US Refuses To Name Men At Guantanamo Bay Court

[Purveyor]

Published: 10 March 2007

The Pentagon has refused to reveal which of its 14 "high-value" detainees were being examined by military lawyers in closed proceedings in Guantanamo Bay.

The military said the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT), which began yesterday, were being held to assess 14 men transferred to the prison last September from secret "black hole" prisons operated around the world.

The decision to hold the hearings in private session, with the media and the men's lawyers excluded, has drawn criticism from campaigners. The Pentagon says it has taken the steps to prevent leaks of classified information and that it will publish an edited transcript of proceedings. But it refused to say which of the prisoners was to appear first or whether any had refused to participate.

"The hearings started this morning and the purpose of is to determine whether the detainees meet the criteria to be designated as an enemy combatant," said a Pentagon spokesman yesterday.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2344754.ece

[Karenina]

1. Would that karma were INSTANT.

[Old and In the Way]

2. Enemy combatants still have the Geneva Convention to protect them.

No, I think this is more on the lines of telling the American people, "if we don't like you, you can become a Jose Padilla...no rights at all." I'm betting that if the names came out, we'd find these poor bastards have very little strategic value in George Bush's WOT, but they are convenient props to justify large expenditures to KBR.

[Miss Chybil]

3. If they're terrorists, prove it

in open court and publish the sentence. This is how this country works. It's not a "black hole." At least, it wasn't...

[struggle4progress]

4. Guantánamo terror trials begin in secret

The first stage in the trial of 14 high-level terrorism suspects held at the Guantánamo Bay detention centre will begin today behind closed doors, with both the media and the men's defence lawyers barred from attending ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,2030400,00.html

[struggle4progress]

5. Australian Terrorist Suspect Hicks to Face Court on March 26

By Hans van Leeuwen

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- Australian terrorist suspect David Hicks, who has been held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for five years, will appear before a military tribunal on March 26, the Australian government said today.

``We have been advised that the new date is March 26,'' Michael Pelly, a spokesman for the nation's chief lawmaker, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, said by telephone. That's changed from an earlier date of March 20 cited by Prime Minister John Howard two days ago ...

Hicks's defense lawyers had requested the latest six-day delay, Pelly said today. By contrast, Agence France-Presse today reported that the new trial date was March 28 and it was the prosecutors who sought the delay. AFP's report cited a U.S. Defense official, whom it did not name ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=aSnGdtN.EuVA&refer=australia

[struggle4progress]

6. Canadian terror suspect Khadr will boycott Guantanamo trial

Published: Friday, March 09, 2007

Canadian Omar Khadr says he plans to boycott his military trial in Guantanamo Bay and no longer wants to be represented by his U.S. lawyers.

During the first phone conversation Khadr has been allowed with his family since he was captured in Afghanistan in July 2002, the 20-year-old reportedly told his mother he would do everything he could to avoid appearing before a military commission, because he believes the trial is unfair.

Maha Elsamnah said she was surprised how mature her son sounded during the 50-minute phone call on Tuesday, and laughed at the Saudi dialect he has apparently acquired when speaking Arabic ...

Khadr was 15 when he was captured in 2002 by U.S. forces near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. He was shot three times in the battle and was the only survivor after the U.S. bombed a suspected al Qa'ida hideout ...

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=bdc6072a-1bab-4e85-9a54-a2f9aebda411

[struggle4progress]

7. Democrats criticise Guantanamo Bay facility (World Today - Australia)

... JACK MURTHA: ... I didn't have time to have hearings on Guantanamo and I intend to do that before the base bill comes out and hopefully we'll have a plan to close down Guantanamo then ...

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2007/s1867701.htm

[struggle4progress]

8. Freed from Guantanamo, Afghan wants payback

Once the military prison's oldest detainee, he wants compensation for 4-year stint
Rahmanullah, Chronicle Foreign Service
Friday, March 9, 2007

(03-09) 04:00 PST Sarobi, Afghanistan -- Haji Nusrat, a frail, illiterate father of seven children, says he has no hard feelings toward the country that jailed him for nearly four years.

"The sole grievance that I have against the Americans is they should compensate me for the four years I spent in Guantanamo Bay prison," said Nusrat, who doesn't know his exact age but believes he is between 75 and 80. Until his release in August, he had been the prison's oldest inmate.

Nusrat, a tribal leader of the Pashtun ethnic group, was arrested in 2003 by U.S.-led coalition troops near the mountain village of Naghlo Ubo in the Sarobi district, about 40 miles east of Kabul. He was accused of harboring weapons, plotting to kidnap U.S. troops and being a commander in the Hezb-e-Islami, a mujahedeen group that fought Soviet troops in the 1980s with reported ties to al Qaeda.

At a U.S. military commission hearing at Guantanamo, Nusrat's eldest son, Ezatullah -- who was detained 27 days before his father and imprisoned for being a commander with the same organization -- said the arms belonged to the Afghan Ministry of Defense. The 36-year-old Ezatullah testified that the ministry paid his father to guard the weapons, a common arrangement in Afghanistan, and that political enemies lied about his family's involvement with terrorism ...

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/09/MNGF9OI2KN1.DTL

[struggle4progress]

9. U.S to release Tunisian held in Guantanamo, London-based humanitarian group says

The Associated Press
Published: March 9, 2007

TUNIS, Tunisia: The U.S. government has agreed to free a Tunisian citizen being held at Guantanamo Bay, an official for a London-based group working on behalf of prisoners said Friday.

Abdullah bin Omar is among about 80 detainees who have been cleared for release or transfer from the Guantanamo Bay prison by a U.S. military review panel, said Christopher Chang, an official with the group Reprieve.

Bin Omar is one of 12 Tunisian citizens held in Guantanamo, according to documents released by U.S. authorities. Reprieve represents four of them, including bin Omar.

The group received word of the release in a message from Guantanamo authorities, Chang said ...

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/09/africa/AF-GEN-Tunisia-Guantanamo-Detainees.php