– Guantánamo Judge Orders CIA Testimony on Destroyed ‘Black Site’ Videotapes
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Guantánamo
WATCH: Ex-Guantanamo Bay Guard and Former Prisoner Reunite (Video)
– WATCH: Ex-Guantanamo Bay Guard and Former Prisoner Reunite:
(MEE) Moazzam Begg, a British national who was forcibly abducted in 2002 and taken to Guantanamo Bay, has filmed a meeting with his former prison guard, some 14 years after he was first jailed.
The two men met by chance in London while Begg, who now works for Cage, a UK-based advocacy group working with people impacted by the ‘War on Terror’, was promoting his recent film talking about his capture and subsequent confession he was forced to make under duress.
Read moreWATCH: Ex-Guantanamo Bay Guard and Former Prisoner Reunite (Video)
Trump says American terror suspects could be tried, held in Guantanamo
– Trump says American terror suspects could be tried, held in Guantanamo:
Donald Trump expressed his support for sending US citizens accused of terrorism to be tried and detained at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Current law prevents US citizens from being tried before military tribunals, however.The GOP presidential nominee suggested that he would be “fine” with Americans being tried in Guantanamo Bay by military court systems in a Thursday interview with the Miami Herald.
“I want to make sure, that if we have a radical Islamic terrorist, we have a safe place to keep them,” Trump said, echoing the concerns of other Republicans that housing terror suspects on American soil could potentially be a security threat.
Read moreTrump says American terror suspects could be tried, held in Guantanamo
Shaker Aamer’s First Interview: ‘Everything That Happened To Us Is a War Crime’
– Shaker Aamer’s First Interview: ‘Everything That Happened To Us Is a War Crime’:
Shaker Aamer, who was released from Guantanamo Bay prison in October, gave his first television interview to the British news outlet, ITV News.
Aamer, a British resident born in Saudi Arabia, was detained for nearly fourteen years. He endured routine abuse and torture, especially because he engaged in hunger strikes and was willing to stand up for the rights of fellow prisoners.
He wrote a number of letters from Guantanamo which offered a window into the brutal tactics used by the U.S. military. The letters also showed the pain caused by not being able to be with his wife and children
ITV, unfortunately, posted Aamer’s interview today in many thirty to forty-five second chunks rather than in one segment or two longer parts for the world to watch. Those chunks of the interview do not necessarily represent the more significant parts of the interview.
Read moreShaker Aamer’s First Interview: ‘Everything That Happened To Us Is a War Crime’
UN Torture Investigator Calls For Access To US Prisons, Gitmo Detainees
– UN torture investigator calls for access to US prisons, Gitmo detainees (RT, March 11, 2015):
The United Nations special rapporteur on torture lambasted the United States for continually obstructing his requests to visit prisons where 80,000 people sit in solitary confinement and to freely speak with inmates at Guantanamo Bay.
Juan E. Méndez said Wednesday that he has attempted for more than two years to visit and check conditions at American prisons, including some of the nation’s most notorious maximum security facilities. He added that UN human rights officials have asked for access to Guantanamo prisoners since 2004.
“On the federal level, I want to go to ADX in Florence, Colorado and to the Manhattan Correctional Center,” Méndez said during a news briefing, Reuters reported.
“Those are where people accused of terrorism are taken or where they serve their term.”
Read moreUN Torture Investigator Calls For Access To US Prisons, Gitmo Detainees
Guantánamo Diary (The Guardian)
H/t reader M.G.:
“A short preview of the torture being endured at Gitmo……this is a small part of a diary that became a book. No wonder the US is crashing and burning, this is stuff the Nazis would have loved…..evil only breeds more.
This is appalling.
– Guantánamo Diary (The Guardian):
– Guantánamo Diary: ‘Everybody in the team realized that I was about to lose my mind’
– Guantánamo Diary: ‘The US government is not willing to be forthcoming and disclose the truth’
– Guantánamo Diary: ‘I smelled the odour of a letter that had touched the hand of my mom’
– Guantánamo Diary: ‘I’d rather be a criminal and sitting home with my kids’
– Guantánamo Diary: ‘I hope you think of us as more than just guards. I think we all became friends’
– Guantánamo Diary exposes brutality of US rendition and torture
– Guantánamo Diary – exclusive video clip read by Dominic West
– Guantánamo Diary: ‘I saw the cockpit. I saw the guards. I saw the ghosts of my fellow detainees’
– Guantánamo Diary: How a classified, handwritten manuscript became an extraordinary book
First-Ever Trial to Assess Guantanamo Force-Feeding Begins Today
– First-Ever Trial to Assess Guantanamo Force-Feeding Begins Today (Common Dreams, Oct 6, 2014):
LONDON – An unprecedented trial to assess the legality of force-feeding methods used at Guantanamo Bay will begin today, Monday Oct 6, at 10am (EST) in courtroom 26A of the District Court, Washington DC.
The trial, in the case of Dhiab v. Obama, will be open to the public after the US Government’s request to have it held in secret was denied by District Court Judge Gladys Kessler. Today’s hearing comes in the wake of Judge Kessler’s ruling on Friday that the US must release several hours of video footage showing cleared Syrian detainee Abu Wa’el Dhiab, who is represented by international human rights NGO Reprieve, being force-fed and manhandled to the force-feeding chair.
Read moreFirst-Ever Trial to Assess Guantanamo Force-Feeding Begins Today
US Guantanamo Detainee Killed In Syria While Leading NATO-Backed Death Squad
H/t reader squodgy:
“Can anything be weirder than this. Mind Control at its most sinister.”
Al-CIAda at work …
– US Guantanamo detainee killed in Syria while leading NATO-backed death squad. (New Eastern Outlook, April 17, 2014):
The Long War Journal reported in its post, “Former Guantanamo detainee killed while leading jihadist group in Syria,” that:
Ibrahim Bin Shakaran, a Moroccan who spent more than three years at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility before being released to Moroccan custody, has been killed while leading a jihadist group that fights Syrian government forces.
Bin Shakaran, who is also known as Abu Ahmad al Maghribi, Abu Ahmad al Muhajir, and Brahim Benchekroune, was “martyred, Insha’Allah, in battles for Hilltop # 45 in Latakia,” according to Kavkaz Center, a propaganda arm of the Islamic Caucasus Emirate.
Read moreUS Guantanamo Detainee Killed In Syria While Leading NATO-Backed Death Squad
Pentagon Official Who Played Key Role In Creating Guantanamo Under Bush Now Admits: It Should Never Have Been Built
– Why we should shut down Guantanamo: Prison camp’s jailer-in-chief makes jaw-dropping U-turn and says it should never have been built (Daily Mail, Aug 3, 2013):
The Pentagon official in charge of Guantanamo Bay has admitted that if he had his time over, he would have argued that the notorious detention camp should never have been built.
William Lietzau, America’s Deputy Assistant Defence Secretary for Detainee Affairs, told The Mail on Sunday in an exclusive interview that Guantanamo’s detainees should have been legally designated as prisoners of war and held in Afghanistan, or if charged with crimes, taken to prisons in America.
Mr Lietzau – who, after three and a half years in his job, last week announced he will be stepping down to take a private sector job in September – added that the best way for President Obama to close Guantanamo would be to announce that the ‘war’ with Al Qaeda is over.
Under international law, this would end any justification for continuing to hold prisoners who had not been charged with crimes.
Lietzau’s words will be seen as explosive, because alone of senior officials who serve the Obama administration in this field now, he played a key role in creating Guantanamo under George W. Bush.