Secret Prisons

Terror Suspect Begs To Be Sent To Guantanamo to be Tried as “A Warrior”

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Published May 6, 2013, in Ibrahim Suleiman Adnan Adam Harun, Secret Evidence, Secret Prisons

It was late last Friday afternoon when Ibrahim Suleiman Adnan Adam Harun, also known as “Spin Ghul”, was led into an imposing federal courtroom in Brooklyn for his first public court appearance. A slight 43-year-old Nigerian man, he was seated across from his assigned lawyer.

As Judge Edward Korman patiently explained to him the lawyer’s role, Ghul interrupted: “She doesn’t represent me.” Korman, a white-haired judge who’s served on the federal bench since 1985, tried to convince him that Susan Kellman, the defense lawyer he’d assigned him, is actually a very good lawyer. Ghul wasn’t listening.

“Hand me over to a military court,” Ghul said, through an interpreter. “I don’t understand this U.S. legal system.”

Ghul was charged with conspiracy to murder Americans and bomb U.S. diplomatic facilities, among other crimes, in a secret indictment filed last February.

Judge Korman explained that he wouldn’t understand the military commission system at Guantanamo Bay either. And, he added, “I don’t have the power to decide if you get charged in a military court.” That power, he explained, resides with the U.S. president.

Gul insisted: “I did fight against their forces, so I should be in a military court,” he said. “I am a warrior.”

It was perhaps the first time a criminal defendant in a U.S. court begged a federal judge to send him to Guantanamo. While unusual, it wasn’t all that surprising. After all, in the world of al Qaeda, it’s far more honorable to be seen as a warrior fighting global jihad than a vicious criminal who’s trying to kill innocent people. It’s a status symbol. Those convicted by military commission have also generally received far lighter sentences than those convicted in U.S. federal court. Of the seven convicted by military commission so far, four have already been released.

As retired Rear Admiral John Hutson, former Judge Advocate General of the Navy, explained earlier that day on a panel we both spoke on, with Terror Courts author Jess Bravin, at Bloomberg, prosecuting detainees in military courts gives them exactly that “warrior” status they crave, but don’t deserve. These aren’t warriors, said Hutson, they’re “criminals” and “thugs” and should be treated as such.

Though Judge Korman listened to Ghul’s objections and explained patiently that he was doing the best he could for him, it was clear that Ghul would indeed be treated as a suspected criminal and thug. Ghul, who waived his Miranda rights when he was first interviewed by U.S. officials last year, has pleaded not guilty.

In court on Friday, Judge Korman took pains to explain to Ghul that because of the U.S. Constitution, in federal court he will get a fair trial. Because he has life tenure, Judge Korman explained, he won’t be swayed by political pressures. Indeed, Judge Korman recently made headlines for ordering the Obama administration to make the morning-after pill available without age limits.

Ghul responded: “If this is how things are going to go, then I will shut my mouth and let you do whatever you want with me. . . . I don’t mind if I’m killed.”

“Just like I don’t have the power to send you to a military commission, I don’t have the power to send you to die,” said Korman.

To Ghul, it seems, the actual delivery of justice is a worse fate.

Follow Daphne Eviatar on Twitter: www.twitter.com/deviatar

 

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Poland begins uncovering story of secret US detention center

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Published August 17, 2012, in Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, abu zubaydah, Abu Zubaydah (Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn), Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Secret Prisons

An official probe has begun into how much the Polish government knew about a covert US detention center outside Warsaw where the CIA may have tortured members of Al Qaeda.

By Roy Gutman

On an idyllic lake surrounded by woods and a double row of mesh-and-razor-wire fences about 100 miles north of Warsaw, there stands a secluded villa that the CIA once used to interrogate – and allegedly torture – top Al Qaeda suspects.

On the grounds of the Polish intelligence-training academy and nicknamed “Markus Wolf” for the former East German spy chief, it’s the focal point for a top-secret probe that Polish prosecutors have launched into how their government tolerated rampant violations of international and Polish law.

If former officials are brought to trial, or if the stacks of classified files in the prosecutors’ offices are made public, the result will be revelations about an American anti-terrorism operation whose details US officials are fighting to keep secret.

Already the prosecutor has charged Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, Poland’s former interior minister and intelligence chief, with unlawful detention and corporal punishment for allowing the CIA to operate at Stare Kiejkuty from December 2002 to September 2003.

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Detention at Sea: Is a 90-Day Limit Required by Law, or Is It Just Good Policy?

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Published August 13, 2011, in Ghost, Secret Prisons, travesty of justice

FD Editor’s Note:  Here’s a post that reflects just how de-sensitized we Americans have become.  Why hold people at sea at all?  There’s no oversight to the interrogations, possible torture, and allowing prisoner’s their rights.  Remember that the last time someone was held at sea – he was a “ghost prisoner” for the entire two months.  Hey, Obama – I thought you said no more secret detentions? 

by Robert Chesney

Julian Barnes and Evan Perez have an interesting piece today in the Wall Street Journal, suggesting that at least some military officers are increasingly concerned about the lack of a clear option for detaining terrorism suspects (other than prosecution).  This is familiar ground that I don’t want to rehash right now.  Instead, I want to draw attention to the following passage in the report:

Senior defense officials said they believe they can hold a detainee up to 90 days in international waters. But after that, they fear they could be violating the Conventions. And with no long-term detention facility at the ready, they worry about missing chances to gather intelligence from suspects.

I’m not quite sure where the 90-day figure comes from.  Certainly not the Geneva Conventions, as the article suggests.  Or at least not directly from it. 

When the full conventions are applicable, sea-based detention is indeed forbidden.  And while some flexibility for merely transitory uses of such detention is inevitable (above all for captures on the water, obviously), there is nothing that picks out 90 days as either too much or too little as the measure of “temporariness.” That said, having a 90-day limit does at least preclude the argument that detention at sea is indefinite/permanent.  

Of course, the full Geneva Conventions most likely would not apply for the non-Iraq, non-Afghanistan captures at issue in this article; rather, Common Article 3 would govern, assuming that there is a relevant armed conflict to which the capture is connected.  Common Article 3 says nothing about sea-based detention, as it happens, and it is unclear whether a prohibition on sea-based detention might at least be part of the customary law of armed conflict applicable in non-internationalized settings; certainly there is nothing that makes 90 days acceptable, or not, as the outer boundary imposed by international law, though again such a limit does at least foreclose arguments about permanent/indefinite reliance on vessels. 

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‘Torture common in US secret prisons’

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Published July 20, 2011, in Secret Prisons, Torture

A series of United Nations investigations indicate that the use of torture and inhumane practices against prisoners are common in US secret detention centers around the world.

The US security forces hold a large number of suspects in secret detention centers run by the Central Intelligence Agency around the world, particularly in Afghanistan. The detainees are denied access to lawyers and are not allowed to visit their families, Fars news agency reported on Wednesday.

American interrogators force their captives to take off their clothes and remain naked for indefinite periods. They also gag detainees and shut their eyes while hanging them from the cell ceiling for long hours.

According to the Human Rights First, there are now more than 2,000 detainees being held at the US-run Bagram Air Base secret jails without any charge or due legal process, and the number of detainees have been tripled since the end of the Bush administration.

Some 27,000 prisoners are suspected to have been held by the US in secret detention centers around the world including in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Island of Diego Garcia (Indian Ocean), Jordan and aboard US amphibious assault ships.

According to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, numerous cases of torture ordered by US officials and perpetrated by US authorities are well documented.

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A Few More Points About “Gitmo At Sea”

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Published July 9, 2011, in Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, Ghost, Secret Prisons

Adam Serwer

I just wanted to address a few more issues regarding the two-month seaborne detention of terrorism suspect Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame.

Legal Authority: The U.S. is arguing that Warsame is subject to military detention under the 2001 Authorization to use Military Force because he is a member of al Shabab.

“The detention of an individual covered by the AUMF is not considered different from a legal perspective if they’re held on a U.S. Naval ship or if they’re held on a U.S. Naval base,” says Ken Gude, a human-rights and national-security expert at the Center for American Progress. “If they’re covered by the AUMF, they can be held by the U.S. military.” Gude points out that the U.S. has been conducting military operations in the region since the Bush administration.

The ACLU’s Ben Wizner, however, argues that this interpretation of the AUMF is strained. “It’s hard to fathom that Congress in 2001, was giving authority to hold without charge or trial, someone part of a group that did not exist at the time,” Wizner says. “This wasn’t anything we used to question. If you arrest someone involved in criminal activity overseas, then you brought them to a judge and put them on trial.”

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Warsame: An Emerging New Model for Terrorism Cases?

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Published July 6, 2011, in Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, Black Sites, Ghost, Rendition, Secret Prisons

by Rick Pildes

As Bobby notes, the recently announced criminal prosecution of Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, captured overseas almost three months ago by U.S. military forces, could be an important test of an emerging hybrid model for handling alleged terrorism cases that offers an alternative to the stark war v. crime dichotomy. Consistent with the laws of war, Warsame was detained in military custody and interrogated initially for two months, presumably for intelligence purposes, without Miranda warnings. But if his case were fully handled by the laws of war model, he would remain in detention, in long-term military custody (although where he would be detained for more long-term purposes would be an enormous problem for the administration). Instead, he is now being moved into the criminal justice system for a conventional civilian criminal trial. This hybrid model is a means to try to avoid pitting government’s intelligence gathering function against its criminal justice function. Put another way, this is an effort by the Obama administration to show it does not need to put people into a regime of long-term military detention in order to ensure that alleged terrorists are adequately mined for whatever intelligence value they might have.

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Somali man brought to US to face civilian terror trial

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Published July 5, 2011, in Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, Ghost, Secret Prisons

By MATT APUZZO

A Somali soldier passes through a destroyed house during
clashes between Somali government soldiers backed by
African Union Peacekeepers and Islamic insurgents in north
of Mogadishu’s Bondhere district Tuesday June, 7, 2011.
(AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)

A Somali citizen captured in April was interrogated aboard a U.S. warship for two months and is now in New York to face terrorism charges.The case against Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame shows the Obama administration is sticking by its plan to use civilian courts to prosecute terrorists, a strategy that was successful for years under then President George W. Bush but which has drawn fire from Republicans since President Barack Obama took office.

The case also offers a glimpse at how the U.S. plans to interrogate detainees now that Obama has closed the CIA’s network of secret prisons.

The military captured Warsame on April 19, and then put him aboard a Navy warship, where he was interrogated at sea by intelligence officials, senior administration officials said Tuesday. Under interrogation, Warsame gave up what officials called important intelligence about al-Qaida in Yemen and its relationship with al-Shabab militants in Somalia. The two groups have been known to have ties, but the extent of that relationship has remained unclear.

After the interrogation was complete, the FBI stepped in and began the interrogation from scratch, in a way that could be used in court. After the FBI read Warsame his Miranda rights – the right to remain silent and speak with an attorney – he opted to keep talking for days, helping the government build its case.

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