Reprieve

Obama Administration Recruiting Lawyers to Defend Some Gitmo Detentions

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Published April 13, 2009, in Ahmed Ghappour, Clive Stafford Smith, Eric Holder, Guantanamo, habeas corpus, Reprieve

By William Fisher

President Barack Obama has ordered the Navy’s prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by next January, suspended Military Commission trials, and assigned Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct case-by-case reviews of the 241 prisoners still detained there to determine which ones should be prosecuted, released or sent to other countries. Yet the Obama Defense Department is still trying to recruit lawyers to defend its detentions.

In a ”help wanted” ad circulated through the American Bar Association, the Pentagon (DOD) offering $39,407– $130,211 a year for lawyers who will help respond to habeas corpus petitions filed by detainees in federal courts.

Habeas Corpus petitions challenge the government’s right to imprison them. That right was granted to the detainees in a landmark Supreme Court decision in June 2008.

 

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Britons ‘faced torture’ in Pakistan

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Published March 18, 2009, in Kashmir, Naheem Hussain, Pakistan, Rehan Zaman, Reprieve, Torture, UK

The Government has been accused of “doing nothing” to help two British citizens who were allegedly tortured by Pakistani police in a bid to extract confessions from them.

Naheem Hussain, 24, and Rehan Zaman, 25, are currently being held in a Pakistani jail where they face execution after being arrested in 2004.

Human rights group Reprieve said the men, both from Birmingham, were “brutally tortured” in order for confessions to be gained and called for the Foreign Office to immediately step in and come to their aid.

Reprieve said Mr Zaman, Mr Hussain and his father, Fazal, 56, underwent “medieval” torture at the hands of the police to obtain false confessions.

 

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Bring Binyam Home [ACTION]

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Published February 4, 2009, in action, Activists, Guantanamo, Reprieve

Press reports on Sunday 1 February stated that Binyam Mohamed, on hunger strike and being force fed, is “close to death”. Yvonne Bradley, a US military lawyer who visited Binyam last month told the Observer that “he is just skin and bones. The real worry is that he comes out in a coffin“.

Also in the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1133514/British-Guantanamo-inmate-returned-UK-hunger-strike-brings-close-death.html?ITO=1490

Take URGENT ACTION for Binyam: write/email the Foreign Secretary to take IMMEDIATE action to bring Binyam back to the UK – we do not want him back in a body bag or a coffin or his blood on the FCO’s hands. Please write to the Foreign Secretary: private.office@fco.gov.uk – maybe send a few short emails.

In a further twist in the tale today, after an expedited judicial review to get the British government to disclose information about Binyam’s detention and torture, including his genitals being cut with a scalpel over and over again, in Morocco and Afghanistan, the High Court today, Wednesday 4 February, revealed at the end of the case that they cannot force the FCO to disclose this information as the Americans have threatened their best friends, the UK, that they will not share any more intelligence information if the information gets out and names their security agents. In a previous hearing, the High Court had described Binyam’s case. vis-à-vis UK and US intelligence, as “deeply disturbing”.

There is NO denial that Binyam was tortured and NO denial that both countries were knowingly complicit, the only questions are who and to what extent?

TAKE ACTION: write to President Obama and ask him to take action to allow this information to be disclosed:http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ . The High Court judges ended their judgment by asking Obama to make that information available.

More on this story in the press today:

NB: this isn’t the first time the UK has admitted to being complicit in US rendition and torture. Almost exactly a year ago, the UK admitted to allowing two rendition flights refuel on the UK-administered island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The government denied this for years and this is probably just a small part of our involvement. MP Andrew Tyrie filed an application to consider where the UK stands in view of such action under our international obligations under the UN Convention against Torture in the summer of 2008. Today’s Guardian newspaper also runs a story about M15 involvement in Pakistan.

Also note that President Obama did not outlaw the use of torture and extraordinary rendition in his executive order to close down Guantánamo Bay.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/04/guantanamo-torture

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7870049.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/senior-judges-attack-us-refusal-to-disclose-evidence-1545777.html

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US must free Guantanamo detainee

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Published January 14, 2009, in Mohamed el-Gharani, Release, Reprieve

Mohamed el-Gharani (Photo: Reprieve)

Mohamed el-Gharani was arrested in Pakistan in 2001 (Photo: Reprieve)

A US judge has ordered the military to release a detainee at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp who was arrested in Pakistan when he was 14 years old.

Judge Richard Leon said the government had not proven that Mohamed el-Gharani, who is now 21, was a so-called “enemy combatant” and should be sent home.

The Chadian national was arrested at a mosque in Pakistan in October 2001.

His lawyer says he was accused by the US of being a member of al-Qaeda in 1998, when he would have been only 11.

The US authorities have also alleged that Mr Gharani stayed at an al-Qaeda-affiliated guest house in Afghanistan, fought in the battle of Tora Bora following the US-led invasion, and served as a courier for senior al-Qaeda operatives.

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Guantanamo Brit: ‘I Was Tortured’

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Published July 28, 2008, in Detainee Abuse, Extraordinary Rendition, Reprieve, Torture

A British citizen facing a military trial in America’s Guantanamo Bay prison camp is launching a legal battle over claims he was tortured into confessing to terror offences.

Binyam Mohamed

Binyam Mohamed was detained in Pakistan.  He says the British government is refusing to release evidence

that backs up his allegations that he was the victim of extraordinary rendition by the US.

Mr Mohamed, who worked as a janitor in London, says he was taken to Afghanistan and later Morocco, where he was interrogated and his genitals slashed with razor blades.

His legal team, led by Clive Stafford Smith, said the case against him before a US Military Commission would be based on statements made during interrogation.

Evidence obtained by torture is inadmissible before the Commission.

The US government denies there was rendition or torture.

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Lawyer asks Taoiseach for information on CIA flights

By:
Published July 28, 2008, in C.I.A., CIA Black Sites, Extraordinary Rendition, Reprieve

CAROL COULTER, Legal Affairs Editor

THE LAWYER representing a British resident detained in Guantánamo Bay has written to Taoiseach Brian Cowen seeking information on CIA flights involved in his client’s “extraordinary rendition” which landed in Shannon in 2002 and 2004.

Clive Stafford Smith wrote to Mr Cowen on Friday on behalf of Binyam Mohamed, whom he is representing in the US military commissions process and US habeas corpus litigation.

Mr Mohamed, a janitor from Kensington in London, was 30 on Thursday last, and has been detained for the past six years, four in Guantánamo and before that for two years in Morocco and Afghanistan.

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