This has been another terrible week for Guantánamo's Military Commissions, established by Dick Cheney and his close advisors in November 2001 to try, convict and execute those responsible for 9/11 through a novel process so far removed from the US court system...
Gitmo Charges: Why Now? And What About the Torture?
Finally, then, nearly six and a half years after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government has charged six Guantánamo detainees with, among other things, terrorism, murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, and conspiracy – adding, for good...
Guantánamo Trials: Where Are The Terrorists?
As pre-trial hearings take place in the US prison complex at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison, looks at the stories of the three defendants whose...
Waterboarding: Two Questions for Michael Hayden
The media is buzzing with the news that Michael Hayden, the director of the CIA, admitted in an open session of Congress on Tuesday that waterboarding – a long-reviled torture technique, which produces the perception of drowning – was used on three...
Padilla’s Sentence Should Shock and Disgust All Americans
The news that U.S. citizen José Padilla has received a prison sentence of 17 years and four months should provoke outrage in the United States, although it is unlikely that there will be much more than a whimper of dissent. The former gang member and convert to...
Canada’s Gitmo Torture Warning Shows Double Standards
How humiliating. The story begins with the shameful case of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian who was kidnapped by U.S. agents as he changed planes in New York in 2002 and rendered to Syria, where he was tortured for a year on behalf of the American authorities...
Six Years Of Guantánamo: Enough Is Enough
The Bush administration has maintained a low profile over the last month, as waves of indignation over the destruction of CIA videotapes showing the torture of two "high value" detainees have lapped ever closer to the White House. In the last few weeks, as...
Who Are the 10 Saudis Just Released From Guantánamo?
As 2007 drew to a close, the tally of detainees released from Guantánamo throughout the year rose to 122, as another 10 Saudis were repatriated, to add to the 53 sent home between February and November. With 492 detainees now released – and 281 remaining...
The Shocking Stories of the Aid Workers Just Released From Gitmo
Two years after being cleared for release from Guantánamo by a military review board, Adel Hassan Hamad, a hospital administrator who worked for a Saudi charity, and Salim Muhood Adem, who worked with orphans for a Kuwaiti NGO, have been repatriated to the...
Innocents and Foot Soldiers: The Stories of the 14 Saudis Just Released From Gitmo
Whether to impress the Supreme Court with its sense of justice prior to next month's showdown over detainees' rights, or, more likely, to placate the Saudi government following the death of a third Saudi detainee in Guantánamo in May, the Bush administration...