No Justice at Guantánamo: The Release of Ahmed Al-Darbi and Moazzam Begg’s Reflections

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At the start of this month, Donald Trump transferred his first prisoner out of Guantánamo, the Saudi citizen Ahmed al-Darbi, who was repatriated as part of a plea deal arranged in his military commission proceedings in February 2014. However, he did not return home a free man, as, in his homeland, he will serve the remainder of a 13-year sentence agreed in his plea deal.

As I explained in an article at the time, “Under the terms of that plea deal, al-Darbi acknowledged his role in an-Qaeda attack on a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen’s coast in 2002, and was required to testify against other prisoners at Guantánamo as part of their military commission trials, which he did last summer, and was supposed to be released on February 20 this year. However, February 20 came and went, and al-Darbi wasn’t released, a situation that threatened to undermine the credibility of the military commission plea deals.”

Al-Darbi’s transfer saved the only functioning part of the otherwise broken military commission trial system, which is incapable of delivering justice in an actual trial, given that the men in question, although accused of serious crimes, were lavishly subjected to torture over a number of years, and the use of torture, to be blunt, fundamentally undermines any possibility of a fair and just trial.

Looked at another way, al-Darbi’s transfer also highlighted the glaring injustice of Guantánamo, something that has actually been apparent since the dying days of the administration of George W. Bush, when Salim Hamdan, a hapless driver for Osama bin Laden, was freed after the military judge in his military commission trial, recognizing that he had no operational role whatsoever in Al-Qaeda, gave him a short sentence that included time served, and that led to his repatriation in November 2008.

When he was sentenced, I wrote, in an article entitled, Salim Hamdan’s sentence signals the end of Guantánamo, that, “If one of Osama bin Laden’s drivers gets a sentence of seven years and one month in total (five and a half years plus the 19 months of his imprisonment before he was charged) … it is surely now inconceivable that those who planned the whole post-9/11 detention policy can … continue to hold any of the 130 or so prisoners in Guantánamo who have not been cleared [for release], and who are not scheduled to face a trial by Military Commission, beyond the end of the year.” I added, “With this sentence, it appears that the death knell has just been sounded for the whole malign Guantánamo project.”

That was, in hindsight, absurdly optimistic, despite being unerringly logical, because logic has no place at Guantánamo.

What happened instead was that, in fits and starts, and with little evident enthusiasm for tackling decisively the chronic injustice of Guantánamo, despite promising to close it, President Obama undertook two high-level government review processes and released nearly 200 men, leaving 41 men still held under Donald Trump. With al-Darbi’s transfer, that number has dropped to 40, with nine men still involved in the military commission trail system, five approved for release but still held, and 26 others in that limbo of ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial that is so disturbingly emblematic of the US’s post-9/11 flight from the accepted norms of detention and justice.

Reflecting on al-Darbi’s transfer a week after it took place, the British citizen and former Guantánamo prisoner Moazzam Begg wrote an insightful column for Middle East Eye that I’m cross-posting below because it captures other aspects of the injustice of Guantánamo and the “war on terror” in general. Begg was imprisoned alongside al-Darbi in Afghanistan, and specifically at Bagram, the former Soviet site that became the US’s main prison, a horrendously brutal environment in which at least ten prisoners were killed.

It was there that Begg met Omar Khadr, the Canadian child prisoner, and Damien Corsetti, the guard whose nickname was “Monster” and the “King of Torture.” Corsetti was, eventually, one of a handful of guards court-martialed for “dereliction of duty, maltreatment, assault and performing an indecent act with another person,” not only at Bagram, but also at Abu Ghraib, and the case against him was based primarily on al-Darbi’s allegations about what Corsetti said and did to him.

A military jury found him not guilty, and Corsetti was later apologetic about his role in the “war on terror,” but in truth, as Moazzam Begg notes, he “was a low-ranking officer who was part of a far greater machine that didn’t only justify torture — it revelled in it.” Corsetti was a Specialist, serving in the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion under Lt. Carolyn Wood. She introduced the use of torture techniques on the prisoners in a bid to improve intelligence, and on her watch at least two prisoners died, but those ideas did not originate with her, but higher up the chain of command, — with Donald Rumsfeld and Guantánamo commander Geoffrey Miller — and in fact Wood’s work was so well received by her superiors that she and her team were transferred to Abu Ghraib, where they were implicated in the scandal that became public in April 2004. Nevertheless. Wood was awarded two Bronze Stars by the military for the “services” she provided in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Begg didn’t get to meet al-Darbi in Guantánamo, but he makes the valid point that, despite “having undergone 16 years of torture, the time [he] served will not count” against his sentence, an the is not due for release until 2027. He also notes what I mentioned above, and have been mentioning since the sentencing of Salim Hamdan in 2008 — that “those who have not been charged with a crime in over 16 years remain imprisoned indefinitely,” while “those who plead guilty to crimes go home.”

Begg also notes that “his crimes had little, if anything, to do with the US,” which is correct with regards to the attack on a French oil tanker, but it doesn’t absolve him of responsibility of that crime, if he was indeed involved in it. What it does show, however, is how, in the general lawlessness of the “war on terror,” the US had little or no regard for traditional jurisdictions. Al-Darbi, on this basis, should have been prosecuted in France, and in the case of Hambali, a “high-value detainee” allegedly responsible for the bombing of a nightclub in Bali in 2002, in which 202 people died, primarily Australian tourists. Hambali should have ended up either in Australian or Indonesian custody, but instead the US kidnapped him with Thai support in 2003, so that they could torture him in a CIA “black site.” Shamefully, it remains uncertain if Hambali will ever face prosecution.

I hope you have time to read Moazzam Begg’s article, and will share it if you find it useful.

The ludicrous notion of justice in Guantánamo

By Moazzam Begg, Middle East Eye, May 11, 2018

The first prisoner released on Donald Trump’s watch has been repatriated to Saudi Arabia to serve the remainder of his term. The years of torture he endured in Guantánamo will not count towards this sentence.

In February last year, I sat down to have lunch at a Lebanese restaurant in Birmingham with three men. They were lawyers in the US military involved with the Office of Military Commissions’ Guantánamo Bay defence team for Ahmed al-Darbi, a Saudi national imprisoned in the detention camp since 2002.

The military lawyers had come to discuss their client’s case, and whether anything I knew could help him. The last time I saw Darbi was at the Bagram detention facility in Afghanistan in the summer of 2002, before he was shipped off to Cuba.

The Bagram prison was originally a warehouse built by the Soviet Union during its occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Markings and writings in Russian were still visible around the building. The striking thing about seeing US soldiers everywhere was the realisation that Afghanistan, among the poorest nations on earth, was occupied by the strongest nations on earth. And yet, both were to fail, militarily and morally.

Buried alive in a mass grave

Just before Darbi arrived, I remember meeting an Afghan prisoner called Sharif. Walking, talking or even looking in the “wrong” direction meant being disciplined — which included being hooded and shackled to the top of a door, where we remained suspended for several hours, or even days. Nonetheless, Sharif and I managed to speak, using our newly discovered talent for ventriloquism-like conversations, so that our lips were not seen to move.

Sharif told me how his father had been buried alive in a mass grave by the Soviet army, right here in Bagram. After having encountered American brutality himself, however, he still hadn’t decided who he despised more.

Sharif was released shortly afterwards, but the influx of new prisoners continued on almost a daily basis. One prisoner I couldn’t forget was Darbi.

On the day I first saw him, he was being dragged about by soldiers as they screamed abuse at him and made him pile up crates of water bottles, with his hands and legs shackled. He didn’t react, except to do as he was told. But, no sooner than he’d managed to assemble a stack of crates high enough, the soldiers kicked them down and made him do it again. This went on for hours, until he was exhausted and taken back to his cell for a short rest. Soon enough, they were back again to repeat the process. This was Darbi’s introduction to the US military system. Far more was to follow.

Drained, exhausted and depressed

Darbi and I had initially been in separate cells, but I could usually see what was happening in adjacent cells. Our communal cages were divided by only rolls of razor wire, as armed guards patrolled both in front and behind. Darbi was eventually moved to my cell, which I was sharing at the time with Canadian teen Omar Khadr. Despite suffering horrific gunshot injuries and being a child, Khadr was put through the same procedure as Darbi. Although Khadr’s treatment was shocking and inexcusable, I understood what caused their hatred: He was accused of killing a US soldier.

Darbi, on the other hand, was captured in Azerbaijan after being accused of involvement in the bombing of a French-owned, Malaysian-registered oil tanker in the Persian Gulf, in which one crew member was killed. The dead man wasn’t an American.

Mistreatment of prisoners was usually justified based on a concoction of half-truths and exaggerations. Soldiers told me that Darbi was a Saudi special forces operative who’d gone rogue and joined al-Qaeda.

When I first arrived at Bagram, prisoners were not permitted any movement. We literally had to sit or lie on the floor all day. After some discussions, I managed to convince the guards to allow us 30 minutes of daily exercise. Watching Darbi during exercise time, I remember forming a rather low opinion of Saudi special forces — until he told me the rumours were untrue. He’d served in the Saudi National Guard for a short term and left.

Darbi was often taken for interrogation and would return, like most of us, drained, exhausted and depressed. He told me that one of the interrogators had removed his own trousers and threatened to rape him.

‘King of torture’

When able, I would strike up conversation with soldiers, mainly to try and engage and educate them, so that they could see our humanity. One of these soldiers was an interrogator who, I later learned, was an Italian-American nicknamed “Monster” and “king of torture”. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the interrogator Darbi was talking about.

The sounds of screaming — both prisoners and interrogators — would often reverberate around the prison, but I’d never assumed that this thoughtful, easygoing soldier was one of them. Damien Corsetti would pass my cell and speak to me about history, politics, religion and beyond. He even gave me a book I still have, Joseph Heller’s classic antiwar novel, Catch 22. He was quite cordial with me, but he wasn’t involved in my interrogations.

Years later, Corsetti was brought up on charges of dereliction of duty, maltreatment, assault and performing an indecent act with another person in Bagram and Abu Ghraib, Iraq, where he was redeployed.

Shortly after my release from Guantánamo, I was approached by Corsetti’s lawyers, asking if I’d be a character witness for him. I wrote about this strange request in the New York Times. Corsetti was eventually found not guilty and later joined the Iraq Veterans Against the War. His testimony is featured alongside my own in the Oscar-winning documentary ‘Taxi to the Dark Side.’

In truth, Corsetti was a low-ranking officer who was part of a far greater machine that didn’t only justify torture — it revelled in it.

Plea bargaining

As for Darbi, I never saw him again after Bagram, but I remained in contact with his family and lawyers after I was released. In 2012, under the farcical Guantánamo military commissions process, Darbi was charged with involvement in the oil tanker attack and, in 2014, as part of a plea bargain, he pleaded guilty. His deal included giving witness testimony against some of the remaining 40 Guantánamo prisoners.

In return, Darbi was given a 13-year sentence — but despite having undergone 16 years of torture, the time he’s served will not count. Instead, he has to serve the remainder of his sentence in a prison in Saudi Arabia, where he was finally repatriated last week. He’s due for release in 2027.

I don’t know what became of the evidence I gave to the lawyers about the abuse he endured, but Darbi’s case exposes the ludicrous notion of justice that operates in Guantánamo.

Firstly, his crimes had little, if anything, to do with the US. Secondly, those who have not been charged with a crime in over 16 years remain imprisoned indefinitely; those who plead guilty to crimes go home. This has been the case with the majority of those who pled guilty.

As Darbi said in a statement to his lawyer: “No one should remain at Guantánamo without a trial. There is no justice in that.”

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

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

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