Time Runs Out, POW Dies

February 5, 2008
Time Runs Out, POW Dies

KABUL, Afghanistan — Abdul Razzaq Hekmati was regarded here as a war hero, famous for his resistance to the Russian occupation in the 1980s and later for a daring prison break he organized for three opponents of the Taliban government in 1999.

Afghan officials, and some Americans, complain that detainees are effectively thwarted from calling witnesses in their defense, and that the Afghan government is never consulted on the detention cases, even when it may be able to help. Mr. Hekmati's case, officials who knew him aid, shows that sometimes the Americans do not seem to know whom they are holding. Meanwhile, detainees wait for years with no resolution to their cases.

Army officer says Gitmo panels flawed

June 22, 2007
Army officer says Gitmo panels flawed

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — An Army officer who played a key role in the "enemy combatant" hearings at Guantanamo Bay says tribunal members relied on vague and incomplete intelligence while being pressured to rule against detainees, often without any specific evidence.

His affidavit, submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and released Friday, is the first criticism by a member of the military panels that determine whether detainees will continue to be held.

The dysfunctional tribunals

June 5, 2007
The dysfunctional tribunals

The Bush administration could have saved itself a lot of grief, and the United States a lot of embarrassment, by adhering to the Geneva Convention and other treaties on the treatment of prisoners of war.

But, instead, the administration decided that prisoners taken in the war on terror, principally in Afghanistan, would be tried by a special process it threw together for that purpose. The first try was nothing but a kangaroo court. Since then, the system has been through several refinements and, five years later, it still doesn't work.

There has been only one conviction, and that a plea bargain leading to the defendant's serving a nine-month sentence in his native Australia.

The Pentagons Crooked "Judicial" Process

April 2, 2007
The Pentagons Crooked "Judicial" Process

With the U.S. Constitution, our American ancestors brought into existence the finest criminal-justice system in history. With the Bill of Rights, everyone whom federal officials accuse of a crime, including terrorism, would be entitled to rights and guarantees that stretch back centuries into British jurisprudence. Those rights and guarantees include right to counsel, right to confront witnesses, right to a speedy and public trial, right to trial by jury, and many others.

After 9/11, the president and the Pentagon persuaded a frightened American public to accept an alternative military-justice system in Cuba in which the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would be ditched for some (but not all) "enemy combatants" in the "war on terror." We now see the results of that decision: David Hicks, who is a kangaroo skin hunter back in Australia, has himself been skinned by a crooked, corrupt, and rotten kangaroo court where politics trumps justice.

POW Sentenced to Nine Months

March 31, 2007
POW Sentenced to Nine Months

Blackanthem Military News, NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba – Australian detainee David Hicks, the first person convicted under the Military Commission Act of 2006, was sentenced here today to nine months in confinement, a sentence he will serve in Australia under a diplomatic agreement.

Since his capture, Hicks has cooperated with U.S. authorities and worked on completing his high school diploma, Mori said. Hicks's guilty plea shows that he is on his way to being rehabilitated, Mori said, asking the commission to set the sentence at one year and eight months, which would make Hicks's total confinement since his capture seven years.

POW Says Torture Led to Confessions

March 31, 2007
POW Says Torture Led to Confessions

A prisoner held by the American military at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, said he had confessed to several terrorist attacks and plots only because he had been tortured, according to a transcript of a hearing held on March 14 and released yesterday by the Pentagon.

The prisoner, Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri, is accused of planning the attack on the destroyer Cole off Yemen in 2000 and playing a role in the bombings of two American embassies in Africa in 1998.

Speaking before a combatant status review tribunal charged with determining whether he had been properly designated an enemy combatant, Mr. Nashiri said he had confessed to many terrorist activities under torture.

"From the time I was arrested five years ago, they have been torturing me," Mr. Nashiri said through a translator, according to the transcript. "It happened during interviews. One time they tortured me one way, and another time they tortured me in a different way."