| August | |
| 16/08/2001 | Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested after suspicious flight lessons and charged with six counts of conspiracy connected with 9/11 Still on hold. Lawyers for Moussaoui petitioned the Supreme Court in January for permission to interview detained al-Qaeda captives they believe can help his case. |
| September | |
| 11/09/2001 | September 11th attacks on New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. The US government compiles and releases a list of terrorist suspects |
| 14/09/2001 | Congress authorizes President George W. Bush to use “all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.” |
| 18/09/2001 | The Justice Department publishes an interim regulation allowing non-citizens suspected of terrorism to be detained without charge for 48 hours or “an additional reasonable period of time” in the event of an “emergency or other extraordinary circumstance.” The new rule is used to hold hundreds indefinitely until the USA Patriot Act passes in October. |
| 21/09/2001 | Chief United States Immigration Judge Michael Creppy issues a directive instructing immigration judges to close cases that might be of “special interest” to the September 11 investigation to all members of the press and public. |
| October | |
| 05/10/2001 | Mamdouh Habib, 47-years-old and a father of four, was seized by Pakistani police, while traveling from the city of Quetta to Karachi in order to fly back to Australia. With the full knowledge of Australian authorities, he was sent incommunicado to Egypt for five months and then transferred to Guantanamo Bay. |
| 07/10/2001 | War in Afghanistan begins |
| 20/10/2001 | The New York Times reports that, although 830 people have been arrested in the 9/11 investigation, there is no evidence that anyone in custody was a conspirator in the 9/11 attacks. |
| 26/10/2001 | USA Patriot Act signed into law. |
| 31/10/2001 | Ashcroft announces the creation of a Foreign Terrorist Tracking Force, which effectively institutionalizes his strategy of mass preventive detention of noncitizens in order to “enhance our ability to protect the United States from the threat of terrorist aliens.” |
| 31/10/2001 | John Walker Lindh found in Afghanistan, he was charged with conspiring to kill Americans and providing support to al-Qaeda Lindh agreed to plead guilty to aiding the Taliban and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. After Hamdi’s release, lawyers for Lindh petitioned the court to give him a shorter sentence. |
| 31/10/2001 | Yaser Esam Hamdi, a Louisiana-born Saudi captured in Afghanistan with Taliban fighters, he was labeled an enemy combatant. When his US citizenship was later established he was moved from Guantanamo and transferred to various military brigs in the US |
| November | |
| 08/11/2001 | Justice Department announces it will no longer issue a running tally of the number of people detained around the country in 9/11-related sweeps. As of this date, the Washington Post puts the tally at 1,182. |
| 10/11/2001 | Abdurahman Khadr is arrested as a suspected member of al-Qaeda one day before the Taliban falls to the U.S.-supported Northern Alliance. |
| 13/11/2001 | President Bush authorizes a Military Order establishing military tribunals to try suspected terrorists. Anyone held under the Military Order can be detained indefinitely without charge or trial. |
| 30/11/2001 | British national Feroz Abbasi was captured by American special forces in Kunduz, north east Afghanistan. He is later moved to Guantanamo Bay where he is detained until early 2005 |
| December | |
| 04/12/2001 | Senate holds hearings on 9/11 detainees. Ashcroft testifies that those who question his policies are “aiding and abetting terrorism,” and goes largely unchallenged. |
| 11/12/2001 | In the first criminal indictments stemming from the 9/11 attacks, Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, is charged with conspiring with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to “murder thousands of people” in New York, the Pentagon, and Pennsylvania. A federal grand jury indicts Moussaoui on six conspiracy counts, four of which could carry a death sentence. It is the first indictment directly related to the attacks |
| 22/12/2001 | British citizen Richard Reid is arrested for allegedly trying to blow up a Miami-bound jet using explosives hidden in his shoe. He later pleads guilty to all charges, and declares himself a follower of Osama bin Laden. He received a sentence of life in prison. |
| 22/12/2001 | Djamel Ajouaou, said by David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, to pose “a continuing threat to national security”, then announced that he would exercise his right to return to Morocco. |
| January | |
| 02/01/2002 | Moussaoui is arraigned on the six-count indictment. He declines to enter a plea, prompting U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema to enter a not guilty plea on his behalf. |
| 03/01/2002 | The Taliban’s ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef is arrested and handed over to the US. He is transferred to Guantanamo Bay. |
| 09/01/2002 | The White House declares that the Guantanamo detainees are, as “enemy combatants,” not entitled to the protections accorded prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. Justice Department lawyer John Yoo and special counsel Robert J. Delahunty advise the Pentagon that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the Taliban or al-Qaida. |
| 11/01/2002 | First group of 20 detainees arrives at Guantanamo Bay’s Camp X-Ray from detention centres in Afghanistan. It emerges that there are Britons being held there |
| 17/01/2002 | By now 110 prisoners are detained by the U.S. Defense Department at Camp X-ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, “I do not feel the slightest concern at their treatment. They are being treated vastly better than they treated anybody else.” |
| 18/01/2002 | President Bush decides that prisoners at Guantanamo are not eligible for prisoner-of-war protection under the Geneva Conventions. |
| 21/01/2002 | A DOD memorandum (PDF) prepared by the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, details a meeting with Red Cross officials. The document also explains policies governing body searches and the use of female soldiers to escort male detainees to shower facilities at Camp X-Ray. |
| 22/01/2002 | A memo (PDF) from Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee argues that the War Crimes Act and the Geneva Convention did not apply to al Qaeda prisoners and that President Bush had constitutional authority to “suspend our treaty obligations toward Afghanistan” because it was a “failed state.” |
| 24/01/2002 | John Walker Lindh transported to Alexandria, Virginia, to be tried in a civilian criminal court for conspiring to kill Americans. He makes his first appearance before a U.S. District Court. A criminal complaint lists four charges, including conspiracy to kill his fellow Americans in Afghanistan. |
| 24/01/2002 | A DOD memorandum (PDF) from the Pentagon’s Office of the Staff Judge Advocate explains the actions taken in response to each of the 29 concerns raised by Red Cross officials after their visit to Camp X-Ray. |
| 25/01/2002 | Gonzales writes a memo to President Bush arguing that the terrorism fight “renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions,” such as requiring that prisoners get advances on their salaries. At an appearance in Cincinnati, Vice President Dick Cheney says the treatment of Guantanamo prisoners “is probably better than they deserve.” |
| 26/01/2002 | Secretary of State Colin Powell writes to Gonzales, arguing that the United States should apply the conventions in full, even if they are not legally binding. |
| 26/01/2002 | A British man, Mohammed Kamel, jailed for three years in Yemen for plotting a bombing campaign has returned to the UK after his release from priso |
| 27/01/2002 | Vice President Dick Cheney discards the presumption of innocence, declaring the detainees at Guantanamo “the worse of a very bad lot … devoted to killing millions of Americans.” |
| 27/01/2002 | The family of Guantanamo detainee Shafiq Rasul, 24, from Tipton, in the West Midlands, plead for him to be returned to Britain for questioning. He is in the camp with fellow Britons, Asif Iqbal, 20, also from Tipton, and Feroz Abbasi, 22, from Croydon, Surrey. |
| 29/01/2002 | Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld makes his first visit to Guantanamo Bay. Bush and Rumsfeld say the prisoners there “will not be determined to be POWs.” |
| 31/01/2002 | Moazzam Begg was seized by the CIA in Pakistan and taken to Afghanistan. |
| February | |
| 01/02/2002 | In a response to a State Department memo stating that Geneva Convention protected Taliban soldiers, Attorney General John Ashcroft summarizes Justice Department view that the conventions do not apply to al Qaeda and Taliban detainees. |
| 02/02/2002 | William H. Taft IV, the State Department’s top lawyer, writes to Gonzales arguing that the conventions do apply to the war in Afghanistan and any decision otherwise could endanger U.S. troops. |
| 05/02/2002 | A federal grand jury indicts Lindh on 10 counts, alleging he was trained by Osama bin Laden’s network and then conspired with the Taliban to kill Americans |
| 07/02/2002 | President Bush sends a memo (PDF) to members of his national security team declaring that he believes he has “the authority under the Constitution” to deny Geneva Convention protections to combatants in Afghanistan, but claims he will “decline to exercise that authority at this time.” |
| 07/02/2002 | Bush signs an order declaring he has the authority to suspend compliance with the conventions and reserving the right to do so “in this or future conflicts.” The order also says the conventions on treatment of prisoners of war do not apply to al-Qaida or “unlawful combatants” from the Taliban |
| 08/02/2002 | Australian detainee at Guantanamo Bay David Hicks abandoned by Howard government |
| 13/02/2002 | John Walker Lindh pleads not guilty to a 10-count federal indictment that charged him with conspiring to kill Americans and aiding Usama bin Laden’s terrorist network. His attorney serve notice they will try to keep the statements he made in Afghanistan from being used at his trial. |
| 19/02/2002 | A legal team representing Mr Iqbal, 20, and Mr Rasul, 24, file papers at a court in Washington DC calling on the US government to either justify their detention of the two men by bringing charges against them, or free them. |
| 21/02/2002 | A federal judge dismisses a challenge to the Guantanamo detentions. |
| 26/02/2002 | Bybee, who later became a federal appeals court judge, writes to the Pentagon’s top lawyer, arguing that the constitutional protections against self-incrimination do not apply to detainees at Guantanamo Bay because they are not being tried in U.S. criminal courts. |
| March | |
| 06/03/2002 | Lawyers for Mr Abbasi begin proceedings at the High Court seeking a judicial review of the government’s co-operation with the US. The team seek an order forcing Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to arrange legal representation for Mr Abbasi. |
| 15/03/2002 | Mr Abbasi loses his High Court battle against the government over the conditions of his detention by the US at Camp X-Ray. |
| 21/03/2002 | The Bush administration announces new military tribunal regulations. |
| 31/03/2002 | Mentally ill detainee in Guantanamo transferred to Afghanistan. |
| April | |
| 03/04/2002 | The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel issues an opinion that local law enforcement agencies have authority to enforce immigration laws. |
| 05/04/2002 | Yasser Esam Hamdi (Saudi) captured in Afghanistan and detained in Guantanamo is transferred from Guantanamo to a naval brig in Norfolk, Virginia when it is discovered that he holds American citizenship |
| 22/04/2002 | Moussaoui fires his court-appointed lawyers, claiming they are part of a conspiracy to execute him, and demands the right to represent himself with the help of a Muslim legal adviser. |
| 26/04/2002 | Howard government complicit in detention of Australian citizen by US military |
| May | |
| 03/05/2002 | A University of Michigan poll finds that a majority of Americans, post-9/11, would give up some civil liberties in the name of greater security |
| 08/05/2002 | Jose Padilla, a United States citizen arrived in the United States via a regular scheduled commercial airliner, is detained at Chicago’s O’Hare airport as a material witness for the 9/11 investigations. President Bush subsequently declared Padilla an “enemy combatant.” Accused of training with al-Qaeda and plotting to detonate a dirty bomb, he is being held as an enemy combatant Padilla continues to challenge his status. |
| June | |
| 13/06/2002 | Judge Brinkema grants Moussaoui the right to represent himself, keeping lawyers on standby to assist with his defense. |
| 25/06/2002 | During arraignment on the revised indictment, Moussaoui again refuses to enter a plea, then chooses a plea of “no contest.” Judge Brinkema, suspecting Moussaoui’s grasp of the law is shaky, refuses to accept the plea and enters a not guilty plea. She also denies Moussaoui’s request to move the trial from Alexandria, near the damaged Pentagon. |
| 26/06/2002 | Bush declares two U.S. citizens, Jose Padilla and Yassar Hamdi, “enemy combatants” who can be held until the end of the war on terrorism, without access to an attorney or to challenge their detention in federal court. |
| 28/06/2002 | Two high court judges yesterday quashed an extradition order signed by the home secretary, which would have sent Rachid Ramda back to France for trial over the 1995 Paris Metro bombs which killed 10 people. |
| July | |
| 01/07/2002 | Three senior judges give permission for a full hearing of Mr Abbasi’s claims that the government is not protecting his rights while he is held by the US at Camp X-Ray. |
| 02/07/2002 | Florida becomes the first state to sign an agreement with the DOJ to allow state law enforcement officials to enforce immigration laws. |
| 15/07/2002 | John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to two charges in a deal with prosecutors in which he would serve two 10-year prison sentences and cooperate fully with U.S. authorities in the investigation of the Al Qaeda and terrorism. |
| 16/07/2002 | Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS) announced. The program is to allow volunteers, whose routines make them well-positioned to recognize suspect activities, to report what they see to the Justice Department. |
| 16/07/2002 | Moussaoui is indicted a third time to allow prosecutors to specify conduct that would warrant the death penalty. |
| 25/07/2002 | Moussaoui pleads guilty to four counts of the indictment, then abruptly withdraws the plea after arguing with the judge. |
| 27/07/2002 | A 15-year-old Canadian (Omar Khadr) had been captured after being badly wounded in a firefight in eastern Afghanistan. Canada’s prime minister, Jean Chrétien said he was seeking consular access to the boy. |
| 31/07/2002 | A federal judge in Washington ruled that the 600 suspected terrorists being held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have no right to bring their cases to U.S. courts. |
| August | |
| 01/08/2002 | Jay Bybee, of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, sends a memo to White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales that concludes that techniques used to interrogate al Qaeda operatives would not violate anti-torture treaties and might be legally defensible. Famously, the memo says that “certain acts may be cruel, unusual or degrading, but still not produce pain and suffering of the requisite intensity” to be considered torture. To be considered torture, the physical pain must be equivalent to “organ failure, impairment of bodily function or death.” This memo would later be repudiated in 2004 by the White House. |
| 01/08/2002 | The 600 suspected terrorists being held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have no right to bring their cases to U.S. courts, a federal judge in Washington ruled |
| 26/08/2002 | The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit rules that the press and public must be allowed to witness immigration hearings for suspects detained in the Sept. 11 investigation, strongly rebuking the Bush administration for its policy of maximum secrecy in the war on terrorism. “Democracies die behind closed doors,” wrote the senior judge in the court’s opinion. |
| October | |
| 04/10/2002 | Six suspected members of al Qaeda operating near Buffalo are charged with trying to go to Afghanistan to fight U.S. troops; an ex-wife was accused of helping One reached Afghanistan and died fighting. Afraid of being designated enemy combatants, the other six pleaded guilty and were given sentences ranging from three to 18 years, on the basis of how much they cooperated. |
| 04/10/2002 | IslamOnline received a list of the names of 57 members of Al-Qaeda, detained in Guantanamo, Cuba, most of them Arab nationals, especially Saudi and Yemeni. The list, written in English, was distributed by Al-Qaeda, or supporters of Al-Qaeda, in the city of Khost, south east Afghanistan and IslamOnline received a copy. The names include 17 Yemeni, 14 Saudi, 7 Moroccans, 4 Kuwaitis and 2 from each of the following nationalities: Bahraini, Algerian, Afghani, French and one from each of the following nationalities: Sudanese, Egyptian, Iraqi, Bangladeshi, African, Spanish and Pakistani. |
| 09/10/2002 | Brigadier-General Rick Baccus has also lost his job at the Rhode Island National Guard, amid reports he was too hard on troops while being soft on the prisoners suspected of fighting for the Taleban in Afghanistan. |
| 10/10/2002 | US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announces that “a relatively small number” of men will be freed from Camp X-Ray. |
| 11/10/2002 | Officers at the Guantanamo prison camp ask their superiors for permission to use harsher interrogation methods against inmates. |
| 16/10/2002 | General Baccus is said to have clashed with colleagues. The head of military police at the US detention centre for Taleban prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been removed from his command |
| 25/10/2002 | Gen. James T. Hill, head of U.S. Southern Command, writes to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, asking for approval to use harsh interrogation techniques against Guantanamo prisoners. |
| 27/10/2002 | The United States releases four prisoners — three Afghans - Haji Faiz Mohammed, Mohammed Sadiq and Jan Mohammed - and a Pakistani, Mohammed Sagheer — from Guantanamo. |
| November | |
| 03/11/2002 | Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller takes command of the prison camp with a mandate to get more and better information from prisoners. |
| 06/11/2002 | The British Court of Appeal rules that Mr Straw cannot be compelled to intervene over the detention by the US of Mr Abbasi |
| 25/11/2002 | Bush signs the Homeland Security Act of 2002, establishing the Department of Homeland Security. |
| 27/11/2002 | Rumsfeld issues an order allowing harsh interrogation techniques at Guantanamo. They include forcing prisoners into “stress positions,” interrogating them for 20 hours at a time, removing their clothing, intimidating them with dogs, forcing them to wear hoods during transportation and interrogation and forcibly shaving their heads and beards. |
| December | |
| 02/12/2002 | Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approves a memo, written earlier by the Pentagon’s general counsel, William J. Haynes II, approving specific interrogation techniques that could be used on detainees at Guantanamo Bay. |
| 04/12/2002 | U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey rules that although the president could hold those deemed enemy combatants until the end of the hostilities, Padilla did have the right to meet with counsel and offer evidence contesting the government’s allegations. The government, however, has refused to comply with the decision and has claimed that allowing Padilla to meet with his attorneys would be too great a security risk. |
| 04/12/2002 | US authorities reported that one of the detainees being held by the military for interrogation at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan had died. Almost nothing is known about who he was, why he was detained or the circumstances surrounding his death.The man was in his 30s and had been captured in Afghanistan during the previous week. He died, allegedly from natural causes, at around 1 pm after being taken to the base hospital. |
| 22/12/2002 | The Los Angeles Times reported that Washington was holding dozens of prisoners at Guantanamo with no meaningful connection to Al-Qaeda or the Taliban. |
| January | |
| 05/01/2003 | UK police find 22 castor oil beans - the raw material for the poison ricin - in a flat at 352B High Road, Wood Green, in north London. They also find equipment needed to produce ricin and recipes for ricin, cyanide and several other poisons. Seven people are arrested, including Sidali Feddag. Bourgass flees to Manchester, via Bournemouth and Weymouth. |
| 07/01/2003 | Mustapha Taleb is arrested as he visits a bank in Wood Green, London, as part of the ricin plot. |
| 08/01/2003 | A federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ends a public defender’s attempt to represent Yaser Hamdi. |
| 13/01/2003 | Six people are arrested in Bournemouth, in connection with a ricin plot. |
| 14/01/2003 | Four people, including Feddag and Taleb, are charged with “possession of articles of value to a terrorist” in relation to a ricin plot. |
| 15/01/2003 | Donald Rumsfeld rescinds his approval for some interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay. The new memo allows commanders to seek Rumsfeld’s direct approval to use the tougher techniques if they are “warranted in an individual case” but would require a “thorough justification.” |
| 16/01/2003 | U.S. troops saved a prisoner from killing himself in the most serious case so far in a series of suicide attempts at the U.S. compound at Guant?namo Bay |
| 20/01/2003 | Seven people are arrested at the Finsbury Park mosque, north London. Police find weapons, forged passports and ID cards. They also take away a photocopier for examination. |
| 22/01/2003 | Eight people are charged with offences related to developing or producing a chemical weapon contrary to section one of the Criminal Law Act 1977. Police also arrest Mouloud Bouhrama at an address in London. |
| 23/01/2003 | A former Guantanamo Bay translator accused of taking secret documents from the US military prison in Cuba was ordered held without bail until his trial begins in federal court. |
| February | |
| 03/02/2003 | A mission from the Belgian Embassy mission in Washington comprising one diplomat and one representative of the federal police force was authorised to visit the Belgian national being held at the American base in Guantanamo. |
| 07/02/2003 | News breaks of Patriot Act II. |
| 26/02/2003 | It emerges that 35-year-old Moazzam Begg, from Birmingham, is now a detainee at Guantanamo Bay. He is reported to have been seized in Pakistan and held in Bagram for a year. |
| 28/02/2003 | 18 detainees including Afghanis and Pakistanis Alif Khan, Sayed Abassin, Ehsanullah, Sarajudim, Merza Khan are released. |
| 28/02/2003 | An Ohio truck driver, he was accused of training with Osama bin Laden and plotting to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge Arrested after being named by captured al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Faris pleaded guilty in May 2003 and agreed to cooperate. He was sentenced to 20 years in jail. |
| March | |
| 11/03/2003 | A federal appeals court rules that the 650 Guantanamo detainees have no legal rights in the United States and may not ask courts to review their detentions. |
| 14/03/2003 | U.N. human rights chief Sergio Viera de Mello criticizes the United States for keeping the Guantanamo detainees in a “legal black hole.” Viera de Mello later became a special U.N. envoy to Iraq and was killed in a Baghdad car bombing that August. |
| 18/03/2003 | DHS chief Tom Ridge announces “Operation Liberty Shield,” requiring automatic detention of asylum seekers from 34 countries where terrorist groups have been active. |
| 19/03/2003 | Iraq war begins |
| 29/03/2003 | The trial of three UK men accused of promoting an illegal Islamic group in Egypt was opened after long delays |
| April | |
| 01/04/2003 | A Pakistani woman who was on the FBI list for having suspected links to the Al Qaida network, Aafia Siddiqui, has been taken into custody by an intelligence agency |
| 04/04/2003 | The Pentagon’s review panel issues a report to Rumsfeld adopting the arguments of Bybee’s August 2002 memo, with a narrow definition of torture |
| 16/04/2003 | Defense Department officials approve 24 new controversial interrogation techniques for Gitmo detainees - 17 of which were taken directly from the U.S. military field manual and four required notice to Rumsfeld when they were used. The four were the use of rewards or removal of privileges from detainees; attacking or insulting the ego of a detainee; alternating the use of friendly and harsh interrogators; and isolation. This action is reported a year later in the Washington Post. |
| 30/04/2003 | Five Saudis transferred from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia for continued detention |
| May | |
| 07/05/2003 | 13 detainees transferred for release from Guantanamo. They are detained on arrival in their home countries |
| 08/05/2003 | Jehan Wali Sahibzada, former Guantanamo detainee, is released from Pakistan |
| 19/05/2003 | Former Guantanamo detainees Rustam Shah, Sulaiman Shah, Shah Mohammed are released from custody in Pakistan |
| 27/05/2003 | The U.S. Supreme Court declines to review a 2-1 decision of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in North Jersey Media Group v. Creppy and Ashcroft leaving intact the right of the government to conduct secret immigration hearings in this case. |
| 31/05/2003 | Eleven men were indicted for training-sometimes with paintball sessions in Virginia–to fight with Islamists in Kashmir Six of the men pleaded guilty; three were convicted; two were acquitted on all charges. The guilty received sentences ranging from four years to life in prison. |
| June | |
| 17/06/2003 | Freed Guantanamo Bay prisoners say they had tried to commit suicide to escape harsh conditions at the detention camp. Several of the 35 Afghans and Pakistanis released from the US naval base say that while they were physically unharmed they were driven to despair by their confinement in tiny cells and the uncertainty of their fate. |
| 22/06/2003 | The Justice Department announces it is withdrawing 2002 memos giving a narrow definition of torture, providing legal arguments for U.S. personnel to escape prosecution under anti-torture laws and arguing that the president’s wartime authority supersedes laws and treaties. |
| July | |
| 03/07/2003 | President Bush announces that six of the 650 prisoners at Guantanamo are eligible to be tried by military tribunal. It emerges that two Britons, Begg and Abbasi, could be amongst these. |
| 14/07/2003 | A suspected longtime aide to Osama bin Laden, Adil Al Jazeeri, has been handed over to American authorities and flown out of Pakistan |
| 18/07/2003 | The US agrees to suspend the threat of secret military hearings against the nine Britons being held at Guantanamo Bay pending pending talks between the two nations. |
| 18/07/2003 | 27 detainees (16 Afghans, including Muhammad Naim Farooq; 11 Pakistanis) are released from Guantanamo |
| 21/07/2003 | American officials release Abdurahman Khadr, who had acted as a CIA mole in Guantanamo. He is sent to Bosnia to spy on Islamists. His brother, Omar, remains in Guantanamo to this day. |
| 31/07/2003 | 5 Malawi residents returned (Khalifah Abdi Hassan, Muhammad Sardar Isa, Arif Ulsam, Ibrahim Habbak, Fahd al-Bahili) - not mentioned in the official DoD list of transfers, are released. |
| August | |
| 06/08/2003 | News breaks that John Ashcroft will start promoting the Victory Act. |
| 17/08/2003 | Thai authorities have handed the wife of alleged terror mastermind Hambali to Malaysian police, who want to interrogate her about her husband’s activities |
| 31/08/2003 | Pakistanis - Muhammad Ishaq, Ejaz Ahmad Khan, Hafiz Liaqat Manzoor, Abdul Maula, Majid Mehmood, Abdul-Razaq, Talha Mehmood are released from Guantanamo |
| September | |
| 30/09/2003 | Kamel Merzoug is arrested after his fingerprints are found on the poison recipes. |
| October | |
| 02/10/2003 | After reports that senior members of al-Qaeda are hiding in Waziristan, Pakistan, armed forces in Pakistan stage an attack on their hideout. After a firefight lasting several hours, the Pakistan army takes 18 prisoners and pulls eight bodies, including that of Ahmed Said Khadr - father of Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr and ghost detainee Abdullah Khadr - from the safehouse. Their younger brother, Abdul Karim is believed dead. It is later confirmed that he survived although sustained serious injuries. |
| 08/10/2003 | Uzair Paracha, a 23-year-old Pakistani national was indicted on federal charges of terrorism conspiracy, providing material support to al Qaeda, and using false documents to facilitate an act of terrorism |
| 09/10/2003 | A DOD memorandum outlines a meeting where Red Cross officials noted improvements at Camp X-Ray but expressed additional concerns regarding due process rights, the use of caged cells, detainee isolation and detainee repatriation rates. |
| 09/10/2003 | A public statement by The Red Cross notes “deteriotation in the psychological health of a large number” of Guantanamo detainees. |
| 20/10/2003 | Tariq Mahmud, a dual Pakistani and British Citizen, was is kidnapped in a joint Pakistani/US/UK operation. His whereabouts remain unknown at the time of writing. |
| 24/10/2003 | Aljazeera correspondent Taysir Alluni has been released on bail from a Spanish prison |
| November | |
| 03/11/2003 | Abbas Boutrab, 25, from Algeria, was arrested. He was arrested by police in Northern Ireland investigating alleged al-Qaeda links. Mr Boutrab was charged with receiving instruction in the use of explosives, possession of items of use to terrorists and possession of documents likely to be of use to terrorists. He was arrested in Maghaberry prison, County Antrim |
| 04/11/2003 | Mohammad Sagheer, a man who was imprisoned by the US military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is suing the Pakistani and US governments for damages worth over $10m |
| 09/11/2003 | US Human rights activists demanded the U.S. Supreme Court to show “where it stands” on civil liberties, asking it either to weigh in soon on the legality of holding hundreds of people in the notorious U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or to remain silent. The plaintiffs, including human rights organizations, diplomats, former judges and retired military officers, believe the high court should step in and declare that President George W. Bush’s administration is denying justice to approximately 650 men from 42 countries held prisoners by the United States at the military camp, reported Agence France-Presse |
| 10/11/2003 | The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday it would decide whether foreign nationals can use American courts to challenge their incarceration at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the first cases it will hear on the Bush administration’s war on terror. |
| 17/11/2003 | Germany has extradited two Yemenis to the United States on charges that they supported the al-Qaeda network. |
| 20/11/2003 | The immediate fate of the British detainees at Guantanamo Bay will be resolved “soon”, Prime Minister Tony Blair says following Downing Street talks with US President George Bush. |
| 25/11/2003 | One of Britain’s most senior judges, Lord Steyn, condemns the US for a “monstrous failure of justice” over the holding of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that they are being held in conditions of “utter lawlessness”. |
| 25/11/2003 | A Muslim chaplain who served at the United States prison camp for terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba has been charged with sex offences |
| 26/11/2003 | A senior British judge has trashed the continuing detention of suspects by the United States in Guantanamo Bay as a “monstrous failure of justice”. |
| 27/11/2003 | Explosives have been found at the home of a 24-year-old man linked with al-Qaeda who was arrested in Gloucester on suspicion of planning a suicide bombing |
| 30/11/2003 | Abdurahman Khadr arrives in Toronto. He claims that he was released from Guantanamo and transferred to Afghanistan. He says that he made his way via Iran and Turkey to Bosnia where he contacted the Canadian embassy and requested a new passport. |
| December | |
| 02/12/2003 | Babar Ahmad is arrested and assaulted in a dawn raid in London, UK. He is held for six days and then released without charge |
| 02/12/2003 | Four men have been arrested under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000 after dawn raids in London. One, later identified as Babar Ahmad, is subject to a brutal beating and suffers over 50 injuries, 2 of which were potentially life threatening. They are released without charge within a week. |
| 02/12/2003 | A 36-year-old man has been charged by Sussex Police under Section 57 of the Terrorism Act. |
| 02/12/2003 | Kurdish forces in Iraq have arrested a UK student suspected of trying to join a radical Islamic guerrilla group linked to al-Qaeda |
| 03/12/2003 | A Gloucester man, Saajid Badat, has been charged with conspiring with “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, who tried to blow up a plane. |
| 04/12/2003 | Abdurahman Khadr’s lawyer, Rocco Galati, announces he is stepping down from all national security cases because of a death threat. |
| 08/12/2003 | Turks: Ibrahim Jan, Yuksel Celikgogus, and an unknown no. of Afghan and Pakistanis are released. |
| 11/12/2003 | A German court released a Moroccan man after the judge in his trial said there was new evidence which “clearly exonerates” him of suspicions he helped the September 11 plotters. |
| 11/12/2003 | David Hicks is the first detainee in Guantanamo to receive a lawyer |
| 18/12/2003 | Padilla wins a court victory. The court orders that Padilla-who has been held since June of 2002 on his suspected connection to a “dirty bomb” plot-must either be charged, be declared a material witness or be released within thirty days |
| 18/12/2003 | The three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the President had no authority under the Constitution to imprison an American citizen as an enemy combatant without any charge and without judicial review when he was arrested on U.S. soil, unarmed, and far from any field of combat. The government appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which granted review |
| 25/12/2003 | Two Britons convicted on terrorism charges in Yemen, Shahid Butt and Sarmad Ahmed, have flown home following their release from prison |
| 30/12/2003 | A new Justice Department memo provides an expanded definition of torture and omits the legal liability and presidential authority issues |
| January | |
| 05/01/2004 | The ACLU warns that a new immigrant tracking program, known as US VISIT, would increase confusion among immigrants coming to America, and would primarily target Arabs and Muslims. |
| 08/01/2004 | A detainee attempted suicide at the U.S. detention center for suspected terrorists at the military base and he was recovering at a hospital, |
| 13/01/2004 | A Yemeni man, Salim Ahman Hamdan, the second of hundreds of detainees at the U.S. military prison in Guantanomo, Cuba, was provided defense counsel and military lawyer |
| 14/01/2004 | U.S. authorities filed criminal charges yesterday against a Saudi student who ran a Montreal-based Internet site that was allegedly used to recruit and raise money for Islamic terrorists. |
| 22/01/2004 | Maher Arar, a dual citizen of Canada and Syria, files a lawsuit against Attorney General John Ashcroft. Earlier, the Justice Department had seized Arar in 2002 while he was changing planes and deported him to Syria. Arar avows that he was tortured during his year there. The CIA claims that it had received assurances that Syria would not torture Arar. |
| 24/01/2004 | Pakistani officials use DNA testing to confirm that Ahmed Said Khadr was killed in the raid the past October. Abdul Karim Khadr is reportedly paralysed in the shootout. The Khadr family demands that Abdul Karim and the body of Ahmed Said Khadr be returned to Canada. |
| 26/01/2004 | A federal judge declares a portion of the USA Patriot Act unconstitutional. The section in question bars anyone from giving advice or assistance to groups designated as terrorist organizations. It is the first time a court has declared part of the Act unconstitutional. |
| 29/01/2004 | Three Afghan juveniles held in Guantanamo Asadullah Rahman, Muhammad Ismail Agha, Naqibullah are released. |
| 29/01/2004 | A second law lord is to question US policy over the detention of 660 terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay |
| 29/01/2004 | Pakistani authorities are likely to hand over a key suspect in the September 11 terrorist attacks, Ramzi Binalshibh |
| 29/01/2004 | Four members of an alleged Virginia jihad network have waived their right to a jury trial because they contend that a Northern Virginia jury cannot be fair to Muslim men facing allegations of terrorism. |
| 30/01/2004 | A French government mission visiting detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has turned up a seventh French national in American custody |
| 30/01/2004 | The U.S. military on Thursday released three teenage boys, believed to be between the ages of 13 and 15, who had been accused of supporting the Taliban and had been held at the prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba |
| February | |
| 02/02/2004 | A DOD memorandum describes a meeting between military and Red Cross officials at Guantanamo Bay. Red Cross officials visited Camp X-Ray in early February to oversee the departure of juvenile detainees and to visit new prisoners. The discussion references changes in security at Camp X-Ray. |
| 04/02/2004 | David Hicks has met his defence lawyers at Guantanamo Bay for the second time since being detained more than two years ag |
| 05/02/2004 | Abdel Ghani Mzoudi, a Moroccan man accused of assisting the September 11 hijackers, is cleared by a court in Hamburg due to a lack of evidence. Prosecutors have appealed the decision. |
| 09/02/2004 | The final members of a group of Muslim men with Portland ties who tried, but failed, to enter Afghanistan as Taliban foot soldiers were each sentenced to prison time |
| 09/02/2004 | An Indonesian court jailed an Islamic militant for life for preparing explosives for the Bali nightclub bombings which killed 202 people. |
| 10/02/2004 | Prosecutors opened their case Monday against four U.S. citizens accused of conspiring to aid the Taliban in its fight against the United States, saying the case is not about Islam but instead about the defendants’ intentions and actions |
| 11/02/2004 | Shortly after the Supreme Court agreed to review the case, Yasser Hamdi is finally allowed to see his lawyer, Frank Dunham, albeit with military officials recording the meeting and with a ban on any discussion of Hamdi’s prison conditions. |
| 12/02/2004 | An American citizen held incommunicado by the military for more than a year as an alleged al-Qaida supporter will be allowed to see a lawyer, the Pentagon said |
| 13/02/2004 | Spanish national: Hamad AbdurRahman Ahmad is transferred from Guantanamo to Spain for continued detention |
| 14/02/2004 | A former Seattle community activist, James Ujaama, who pleaded guilty to trying to help al Qaeda Islamic militants was sentenced to two years in prison |
| 16/02/2004 | The US frees two Sudanese detainees from Guantanamo |
| 17/02/2004 | Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, a Spanish prisoner is extradited from Guantanamo to Spain where he is held without bail. He is later released on bail after several months. |
| 19/02/2004 | The British Foreign Office announces that five of the nine British prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay are to be released. The men to be released are named as Ruhal Ahmed, Tarek Dergoul, Jamal Al Harith, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul. |
| 20/02/2004 | The British Foreign Office announces that five of the nine British prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay are due to be released |
| 21/02/2004 | A judge on Friday acquitted one of four men charged in an alleged conspiracy to aid the Taliban in its fight against the United States and tossed some charges against some of the other defendants. |
| 21/02/2004 | The US Supreme Court has agreed to decide if the president can order the indefinite detention of US citizens in the administration’s war on terror. |
| 24/02/2004 | Two detainees held at Guantanamo Bay-Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al Bahlul of Yemen and Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi of Sudan-are finally charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes. The two are currently being tried by a military commission under procedures that include: the legal presumption of innocence; a requirement for proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; representation by a military defense counsel free of charge, with the option to retain a civilian defense counsel at no expense to the U.S. government; an opportunity to present evidence and call witnesses; and a prohibition against drawing an adverse inference if an accused chooses not to testify. |
| 24/02/2004 | Danish national Sulaiman Hadj Abdul-Rahman is released from Guantanamo. He is not detained on arrival and faces no charges. |
| 25/02/2004 | The Pentagon has announced the first charges against foreign detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Two men, alleged to have been key al-Qaeda members, have been charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes |
| 26/02/2004 | The United States turned over a Danish national who was imprisoned at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the government of Denmark |
| 29/02/2004 | Jordanian Wesam AbdulRahman released from Guantanamo. He is held in custody on arrival in Jordan |
| March | |
| 01/03/2004 | 7 Russians - Airat Vakhitov, Rasul Kudayev, Ravil Gumarov, Ruslan Odigov, Rustam Akhmerov, Shamil Khazhiyev, Timur Ishmuradov - are released from Guantanamo and transferred to Russia for continued detention. |
| 01/03/2004 | US handed seven Russians previously imprisoned in Guantanamo, to Russian authorities. |
| 03/03/2004 | Former Guantanamo detainee, Abdurahman Khadr, whose younger brother Omar remains in Guantanamo, reveals that he worked for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to identify Al Qaeda members at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan and Bosnia-Herzegovina |
| 03/03/2004 | Families of British, German and French prisoners held at the US Guantanamo Bay detention camp will travel to the United States this week to appeal to the president for their release |
| 04/03/2004 | Jose Padilla, the American arrested in an alleged Al Qaeda plot to set off a radioactive dirty bomb, was allowed to meet with lawyers for the first time in nearly two years. |
| 04/03/2004 | An Islamic militant who shielded a key Bali bomber has been jailed for nine years in the last in a series of trials over the attack, which killed 202 people. |
| 05/03/2004 | A jury in Alexandria, Va., Thursday convicted three men on charges of conspiring to wage war against the United States and support terror groups. |
| 07/03/2004 | Home Secretary David Blunkett criticises the treatment by the US authorities of the remaining detainees |
| 09/03/2004 | Mr Blunkett confirms that the five Britons will be released by the US government later in the day: Asif Iqbal, Jamal al-Harith, Ruhal Ahmad, Shafiq Rasul, Tarek Dergoul. |
| 09/03/2004 | Judges ordered the release yesterday of Detainee M, a Libyan man who has been detained for 16 months without charge under the Government’s anti-terrorism powers |
| 09/03/2004 | Five Britons held in Guantanamo Bay as terrorism suspects for two years are released without charge |
| 15/03/2004 | 23 Afghans and 3 Pakistanis are released from Guantanamo. Afghans include: Lal Gul, Mohammed, Haji Osman, Muhammad Sidiq, Wazir Mohammed, Aziz Khan The three Pakistanis were detained on their arrival in Islamabad. |
| 16/03/2004 | Twenty-three Afghans and three Pakistanis are on their way home after being freed from American custody in Guantanamo Bay |
| 16/03/2004 | A member of the special tribunal that judges cases involving terrorist suspects detained without charge or trial has told the Guardian he has resigned because the body had become “virtually powerless |
| 19/03/2004 | Captain James Yee, who could have faced the death penalty on false accusations of spying at the Guantanamo Bay prison, was cleared of all criminal charges |
| 19/03/2004 | Lord Woolf upholds the judgement of SIAC in spite of protests from the Home Secretary David Blunkett and orders him to release Detainee M from Belmarsh without charge |
| 20/03/2004 | Fahd al-Qusaa and Jamal al-Badawi are indicted by the US Yemen has re-arrested two militants, suspected of masterminding the bombing of a US warship in October 2000. Jamal al-Badawi and Fahd al-Qusaa are accused of planning the attack which killed 17 on the USS Cole |
| 25/03/2004 | Three Britons accused of promoting a banned Islamic group have been jailed for five years each in Egypt |
| 26/03/2004 | An Australian terror suspect will be able to challenge his detention at a U.S. military base in eastern Cuba before the U.S. Supreme Court in April |
| 27/03/2004 | The Army general in charge of the prisoner operation at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been reassigned to oversee prisoner detention operations in Iraq |
| 31/03/2004 | 15 detainees are released from Guantanamo including: 2 Turks - Nuri Mert , 2 Sudanese - al-Rashid Hasan and Muhammad BaBikr 4 Tajiks.The US Department of Defense also mentions detainees from Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan and Yemen - names and numbers unknown. |
| April | |
| 01/04/2004 | Police in Vancouver have charged Momin Khawaja, a Canadian man with helping a “terrorist group” in Canada and Britain |
| 03/04/2004 | The United States government has released two Sudanese citizens who had been detained in Guantanamo Bay |
| 03/04/2004 | A Turkish man returned home yesterday from Guantanamo Bay |
| 05/04/2004 | A Muslim Army chaplain embroiled in a case involving a suspected espionage ring at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba was scheduled to return home to Fort Lewis |
| 08/04/2004 | Mounir Motassadeq, the only man ever convicted of aiding the September 11 hijackers, is released from jail. Back in March, an appeals court had ruled that his original trial had been compromised, because the judges hadn’t considered the U.S. government’s refusal to provide evidence from al Qaeda operatives in secret custody. German courts are currently retrying Motassadeq’s case. |
| 20/04/2004 | The Supreme Court begins hearing oral arguments on the status of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The court gets ready to consider whether the United States government can hold foreign nationals as “enemy combatants” without hearings and without charges. |
| 22/04/2004 | Rafil Dhafir, a Muslim doctor already accused of illegally sending money to Iraq through an unlicensed charity he founded has been charged with defrauding donors. |
| 23/04/2004 | Detainee G, an Algerian suspected of being a terrorist with links to al Qaida was released on bail tonight and effectively placed under house arrest |
| 28/04/2004 | The Supreme Court begins hearing oral arguments in both the Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla cases. |
| 28/04/2004 | First pictures of US soldiers brutalising Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib are published |
| 29/04/2004 | The town of Tisbury, Massachusetts becomes the 300th local or state government to pass a resolution denouncing the USA Patriot Act. |
| 29/04/2004 | CBS shows US troops abusing Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib. It says the pictures it obtained show a wide range of abuses, including: Prisoners with wires attached to their genitals; A dog attacking a prisoner; Prisoners being forced to simulate having sex with each other; A detainee with an abusive word written on his body |
| 30/04/2004 | Seymour Hersh breaks the Abu Ghraib story in The New Yorker |
| May | |
| 01/05/2004 | The American newspaper, the Washington Post, published the first detailed compilation of detainees into one list in English, much of the research of which came from Cageprisoners.com and Alasra.org. |
| 03/05/2004 | The Council on American-Islamic Relations announces that alleged harassment attacks on Muslims in the United States reached a record high in 2003. |
| 06/05/2004 | Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer living in Oregon, is arrested after the FBI reportedly finds his fingerprints on a bag containing detonating devices in Madrid. Mayfield is held for two weeks as a material witness, without access to his family. Two weeks later, on May 21, Spanish authorities announce that the fingerprinting ID was incorrect. |