The conviction of the first Guantánamo Bay detainee brought to New York for trial is triggering a wide range of reactions from politicians and legal experts. That trial ended dramatically at the federal courthouse in Manhattan this week, with Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, 36, convicted of one count of conspiracy for his role in the 1998 …
Continue reading “New York Terror Verdict Hailed as Vindicating Civil Trials”
Chase Madar says the Khadr trial is par for the course
Vlahos on getting ‘war crimes’ out in the open
Vlahos: lionizing soldiers won’t help them
As a child, I sometimes browsed magazines in my doctor’s waiting room. One day while flipping through the pages I came across a photograph of a beaming young woman enjoying a picturesque view of a meadow. Underneath the photo in a small box was a message in black and white — issued, I thought, by …
Continue reading “The Curious Case of Omar Khadr”
Robyn Blumner: should defense lawyers need a license?
Andy Worthington says Blair was directly involved
A leading good-government group is asking the U.S. Justice Department to disclose details of its investigation into the deaths of three Guantánamo prisoners in 2006. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) Wednesday sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Justice Department seeking information about the Criminal Division’s handling of allegations …
Continue reading “Guantánamo Deaths in 2006 Won’t Go Away”
Legal experts and civil libertarians are attacking the administration of President Barack Obama for resuscitating what they regard as "deeply flawed" military commissions to try detainees at Guantánamo Bay — and their choice of a "child soldier" as the first defendant. They are particularly incensed that Omar Khadr — a Canadian captured in Afghanistan seven …
Continue reading “Child Soldier Case to Kick Off Guantánamo Trials”
A new U.S. government report is recommending that 48 men currently detained at Guantanamo Bay should be held indefinitely without trial because “for many of the detainees, there are no witnesses who are available to testify in any proceeding against them.”But authorities who follow the tortuous fortunes of Guantanamo say there is another reason: The …
Continue reading “Indefinite Detention at Gitmo Criticized as ‘Legal Nihilism’”
The American Bar Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, and numerous other legal organizations are demanding that the Senate Armed Services Committee reject a provision in a House of Representatives bill that would mandate an investigation into lawyers representing Guantánamo Bay detainees. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 2011 requires the inspector general to …
Continue reading “Legal Groups Protest Probe of Guantánamo Lawyers” 
