Gitmo Report

ACLU Reports: Ten years have passed since the first prisoner arrived in Guantánamo Bay, making it the longest-standing war prison in U.S. history. Almost 800 men have passed through Guantánamo’s cells. Today, 171 men remain. Fashioned as an “island outside the law” where terrorism suspects could be detained without process and interrogated without restraint, Guantánamo has been a catastrophic failure on every front. It is long past time for this shameful episode in American history to be brought to a close.

"Five Years of Kafkaesque Legal Shenanigans,"

NACDL's seminar in Toronto included, as a highlight, attorneys, professors, and the Canadian Chief Justice (and Barry Scheck) discussing the Innocence Project, Wrongful Conviction and what is happening in Guantanamo. Here, the latest from the ACLU Blog Of Rights by Omar Khadr:

"Five Years of Kafkaesque Legal Shenanigans," One More Chance to Do Right by Omar Khadr

On Saturday, Alex Neve, Secretary General for Amnesty International Canada, wrote an op-ed in the Ottawa Citizen about the military commissions trial of Canadian citizen Omar Khadr. As we blogged earlier, Khadr's defense attorney, Lt. Col. Jon Jackson, collapsed in court, and the trial was stayed for at least a month. (We later learned Lt. Col. Jackson's illness was due to complications following gall bladder surgery last month.)

Neve sees this one-month stay as Canada's last chance to end the "five years of Kafkaesque legal shenanigans" and bring Khadr home:

It is a delay that offers the Canadian government one last chance to do right by Omar Khadr. It also offers a chance to demonstrate to the world that we do in fact stand by the important international legal standards dealing with child soldiers that Canada was instrumental in developing.

To date we have heard nothing but silence and excuses from the government. The Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal have both ordered the government to seek his repatriation. The Supreme Court has found that the Canadian government continues to violate his rights and that those violations must be remedied (by repatriation or some other means). UN human rights experts and agencies such as UNICEF have called on the U.S. government to abandon this trial and for Canada to seek his return.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has defiantly refused to do so. It is a position that has become a source of both international puzzlement and national embarrassment. I was even asked by various soldiers stationed at Guantanamo why Canada seemed so indifferent to Omar's fate.

It is an untenable position not worthy of our nation. But it is not too late to change it.

From the other side of the border, we've watched in horror as the U.S. government has charged towards the first prosecution of an alleged child soldier since World War II. The military judge has been holding scheduling conferences to determine when Khadr's trial can resume. It's full steam ahead once Lt. Col. Jackson is well enough to return to Gitmo.

So while it's Canada's last chance, it's also a last chance for our country to do the right thing, too. Send Khadr back home to Canada.

Attorney Asks Supreme Court to Stop Guantanamo Prosecution

Full Story Here

(CNN) -- The youngest detainee at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility is to be tried next week by a military commission -- with a life sentence as one possible outcome -- and now his lawyer has gone to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to stop it.

Omar Khadr was 15 when he was apprehended in southeast Afghanistan in 2002, accused of lobbing a grenade that mortally wounded a U.S. medic. He also is accused of receiving one-on-one training from al Qaeda and being caught on a surveillance video making and planting roadside bombs where U.S. troops traveled.

Now 23, he faces trial at Guantanamo on August 10, on charges of murder and attempted murder in violation of the law of war, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism and spying.

Khadr, a Canadian citizen who was born in Toronto, also is the only Westerner still held at the Guantanamo facility.

Initially, President Barack Obama's order to close the Guantanamo facility postponed the trial and left the case in limbo. But last November, his case drew the attention of Attorney General Eric Holder.

Holder made headlines that month by announcing that five detainees accused of complicitity in the September 11, 2001, attacks would be transferred to New York City to stand trial in a civilian court. At the same time, he clarified the status of Khadr and four others -- saying they would face military commissions.

The five due for trial in New York included the professed mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Later, after local officials objected to the costs and potential security threats, the administration backtracked, putting the issue under review.

That leaves Mohammed in legal limbo for now, as Khadr faces trial in a matter of days.

But his military attorney, Army Lt. Col. Jon Jackson, has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the military commission trial.

Jackson said in a statement accompanying the petition that "the sad truth is that military commissions are discriminatory" and provide "only second class justice."

"If you are a citizen, like the Times Square bomber, you get all the protections of federal court. If you are a non-citizen, you are tried by military commission," he said. "This kind of discrimination is something we cannot stand for as a country."

He said that in previous wars, citizens and non-citizens received the same standard of justice.

Good (sort of) Guantánamo News

Today, the Senate voted to table an amendment proposed by Senator James Inhofe (R-Ok). The Inhofe Amendment would have prohibited the Department of Defense from using funds under the bill to modify or construct any facilities in the United States for the holding of Guantánamo detainees, including those charged, tried or convicted in federal court. The ACLU and a number of partners wrote to the Senate urging the defeat of this amendment because if it passed, it would present additional challenges to Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute Guantánamo detainees in federal criminal courts rather than the never-land of the military tribunal. Additionally, it would have put front-line law enforcement and corrections officials at needless risk by eliminating the ability to enhance security or communications at facilities holding detainees during their trials.
For more information, click here.