it allowed the use of its airspace and airport facilities for the transfer of these men through their territory.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and see the latest photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (click on the following for Amazon in the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US), and for his photo project ‘The State of London’ he publishes a photo a day from six years of bike rides around the 120 postcodes of the capital.

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of a new documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June that killed over 70 people, and he also set up ‘No Social Cleansing in Lewisham’ as a focal point for resistance to estate destruction and the loss of community space in his home borough in south east London.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

A Devastating Condemnation of Guantánamo’s Military Commissions by Palestinian-American Journalist P. Leila Barghouty

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.

 

I wrote the following article  for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012, on the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, with the US attorney Tom Wilner. Please join us — just an email address is required to be counted amongst those opposed to the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, and to receive updates of our activities by email.

Six years and three months since Tom Wilner and I launched the Close Guantánamo campaign, we are becalmed in horribly unjust waters, with Donald Trump resolute that no one should leave the prison under any circumstances, and, as a result, 41 men held in what must appear to be a never-ending limbo, even though five of them were approved for release by high-level government review processes under President Obama, and another man, Ahmed al-Darbi, continues to be held despite being promised his release — to be re-imprisoned in Saudi Arabia — four years ago in a plea deal in his military commission trial.

Twenty-six other men are held indefinitely — and lawyers for some of them submitted a habeas corpus petition on their behalf on January 11, the 16th anniversary of the opening of the prison, on the basis that, as the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights explained, “[Donald] Trump’s proclamation against releasing anyone from Guantánamo, regardless of their circumstances, which has borne out for the first full year of the Trump presidency, is arbitrary and unlawful and amounts to ‘perpetual detention for detention’s sake.’”

The other men still held — nine in total — have been through the military commission process, or are facing trials, and this latter category of Guantánamo prisoner came under the spotlight recently in an article written for a new website, The Outline, by P. Leila Barghouty, a journalist and filmmaker based in New York City, whose work has appeared on Al Arabiya, National Geographic, Slate, CNN, Vice News and Netflix.

Barghouty spent a week at Guantánamo observing the latest pre-trial hearings for the five men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks, and we’re cross-posting her article below, as it shines a much-needed light on the inability of the military commission trial system to deliver justice.

In the pre-trial hearings that were the occasion for her visit, for example, the latest scandal involved two memos issued by the government to the defense teams last fall, which, as she put it, “said that if the defense attempted to independently interview members of the CIA, or travel to former black site locations to investigate the conditions of their clients’ torture and detention, they might face criminal charges themselves.” As she explained, “The government essentially paralyzed the defense’s ability to defend their clients.”

This absurd intervention in the 9/11 trial preceded another disaster — the complete collapse of the only other long-running military commission trial, that of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of masterminding the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, in which 17 US sailors died, and which I wrote about here.

One week at Gitmo

By P. Leila Barghouty, The Outline, March 19, 2018

Waiting for a trial that may never come.

Almost every part of Guantánamo Bay, the U.S. naval base on the southern coast of Cuba, is surprisingly underwhelming. A short ferry ride from Leeward Point Airfield at the nearby Guantánamo Naval Base is the dusty tent city where members of the media, non-government organizations (NGOs), and legal defense teams stay while attending hearings for the Guantánamo Military Commissions, which were ordered by President George W. Bush in 2002. Over the last six years, there have been 28 pre-trial hearings, meant to resolve legal questions before the five men alleged to be responsible for 9/11 actually go to trial. Each hearing lasts one or two weeks. In February, I went to Guantánamo for the latest one, in which defense and prosecution lawyers tried to hash out the minutiae of exactly how the accused will be tried.

In the 17 years since 9/11, no convictions have been made in the case against the so-called “9/11 Five”: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al Shibh, Ammar al Baluchi, and Mustafa Ahmad al Hawsawi. Since their renditions, the defendants have been held secretly by the CIA, tortured, moved from black sites to Guantánamo, taken to court, had their case thrown out, and then been taken to court again. Because so many aspects of this case are unprecedented — from the scale of the attacks to the use of torture — arguing the pre-trial details is taking far longer than it should.

Of all the alleged terrorism cases being tried by the government at Guantánamo Bay, the 9/11 case is the highest profile. Ten members of the media showed up for this hearing, including me, two eager college journalists, and a VICE camera crew. It was the largest cohort in a while. About 20 NGO workers also came down to report on the human-rights conditions and analyze the fairness of the system. Every session, a group of Victim Family Members (VFMs) are invited to observe court; the Office of Military Commissions offers trips for them by lottery. About a dozen were there for the week’s proceedings.

Visitors of the Military Commissions stay at Camp Justice, which is a 15-minute drive from the detention camps. Each group of outsiders has a designated public affairs officer and a group of Army sergeants to make sure everyone is fed, informed, and punctual for the entirety of their stay on the base. A Navy commander led our group through security, badging, and tent tours like it was orientation day at Camp Justice. In many ways it was, since it was the first time on a military base for several of us.

The party

The night before the hearing started, there was only one thing on the agenda: a house party.

There are five defense teams in Guantánamo for the hearing, one for each of the accused. Including lawyers, paralegals, translators, analysts, and other investigators, each team can have up to 20 members. Ammar al-Baluchi’s team is by far the most vocal and the most determined to keep the media up-to-date on the progress of the case. Al-Baluchi is accused of funding the hijackers and helping them travel to the U.S.; he was arrested in 2003 in Karachi, Pakistan. Before each hearing week begins, his defense team throws a barbecue, hosting NGO observers and members of the media. This time, the party happened at a two-story Guantánamo Naval Base townhouse that rents for around $50 a night. House-party staples lined the walls of the first floor — coolers filled with beer, a counter stacked with multi-colored plastic cups and bottles of hard liquor, and a table with several trays of fried food.

Once the group had obtained an acceptably light buzz, lawyers Alka Pradhan and James Connell III, al-Baluchi’s human rights counsel and lead defense counsel, respectively, gathered everyone into the living room. A somber tone immediately replaced the playfulness.

“We need you guys,” Connell said to the reporters in the room. Though everyone there was invested in what happens to the alleged plotters of 9/11, it was also clear they all believe their work has gone largely unnoticed, and they’re absolutely right. The case against the so-called “masterminds behind 9/11” has slipped so far under the radar that the one television crew that showed up to this hearing, from VICE, didn’t even know that they wouldn’t be able to film the detainees (even though the “Media Ground Rules” form they had to sign clearly states such images “must be avoided for reasons of national security”).

In their remarks to the partygoers, Connell and Pradhan stressed that the CIA’s torture of al-Baluchi has completely tainted the possibility of him getting a fair trial. Connell waxed poetic about the flaws of Military Commissions and the inhumanity with which the detainees have been treated. His speech is filled with with such confidence and conviction that some of the younger reporters and NGO workers looked wide-eyed and inspired. A legal fellow from Human Rights First said quietly to a colleague, “it feels like we’re in the Twilight Zone, doesn’t it?”

The party ended at exactly 9 p.m., when the Army sergeant assigned to escort us after-hours said it was time to go back to our tents.

The procession

The hearing was slated to begin around 9:00 a.m. At 8:15, media started taking their seats in the gallery at the back of the courtroom, which is separated by three panes of soundproof glass meant to keep any classified information from ever leaving the building. For this reason, a row of closed-circuit televisions in the gallery play images and audio from the courtroom at a 40-second delay.

Each of the 9/11 Five slipped one by one into the makeshift courtroom of the trailer-like Expeditionary Legal Complex as we waited for the hearing to begin. As “high-value detainees,” or HVDs, every move the Five make is carefully restricted. They’re completely segregated from the rest of the detention center, and are allowed fewer privileges than some of the “low-value detainees,” who can channel-surf a limited list of programming from communal cell blocks.

On the other side of the Expeditionary Legal Complex’s walls is a sniper-netted outdoor enclosure in which five identical freight-container-sized metal boxes sit parallel to one another. These are the Five’s cells. Inside each is everything a detainee needs, at least according to the Bureau of Prison’s standards for long-term confinement. There’s a three-inch thick cushion on a hard platform about two feet off the ground. A thick layer of chipped yellowing paint coats the cell from floor to ceiling, the monotone broken only by a black arrow stamped across the floor. It faces Mecca. A stainless-steel toilet and a tiny hand sink sit in the far right corner of the cell, just underneath a security camera meant to capture each detainee’s every move.

During a tour of the facilities, John Imhof, the officer who oversees operations at the commissions, said that the detainees often cover the camera with toilet paper when they go to the bathroom. He said, since the toilet paper only partially obstructs the guards’ view, the detainees are usually allowed a fleeting moment of perceived privacy.

Walid bin Attash was the first to enter the courtroom on day one. He’s accused of running the Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan that two of the 9/11 hijackers attended. He’s also alleged to have been selected to be a hijacker himself. To the surprise of several first-timers watching from the sound-proof gallery, he wasn’t wearing the iconic Guantanamo orange jumpsuit. Years ago, the defense won their clients the right to dress in an outfit of their choosing during court proceedings. Bin Attash wore a camo jacket and a white headdress. He looked more tired and aged than someone just shy of 40 years old should. When the gloved guards let go of him, he carefully draped a scarf over the computer on the table in front of him — a keffiyeh, complete with an image of the Dome of the Rock and a Palestinian flag.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged conceiver of the 9/11 plot who is thought to have pitched the idea to Osama bin Laden, was next. The accused sit in rows of tables in the order of most-to-least charged; Mohammed is always at the first table. He also wore a camo jacket, which was rumored to have been purchased for him at Sears. His face was framed by a long, coarse, neon-orange beard; it’s unclear how he keeps the color so vivid. He calmly sat down, immediately greeting his team with a polite smile and what looked like friendly chatter. The accused speak English, but they’re provided with a live Arabic feed of the proceedings, as well as their own interpreter. When asked to address the court, they usually speak in Arabic.

Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Ammar al-Baluchi filtered in next. Al-Hawsawi is accused of helping finance the hijackers, and al-Shibh is accused of financing and helping them find flight schools. The Five greeted one another and their teams. On the ground at their feet were heavy chains, there in case they needed to be restrained to the floor. To the dismay of some of the 9/11 victim family members watching from the gallery, none of the Five were shackled.

Just outside the courtroom, a uniformed military police guard seemed to be losing his patience with a three-foot iguana that was determined to squeeze into the detainee enclosure. As it attempted to slip through a gap between sniper netting and chain link fence, the officer gave it a swift kick in the face.

Order in the court

Colonel James Pohl has been the presiding judge over case for the last six years. He sat at the front of the room with a permanent look of baseline annoyance. Though it was on the minds of everyone there, the judge only briefly touched on the recent firing of the Convening Authority, Harvey Rishikof, who was suddenly dismissed by Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis earlier in the month. The Convening Authority oversees the entirety of the Military Commissions, thus Rishikof’s firing has created a huge hole in the court’s management. The defense is left uncertain, as the Convening Authority has the power to determine funding and change several aspects of the war court’s process. Judge Pohl offered no satiating explanation as to why Rishikof was let go. Then, he opened the floor.

David Nevin, the Boise-based lead counsel for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, took to the microphone. “Mr. Mohammad, at this point, is being represented by counsel who are laboring under a conflict,” Nevin said. “Who are forced to choose between following the government’s rules about investigation on the one hand or, on the other, following our obligation that’s clearly articulated in the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Nevin was referring to the issue that ended up dominating the week’s proceedings. In fall of last year, the government issued two game-changing memos to the defense teams. The documents said that if the defense attempted to independently interview members of the CIA, or travel to former black site locations to investigate the conditions of their clients’ torture and detention, they might face criminal charges themselves. The government essentially paralyzed the defense’s ability to defend their clients.

As of January, al-Baluchi’s defense team had interviewed at least 75 witnesses who would have been prohibited under the prosecution’s limitations. Fearing prosecution, al-Baluchi’s lead counsel felt compelled to issue a memo to his own team, putting a halt on investigations into al-Baluchi’s case. Though all members of the defense team, civilians included, have top-secret clearance, the government has repeatedly denied them access to evidence, records, and other materials that they believe to be essential to their ability to defend their client.

As an act of de-facto protest, Nevin barely spoke at the hearing for the rest of the week. When another defense team made a point he agreed with, he said things like, “We would like to be heard on it, but, as we advised you earlier, we’re laboring under a conflict and therefore are not going to speak to it at this time.”

Though Judge Pohl has made no formal ruling on the prohibition of the defense’s investigation, he did agree that the government’s original memos were inconsistent and difficult to understand. So he asked Jeffrey Groharing, a prosecution attorney, to clarify for the court.

Groharing, a major in the Marine Corps who looks like he could have been cast as the high-school quarterback in a John Hughes movie, stumbled over his words. Since he wasn’t able to give a clear answer, the judge ordered the prosecution to rewrite the guidance.

That was it. An entire day at the Guantánamo Bay Military Commissions. It felt as though almost no progress was made. Apparently, that’s normal.

Protecting humanity

“I don’t think that there is any real evidence that the government has at this point that is not tainted by his torture,” al-Balachi’s human rights counsel, Alka Pradhan, said to me during an after-hours conversation back at Camp Justice. Pradhan is a media favorite; she’s young, charismatic, and extremely knowledgeable on international law and torture. Last December, The New York Times ran a profile on her called “Alka Pradhan v. Gitmo,” cementing her celebrity status among Guantánamo nerds.

Pradhan’s team believes that the CIA’s Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation program (RDI) has caused so much damage — to her client as well as to the sanctity of the justice system — that it’s impossible to pursue any semblance of a fair trial. The RDI program was the CIA’s notorious torture program. In the periods between when the 9/11 defendants were arrested and eventually moved to Guantánamo, they were held at secret black sites all around the world. In the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA torture, some of the “enhanced interrogation methods” used on these men were described. Still, the government has spent six years of the 9/11 hearings blurring timelines, withholding facts, even unlawfully surveilling private attorney-client meetings. From an observer’s perspective, the cloud of frustration and hopelessness that permanently hangs over this case is exhausting.

Pradhan believes the defense is entitled to all the records of al-Baluchi’s time in CIA custody, “from capture to Guantánamo.” She told me the hardest thing to reconcile is the humanity of her client with the inhumanity of the government.

Naturally, the relationships between lawyers and defendants is complex. Connell said that his relationship with al-Baluchi was once so strained that the accused refused to speak to him for two years. Connell told me this story without a single drop of disdain, frustration, or grudge.

“He thought we were useless,” Connell said. “Every bad thing short of death that can be done to these men was done, what does he think a lawyer’s going to do for him?”

The nightcap

On our last night in Guantánamo, the smell of liquor and stale beer floated along the path towards the tents. On the NGO side, you could hear law students and human-rights workers yelling about how the military doesn’t understand Islam, and how the system needs to change. On the media side, veteran reporters swapped war stories and overplayed their cynicism. One young aspiring JAG officer yelled “FUCKIN’ QUOTE ME” at the top of his lungs in the direction of the media table.

Every single person — detainee, defense lawyer, prosecutor, journalist, NGO worker — seemed to truly believe in what they are doing. If one thing tied them all together, it was a deeply reflexive sense of conviction.

It’s absurd how, as Pradhan pointed out in court, even at the world’s most secure military detention center, mistakes are common. The government will get dates wrong. A news crew will think they can interview a high-value detainee. A lawyer will mistakenly share confidential information. It almost felt as though everyone involved is so utterly exhausted by the drawn-out process, there was no energy left to try and mitigate mistakes. After all, outside of the court staff and the few who came down to observe, nobody seems to care whether the 9/11 case ever goes to trial.

For Guantánamo Bay’s visitors, the last night at camp was punctuated by slurred speech and games of “fuck, marry, kill.” It was an effective way to transition back into our normal lives, where not many are eager to talk Al Qaeda, torture, and 9/11. Six short miles up the road, the men being charged for the worst day in modern American history were already back to their normal routines; sitting in isolated cells in orange jumpsuits, waiting for a trial that may never come.

Note: See here for the website of the artist Hokyoung Kim, whose illustration from The Outline graces the top of this article.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and see the latest photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (click on the following for Amazon in the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US), and for his photo project ‘The State of London’ he publishes a photo a day from six years of bike rides around the 120 postcodes of the capital.

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of a new documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June that killed over 70 people, and he also set up ‘No Social Cleansing in Lewisham’ as a focal point for resistance to estate destruction and the loss of community space in his home borough in south east London.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

Concrete Soldiers UK: Crowdfunding Campaign Continues for New Film Opposing Destruction of Social Housing, New Screenings Announced for April to June

Please support the crowdfunding campaign here!

Last year, the most significant event in the UK, to my mind, was the entirely preventable inferno that engulfed Grenfell Tower, a block of social housing in west London, killing over 70 people. Safety standards had been fatally eroded, in the search of easier profits, and the disaster put the spotlight firmly on central government, local government in Kensington and Chelsea, the management company responsible for the tower (and all of Kensington and Chelsea’s social housing), and the contractors involved in the refurbishment of the tower, all of whom had contributed to turning a safe block of social housing into a death trap.

In the wake of the disaster, I attended a powerful public meeting about the fire, called by ASH (Architects for Social Housing), tenacious defenders of social housing, where I met the filmmaker Nikita Woolfe, who filmed the event, and who was also making a documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the colossal but largely hidden threat to social housing that was also highlighted by the Grenfell disaster, which had shown how those living in social housing are regarded as second-class citizens by those who wield power in this country. 

Niki asked me to be the narrator of her film, and I was delighted to do so, as the film’s focus was of growing concern to me, as it examines the destruction — and the proposed destruction — of housing estates by councils shorn of funds by central government, who are entering into deals with private developers that involve the destruction of estates and their replacement with brand-new housing, pricing out existing tenants, and even offering such derisory amounts to leaseholders (those who bought their flats under Margaret Thatcher’s ‘Right to Buy’ policy) that they too are unable to afford to stay in the area. It is, to be blunt, social cleansing, and its proponents are driving what will be an epidemic if it is not resisted, in which tens of thousands — or hundreds of thousands — of Londoners will be driven from their homes, and variations on it are taking place across the whole of the UK.

Compounding the injustice of this social cleansing, the councils refuse to consider options — like those put forward by ASH — for refurbishment plans that can be paid for via infill building (additional building on existing sites), all the while pretending that tenants and leaseholders will be welcomed back to the new developments that replace their homes, when all the evidence from ‘regeneration’ programmes to date suggests that this is a blatant lie. Councils also claim that the new developments will reduce council waiting lists, but that too is untrue.

The film focuses in particular on two developments in south London — the destruction of the Aylesbury Estate in Southwark, and the proposed destruction of Central Hill Estate in Lambeth, both, it should be noted run by Labour councils, who are actually at the forefront of enthusiastic estate destruction. It also touches on the proposed destruction of another estate in Lambeth, Cressingham Gardens, and the destruction of the Heygate Estate in Southwark, a key stage in what some campaigners are now describing as “the London Clearances”, where Southwark Council entered into a deal with the international property developer Lendlease that has wiped out almost all social housing on the site. The Heygate site has now been renamed Elephant Park, and between them Lendlease and the council have socially cleansed the Elephant and Castle of almost all of the thousands of people who used to live there. Despite all this, the film also carries a hopeful message, and its focus on a successful campaign to prevent the destruction of a sheltered housing development in Streatham is an inspiring example of successful resistance.

‘Concrete Soldiers UK’ was launched at the Cinema Museum in Kennington in December, arriving as London’s housing crisis continued to demand attention — in Haringey, for example, where grassroots campaigners fought a successful battle against the Labour council entering into a housing deal with Lendlease that would have led to the destruction of numerous estates.

We have since had a handful screenings, in Deptford, Hackney Wick and Walthamstow, and have launched a crowdfunding campaign to enable us to take it out on the road and to produce a campaigning booklet detailing the pros and cons of resistance as we learn them from engagement with our audiences.

The link for the crowdfunding campaign is below. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’re interested in putting on a screening, and please be aware that one of the best ways to support us is to put on a screening and to make a donation to the crowdfunding campaign.

And below are the screenings that are currently confirmed — all over London, in Hastings, and in Edinburgh and Glasgow (as well as a film festival in Canada). We hope to see you somewhere along the way!

April 2018

Saturday April 14, 2018, 6pm: Screening of ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’ followed by Q&A with director Nikita Woolfe and Tania Charman

The Bridge Community Centre, 361 Priory Road, Hastings, East Sussex TN34 3NW.

This screening is organised by Heart of Hastings Community Land Trust, whose director, Tania Charman, attended the world premiere of ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’ at the Cinema Museum in Kennington, London SE11 on December 8, 2017.

The Facebook page is here.

Sunday April 15, 2018, 2pm: Screening of ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’ and ‘SA61-Home’ followed by Q&A with Nikita Woolfe and Wendy Charlton

Lordship Hub, Lordship Rec, off Higham Road, Tottenham, London, N17 6NU.

‘The screening of ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’ is also accompanied by a screening of SA61-Home’, an interview with a resident of the nearby Broadwater Farm Estate by local artist Wendy Charlton.

The event page is here, and the Facebook page is here.

Saturday April 21, 2018, 7pm: Screening of ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’ followed by Q&A with director Nikita Woolfe and narrator Andy Worthington

The Rotunda, Cressingham Gardens Estate, London SW2 2QG.

One of the estates featured in the film, Cressingham Gardens is at the forefront of the current resistance to estate destruction, as Lambeth Council vies with Southwark to be the most contemptuous of the needs of its social housing residents.

See a map here.

Sunday April 22, 2018, 4pm local time: Screening of ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’

Cinematheque, 100 Arthur Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3B 1H3. Part of the Architecture + Design Film Festival (A+DFF), now in its sixth year.

See the website here.

Tuesday April 24, 2018, 6.30pm: Screening of ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’ followed by Q&A with director Nikita Woolfe and narrator Andy Worthington

The Wash Houses, The Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design, London Metropolitan University, 16 Goulston Street, London E1 7TP (entrance via Old Castle Street).

Presentation by the Cass Cities programme, co-directed by Jane Clossick and Mark Brierley, and the MA Architecture and Urbanism.

See the event page here, and book here via Eventbrite. As the event page states, “These issues are what MA Architecture and Urbanism students deal with in their activist projects. Come and join us for a taster of the problems London faces.”

Monday April 30, 2018, 7pm: Screening of ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’ followed by Q&A with director Nikita Woolfe and narrator Andy Worthington. Part of the New Cross and Deptford Free Film Festival.

Sanford Housing Co-Op, 4 Sanford Walk, New Cross, London SE14 6NB.

There will also be representatives of local campaigns — to save old Tidemill Garden and Reginald House in Deptford, and Achilles Street in New Cross. Both campaigns are part of ‘No Social Cleaning in Lewisham’ that Andy set up last November to support the campaigns to defend social housing in the borough of Lewisham.

The event page is here, and the Facebook page is here.

The day before, Sunday April 29, there will be a day of short films and live music in Old Tidemill Garden, and on Sunday May 13 there’s a ‘No Social Cleansing in Lewisham’ gig at the New Cross Inn, featuring The Four Fathers, the Commie Faggots, Ukadelix, Jazzman John, Asher Baker, The Wiz-RD and the Strawberry Thieves Socialist Choir.

May 2018

Friday May 18, details to follow: Screening of ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’ followed by Q&A with director Nikita Woolfe and narrator Andy Worthington

The first date of a 3-day visit to Scotland by Niki and Andy.

Saturday May 19, 2pm-5pm, £5/£3: Screening of ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’ followed by Q&A with director Nikita Woolfe, narrator Andy Worthington and representatives of Living Rent

Kinning Park Complex, 43 Cornwall Street, Glasgow G41 1BA.

Screening organised by Living Rent Glasgow, part of Living Rent, a tenants’ union for Scotland, which describes itself as “a democratic organisation run by and for tenants.” As they state, “We want homes for people, not for profit; to redress the power imbalance between landlords and tenants; and ensure that everyone has decent and affordable housing. We believe in the collective power of tenants to come together to fight for their rights, and use diverse tactics – including direct action when necessary – to achieve this.”

Before the screening, there will be a radical art workshop run by Glasgow Art Group (GAG), “who have been active in community organising around housing”, where participants can “work together to produce artwork that also serves as a radical proposal against the onslaught of gentrification.”

The Facebook page for the event is here.

June 2018

Sunday June 3, 5pm, £3: Screening of ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’ and ‘Memories of Ladywell Baths’ followed by Q&A with director Nikita Woolfe and narrator Andy Worthington. Part of the Brockley Max Festival.

Good Hope Cafe, 261 Lewisham High Street, London SE13 6AY.

The screening of ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’ is at 5.30pm, and will be preceded by a screening of ‘Memories of Ladywell Baths’, about the currently derelict baths nearby, which “come back to life in this new, specially commissioned film by local filmmaker, David Stock, in collaboration with Lewisham Buildings Preservation Trust. From dance parties to boxing rings, midnight swims and floods, not to mention a few ghostly tales, hear the stories of this iconic building from those who were there.”

See the Brockley Max website here.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and see the latest photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (click on the following for Amazon in the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US), and for his photo project ‘The State of London’ he publishes a photo a day from six years of bike rides around the 120 postcodes of the capital.

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of a new documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June that killed over 70 people, and he also set up ‘No Social Cleansing in Lewisham’ as a focal point for resistance to estate destruction and the loss of community space in his home borough in south east London.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.