As the U.S. courts put pressure on the government to justify the long detention of prisoners at Guantánamo without charge or trial (following the Supreme Court's ruling, in June, that they have constitutional habeas corpus rights, and that the government must...
Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, looks at recent disturbing developments in the Military Commission trial system at Guantánamo, and traces a chain of command that runs from the Commissions' supposedly impartial "Convening...
It could all have been so different. Between September 2002 and April 2003, the five defendants in the forthcoming 9/11 trial at Guantánamo – Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali (aka Ammar al-Baluchi), and...
Imagine being seized in Afghanistan or Pakistan, where you were, perhaps, a completely innocent man sold for a bounty, or a Muslim soldier fighting other Muslims in a civil war whose roots lay in the resistance to the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, which was partly...
Today, Omar Khadr, the sole Canadian citizen in Guantánamo, marks his 22nd birthday in isolation. Seized in Afghanistan when he was just 15 years old, Omar has now spent nearly a third of his life in US custody, in conditions that ought to be shameful to the US...
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...
