Guantánamo judge fired over Khadr case

The Pentagon has dismissed the Guantanamo Bay judge presiding over the case of Omar Khadr, raising questions about political interference and marking another setback in the beleaguered prosecution of the Toronto detainee.

U.S. Army Col. Peter Brownback, 60, a Vietnam veteran who once admitted he was under pressure from Washington concerning Khadr’s case, was relieved of his duties yesterday and replaced by another military judge.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/30/9302/

Torture: Rice defends it, prosecutors quit over it

Incredibly, our Secretary of State has publicly defended our country’s use of torture. And she even throws anthrax powder into the eyes of the American public to try to keep us from seeing the truth.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday defended tough interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects approved by the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11, saying they were necessary to protect America from new attacks. In her most extensive public comments about how the administration dealt with detainee interrogations in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, and the anthrax attacks that followed, Rice insisted the methods of questioning complied with both U.S. law and treaty obligations….

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/23/9144/

This, at a time when people at the DOJ and military prosecutors are quitting right and left:

We have learned that Deputy Solicitor General Thomas Hungar resigned some time before General Clement announced his resignation, and he will be leaving the office soon. He has not announced future plans.

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/deputy-sg-thomas-hungar-to-depart-from-sgs-office/

Paul Clement, the solicitor general, unexpectedly announced his resignation effective June 2nd…
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/paul-clement-to-step-down-as-solicitor-general/

Davis is just one of several military prosecutors who have come to believe the Guantánamo tribunal process is deeply flawed. None of these men is a bleeding-heart type; they are spit-and-polish career officers. But in the past four years, at least five of them have quit their jobs or walked away from Gitmo cases because they believed their own integrity was being compromised.…

Gitmo Grievances
http://www.newsweek.com/id/137627

Hope they’re getting to work at the Hague.

Romeo Dallaire upraids US and Canada over Omar Kadr

If you saw the movie Hotel Rwanda, you might remember the Canadian general in charge of the UN peacekeeping troops who was so terribly afflicted because he was unable to stop the killing. After recovering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, Gen. Romeo Dallaire went on to become Canada’s special embassador to the UN for children.

Canada and the United States have sunk to the moral equivalent of terrorists in their handling of a young Canadian held at Guantanamo Bay, says Liberal senator and ex-general Romeo Dallaire.

Dallaire says the two countries have flouted human rights and international conventions in dealing with Omar Khadr and are no better than those who don’t believe in rights at all.

Canada should be bending over backward to bring him home, said Dallaire…

from

http://freedetainees.org/790

Pentagon Drops Charges Against al-Qahtani

The Pentagon has dropped charges against a Saudi man held at Guantanamo who was was at the center of the military’s controversial torture program. Mohammed al-Qahtani was accused of being the so-called twentieth hijacker in the September 11 attacks. In 2006, al-Qahtani recanted a confession he said he made after he was tortured and humiliated at Guantanamo. Al-Qahtani was the subject of a harsh interrogation plan authorized by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The alleged torture included being beaten, restrained for long periods in uncomfortable positions, threatened with dogs, exposed to loud music and freezing temperatures and stripped nude in front of female personnel. On Friday, the convening authority for military commissions, Susan Crawford, dismissed the charges against al-Qahtani. She dismissed the charges without prejudice, meaning they can be filed again later.

from Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/13/headlines

According to Andy Worthington, al-Qahtani “also subjected to extreme sexual humiliation (including being smeared with fake menstrual blood by a female interrogator).”

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2008/02/12/six-in-guantanamo-charged-with-911-murders-why-now-and-what-about-the-torture/

or
http://tinyurl.com/5taq4u

…Actually, according to Candace Gorman (attorney for two Guantánamo detainees) several prisoners are suspected of being the “20th hijacker.”

Sami al-Hajj released late Thursday

The Al-Jazeera photographer was released after more than 6 years in American custody. He had been on a hunger strike to protest worsening conditions at Guantánamo and had been force-fed by medical staff there, in violation of medical ethics.

See:

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2008/05/01/sami-al-haj-released-from-guantanamo

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7378828.stm