Andy Worthington's Blog, page 68

Four “High-Value Detainees” Have Their Ongoing Imprisonment at Guantánamo Upheld by Periodic Review Boards

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On September 8, as I reported here, Hassan bin Attash, a former child prisoner and the younger brother of a “high-value detainee,” became the 64th and last prisoner to have his case considered by a Periodic Review Board. Set up in 2013 to review the cases of all the prisoners who are not facing trials (just ten men) or who had not already been approved for release by an earlier review process (2009’s Guantánamo Review Task Force), the PRBs began in November 2013, and function like parole boards. If prisoners can demonstrate contrition, and can also demonstrate that they bear no malice towards the US, and have coherent post-release work plans, and, preferably, supportive families, then they can be recommended for release.

Noticeably, of the 64 prisoners whose cases have been considered, 33 — over half —have had their release approved (and 20 of those have been freed), while 23 others have had their ongoing imprisonment approved. Eight decisions have yet to be taken. See my definitive Periodic Review Board list on the Close Guantánamo website for further details.

At the time of Hassan bin Attash’s PRB, just 19 men had had their ongoing imprisonment approved, but in the last three weeks four more decisions were announced — all decisions to continue holding the men whose cases had been reviewed. Fundamentally, this was not a surprise — the four men were all “high-value detainees,” men held and tortured in CIA “black sites” before their arrival at Guantánamo, and although seven HVDs have had PRBs, none have yet been approved from release (the three others are awaiting decisions).

At the time of the Guantánamo Review Task Force, the seven HVDs had been recommended for prosecution, along with the eight other HVDs in custody at the time, and 21 other men. However, most of these prosecutions became regarded as untenable after two particularly crucial appeals court decisions in 2012 and 2013, when judges overturned some of the few convictions secured in Guantánamo’s military commission trial system on the basis that the war crimes for which the men had been convicted had been invented by Congress and were not legitimate.

As a result, 23 of the 36 men recommended for prosecutions were, instead, made eligible for PRBs, along with 41 other men who had been described by the task force as “too dangerous to release,” even though the task force had also recognized that insufficient evidence existed to put them on trial; in other words, that it was not evidence at all, but, in most cases, profoundly unreliable information produced by the prisoners themselves, or their fellow prisoners, often when abuse was widespread, or by men being held and tortured in “black sites.”

The PRBs have revealed a clear discrepancy between the two groups. While 27 out of 37 of those initially described as “too dangerous to release” have so far been approved for release, just six out of 19 of those initially recommended for prosecution have secured a similar result. All will be subjected to further reviews (see the end of this article for further information), but it is uncertain if it is wise, in most cases, to presume that the outcome would be any different, raising questions about how legitimate a parole-type process is for defending the ongoing imprisonment of men who, unlike those facing parole boards in the judicial system on the US mainland, have never been tried or convicted of any crime.

Malaysian “high-value detainees” have their ongoing imprisonment upheld

Of the four men whose ongoing imprisonment was upheld recently, the first two are the Malaysian “high-value detainees” Mohd Farik bin Amin aka Zubair (ISN 10021) and Bashir bin Lap (or Mohammed Bashir bin Lap) aka Lillie (ISN 10022), whose PRBs took place last month. The two are — or were — close associates of Hambali (Riduan Isamuddin), an Indonesian described by the US authorities as “an operational mastermind in the Southeast Asia-based Islamic extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI),” who “served as the main interface between JI and al-Qa’ida from 2000 until his capture in mid-2003.” Bin Lap was captured with Hambali, while bin Amin was seized two months earlier. Hambali is also held at Guantánamo, and also received a PRB last month.

Bin Amin (Zubair) was described as “fiercely loyal” to Hambali in his PRB, which did not augur well for a recommendation for release. Nor too did his lack of plans if he were to be released, but above all, I am sure, it was his apparently unreconstructed attachment to terrorism that would have led to the board recommending his ongoing imprisonment, and while I understand their point of view, I must say that I find it disappointing that the US authorities have not found a way for him to be prosecuted elsewhere if they cannot do so themselves.

In their final determination for his PRB, dated September 15, 2016, the review board members, having determined, by consensus, that “continued law of war detention of the detainee remains necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States,” explained that, in making their determination, they had “considered [his] involvement with senior al-Qa’ida leaders, to include agreeing to be a part of an al-Qa’ida suicide operation and facilitating transfers of funds used in terrorist attacks.”

They also “noted [his] susceptibility to recruitment by extremists due to his continued feeling of an obligation to defend and support oppressed Muslims,” and also “considered that [he] continues to believe that operations targeting the military are legitimate, including the attack on the USS Cole” (in 2000). They also remarked on “the lack of credible evidence of a change in mindset.”

On the positive side, the board members also recognized his “compliant behavior in detention, his large family and its ability to support him as well as his general candor regarding his past activities,” and it is conceivable that these aspects of his circumstances will become more significant as further reviews take place in the coming years.

In Bashir bin Lap’s case, the review board members also reached their decision on September 15, and in their final determination noted, as with bin Amin, that they had “considered [his] involvement with senior al-Qa’ida and JI leaders to include agreeing to be a part of a suicide operation and facilitating money transfers of funds used in terrorist attacks.”

They also “noted [his] susceptibility to recruitment due to his tendency to follow others, and the lack of information showing action on his part to separate himself from others with extremist views that he claims he no longer shares.” In addition, the board members “considered the complete lack of independent information regarding the views, willingness, and ability of [his] family to support him upon transfer and/or a potential government rehabilitation program available to him.”  They also “noted the lack of supporting evidence of a change in [his] mindset.”

In contrast, the board members also recognized his “general candor regarding his past activities and his acknowledgement of the challenges he would face in staying away from reengagement possibilities,” and, in conclusion, they stated that they looked forward to reviewing his file in six months, and, in the meantime, “strongly encourage[d] that efforts be made on his behalf to engage with his family and Malaysian government officials with regard to what would be in place if [he] was transferred.”

This was a considerably more positive outcome than in bin Amin’s case — in particular, it is clear, because bin Lap claimed he no longer shared extremist views, and, as a result, the board members were actively encouraging him, his family and the Malaysian authorities to get involved in establishing a credible plan for his life if he were to be released.

And in fact, no sooner had the result of the PRB been announced than the Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, was explaining that bin Lap “may be relocated to Malaysia but he will have to continue the deradicalization process in prison.” The Star Online reported that the deputy PM “said this was conveyed to him during a meeting [on September 21] with Lee Wolowsky, the United States Special Envoy for Guantánamo Closure.”

Libyan “high-value detainee” has his ongoing imprisonment upheld

The third decision taken by the Periodic Review Board members was to uphold the ongoing imprisonment of Abu Faraj al-Libi (ISN 10017), whose review also took place last month, as I wrote about here. Another of the 14 “high-value detainees” transferred to Guantánamo from CIA “black sites” in September 2006, he was one of the last HVDs to be seized, in Pakistan in May 2005.

The chances of al-Libi being approved for release were, to be frank, non-existent, in part because, according to the US authorities, in 2003 he “became al-Qa’ida’s general manager and third in command following the detainment of several senior al-Qa’ida leaders,” but also because he refused to attend his hearing, and it is impossible to be approved for release without engaging with the process. As with the Malaysians, however, the approval for his ongoing imprisonment makes me wonder why, if al-Libi was so significant, there is no untainted evidence that can be used to prosecute him.

The review board’s decision in al-Libi’s case was delivered on September 16, and in their final determination, the board members explained that they had “considered [al-Libi’s] involvement with al-Qa’ida to include acting as the group’s general manager and a trusted advisor for, and communications conduit to, Usama Bin Ladin [sic] and deputy amir Ayman al-Zawahiri,” and had also noted [his] continued statements supporting extremist activity, such as praising attacks against Western targets, to include 9/11, and expressing support for future attacks against Western civilian targets.” Finally, as noted above, the board members also noted that they were “unable to assess [his] credibility due to his decision not to participate in the hearing.”

The last prisoner to arrive at Guantánamo has his ongoing imprisonment upheld

The last of the recent decisions was to uphold the ongoing imprisonment of Muhammad Rahim (ISN 10029), an Afghan who was the last prisoner to arrive at Guantánamo, in March 2008. Also regarded as a “high-value detainee,” he has been described by the US authorities as “a close associate” of Osama bin Laden, and the military’s summary for his PRB also assessed that he “views his time in detention as a continuation of jihad,” and “claims the guard staff and the detainees’ lawyers are enemies,” although his attorney, Carlos Warner, a federal public defender for the Northern District of Ohio, has released letters from his client that tell a completely different story — of a man fascinated with US culture, and with a attractive sense of humor. “I like this new song Gangnam Style,” Rahim wrote a few years ago, adding, “I want to do the dance for you but cannot because of my shackles.”

In their final determination, issued on September 19, the board members stated that they had “considered that [Rahim] was a trusted member of al-Qa’ida who worked directly for senior members of al-Qa’ida, including Usama Bin Laden [sic], serving as a translator, courier, facilitator, and operative.” They also claimed that he “had advanced knowledge of many al-Qa’ida attacks, to include 9/11, and progressed to paying for, planning, and participating in the attacks in Afghanistan against US and Coalition targets.” I must note, in passing, that I find it highly unlikely that an Afghan, however trusted, would have been privy to advance discussions about the 9/11 attacks, which would have required considerable secrecy to ensure their success — and please see below for Carlos Warner’s thoughts on this matter.

In addition, the board members commented on Rahim’s “lack of candor and credibility regarding the specifics of his activities prior to detention,” which “make his current mindset and intentions difficult to assess,” and, in conclusion, noted the significance of his “refusal to take responsibility for his involvement with al-Qa’ida, his consistent and long-standing expressions of support for terrorist attacks against the US, his indifference to the impact of his prior actions,” adding that “his extensive extremist connections provide him a path to re-engagement.”

On the face of it, this is quite damning, but as Carlos Warner explained to the Miami Herald, the board “didn’t get the full picture” because he — Warner — “wasn’t allowed” to participate in his client’s hearing.” Warner said, “He had no knowledge about 9/11 in advance. He is being held because he was in a black site, not because of what he did. if he did those things, why didn’t they charge him?” — all valid comments and questions, with which I concur, and I hope that, in future reviews, Warner will be allowed to take part in his client’s PRB.

Further reviews scheduled

While we await the last eight decisions from the first round of the PRBs, it is important to note that further reviews are already being lined up. For those whose ongoing imprisonment is recommended, file reviews take place every six months, to which prisoners can submit any additional information they think is relevant, and full reviews, at which the prisoners can once more participate directly, are guaranteed every three years, although the four that have taken place to date — all of which have led to recommendations for the prisoners’ release — took place within two years.

Of particular interest is the file review for a Yemeni prisoner, Salman Yahya Hassan Mohammad Rabei’i (ISN 508), which took place on August 31 or September 1. Rabei’i’s PRB took place in July 2015, but it took ten months for the decision to uphold his ongoing imprisonment to be made. He had been, at most, an insignificant Taliban foot soldier, although the authorities had expressed doubts about their own intelligence regarding his movements and activities, and, following his file review it was stated, “After reviewing relevant new information related to the detainee as well as information considered during the full review, the Board, by consensus, determined that a significant question is raised as to whether the detainee’s continued detention is warranted and therefore an additional full review should be conducted.”

A date has not yet been set for this full review, but it seems reasonable to conclude that a decision will be taken to approve Rabei’i for release, based on information establishing his insignificance.

Other file reviews have also taken place recently, but no decisions have yet been announced — for Yassim Qasim Mohammad Ismail Qasim (ISN 522), whose review took place on August 31, for Mohammed Al-Ansi (ISN 029), whose review took place on September 13, and for Suhayl Abdul Anam al Sharabi (ISN 569), whose review took place on September 20.

Forthcoming are file reviews for Saifullah Paracha (ISN 1094) on September 27, Sharqawi Abdu Ali Al Hajj (ISN 1457) on October 4 and Khalid Ahmed Qasim (ISN 242), who has already had two file reviews, on October 18.

One full review has also been scheduled — for Moath Hamza Ahmed Al-Alwi aka Muaz al-Alawi (ISN 28) on October 18. This will also be a review worth watching, as al-Alawi, a Yemeni and a long-term hunger striker whose ongoing imprisonment was upheld last September, had a file review on April 14 this year, following which the board members stated that, “After reviewing relevant new information related to the detainee as well as information considered during the 22 September 2015 review, it was determined that a full hearing is warranted.”

Note: For a final story connected to the Periodic Review Boards, see this article in the Independent about how the transcript for the hearing for Ghassan al-Sharbi, whose PRB took place in June (leading to a decision in July to keep holding him), involved al-Sharbi telling the board that “he believed an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family was part of an effort to recruit him for violent extremist acts before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”

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 debut album ‘Love and War’ and EP ‘Fighting Injustice’ are available here to download or on CD via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and the Countdown to Close Guantánamo initiative, launched in January 2016), the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, which called for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison (finally freed on October 30, 2015), and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for 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).

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, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

Andy Worthington: An Archive of Guantánamo Articles and Other Writing – Part 19, July to December 2015

Please support my work! I’m currently trying to raise $2800 (£2100) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo for the next three months.

This article is the 19th in an ongoing series of articles listing all my work in chronological order. It’s a project I began in January 2010, when I put together the first chronological lists of all my articles, in the hope that doing so would make it as easy as possible for readers and researchers to navigate my work — the 2,690 articles I have published since I began publishing articles here in May 2007, which, otherwise, are not available in chronological order in any readily accessible form.

It is also a project for which I receive no funding, so, if you appreciate what I do as a reader-funded journalist and activist, please consider making a donation via the Paypal ‘Donate’ button above. Any amount, however large or small, will be very gratefully received.

I first began researching the Bush administration’s “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo, and the 779 men (and boys) held there almost exactly 11 years ago, in September 2005, and I began researching and writing about the prison and the prisoners on a full-time basis ten and a half years ago, in March 2006, when the Pentagon lost a FOIA lawsuit and was obliged to release 8,000 pages of documents relating to the prisoners, and which, I was surprised to learn, I was the only person in the world to analyze in depth. Initially, I spent 14 months researching and writing my book The Guantánamo Files, based on those documents, and, since May 2007, I have continued to write about the men held there, at first on a daily basis, and for the last few years every couple of days, as an independent investigative journalist, commentator and activist — for two and a half years under President Bush, and, shockingly, for what is now nearly eight years under President Obama.

As I note every time I put together a chronological list of my articles, my mission, as it has been since my research first revealed the scale of the injustice at Guantánamo, continues to revolve around four main aims — to humanize the prisoners by telling their stories; to expose the many lies told about them to supposedly justify their detention; to push for the prison’s closure and the absolute repudiation of indefinite detention without charge or trial as US policy; and to call for those who initiated, implemented and supported indefinite detention and torture to be held accountable for their actions.

The period covered by this 19th list, from July to December 2015, was not a particularly good period for the release of prisoners, as only non even were freed, but one in particular dominated my work throughout this period — Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison. The six-month period covered here began with an open letter to President Obama that was signed by over 90 celebrities and MPs including Sir Patrick Stewart OBE, Ralph Fiennes, Russell Brand, Roger Waters, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Richard E. Grant, Mark Rylance, Juliet Stevenson, David Morrissey, Frankie Boyle, Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and Michael Brearley, Boris Johnson (then the Mayor of London before his Brexit disgrace), two former Attorney Generals, Keir Starmer and Dominic Grieve, and the six MPs who led the cross-party Shaker Aamer Parliamentary Group: the co-chairs, John McDonnell (Lab.) and David Davis (Con.), and the four officers of the group: Andrew Mitchell (Con.), Jeremy Corbyn (Lab.), Caroline Lucas (Green) and Andy Slaughter (Lab.). At the time, of course, Jeremy Corbyn was not the beleaguered leader of the Labour Party, just what he had always been — like John McDonnell, one of Britain’s most hardworking MPs devoted to addressing all manner of injustices.

In September came the great news that Shaker was to be released, but then, following the revelation that he had embarked on a hunger strike, fearing that he wouldn’t be freed, Joanne McInnes and I, who headed the We Stand With Shaker campaign that was behind the open letter, launched another initiative, the Fast for Shaker, that maintained the pressure on the US and UK governments to secure his release.

In this period, I also covered the Periodic Review Boards that continued to assess the cases of men not already approved for release, and not facing trials, and, when time allowed, I also covered other aspects of British politics, as well as promoting the music of my band The Four Fathers, whose first album was released in July.

July 2015

1. Guantánamo, Periodic Review Boards: Abdul Rahman Shalabi, Guantánamo Hunger Striker for Ten Years, Is Approved for Release to Saudi Arabia

2. Shaker Aamer: Over 90 Celebrities and MPs Sign Open Letter to President Obama Calling for Shaker Aamer’s Release from Guantánamo on US Independence Day

3. Guantánamo campaigns: Write to the Guantánamo Prisoners, Don’t Let Them Be Forgotten

4. Guantánamo, hunger strikes, US courts: US Judge Orders Release of Guantánamo Force-Feeding Tapes, Condemns Government Delays

5. Guantánamo, military commissions, US courts: Despite His Conviction Being Quashed Three Times, Guantánamo Prisoner Ali Hamza Al-Bahlul Remains in Solitary Confinement

6. Torture: Report Damns American Psychological Association for Collusion in US Torture Program

7. Shaker Aamer: Please Ask Your MP to Join the Shaker Aamer All-Party Parliamentary Group, Working to Secure Shaker’s Release from Guantánamo

8. Guantánamo, Periodic Review Boards: 16th Guantánamo Prisoner Seeks Release Via Periodic Review Board

August 2015

9. Closing Guantánamo: Does President Obama Still Have a Plan for Closing Guantánamo?

10. Guantánamo, hunger strikes, US courts: Tariq Ba Odah, Hunger Strikes, and Why the Obama Administration Must Stop Challenging Guantánamo Prisoners in Court

11. Guantánamo, US courts: War Is Over, Set Us Free, Say Guantánamo Prisoners; Judge Says No

12. Shaker Aamer: Ignoring President Obama, the Pentagon Blocks Shaker Aamer’s Release from Guantánamo

13. Guantánamo, hunger strikes: Disgraceful US Justice Department Secretly Blocks Release from Guantánamo of Gravely Ill Hunger Striker Tariq Ba Odah

14. Prisoners released from Guantánamo: Fayiz Al-Kandari, the Last Kuwaiti in Guantánamo, and a Saudi Prisoner Ask Review Boards to Send Them Home

15. UK anti-terror laws: The Shocking Story of Y: Imprisoned in the UK Without Charge or Trial on the Basis of Secret Evidence Since 2003

16. Guantánamo: Yemeni Prisoner Zaher Hamdoun Says He Is “Buried in a Grave Called Guantánamo”

17. New Orleans floods: Watch Spike Lee’s “When the Levees Broke” for the 10th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, When US Racism Was Openly Revealed

September 2015

18. Guantánamo, Periodic Review Boards: Mohammed Kamin, an Insignificant Afghan Prisoner in Guantánamo, Asks Review Board to Recommend His Release

19. Solitary confinement: Huge Victory for Prison Reform as California Ends Indeterminate Long-Term Solitary Confinement

20. Life after Guantánamo: Life After Guantánamo: Attorney Tells the Story of a Father and Son Freed, But Separated By 1,850 Miles

21. Omar Khadr: Former Guantánamo Prisoner Omar Khadr Asks for Bail Conditions to be Eased So He Can Visit His Family

22. Shaker Aamer: Labour Frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn Joins Cross-Party Signatories on Early Day Motion Calling for Shaker Aamer’s Release from Guantánamo

23. 9/11, Guantánamo: 14 Years After 9/11, It’s Time for Guantánamo to Be Closed

24. Shaker Aamer: “The More We Get Close to What We Want, The Farther It Goes”: Shaker Aamer’s Endlessly Thwarted Hope of Being Released from Guantánamo

25. Guantánamo, Periodic Review Boards: Seriously Ill Libyan Approved for Release from Guantánamo by Periodic Review Board

26. Prisoners released from Guantánamo: Fears for Guantánamo Prisoner Released in Morocco But Held Incommunicado in a Secret Location

27. Omar Khadr: On Omar Khadr’s 29th Birthday, Bail Conditions Eased; Allowed to Visit Grandparents, and Electronic Tag Removed

28. Guantánamo, Periodic Review Boards: Periodic Review Board Approves Release of Fayiz Al-Kandari, the Last Kuwaiti in Guantánamo

29. Shaker Aamer, protest music: Andy Worthington’s Band The Four Fathers Release ‘Song for Shaker Aamer’ as Download: 25% of Takings to Go to Shaker’s Family

30. Shaker Aamer, protest music: Video: On RT, Andy Worthington Discusses Release of ‘Song for Shaker Aamer’ and the Failure to Free Him from Guantánamo

31. Prisoners released from Guantánamo: Abdul Rahman Shalabi, Long-Term Hunger Striker, Repatriated from Guantánamo to Saudi Arabia

32. Shaker Aamer: Wonderful News! Shaker Aamer to be Released from Guantánamo – Finally!

33. Torture: 28 Veterans of US Intelligence Fight Back Against CIA Claims That the Bush Torture Program Was Useful and Necessary

34. Shaker Aamer, protest music: Video: Andy Worthington’s Band The Four Fathers Launch YouTube Channel, Play ‘Song for Shaker Aamer’ Unplugged

35. Shaker Aamer: Radio: Andy Worthington Discusses the Imminent Release of Shaker Aamer from Guantánamo with Scott Horton

36. Protest music, Guantánamo: Andy Worthington’s Band The Four Fathers Release ‘Love and War’ Album for Download, With Songs About Guantánamo, Torture, Austerity and Love

37. Guantánamo, Periodic Review Boards: 97-Pound Yemeni Hunger Striker Appears Before Periodic Review Board As Saudi is Approved for Release from Guantánamo

October 2015

38. Shaker Aamer: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Truth, Lies and Distortions in the Coverage of Shaker Aamer, Soon to be Freed from Guantánamo

39. Shaker Aamer: Shaker Aamer’s Latest Words from Guantánamo; On a Hunger Strike, Fearful That He Won’t See His Family Again

40. Shaker Aamer: Radio: Andy Worthington Discusses Shaker Aamer, the Closure of Guantánamo and His Band The Four Fathers with Peter B. Collins

41. Life after Guantánamo: Former Guantánamo Prisoner Betrayed by Morocco: Are Diplomatic Assurances Worthless?

42. Guantánamo, Periodic Review Boards: Fan of Shakira, Taylor Swift and Game of Thrones Asks Review Board to Free Him from Guantánamo, As an Afghan is Approved for Release

43. Shaker Aamer: Fast For Shaker: New Campaign Launched – Please Join Celebrities and MPs Fasting in Solidarity with Shaker Aamer, on a Hunger Strike in Guantánamo

44. Guantánamo media: How Laurie Anderson Brought Guantánamo to New York

45. Shaker Aamer: Video: Andy Worthington Discusses Shaker Aamer, Guantánamo and Fast For Shaker on the Victoria Derbyshire Show on BBC2

46. Shaker Aamer: Fast For Shaker: Press Launch of New Campaign in Solidarity with Shaker Aamer, on a Hunger Strike in Guantánamo, London, Thursday 15th October

47. Shaker Aamer: Video: Andy Worthington Discusses the Fast For Shaker Campaign on London Live

48. Shaker Aamer: Photos: Fast For Shaker Press Launch – MPs and Campaigners Show Solidarity with Shaker Aamer, on a Hunger Strike in Guantánamo

49. Shaker Aamer: Video: Andy Worthington Speaks to RT at the Launch of Fast For Shaker in London on October 15

50. Shaker Aamer: Fast For Shaker Supporters Encourage Shaker Aamer to End Hunger Strike, Maintain Pressure to Get Him Home By October 25

51. Torture, protest music: Video: Andy Worthington’s Band The Four Fathers Play “81 Million Dollars” About the US Torture Program, Calling for Bush, Cheney and Others to be Held Accountable

52. Shaker Aamer: Five Days to Go: The Countdown to Shaker Aamer’s Release from Guantánamo

53. Life after Guantánamo: Guantánamo’s Tainted Evidence: US Government Publicly Concedes Its Case Against Ex-Prisoner Facing Trial in Morocco Collapsed in 2011

54. Shaker Aamer: Radio: Andy Worthington Speaks to Anastasia Kyriacou About Guantánamo, We Stand With Shaker and Fast For Shaker

55. Guantánamo, hunger strikes, US courts: Obama’s Mixed Messages on Guantánamo, as Justice Department Tells Judge Not to Intervene in Case of 75-Pound Hunger Striker at Risk of Death

56. Shaker Aamer: Shaker Aamer’s 5000th Day in Guantánamo – and My 2500th Post

57. Shaker Aamer: Clive Stafford Smith’s Fast For Shaker Aamer Hunger Strike Diary

58. Shaker Aamer: Photos: Shaker Aamer’s 5000th Day in Guantánamo – Vigil Outside 10 Downing Street, October 24, 2015

59. Shaker Aamer: Keep Up the Fast For Shaker Aamer, As Foreign Office and State Department Say Release Delayed Until Late This Week or Early Next Week

60. Guantánamo, President Obama, US Senate: Finally, President Obama Vetoes Defense Bill That Contains Onerous Guantánamo Restrictions

61. Shaker Aamer, prisoners released from Guantánamo: Shaker Aamer Finally Freed from Guantánamo: We Stand With Shaker Responds to the News

62. Shaker Aamer: Shaker Aamer’s Statement on His Release from Guantánamo

November 2015

63. Shaker Aamer: WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Roger Waters Writes About the Release of Shaker Aamer from Guantánamo

64. Shaker Aamer: Shaker Aamer, Freed from Guantánamo, Is Reunited With His Family

65. Shaker Aamer, protest music: Video: Andy Worthington’s Band The Four Fathers Play New Version of ‘Song for Shaker Aamer’ Reflecting His Release from Guantánamo

66. Shaker Aamer: Andy Worthington’s TV and Radio Appearances Following the Release of Shaker Aamer from Guantánamo

67. Shaker Aamer, protest music: ‘Song for Shaker Aamer’ by Andy Worthington’s Band The Four Fathers is ‘Protest Song of the Week’ on Kevin Gosztola’s Shadowproof

68. Prisoners released from Guantánamo: Mauritanian, Cleared for Release Since 2009, Finally Repatriated from Guantánamo

69. Life after Guantánamo: Moroccan Released from Guantánamo Facing Kangaroo Court Trial Back Home As Wife Says She Is “Still Living a Nightmare”

70. Shaker Aamer: Responses to Shaker Aamer’s Release from Guantánamo – from MPs, and a Poignant and Powerful Article by Cori Crider of Reprieve

71. Guantánamo, Periodic Review Boards: Eroding Hyperbole: The Steady Reclassification of Guantánamo’s “Forever Prisoners”

72. Shaker Aamer, Ahmed Errachidi: Chef Held at Guantánamo Calls Shaker Aamer a “Beautiful, Great Man” But Warns of Difficulties Adapting to Freedom

73. Shaker Aamer: Radio: Andy Worthington Discusses the Release of Shaker Aamer from Guantánamo with Richie Allen

74. Shaker Aamer: First Photos Published of Shaker Aamer Since His Release from Guantánamo

75. Shaker Aamer: A Photo and a Message from Shaker Aamer to His Supporters

76. Shaker Aamer: Radio: Andy Worthington Discusses Shaker Aamer’s Release and the Future of Guantánamo with Scott Horton and Peter B. Collins

77. Protest music: Podcast: Andy Worthington of The Four Fathers Interviewed About Protest Music By Kevin Gosztola of Shadowproof

78. Prisoners released from Guantánamo: Five Yemenis Freed from Guantánamo, Given New Homes in the United Arab Emirates

79. Closing Guantánamo: Playing Politics with the Closure of Guantánamo

80. Shaker Aamer: Radio: Andy Worthington and Debra Sweet of the World Can’t Wait Discuss Shaker Aamer and Closing Guantánamo with Cat Watters

81. Shaker Aamer: We Stand With Shaker’s 1st Anniversary, 100 Celebrity Photos and a Vigil on Thursday

82. Pacifism: Please Listen to Benjamin Ferencz, the Last Nuremberg Prosecutor, Explain His Implacable Opposition to War

December 2015

83. Guantánamo media: A Hunger for Justice at Guantánamo as Witness Against Torture Video of Thanksgiving Fast Gets 900,000 Views

84. Guantánamo, Periodic Review Boards: Presenting the First Annotated List of the 64 Guantánamo Prisoners Eligible for Periodic Review Boards

85. Life after Guantánamo: Haji Ghalib, the Afghan Freed from Guantánamo Who Is Now Fighting Isis and the Taliban

86. Guantánamo, Periodic Review Boards: For Review at Guantánamo, DoD Acknowledges That 20th “Forever Prisoner” Is Case of Mistaken Identity, As He Seeks Release

87. Shaker Aamer, protest music: In London, Andy Worthington Discusses Shaker Aamer and Guantánamo, and His Band The Four Fathers Play Three Gigs

88. Human Rights Day: On Human Rights Day, A Call for the US to Close Guantánamo, and for the UK to Defend the Human Rights Act

89. Shaker Aamer: Shaker Aamer Speaks: First Newspaper Interview Since Release from Guantánamo, in the Mail on Sunday

90. Shaker Aamer: Shaker Aamer Discusses His 13 Years in Guantánamo, Built to “Destroy Human Beings,” and Adjusting to Freedom Since His Release

91. Guantánamo, Periodic Review Boards: Zahir Hamdoun, the 21st Guantánamo Prisoner Seeking Release Via A Periodic Review Board

92. Shaker Aamer: Video: After Guantánamo, Shaker Aamer’s 90-Minute BBC Interview with Victoria Derbyshire

93. Shaker Aamer: Video: Andy Worthington and Joanne MacInnes Discuss the Success of We Stand With Shaker on George Galloway’s Sputnik Show on RT

94. Shaker Aamer: Video: Andy Worthington Discusses Guantánamo, Shaker Aamer and We Stand With Shaker at Deptford Cinema, Dec. 18, 2015

95. Shaker Aamer, protest music: Video: Andy Worthington’s Band The Four Fathers Play “Song For Shaker Aamer” at Deptford Cinema, Dec. 18, 2015

96. Closing Guantánamo: President Obama on Closing Guantánamo

An archive of articles about British politics, July to December 2015

1. Protest music: Buy It Here! Love and War, the Debut Album by Andy Worthington’s Band The Four Fathers Launches Today

2. Austerity: George Osborne’s Savage Cuts to Some of the UK’s Most Vulnerable People in His ‘Emergency Budget’

3. Music festivals: Photos: Mud and Magic at WOMAD 2015

4. Jeremy Corbyn, CND: Photos: Jeremy Corbyn at CND’s Hiroshima Day 70th Anniversary Ceremony in Tavistock Square

5. Refugee crisis: As the Death of Three-Year Old Syrian Refugee Aylan Kurdi Appals All Decent People, Please Sign the E-Petition Asking the UK Government to Accept More Refugees

6. Jeremy Corbyn, refugee crisis: Report and Photos: The Massive March for Refugees in London – and Jeremy Corbyn’s Victory

7. John McDonnell: “This Is The New Politics”: John McDonnell’s Inspiring Speech to the Labour Party Conference Includes Announcement of Establishment of Powerful Left-Wing Economic Advisory Board

8. Protest music: Video: Andy Worthington’s Band The Four Fathers Play ‘Tory Bullshit Blues’ Unplugged

9. Syria: Labour’s Dilemma: What Should Be Done with the 66 MPs Who Voted with the Tories to Approve Airstrikes in Syria?

10. Protest music, books: For Christmas, Buy My Books on the UK Counter-Culture and Guantánamo and My Music with The Four Fathers

11. Protest music: Videos: Andy Worthington’s Band The Four Fathers Play “Fighting Injustice” and “She’s Back”

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 debut album ‘Love and War’ and EP ‘Fighting Injustice’ are available here to download or on CD via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and the Countdown to Close Guantánamo initiative, launched in January 2016), the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, which called for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison (finally freed on October 30, 2015), and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for 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).

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, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

Not Fit for Purpose: The Ongoing Failure of Guantánamo’s Military Commissions

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Please support my work! I’m currently trying to raise $2800 (£2100) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo for the next three months.

In the 15 years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States has systematically undermined many of the key values it claims to uphold as a nation founded on and respecting the rule of law, having embraced torture, indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial, trials of dubious legality and efficacy, and extra-judicial execution.

The Bush administration’s torture program — so devastatingly exposed in the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report into the program, published in December 2014 — no longer exists, but no one has been held accountable for it. In addition, as the psychologist and journalist Jeffrey Kaye has pointed out, although ostensibly outlawed by President Obama in an executive order issued when he took office, the use of torture is permitted, in particular circumstances, in Appendix M of the Army Field Manual.

When it comes to extrajudicial execution, President Obama has led the way, disposing of perceived threats through drone attacks — and although drones were used by President Bush, it is noticeable that their use has increased enormously under Obama. If the rendition, torture and imprisonment of those seized in the “war on terror” declared after the 9/11 attacks raised difficult ethical, moral and legal questions, killing people in drone attacks — even in countries with which the US is not at war, and even if they are US citizens — apparently does not trouble the conscience of the president, or the US establishment as a whole.

As for indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial, and trials of dubious legality and efficacy, both are hallmarks of Guantánamo, and while the prison’s operations are winding down and only 61 men are still held (with 20 of those 61 having also been approved for release), the fate of the remaining 41 men remains of concern.

23 have had their ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial approved in the last few years by Periodic Review Boards (and eight others are awaiting the results of their reviews), but whether they remain at Guantánamo, or whether President Obama, or his successor, succeeds in moving them to the US mainland so that Guantánamo itself can be closed, the basis of their imprisonment remains as troublesome as detentions at Guantánamo have been all along.

If any of these men have allegedly committed crimes (i.e. terrorism), then they should be prosecuted — in federal court, where there is a proven track record of dealing appropriately with those accused of terrorism. If, however, they are soldiers being held off the battlefield, then they should be held in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, and judges should be able to examine whether or not their imprisonment is lawful; in other words, although they can be held until the end of hostilities, is it appropriate to say that hostilities are still ongoing, nearly 15 years after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan began?

For ten other men, trials — or pre-trial charges, at least — have been forthcoming, but in a forum that, as I noted above, involves “trials of dubious legality and efficacy” — specifically, the military commissions that have struggled to establish any legitimacy since they were first revived by Dick Cheney in November 2001. Cheney’s intention, with the support of his senior lawyer, David Addington, was to create kangaroo court trials for “war on terror” prisoners subjected to torture, who could be swiftly and unfairly tried and then imprisoned or executed.

The first version of the commissions limped on until June 2006, when the Supreme Court ruled that the entire trial system lacked “the power to proceed because its structures and procedures violate both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949.” Undeterred, the Bush administration persuaded Congress to revive the trials, and they were revived again under President Obama in 2009, although on both occasions wise voices pointed out (see here and here) that because Congress had invented war crimes that were triable by military commission — instead of allowing men to be prosecuted in federal court, where, for example, the most basic charge, providing material support for terrorism, was actually a crime — any convictions secured were likely to be overturned on appeal.

And this is indeed what has happened. Of just eight convictions secured in the commissions’ long and inglorious history, four have been overturned (of Salim Hamdan, David Hicks, Noor Uthman Muhammed, and Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, who is still held), and the legitimacy of two others (Omar Khadr and Ibrahim al-Qosi) is open to question. The only results that have survived intact, in any meaningful sense, are plea deals negotiated by two men who are still held — Majid Khan and Ahmed al-Darbi.

As I explained in March 2014, when I put together my Full List of Prisoners Charged in the Military Commissions at Guantánamo, Khan “accepted a plea deal on February 29, 2012, in which, in exchange for a guilty plea, he will apparently receive a 19-year sentence, although that will not be delivered until four years after his trial,” and al-Darbi “accepted a plea deal on February 20, 2014, in which, in exchange for a guilty plea, he ‘will spend at least three and a half more years at Guantánamo before he is sentenced,’ and will then probably be transferred to Saudi Arabia to serve out the remainder of a sentence that is expected to be between nine to 15 years, ‘depending on his behavior in custody,’ as the New York Times described it.”

Both men’s plea deals were contingent on them providing testimony in other trials, but as is apparent from Khan’s story, he was supposed to be sentenced in February this year, but has not yet testified, because the trials that are still proceeding — for five men charged in connection with the 9/11 attacks, including Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, and for Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi — appear to be endlessly mired in a pre-trial limbo to which a solution is far from obvious. All were held in CIA “black sites,” and all but al-Iraqi (who arrived at Guantánamo in 2007), were amongst the 14 “high-value detainees” who arrived at Guantánamo in September 2006, when President Bush first conceded publicly that a “black site” program had existed.

And the reason for these seemingly interminable delays? Well, to put it bluntly, the problem is that these men were all subjected to torture, and although much of their story has emerged (not least in the Senate Intelligence Committee report), the government and its prosecutors continue to want all evidence of torture to be suppressed, while the defence lawyers, understandably, insist that trials cannot proceed without torture evidence being produced.

Add to this the fact that the entire commission system — a kind of legal Frankenstein’s Monster — is full of holes that impede the smooth process that could be expected in federal court, and an array of other problems — the defence teams’ persistent problems with securing full discovery of relevant materials, and the tendency of various agencies to try to undermine the entire process, through bugging, spying and destroying evidence, for example, and it becomes apparent that, as I explained in my title for this article, the commissions are not fit for purpose, and should be scrapped and replaced with federal court trials.

In an article to follow, I’ll look at the latest developments in the commissions over the last few weeks — in the case of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, and in the case of Majid Khan, whose sentencing delay can be attributed directly to the glacially slow progress of the entire commission process — but for now, having written little about the commissions for the last two years (since my July 2014 articles, The 9/11 Trial at Guantánamo: The Dark Farce Continues and More Farcical Proceedings at the Military Commissions in Guantánamo — and also see “America’s Shame,” Rolling Stone’s Detailed – and Damning – Article About Guantánamo, from February this year), I intend to catch up on the current situation via a Washington Post article from two weeks ago, “The Guantánamo quagmire: Still no trial in sight for 9/11 suspects,” written by Missy Ryan and published on the 10th anniversary of the arrival of the 14 “high-value detainees” at Guantánamo, which I wrote about here.

The Washington Post’s view of the military commissions

Ryan began by noting how, when George W. Bush announced in September 2006 that 14 “high-value detainees” had arrived at Guantánamo, Col. Morris Davis, the military commissions’ chief prosecutor, “heralded it as a sign of the government’s commitment to attaining justice.” For Davis, as the Post described it, “the end of the suspects’ detention at secret CIA prisons overseas promised a credible legal reckoning in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.”

Speaking to the lawyers on his team, Davis “offer[ed] as a model [for the commissions] the prosecution of Nazi officials that followed World War II,” and said, “I want our grandchildren to look at Guantánamo the way we look back at Nuremberg.” He explained that he an this team “felt we had the ability to conduct these trials in a way that . . . the country would be proud of.”

Ten years later, however, as I also pointed out in my recent article, none of the 14 “high value detainees” have been convicted or sentenced (and Davis resigned in 2007 after he was placed directly in a chain of command under Jim Haynes, the Pentagon’s senior lawyer who approved the use of torture). Proceedings against the five men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks and of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri are “moving so slowly in preliminary proceedings” that the 9/11 trial “is expected to begin at the earliest in 2020, nearly 20 years after hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.”

And yet, in this same period, as Ryan also noted, “hundreds of terrorism suspects have been convicted in federal courts, including members of al-Qaeda captured overseas,” but because Congress “has barred the Obama administration from moving any Guantánamo detainees into the United States, which leaves offshore military commissions as the only legal process available to prosecute them,” and because Obama himself backed down, when faced with criticism, from plans to hold the 9/11 trial in New York (and because, ill-advisedly, he had also revived the commissions at the same time as announcing the 9/11 trial), the broken commission system has been the only venue available for prosecutions of those held at Guantánamo.

As Ryan also noted, with some understatement, the commissions have also been “plagued from the start by detours and scandals, including the legacy of the use of torture against detainees, an FBI attempt to penetrate a defense team and the unexplained censoring of court deliberations, believed to be the work of the CIA,” and while she acknowledged “President Obama’s effort to improve the commissions by giving inmates greater due process,” she also noted that “legal experts and lawyers who have been involved in the trials say the system may be irreparably flawed,” with some lawyers adding that, “even if the cases can be concluded, the process is now seen as so tainted that those verdicts may be publicly dismissed.”

As Richard Kammen, a civilian defense lawyer for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, explained, “The fact that we are here in 2016, probably further from trial than we were in 2011, tells you that this is an experiment that failed.”

Ryan also pointed out how Guantánamo’s location “has been an important factor in slowing the pace of the trials,” explaining:

When lawyers travel to the island for periodic proceedings or client meetings, they must hitch a ride on military planes and stay for several days at a time. When they speak to the detainees, the materials they bring in and out of meetings are closely screened. Despite Pentagon denials, defense lawyers also suspect that communications with their clients continue to be monitored.

Defense lawyers describe a “down the rabbit hole” process in which they lack normal access to evidence, including what their clients said and did during their years-long detentions at extrajudicial prisons overseas, as well as evidence seized during counterterrorism raids.

Legal experts also said, as Ryan put it and as I noted above, that “the untested nature of the commission system, which unlike civilian courts is operating without the benefit of relevant legal precedents to guide it, has slowed the process.” As David Nevin, a civilian defense lawyer for alleged 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, explained, “We’re 13 years down the road, and you’re just now getting the defendants’ statements to the judge. That’s pretty amazing if you’ve been around the criminal justice system.”

In terms of obstruction, Ryan also mentioned how, earlier this year, “defense lawyers learned that a judge had secretly allowed the prosecution to destroy evidence related to a CIA prison, reversing a previous judge’s order without notifying them.”

That is an extraordinary way of undermining any faith that anyone may have had in the fairness of the system, but it is symptomatic of the fundamental disregard for the norms of justice the has typified the commissions from the very beginning.

As Ryan explained, it also “remains unclear” what material from the Senate Intelligence Committee report, with its references to torture including waterboarding and “rectal rehydration” — the single most shocking piece of new information in the report — will be allowed, and whether “considerations will be made in court for the mistreatment of detainees.” With reference to the case of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of masterminding the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, who “has not received meaningful treatment for the significant psychological and physical effects he has suffered” as a result of his torture, Richard Kammen pointed out that he “is profoundly damaged by what the CIA did to him.”

Missy Ryan also explained how some lawyers say that the commissions have “fundamentally different goals than the civilian courts.” James Connell, one of the attorneys for Ali Abdul Aziz Ali (aka Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi), who is one of the 9/11 defendants, said, crucially, “It is not a justice system in the way we in the US think about it. It is instead a hybrid specialized system that was set up with the purpose of concealing evidence of torture.”

Ryan added that it is “possible that the trials will eventually be dropped, if political leaders decide that they are unfeasible or if moving forward would force the government to disclose information seen as too damaging,” and she spoke to legal experts who say, as I do, that transferring the cases to federal court is the only solution. As she noted, federal courts “have proved that they can handle complex terrorism cases, like that of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was sentenced to death two years after the crime.”

Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and a former Guantánamo defense lawyer, said, “We’ve lost sight of the basic question, which is: Why are we trying these people? If the answer is to obtain some measure of justice for their heinous acts, the question the next president has to ask is whether it’s more likely … in a federal system or a Guantánamo military commission.” He added, “I think that question answers itself,” the answer being, to reiterate the title of this article once more, that the commissions are not fit for purpose and should be scrapped and the cases moved to federal court.

In the meantime, however, the bleak, broken ballet of the commissions continues.

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 debut album ‘Love and War’ and EP ‘Fighting Injustice’ are available here to download or on CD via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and the Countdown to Close Guantánamo initiative, launched in January 2016), the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, which called for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison (finally freed on October 30, 2015), and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for 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).

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, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

Former Child Prisoner at Guantánamo, Tortured in Jordan, Is the Last of 64 Men to Face a Periodic Review Board

Please support my work! I’m currently trying to raise $2800 (£2100) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo for the next three months.

On September 8, Guantánamo prisoner Hassan bin Attash, born in Saudi Arabia to Yemeni parents, who appears to have been just 17 years old when he was seized in a house raid in Pakistan and sent to Jordan to be tortured, became the last of 64 prisoners to face a Periodic Review Board. Set up in 2013 to review the cases of all the prisoners who had not already been approved for release by an earlier review process (2009’s Guantánamo Review Task Force) and were not facing trials (just ten of the 61 men still held), the PRBs have played an important role in reducing the prison’s population in President Obama’s last year in office.

Consisting of representatives of the Departments of State, Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, as well as the office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the PRBs function like parole boards, assessing prisoners’ contrition, and plans for the future that will mitigate any concerns about them engaging in terrorism or military activity against the US after their release.

To date, 33 men have been approved for release by the PRBs (and 20 of those men have been freed), while 19 others have had their ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial upheld — although all are entitled to further reviews at which they and their attorneys can submit further information in an effort to change the board’s opinion. Purely administrative file reviews take place every six months, and, every three years, prisoners are entitled to full reviews, although in reality those that have taken place — for four men, who all ended up with recommendations for their release — have occurred sooner (between ten months and two years after their initial PRBs). See my definitive Periodic Review Board list on the Close Guantánamo website for further details.

12 prisoners — including Hassan bin Attash — are awaiting the results of their reviews, but it is clear, from the 52 decisions already taken, that the PRBs are, in large part, addressing significant, and unwarranted caution on the part of the 2009 task force, which described 41 of the 64 men as “too dangerous to release.” The 23 others facing PRBs were recommended for prosecution by the task force, but were moved into the PRB system when the basis for prosecutions — in Guantánamo’s military commissions — largely collapsed after appeals court decisions in 2012 and 2013, in which some of the few convictions secured were overturned because the judges assessed, correctly, that the war crimes in question were not internationally recognized and had been invented by Congress.

Bin Attash is one of those initially recommended for prosecution, and, based purely on a statistical analysis, that makes him less likely to be recommended for release, because just six out of 15 of those initially recommended for prosecution have been approved for release, compared to 27 out of 37 of those initially described as “too dangerous to release.”

One aspect his story that ought to make a difference is his age. In his classified military file dated June 25, 2008 (released by WikiLeaks in 2011), his year of birth is given as 1985, meaning that he was just 17 when he was seized, on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in Karachi, Pakistan. However, the US authorities now claim — cynically, I believe — that he was born in 1982.

The difference ought to count for something, as imprisoned juveniles (those under 18 when their alleged crimes took place) are supposed to be rehabilitated rather than punished, and kept separate from adult prisoners, according to the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, to which the US is signatory, and which came into force the year bin Attash was seized. The Optional Protocol stipulates that juvenile prisoners “require special protection,” and specifically recognizes “the special needs of those children who are particularly vulnerable to recruitment or use in hostilities”, requiring its signatories to promote “the physical and psychosocial rehabilitation and social reintegration of children who are victims of armed conflict.”

Unfortunately, in the “war on terror,” the US has thoroughly disregarded its obligations regarding children in armed conflict. Of the 23 confirmed juveniles at Guantánamo, just three — all Afghan children — were, briefly, held separately from the general prison population before their release in 2004 — although, as the psychologist and journalist Jeffrey Kaye has pointed out, they were not treated appropriately. Col. Larry James, a psychologist, interrogated them for two hours every morning, a betrayal of the principles of the Optional Protocol that is not excused by James’ claims that the boys provided “useful intelligence.”

Moreover, by refusing to acknowledge Hassan bin Attash’s real age, the US has been able to demonize him without inconvenient criticism. Seized with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, one of the alleged 9/11 co-conspirators, he is the brother of another alleged 9/11 co-conspirator, Walid bin Attash, and is regarded by the US as “a facilitator and explosives expert for al-Qa’ida,” but even if he were over 18, his treatment would have been unacceptable. Sent to the notorious “dark prison” in Afghanistan for a week after his capture, he was then rendered to Jordan, where he was held for 16 months, and where, he has said, he was severely tortured while being interrogated about the activities of his brother. On January 7, 2004, he was rendered back to US custody in Afghanistan, and he was transferred to Guantánamo exactly 12 years ago, on September 20, 2004, with nine other “medium-value detainees,” most of whom are still held.

In their unclassified summary for his PRB, in which he was described as “a facilitator and explosives expert for al-Qa’ida in the early 2000s,” the US authorities also stated that he “grew up immersed in violent extremist ideology, coming from a  family closely associated with Usama bin Ladin [sic].” He was, additionally, described as “an aid [sic] to several senior al-Qa’ida members, helping run safe houses, facilitate the movement of fighters, and complete errands,” who “also supported numerous plots against US and other Western targets in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East, [and] North Africa.” It was also alleged that he “was skilled in bombmaking and contributed to al-Qa’ida’s explosives activities and capabilities.”

How much truth there is to all of the above is difficult to discern, but there is certainly a problem with the claim that his “extremist activity began in 1997, when he pledged allegiance to Usama bin Ladin,” because he was just 12 years old at the time. Nevertheless, according to the summary, he “participated in basic and advanced military and explosives training probably including poisons training,” and “briefly supporters the frontline” and even “served as a bodyguard for bin Ladin.” Even if true, of course, the allegations above refer to the activities of a teenager, who, it is worth remembering, should not be held accountable for his actions.

In 2000, when he would have been 15, the summary alleges that “he relocated to Pakistan to facilitate logistics and travel for al-Qa’ida, which he continued doing intermittently for about two years.” He also, allegedly, ”facilitated al-Qa’ida external operations against US and other Western targets, and was himself selected to participate in two such planned attacks.” In 2002, the summary continued, he “built, procured, and delivered explosives for al-Qa’ida in support of anti-coalition attacks in Afghanistan.”

Turning to his behavior in Guantánamo, the summary noted that, “until 2013, [he] was non-compliant and hostile with the guard staff,” but that, “[i]n August 2013, he became highly compliant.” It was assessed that he did so because it was “likely to improve his chances of release.” The summary added, however, that “he continues too harbor an extremist mindset and has made statements which indicate that he believes westerners are his enemies and that he remains intent on reengaging after detention.” Noticeably, as will be discussed in further detail below, his attorney, David Remes, disagrees with this assessment, explaining, in his submission to the board, “I have never heard him deprecate the American people or American values, or express extremist views.”

The US authorities’ summary also claimed that bin Attash “has associated or corresponded with several at-large terrorists including former Guantánamo detainees,” a claim that is both disconcerting and difficult to comprehend; disconcerting, because the authorities have been making assessments about people with whom he has corresponded based on assumptions about those people that may not ave any relevance to bin Attash’s association with them; and difficult to comprehend, because I cannot understand how he can be described as “associating” with anyone, given that he has been imprisoned for the last 14 years.

The summary’s final paragraph dealt with life after Guantánamo, should bin Attash be released. Those compiling the summary note that he “has expressed a desire to participate in Saudi Arabia’s extremist rehabilitation program, rejoin family, marry, and start a family of his own.” It was also noted, however, that his family, in Jeddah, “is unlikely to help him transition to a peaceful life because they support violent extremism and because they lack the financial resources to provide significant aid to him beyond housing him.” In conclusion, the summary noted that he “probably could leverage family ties and terrorist contacts should he decide to reengage in terrorist activity after his transfer.”

In terms of securing a recommendation for release, of course, prisoners must be able to demonstrate that they have plans in place for a peaceful and constructive life, and from the above it seems clear that this is one requirement that bin Attash will fail to fulfill. It is impossible to know whether bin Attash’s own responses by video link with the board members persuaded them that he shows contrition, but the summary of evidence suggests that they will have difficulty overcoming the gravity of the allegations against him. All that has been reported of his participation was via Courthouse News, which noted that he “could be seen in the video wearing a plain white T-shirt with a short beard, sifting quietly through papers as the hearing proceeded.”

Below, I’m cross-posting the opening statements made by bin Attash’s personal representatives (military personnel appointed to represent the prisoners in their PRBs), who noted how he has tried to improve himself at Guantánamo, and “has been very open to learning western culture and the English language,” and his attorney, David Remes, who, as noted above, made a case for his client not bearing any ill-will against the US, and also pointed out how much he has grown as a person while at Guantánamo. In an email exchange, he told me, “Hassan’s hearing went smoothly. I’m hopeful they’ll approve him for transfer. He wants to go home and get on with his life.”

Periodic Review Board [Initial Hearing], 08 Sep 2016

Hassan Muhammad Ali Bin Attash, ISN 1456

Personal Representative Statement

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the board. We are the Personal Representatives for ISN 1456. Thank you for the opportunity to present Mr. Hassan Muhammad Ali Bin Attash’s case. Mr. Hassan has continued to participate in the process and has been very understanding with the constant date changes by his PRs and his PC.

From our first encounter and all subsequent hearings, Hassan has been very engaged, fervent, and understanding in preparation of his Periodic Review Board. From the onset, Hassan has demonstrated an optimistic outlook towards life after Guantánamo Bay. He is currently working on his U.S. High School GED with a goal of completing it this fall. He s fluent in English, Arabic, Pashtu, and speaks some Urdu and Persian. Upon his transfer from Guantánamo, he has a strong desire to attend college and work as a translator in order to provide for himself and for a future spouse. Since 2013, Hassan has been very compliant with few disciplinary infractions. As a block leader, he was commended by the Office in Charge for solving daily routine issues within the camp.

Hassan arrived at Guantánamo at a very young age. During this time, he has been very open to learning western culture and the English language. Most of all, he is interested in furthering his education and has demonstrated a willingness to absorb new ideas no matter which culture it may be. During his time in Guantánamo, he has attended Art, English, Computer, Life Skills, and History classes.

Hassan would prefer to return to Saudi Arabia where his parents and siblings are located. He is more than willing to participate in the Saudi Arabia rehabilitation program but is also open to transfer to any country that is willing to accept him where security measures can be met. Since nearly half of the Saudi Arabian working population is foreign born, Hassan believes his language skills along with his strong desire to meet new people from diverse backgrounds will serve him well in a linguist/translator career. He would like to become certified in this career field in order to obtain work and provide for his future family.

Thank you for your time and attention. We are pleased to answer any questions you may have throughout this proceeding.

Periodic Review Board, 08 Sep 2016

Hassan Muhammad Ali Bin Attash, ISN 1456

Private Counsel Statement

Good morning. I am David Remes, private counsel for Hassan bin Attash (ISN 1456). a Yemeni national born in Saudi Arabia. I have represented Hassan in his habeas corpus case for eleven years this August. I have seen him countless times and believe that I know him well.

Hassan is the youngest Guantánamo detainee. he left home when he was about thirteen, was captured in September 2002, when he was about seventeen, and was brought to Guantánamo in December 2004, when he was about nineteen. Hassan is now about thirty-one. He has spent his entire adult life in Guantánamo. I have watched him grew into adulthood. At all times, I found him to be more sensible and level-headed than many others his age.

Hassan is engaging. He has a quick wit and reads people well. I make a point of seeing him on every visit. He is very friendly, and I consider him a friend. If circumstances allowed, I would have him as a guest in my home. Hassan also has a strong sense of right and wrong. Now a young man, with a mind of his own, he is no longer under the sway of others and can make independent decisions. I have never heard him deprecate the American people or American values, or express extremist views.

Hassan arrived at Guantánamo with only an elementary school education. He did not know English when I first met him; now he is fluent, and his English is unaccented. His goal of becoming an Arabic-English translator is certainly realistic. Hassan has a thirst for knowledge generally and has taken advantage of al available educational opportunities here. He has an insatiable appetite for news abut current events. When the prison still made such publications as the New York Times and the Washington Post available to detainees, Hassan devoured them. He assiduously watches English-language news channels. Closely following Guantánamo-related developments in Washington, he has developed a sophisticated understanding of the way our political system works, and the vagaries of American politics.

I hope the Board concludes, as I have, that Hassan is no threat to the security of the United States. He should be transferred to the reintegration center in Saudi Arabia and prepared for a new life in the outside world. The Board should approve him for transfer.

Respectfully,

David Remes

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 debut album ‘Love and War’ and EP ‘Fighting Injustice’ are available here to download or on CD via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and the Countdown to Close Guantánamo initiative, launched in January 2016), the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, which called for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison (finally freed on October 30, 2015), and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for 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).

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, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

My Photos of the Refugees Welcome March in London, Sept. 17, 2016

See my photos on Flickr here – and, to show solidarity, join the more than 1.3m people who have signed the petition to the UN endorsing the UN Refugee Agency’s belief that all refugees deserve to live in safety.

Yesterday (September 17), a “Refugees Welcome Here” march and rally took place in London, following up on a massive march in support of refugees that took place in March, which I photographed and wrote about here. Organised by Solidarity with Refugees, the event (on Facebook here) had the support of dozens of organisations, including Action Aid, Amnesty International UK, Freedom From Torture, Friends of the Earth, Help Refugees UK (the main provider of support in Calais), Hope Not Hate, Oxfam and Stand Up to Racism.

There were many thousands of people on the march, which was colourful, noisy and positive, with numerous passionate and poignant handwritten placards and banners, as well as placards produced by some of the many organisations supporting the march.

However, it was impossible not to be disappointed that there were not many more people marching, as the largest humanitarian crisis in the lifetimes of anyone born after the Second World War continues. The statistics are sobering and horrific. As the Observer reported today, in an article entitled, “Why won’t the world tackle the refugee crisis?”:

It is now the greatest movement of the uprooted that the world has ever known. Some 65 million people have been displaced from their homes, 21.3 million of them refugees for whom flight is virtually compulsory – involuntary victims of politics, war or natural catastrophe.

With [almost] 1% of the world’s population homeless and seeking a better, safer life, a global crisis is under way, exacerbated by a lack of political cooperation – and several states, including the United Kingdom, are flouting international agreements designed to deal with the crisis.

In the UK, we are collectively, and, in general, turning our backs on their plight as time goes on. As I wrote when I promoted the march on Facebook, I was marching “to show solidarity with all the refugees hoping to be welcomed in Europe, but finding themselves unwelcome — perhaps doubly so in the UK, now that 52% of those who chose to vote in the referendum voted for us to leave the EU.”

I added, “When did you last hear anything in the mainstream media about the colossal humanitarian crisis that is still ongoing, and the refugees that we in Europe, amongst the most privileged people in the world, are turning our backs on? We should all be ashamed.”

Promoting the event on Facebook, Solidarity with Refugees wrote:

Last September, the image of 3 year old Aylan Kurdi’s body on a Turkish beach horrified the world. 100,000 of us marched in London in response to tell our government that we want to welcome refugees in the UK, and to stop the drowning. Since then, thousands more terrified and desperate refugees, including hundreds of children, have lost their lives trying to reach safety in Europe.

This September, world leaders will meet to discuss the refugee crisis at two crucial summits. This is the biggest opportunity of 2016 to show our government and the world that Britain is ready to welcome more refugees.

It is indeed a great opportunity, but as the Observer noted today:

This week’s two major summits in New York, called by the United Nations general assembly and by President Barack Obama, are coming under intense criticism before the first world leaders have even taken their seats.

Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and refugee charities are among those accusing both summits of being “toothless” and saying that the declaration expected to be ratified by the UN on Monday imposes no obligations on the 193 general assembly nations to resettle refugees.

The Obama-led summit, meanwhile, which follows on Tuesday, is designed to extract pledges of funding which critics say too often fail to materialise.

Steve Symonds, refugee programme director at Amnesty, said: “Funding is great and very much needed, but it’s not going to tackle the central point of some sharing of responsibility. The scale of imbalance there is growing, and growing with disastrous consequences.”

He said nations were sabotaging agreements through self-interest. “It’s very, very difficult to feel any optimism about this summit or what it will do for people looking for a safe place for them and their families right at this moment, nor tackle the awful actions of countries who are now thinking, ‘If other countries won’t help take responsibility, then why should we?’ and are now driving back desperate people.

“Compelling refugees to go back to countries where there is conflict and instability doesn’t help this awful merry-go-round going on and on.”

Solidarity with Refugees’ Facebook post continued:

Many British people have responded to the tragedy they see unfolding on their doorstep with extraordinary displays of humanity and generosity. They’ve been moved to act after seeing many thousands trapped in camps in Greece without running water or baby formula; thousands of people drowning in the Mediterranean as refugees seek increasingly dangerous routes to safety since the closing of borders and the sea route from Turkey; the continuing misery of the camp in Calais; the injustices and inefficiencies of Britain’s own asylum system.

80% of Britons want our government to do more to help. Polls now show that 1 in 4 of us would welcome a refugee in our own home. We want to tell the government that we are waiting to help. The UK should be leading the way and working with other states to give refugees safe, legal routes to asylum, ending the trade in people smuggling.

Since the referendum campaign and vote, divisive rhetoric has been ever more prevalent from a small but vocal minority. In the light of this, the need to come together in a spirit of welcome has become even more acute. Most of us are keen to welcome refugees, and we need to make it clear to everyone that this is the case.

The post concluded, “Last year, in the week of our demonstration, the government agreed to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees. We know that public pressure can make a difference.” That is true, but unfortunately, as the Guardian reported yesterday, Solidarity with Refugees director Ros Ereira said that “progress since then has been much too slow.” She said, “We were really excited to hear the agreement was made. I was always going to wish it would be more and better than that – but it was a huge step in the right direction. We are not on track to be meeting that commitment at the moment and of course we need to be doing more. The situation is growing, there are people dying and we need to stop that happening.”

As the Observer noted today:

In Britain, both Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron and Labour’s Yvette Cooper have called on Theresa May to do more when she goes to New York on Monday. Just one sixth of the cash pledged at a summit hosted by David Cameron in London in February to tackle the refugee crisis in Syria has materialised.

Cooper said May needed to show leadership, especially on the situation at Calais. “She must go to this summit to galvanise support for refugees and show that Britain can and will meet our commitments. Right now the decisions parliament and our country have taken are being mired in red tape and government is foot-dragging. Britain has always done its bit to help those fleeing persecution: we have to live up to those values again.”

Farron said he welcomed Obama’s initiative but added: “I am doubtful that anything more substantial than warm words will materialise from this high-level meeting. The thousands of desperate people still drowning in the Mediterranean are testament to the failure of the international community, especially our own government and states across Europe, to safely and fairly deal with refugees fleeing Syria and Iraq, as well as those escaping the poverty of failed states in Africa.”

A link to the photos is also posted below:

PLEASE HELP! Quarterly Fundraiser Day 5 – Still Seeking $3000 (£2250) for My Guantánamo Work

Please support my work!

Dear friends and supporters,

Every three months I ask you, if you can, to make a donation to support my work on Guantánamo and related issues. As an independent researcher, commentator and campaigner, without any institutional backing, I cannot do what I do without your support; or, to put it another way, the majority of the 50 or so articles I write every quarter are written for free, and it is only through your donations that I get paid.

The $3500 (£2600) I seek every quarter works out at only about $70 (£50) per article — not a huge amount, I hope you’ll agree, but considerably more than nothing.

So please, if you can help out at all, click on the “Donate” button above to donate via PayPal (and I should add that you don’t need to be a PayPal member to use PayPal).

Any amount will be gratefully received, whether it is $10, $25, $100 or $500 — or any amount in any other currency (£5, £15, £50 or £250, for example). PayPal will convert any currency you pay into dollars, which I chose as my main currency because the majority of my supporters are in the US.

In addition, if you’re able to become a monthly sustainer, I will be extremely grateful. After clicking the PayPal “Donate” button, you simply tick the box marked, “Make This Recurring (Monthly),” and fill in the amount you wish to donate every month.

Please also note that, although supporters can pay via PayPal from anywhere in the world, if you’re in the UK and want to help without using PayPal, you can send me a cheque (address here — scroll down to the bottom of the page), and if you’re not a PayPal user and want to send cash from anywhere else in the world, that’s also an option. Please do also note that foreign checks are no longer accepted at UK banks — only electronic transfers — but don’t hesitate to contact me if you’d like to support me by paying directly into my account, from the UK, the US or anywhere else in the world.

In return for your support, I promise to keep up the pressure on President Obama to get Guantánamo closed before he leaves office. That may not be possible, but it is reasonable to presume that no more than 40 men will be left in the prison when the next president takes office, and it is to be hoped that, in the not too distant future, those men will be moved to a new facility or facilities on the US mainland so that Guantánamo itself can be closed.

That will not be the end of the story, of course, because there is no excuse for holding anyone indefinitely without charge or trial, whatever the location, and any attempt to do so will need to be challenged. In addition, those who authorized and implemented the disgraceful lawlessness of the “war on terror” — the kidnapping, torture and indefinite detention — need to be held accountable, and those who have been released need to be able to seek compensation for what happened to them. I intend to continue working on these issues when they arise, but for now, of course, the focus must remain on Guantánamo, and the never-ending need for it be closed once and for all.

With thanks, as ever, for your support.

Andy Worthington

London

September 16, 2016

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 debut album ‘Love and War’ and EP ‘Fighting Injustice’ are available here to download or on CD via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and the Countdown to Close Guantánamo initiative, launched in January 2016), the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, which called for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison (finally freed on October 30, 2015), and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for 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).

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, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

Long-Term Hunger Striking Pakistani Seeks Release from Guantánamo Via Periodic Review Board

Please support my work! I’m currently trying to raise $3000 (£2250) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo for the next three months.

On September 1, Ahmed Rabbani (ISN 1461), a Pakistani prisoner at Guantánamo (also identified as Ahmad Rabbani, and known to the the US authorities as Mohammed Ahmed Ghulam Rabbani), became the 63rd — and penultimate — prisoner to face a Periodic Review Board. A long-term hunger striker, he was described as looking “frail” by Courthouse News, which also noted that he “has a long, thick black beard and wore a white covering on his head,”, and that, “Leaning forward with his arms folded on the table in front of him during the hearing, [he] seemed slight, especially when he raised his arm and the sleeve of the loose, white shirt he wore slid down his thin bicep.”

Seized in Karachi, Pakistan on September 9, 2002, with his brother Abdul Rahim, whose PRB took place on July 7, he was regarded as an al-Qaeda facilitator, and was held and tortured in CIA “black sites” for two years, before arriving at Guantánamo with nine other allegedly “medium-value detainees” in September 2004. The US still regards him as an al-Qaeda supporter, although his lawyers argue that he is a case of mistaken identity, and that he wishes only to be reunited with his family and live in peace.

The Periodic Review Boards, as I explained at the time of Abdul Rahim’s review, “were set up in 2013 to review the cases of all the men not already approved for release or facing trials. These men were described by the government task force that reviewed their cases in 2009 as ‘too dangerous to release,’ despite a lack of evidence against them, or were recommended for prosecution, until the basis for prosecution largely collapsed. The PRBs have been functioning like parole boards, with the men in question — 64 in total — having to establish, to the satisfaction of the board members, made up of representatives of the Departments of State, Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, as well as the office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that they show remorse for their previous actions, that they bear no ill-will towards the US, that they have no associations with anyone regarded as being involved in terrorism, and that they have plans in place for their life after Guantánamo, preferably with the support of family members.”

Of the 64 men who have had their cases reviewed, 52 decisions have so far been taken. 33 men have been approved for release, while 19 have had their ongoing imprisonment upheld. However, a separate analysis of the results in the cases for those regarded as “too dangerous to release” and those initially recommended for prosecution reveals noticeable differences.

Rabbani is one of 23 prisoners facing PRBs who were initially recommended for prosecution but then moved to the PRB system, and, of the 23, just six have so far been recommended for release, while nine have had their ongoing imprisonment upheld. Eight decisions have not yet been taken.

In contrast, of the men deemed “too dangerous to release” (41 in total), 27 have been recommended for release, ten have had their ongoing imprisonment upheld, and four are awaiting decisions. See my definitive Periodic Review Board list on the Close Guantánamo website for further details.

In Ahmed Rabbani’s case, the US authorities, in their unclassified summary for his PRB, noted that the 46-year old, born in October 1969 and also identified as Abu Badr, “was a financial and travel facilitator for prominent al-Qa’ida leaders Khalid Shaykh Muhammad (KU-10024) and USS Cole mastermind Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri from 1997 until his arrest in September 2002,” adding, “His primary jobs were to run al-Qa’ida safehouses in Karachi, Pakistan, help facilitate the travel of mujahideen and their families to and from Afghanistan, and acquire and drive vehicles.”

It was also claimed that “[h]is access to several key al-Qa’ida figures positioned [him] to play a support role in al- Qa’ida operations, including the planning for an attack in the Strait of Hormuz and possibly the al-Qa’ida anthrax program,” although these allegations are significantly less trustworthy than those describing him as, essentially, a travel facilitator, as the use of the word “possibly” in connection with al-Qaeda’s proposed anthrax program indicates, and I believe there is no justification for claiming that Rabbani had any involvement with it.

Discussing how he became involved with al-Qaeda, the summary claimed that Rabbani’s “extremist activity began around 1994, when he joined an ethnic Burmese jihadist group in Pakistan after having been expelled from Saudi Arabia for three alcohol-related incarcerations and having failed to earn a living as a hired driver in the United Arab Emirates.” The summary added, “In 1997, he began working for al-Qa’ida in Kandahar, where he met Usama Bin Ladin [sic]. In 1998, he recruited his brother Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani (PK-1460) to join him in running guest houses and serving as a facilitator for al-Qa’ida.”

Turning to his behavior in Guantánamo, the summary noted that he “has been relatively non-compliant with the guard force compared to other detainees,” although it was conceded that “[m]ost of his infractions occurred between 2013 and 2015, probably in part to protest his separation from his brother.” It was also confirmed that he “has been on hunger strike for an extended period of time,” and, regarding intelligence, it was noted that he “has provided little information of value and has recanted several of his earlier statements about his support to al-Qa’ida.”

Regarding his proposals for his life if he should be released, the summary stated that he “has indicated that he would like to be transferred to Malaysia because he is ethnically Burmese,” and that he “has marketable job skills, having been a former sweets maker and a professional driver.” It was also claimed that, “according to a source with first hand access,” he “remains steadfast in his support for extremist causes and groups, praising acts of terrorism and expressing disdain for Americans,” and “has maintained contact with former detainees, one of whom is confirmed of having reengaged in terrorist activities with ISIL, and who could provide him] with a clear avenue to reengage after his release if he chose to do so.”

These latter points are disputed by Rabbani’s lawyers, at Reprieve, and by his personal representatives (military personnel appointed to help the prisoners prepare for their PRBs) in their opening statements to the board. The representatives noted that he has was only ever motivated by money (as they put it, he “was a shrewd and cunning businessman and chased after the almighty dollar”), and they also explained how he has “never expressed any anti-American sentiments” to them, and “has repeatedly affirmed that he has no desire to harm anyone upon his release from detention.” They added, “His desire is to get back with his family and become a contributing member of society. He wants the board to know that he is not a continuing threat to the safety and security of Americans, America or its allies.”

In addition, Rabbani’s lawyer, Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, provided the board with detailed information about her client’s family, and the many ways in which they will be able to “provide him a home and find him a job so that he may start his life anew,” and the support that will also be offered by Reprieve, via its UN-backed “Life After Guantánamo” project, and its affiliate organization in Pakistan, the Foundation for Fundamental Rights.

Despite the positive aspects of the statements above, I expect that the board members will have problems with the lack of remorse expressed, beyond the comments reported by the personal representatives. Reprieve’s focus in particular on the fact that Rabbani was not Hassan Ghul may not impress the board members, who may want to have heard remorse from Rabbani for what he did, regardless of whether or not he was mistaken for another man.

Time will tell. A decision can take anything from one to two months to be announced. In the meantime, please find below the opening statements in support of Ahmed Rabbani’s release.

Periodic Review Board Initial Hearing, 01 Sep 2016

Mohammed Ahmed Rabbani, ISN 1461

Personal Representative Opening Statement

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the board. We are the Personal Representatives for Mr. Ahmed Rabbani (ISN 1461). Mr. Rabbani has been a willing participant in this process and has remained quite flexible to the changes in meetings and Board dates, as well as the changes in Personal Representatives and Private Counsel, which have happened along the way.

While Mr. Rabbani longs to return to his wife and children, he knows that there are several things that have to happen first. Mr. Rabbani is here today and eager to answer your questions in a bid to gain your recommendation for transfer to Pakistan, although he will go anywhere the Board recommends. He has also expressed his willingness to participate in any rehabilitation program.

Earlier in his life, Mr. Rabbani managed hotels with his father, and later, he managed them on his own. Mr. Rabbani was a shrewd and cunning businessman and chased after the almighty dollar; he did not really care to find out who he was working with, but he stresses that he was working for money, not for a religious cause or any agenda.

While he is still a hunger striker, Mr. Rabbani eats at our meetings and now goes willingly to his feedings to consume his liquid meals. Hunger striking is a peaceful way of protesting his situation and one of the few choices or decisions that Mr. Rabbani feels he can make while in detainment.

Mr. Rabbani has started to eat regular food but after years of hunger striking, his body now rejects the food and causes him severe nausea. Mr. Rabbani is now working with the medical staff in an effort to get back on solid food.

Mr. Rabbani has focused on his artistic skills while here in Guantánamo; he has painted hundreds of pieces of art, some of which have been submitted for the board to see. Additionally, an art dealer in New York is interested in showing some of Mr. Rabbani’s art, which could potentially lead to an income source in the future.

While not happy with his detainment, Mr. Rabbani has never expressed any anti-American sentiments to us, and has repeatedly affirmed that he has no desire to harm anyone upon his release from detention. His desire is to get back with his family and become a contributing member of society. He wants the board to know that he is not a continuing threat to the safety and security of Americans, America or its allies.

When asked about his plans for the future, Mr. Rabbani thought his work ethic, language skills (he is conversant in 4 languages) and prior work in the hospitality industry would serve him well. He could also work as a taxi driver, shop keeper or cook.

We feel that Mr. Rabbani has grown in maturity; and he now understands the consequences and importance of knowing who you are working with. These changes, along with the dedicated support and committed resources from Reprieve will greatly assist in his transition upon transfer.

Statement by Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, Private Counsel for Ahmed Rabbani (ISN 1461)

Periodic Review Board Bearing Scheduled September 01, 2016

August 22, 2016

Esteemed Periodic Review Board Members,

My name is Shelby Sullivan-Bennis. It is my privilege to represent Ahmed Rabbani and to appear before this board today. I do so on behalf of all those at Reprieve, who have been his counsel for the duration of his time in Guantánamo.

Ahmed Rabbani appears before this board today after a harrowing fourteen years in detention which began, as we now know, as a case of mistaken identity. The Executive Summary of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Study of the ClA’s Detention and Interrogation Program (“SSCI Report”) confirms what Ahmed knew from the start: “[b]y September 11, 2002, it was determined that an individual named Muhammad Ahmed Ghulam Rabbani, aka Abu Badr, and his driver were arrested, not Hassan Ghul.” [SSCI Report at 325].

Thus, Ahmed was indeed not a senior al Qaeda leader, a concession that did not arrive until after he had suffered dreadfully in a black site (the Senate report reflects that he was one of the few subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” without authorization). He has remained in detention at Guantánamo Bay and appears before this board today to tell his story.

In an effort to pave the way for Ahmed’s release from Guantánamo Bay, we at Reprieve, as well as those at our affiliate organization in Pakistan, the Foundation for Fundamental Rights, have been in close contact with Ahmed’s family over the years. We stay in regular contact with his wife, brother-in-law, and other members of his family in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Ahmed has a warm and close family who miss him greatly. He has two children who were young when Ahmed was first detained, and a third who was born after he was taken from Pakistan who has never met his father. His youngest child is now a teenager whose only connection with his father over the years has been through ICRC arranged monthly calls. Suffice it to say that Ahmed’s family is eager to have him back.

Ahmed’s wife and youngest son live in a 4-bedroom house in the Korangi region of Karachi, owned by his mother-in-law. When Ahmed is released, he will join them there and will have ready access to several local service providers, including medical and psychological health facilities based in Karachi with whom my office has existing relationships. Ahmed’s family is ready, willing and able to provide him a home and find him a job so that he may start his life anew. In the time between release and acquisition of gainful employment. Ahmed’s family, both in Pakistan as well as his family in Saudi Arabia, have offered to financially support him until he gets back on his feet. Indeed, the amount of support Ahmed has waiting for him is considerable.

Additionally, Reprieve has a program set up to help our clients reintegrate into society called “Life After Guantánamo,” which is partially funded by the United Nations. This is a program that serves the interests of each relevant stakeholder — the client needs the help, and we (the United States) want the client to do well. For several clients who were resettled and repatriated by both Administrations, we worked with the State Department and host governments on transition plans for clients; we have visited clients multiple times after release; we have served as an ongoing point of contact for local authorities; we have facilitated financial support and referrals for needs ranging from job placement to mental health care. We were a trusted and experienced resource in facilitating a successful transition for these clients, who are now rebuilding their lives. Finally, as mentioned, we have specific experience working with groups on the ground in Pakistan. We would of course offer the same assistance to Ahmed.

Thank you for taking into consideration the information we have provided. We respectfully submit that Ahmed Rabbani should be approved for transfer from Guantánamo consistent with the President’s mandate to close the prison. I remain at your disposal to assist with any questions you may have regarding Mr. Rabbani.

Very Truly Yours,

Shelby Sullivan-Bennis

Reprieve US

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 debut album ‘Love and War’ and EP ‘Fighting Injustice’ are available here to download or on CD via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and the Countdown to Close Guantánamo initiative, launched in January 2016), the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, which called for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison (finally freed on October 30, 2015), and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for 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).

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, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

Quarterly Fundraiser Day 3: $3300 (£2400) Still Urgently Needed to Support My Guantánamo Work

Please support my work!

Dear friends and supporters,

For ten and a half years now, I’ve been writing about Guantánamo, and working to get the prison closed, as an independent journalist and human rights activist. I don’t have the support of a media organization, and I don’t receive any institutional funding, and as a result it’s important for anyone who recognizes the importance of my work to realize that I can’t do what I do without your support — the nearly 2000 articles about Guantánamo I’ve written since 2007, and those that I will continue to write until Guantánamo is closed, no one is held in indefinite detention by the US, the men freed are all adequately looked after, and those responsible for the crimes committed in the “war on terror” are held accountable.

I know times are hard, and I’m sure you all have many demands on your money, but as a reader-funded journalist I hope you’ll understand me pitching in to ask urgently for your support. Without it, I may not be able to keep writing about Guantánamo as I have been doing for all these years.

So if you can help out at all, please click on the “Donate” button above to donate via PayPal (and I should add that you don’t need to be a PayPal member to use PayPal).

Any amount will be gratefully received, whether it is $10, $25, $100 or $500 — or any amount in any other currency (£5, £15, £50 or £250, for example). PayPal will convert any currency you pay into dollars, which I chose as my main currency because the majority of my supporters are in the US, although at present, I note, the majority of my financial support is coming from the UK.

I need your support to run this website and the associated social media, to write the 50 or so articles I write every quarter, to undertake the media appearances and personal appearances I make, most of which are unpaid, and to be available to answer questions about Guantánamo and the men held there, from researchers, film and TV companies, students, and journalists around the world that pepper my inbox on a regular basis.

It would be better for my mental health if I had a regular, reliable benefactor, but I don’t, beyond those kind individuals who always respond when I put out this appeal every 13 weeks, and my monthly sustainers, supporters who pledge an amount every month, so that I’m at least guaranteed some basic level of support every month.

If you can become a monthly sustainer, I will be extremely grateful. After clicking the PayPal “Donate” button, you simply tick the box marked, “Make This Recurring (Monthly),” and fill in the amount you wish to donate every month.

Please also note that, although supporters can pay via PayPal from anywhere in the world, if you’re in the UK and want to help without using PayPal, you can send me a cheque (address here — scroll down to the bottom of the page), and if you’re not a PayPal user and want to send cash from anywhere else in the world, that’s also an option. Please do also note that foreign checks are no longer accepted at UK banks — only electronic transfers — but don’t hesitate to contact me if you’d like to support me by paying directly into my account, from the UK, the US or anywhere else in the world.

In conclusion, perhaps some of you think that my work is nearly done, and that Guantánamo will soon be closed. I doubt that, although we should all be reassured that President Obama has taken significant steps to reduce the number men held — and that by the time he leaves office in January, there may well be no more than 40 men still held. I suspect, however, that he will not persuade Congress to drop its ban on bringing any prisoners to the mainland for any reason, and that the final closure of  Guantánamo will be left to his successor, who may or may not be interested in doing so.

In addition, as I noted at the start of this article, even if the prison at Guantánamo Bay closes, men will still be held in indefinite detention without charge or trial by the US, and that, of course, will be as unacceptable as it has always been and will need challenging, a task which I hope to be able to pursue, as well as demanding that all the men freed are adequately looked after, and that those responsible for the crimes committed in the “war on terror” — up to and including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld — are held accountable.

Thanks for listening, and thanks, as ever, for your support.

Andy Worthington

London

September 14, 2016

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 debut album ‘Love and War’ and EP ‘Fighting Injustice’ are available here to download or on CD via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and the Countdown to Close Guantánamo initiative, launched in January 2016), the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, which called for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison (finally freed on October 30, 2015), and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for 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).

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, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

Quarterly Fundraiser Day 1: Please Help Me Raise $3500 (£2600) to Support My Guantánamo Work

Please support my work!

Dear friends and supporters,

It’s that time of year again when I ask you, if you can, to help support my independent work on Guantánamo and related issues. I’m trying to raise $3500 (£2600) to cover the next three months, which doesn’t work out as a huge amount: £200 a week — or less than $300 a week — for the 50 or so articles I write every quarter, and also for maintaining social media, dealing with admin, and undertaking interviews and personal appearances (mostly unpaid), as well as the cost of running and maintaining this website.

If everyone who reads and appreciates my work was able to donate just $10 (£7.50) for the next three months, I could wrap up this fundraiser immediately, but I know many of you have limited funds and numerous demands for your support. Do bear in mind, though, that I have no institutional backing and that I am, fundamentally, a reader-funded journalist and activist, and as a result reading my work for free means accepting that I have written it for no payment whatsoever.

If you can help out at all, please click on the “Donate” button above to donate via PayPal (and I should add that you don’t need to be a PayPal member to use PayPal).

Any amount will be gratefully received, whether it is $10, $25, $100 or $500 — or any amount in any other currency (£5, £15, £50 or £250, for example). PayPal will convert any currency you pay into dollars, which I chose as my main currency because the majority of my supporters are in the US.

You can also make a recurring payment on a monthly basis by ticking the box marked, “Make This Recurring (Monthly),” and if you are able to do so, it would be very much appreciated. I currently have a number of monthly sustainers, and it’s always reassuring to know that some money is guaranteed every month.

Readers can pay via PayPal from anywhere in the world, but if you’re in the UK and want to help without using PayPal, you can send me a cheque (address here — scroll down to the bottom of the page), and if you’re not a PayPal user and want to send cash from anywhere else in the world, that’s also an option. Please note, however, that foreign checks are no longer accepted at UK banks — only electronic transfers. Do, however, contact me if you’d like to support me by paying directly into my account.

Since my last fundraiser in June, I have continued to cover the main story at Guantánamo this year — the Periodic Review Boards (see here, here and here), which have been helping President Obama work towards the closure of Guantánamo by approving prisoners for release who were previously described as “too dangerous to release.” Since the PRBs began in 2013, 33 men have so far been approved for release. The first round of the PRBs are now complete, but I will continue to monitor the further reviews of the 19 men so far approved for ongoing imprisonment, as well as attempting to keep pressure on President Obama more generally to close the prison before he leaves office.

I doubt the prison will close by January, but I am reassured that only around 40 men will be held at that point, and that, perhaps, we will see the prison’s closure in the not too distant future. Whatever happens, I will continue to write about the prisoners and to call for those who set up the prison to be held accountable for their actions, and, of course, it is as appropriate as ever to say that I cannot do what I do without your help.

Andy Worthington

London

September 12, 2016

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 debut album ‘Love and War’ and EP ‘Fighting Injustice’ are available here to download or on CD via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and the Countdown to Close Guantánamo initiative, launched in January 2016), the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, which called for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison (finally freed on October 30, 2015), and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for 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).

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, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

15 Years After 9/11, Still Waiting for the Closure of Guantánamo

Exactly 15 years ago, terrorists attacked the United States, killing 2,996 people, in the World Trade Center and on two hijacked aeroplanes, and changing the world forever.

Within a month, the US had invaded Afghanistan, aiming to destroy al-Qaeda and to topple the Taliban regime that had harbored them. That mission was largely accomplished by early 2002, but instead of leaving, the US outstayed its welcome, “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory,” as Anand Gopal, the journalist and author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes, explained to me several years ago.

In addition, of course, the Bush administration — led by a president who knew little about the world, attended by two Republican veterans, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who believed in the president’s right to act as he saw fit in times of emergency, unfettered by any kind of checks and balances (the unitary executive theory) — also set up a secret CIA program of kidnap and torture on a global scale, and prisons in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, in Cuba, where the Geneva Conventions did not apply, and where they tried to pretend that indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial was the new normal, rather than a dangerous aberration.

The use of torture, poisoning America’s lifeblood with the false notion that it was necessary, in reality led to very little useful information — and, certainly, no useful information that could not have been obtained through old-fashioned interrogations based on rapport-building rather than conscience-shocking brutality. It did, however, lead to false statements that led to the intelligence services being sidelined into countless wild goose chases, and, crucially, also led to false statements that were used to justify the second post-9/11 military invasion — the illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

In addition, of course, in response to the nearly 3,000 dead — and 6,000 wounded — in the US on September 11, 2001, the US has killed at least 1.3 million people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to a report by Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Global Survival, and the Nobel Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which was published in March 2015.

The authors of the report — which identified a million lives lost in Iraq, 220,000 in Afghanistan and 80,000 in Pakistan — also noted that the body count “could also be in excess of 2 million, whereas a figure below 1 million is extremely unlikely.” The report also added that figure of 1.3m was “approximately 10 times greater than that of which the public, experts and decision makers are aware,” which has been “propagated by the media and major NGOs.”

In addition, those compiling the report did not look at all the other countries targeted by the US in the years since the invasion of Iraq, which include Somalia, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

Reflecting on the invasion of Iraq, in particular — a country that, demonstrably, had nothing whatsoever to do with the 9/11 attacks, but where US actions have very clearly contributed to the rise of IS/Daesh — it seems reasonable to propose, as I first did many years ago, that Dick Cheney ought to be held accountable for treason for his role in securing and using the information about al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein that Colin Powell delivered to the UN on Cheney’s behalf — and to his eternal shame — a month before the invasion in March 2003.

A key lie emerged though the torture of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the emir of an independent training camp in Afghanistan, who, under torture, made a false claim that al-Qaeda was seeking chemical weapons from Saddam Hussein. Al-Libi, eventually returned to Col. Gaddafi’s Libya by the Bush administration, died in dubious circumstances in a Libyan prison in May 2009.

The facilitator of al-Libi’s camp, on the other hand, was Abu Zubaydah, the first victim of Bush’s torture program, who, like other “high-value detainees,” held and tortured in CA “black sites,” is still held at Guantánamo, where, 15 years after 9/11, justice remains elusive, or, even worse, impossible to imagine.

61 men are still held at Guantánamo, and while 20 of those 61 have been approved for release, the rest are either facing discredited military commission trials whose progress is so slow that they may never happen (including, disgracefully, the five men charged with planning and implementing the 9/11 attacks, who would almost certainly have been convicted  years ago if they had been prosecuted in federal court) or are still consigned to indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial. This is in spite of the fact that there has been no demonstration, in the last 15 years, that the US has been helped in any way by holding people indefinitely without charging them — and refusing to hold them as prisoners of war, protected by the Geneva Conventions, who, unlike those allegedly responsible for committing crimes, can be held without charge until the end of hostilities.

Responsible for inflaming tensions abroad, and especially in countries that can readily discern that Guantánamo is a prison for Muslims, and Muslims alone, the use of indefinite detention and torture also smacks of colossal hypocrisy, as the US continues to claim that it is a beacon of freedom, founded on the rule of law, and proudly proclaiming that it upholds the highest values.

On the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, as we remember those who lost their lives on that terrible day, let us also remember those who have lost their lives in all the wars that have been launched since, let us recall that holding people without charge or trial at Guantánamo has been a horribly unacceptable response to the attacks, and that justice has not been delivered for the victims of 9/11, and let us also remember that those responsible for the warmongering, torture, rendition and indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial since 9/11 must one day be held accountable for their actions.

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 debut album ‘Love and War’ and EP ‘Fighting Injustice’ are available here to download or on CD via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and the Countdown to Close Guantánamo initiative, launched in January 2016), the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, which called for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison (finally freed on October 30, 2015), and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for 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).

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, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.