The Guantanamo military tribunals are underway. It seems that evidence obtained under torture will be admissible. Why? It has to do with the definition of torture. If it's not akin to putting a red hot needle in the prisoner's eye, it may not be torture. One of the hearing officers said:

Colonel Peter Brownback declined to commit to a blanket ban on evidence obtained as a result of torture. "What you and I mean by torture could be different," Brownback told defense lawyer Major Tom Fleener.

He said "a red-hot needle in the eye" constitutes torture but was not ready to commit to a prohibition in advance of the trial. "My personal belief is that torture is not good," he added. But he said it would depend on the circumstances and how the prosecution presented the evidence.

Two lawyers from Human Rights First are in Guantanamo observing the proceedings and blogging here.

President Bush says the U.S. does not engage in torture. Not in Iraq, and not at home. Then why did the U.S. agree to pay $300.000 to two detainees to settle their torture lawsuit?

The federal government has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by an Egyptian who was among dozens of Muslim men swept up in the New York area after 9/11, held for months in a federal detention center in Brooklyn and deported after being cleared of links to terrorism.

....In the settlement agreement, which requires approval by a federal judge in Brooklyn, lawyers for the government said that the officials were not admitting any liability or fault. In court papers they have said that the 9/11 attacks created "special factors," including the need to deter future terrorism, that outweighed the plaintiffs' right to sue.

But are they are settling the case with money just to make it go away? Or because they are afraid a Brooklyn, NY jury might award the detainees much more money?

There's violence in Afghanistan this weekend, as prison inmates seized control of a wing of Policharki Prison. This is the high security prison where the U.S. plans to transfer 110 of the Guantanamo detainees....including those who haven't been charged with a crime.

The rioting started Saturday night when prisoners refused to put on new uniforms, delivered in response to a breakout last month by seven Taliban inmates disguised as visitors, Hashimzai said. Prisoners forced guards out of a cell block housing about 1,300 inmates, said Abdul Salaam Bakshi, chief of prisons in Afghanistan. He accused al-Qaida and Taliban inmates of inciting other prisoners. "All the problem is inside the prison," Bakshi said. "We want to peacefully solve this problem."

The prison is well-known for its inhumane conditions:

Canadian Government memos, obtained under the Access to Information Act, show that CIA planes carrying detainees to other countries, including those that practice torture, made 74 landings in Canada.

Internal government briefing notes revealed senior intelligence officials from six government agencies, including the Security Intelligence Service, met in late November to discuss the flights.

One memo dated Nov. 28 instructed officials to tell the media that there was ``no credible information to suggest that these planes were used to ferry suspected terrorists to and from Canada, or that illegal activity took place.''

While the U.S. hasn't responded to the reports,

U.S. intelligence officials have said in the past that the planes are more likely to be carrying staff, supplies or Director Porter Goss on his way to a foreign visit.

Right. Tell that to Maher Arar and the others who were secreted away on Ghost Air and taken to countries where they were subjected to torture. [Via Raw Story.]

The ACLU today released more torture documents obtained from the Government. The new documents are available here. From the press release:

The American Civil Liberties Union today released newly obtained documents showing that senior Defense Department officials approved aggressive interrogation techniques that Federal Bureau of Investigation agents deemed abusive, ineffective and unlawful.

"We now possess overwhelming evidence that political and military leaders endorsed interrogation methods that violate both domestic and international law," said Jameel Jaffer, an attorney with the ACLU. "It is entirely unacceptable that no senior official has been held accountable." ...Today's documents come in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The New York Civil Liberties Union is co-counsel in the case.

Check out the May 30 memorandum by FBI personnel, containing "a detailed discussion of tensions between FBI and Defense Department personnel stationed at Guantánamo in late 2002."

by TChris

Via RawStory, a BBC News report tells us that nearly a hundred prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan have died in U.S. custody.

Of the 98 deaths, at least 34 were suspected or confirmed homicides, the programme said.

The Pentagon promised to take the report seriously.

Accountability? Not likely. Not likely at all.

President Bush says the United States does not engage in torture.

Now look at these new pictures, among 60 previously unpublished photographs that the US Government has been fighting to keep secret in a court case with the American Civil Liberties Union. Here's a sampling:

• Photo 1
• Photo 2
• Photo 3
• Photo 4
• Photo 5
• Photo 6
• Photo 7

President Bush is a liar.

[hat tip Patriot Daily.]

The Government has filed its response brief in (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, docket 05-184). Oral Argument is Friday.

The Bush Administration told the Supreme Court on Monday that the Justices could put a stop to a foreign national's challenge to a military war crimes trial without worrying about any constitutional violations, since detainees like him have no rights under the Constitution. In the latest court filing by the Justice Department on the meaning of the new Detainee Treatment Act, the Justice Department argued: "The Constitution does not guarantee aliens held abroad a right to habeas corpus." As a result, it said, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni national, "cannot claim the protection of our Constitution."

Shorter version: Detainees have no constitutional rights

Longer Version: The text of the Government's brief (pdf).

Heretik reminds us that abusive torturers in the military continue to be let off the hook. The New York Times today has a four page article on why those responsible for the 2002 deaths of two detainees, Dilawar Mullah Habibullah, at Bagram prison in Afghanistan will not be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. (Background here.]

In the modest Fort Bliss courtrooms where the trials have been held, the two Afghan victims have rarely been evoked, except in autopsy photographs. But much testimony focused on hardships faced by the soldiers themselves: the poor training they received, the tough conditions in which they operated, the vague rules with which they had to contend. As in other recent abuse cases, Army judges and jurors also seemed to consider the soldiers' guilt or innocence with an acute sense of the sacrifices they had made in serving overseas.

Let's rewrite that sentence in terms of a typical murder trial in the U.S. We would never see a non-prosecution based on that type of excuse. The biggest concession likely would be a sentence of life without parole instead of a death sentence. Even then, many Americans would be outraged at the "leniency" the defendants were shown:

In the modest courtroom where the trial was held, the two victims have rarely been evoked, except in autopsy photographs. But much testimony focused on hardships faced by the defendants themselves: the poor upbringing they received, their lack of role models, the childhood abuse with which they had to contend. As in other recent murder cases, judges and jurors also seemed to consider the defendants' guilt or innocence with an acute sense of the deprivation the defendants had suffered in their lives.

Why is acceptable to forego prosecuting murder when the killers are in the military but not in their own communities?

A report due later this week by the U.N. Human Rights Commission is demanding the closure of Guantanamo and the prosecution of officials responsible for torture:

A United Nations inquiry has called for the immediate closure of America's Guantanamo Bay detention centre and the prosecution of officers and politicians "up to the highest level" who are accused of torturing detainees. The UN Human Rights Commission report, due to be published this week, concludes that Washington should put the 520 detainees on trial or release them.

It calls for the United States to halt all "practices amounting to torture", including the force-feeding of inmates who go on hunger strike.

[Hat tip Patriot Daily.]

The U.S. is helping to build a new prison for terrorists in Morocco. The prison compound is run by the Moroccan Secret Police.

George Bush says we don't engage in torture, so there's nothing to worry about, right? Not according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch:

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other groups critical of the policy have compiled dossiers detailing the detention and apparent torture of radical Islamists at the DST's current headquarters, at Temara, near Rabat.

A recent inquiry into rendition by the Council of Europe, led by Dick Marty, the Swiss MP, highlighted a pattern of flights between Washington, Guantanamo Bay and Rabat's military airport at Sale.

A new and statistical report, authored and released by Seton Hall Law Professor Mark Denbeaux and attorney Joshua Denbeaux, counsel to two of the detainees at Guantanamo, contains the first objective analysis of the background of those held at Guantanamo. The report is based entirely on data supplied by the Defense Department, and is intended to provide "a more detailed picture of who the Guantanamo detainees are, how they ended up there, and the purported bases for their enemy combatant designation."

The report, available here (pdf), finds that fewer than half of the 517 detainees whose histories were reviewed have been accused of hostile acts. These are the findings: