The military commissions at Guantánamo – the trial system for "War on Terror" prisoners that was established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks – are of enormous significance, as they are the only point at which the Bush administration's...
One month ago, when the jury in the first U.S. war crimes trial since the Second World War found Salim Hamdan guilty of providing material support for terrorism, but not guilty of conspiracy, the U.S. administration regarded it as a victory, even though numerous...
You would think, perhaps, with over 500 prisoners released from Guantánamo, that the remaining 263 might conform, in some way or another, to the administration's long-standing description of them as the "worst of the worst" terrorists. Sadly, for the administration's...
News that three more prisoners have been released from Guantánamo is cause for celebration, as all three men should never have been held in the first place. In a report to follow, I'll look at the stories of the two Afghans released – one a simple farmer, the...
Just when you think that there can be no more outrageous proposals from the current lame duck government, and that it's down to a straight race between Barack Obama, a man with respect for the rule of law, and John McCain, who, I fear, may allow the malign spirits of...
In the lawless world of Guantánamo – and the United States' even murkier network of secret prisons run by or on behalf of the CIA – it has taken six years and four months for British resident Binyam Mohamed to secure anything resembling justice. Seized in...
As part of its alleged "desire not to hold detainees any longer than necessary," the Pentagon announced on Tuesday that two Guantánamo prisoners had been transferred to Algeria. This follows the repatriation of two other Algerians – Mustafa...
Two years and two months after three prisoners at Guantánamo died, apparently as the result of a coordinated suicide pact, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), which has been investigating the deaths ever since the long-term hunger strikers were...
In a decision that will shock those watching the conclusion of the first full U.S. war crimes trial since the Nuremberg trials, the military jury that yesterday convicted Salim Hamdan of providing "material support for terrorism" has sentenced him to serve five and a...
The existence of a secret, CIA-run prison on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean has long been a leaky secret in the "War on Terror," and yesterday's revelations in Time – based on disclosures by a "senior American official" (now retired), who was "a...
