Recently in Guantanamo Category

Prosecutors from Spain’s National Court are seeking key witnesses in relation to alleged secret CIA flights in which dozens of Islamist prisoners were transported via Spain to Guantanamo Bay.

The National Court suspects that dozens of prisoners captured in Kandahar, Afghanistan by US forces were transported to Guantanamo via Spanish airports or using Spanish airspace between January 2002 and October 2006.

The spy, using the pseudonym "Paul Stokes", told a Federal Court hearing yesterday that what might happen to Mr Habib was discussed with government officials from the beginning of his detention in October 2001.

Tue Jan 29, 2008 2:15pm ET163

LISBON (Reuters) - British rights group Reprieve said on Tuesday nearly all listed terror suspects flown by the United States to its base in Guantanamo passed through Portuguese territory or airspace, a charge rejected by Portugal.

Reprieve said the report was compiled by comparing flight logs from Portuguese authorities and information from the U.S. Department of Defence with the dates that prisoners arrived at Guantanamo and with testimony from the prisoners.

Spanish authorities were complicit in the secret U.S. transfer of two British residents to Guantanamo Bay and took part in their interrogation there, a lawyer for the two men said on Wednesday.

Edward Fitzgerald said Spain had facilitated the ordeal of the two men, Jamil el-Banna and Omar Deghayes, who were freed last month after suffering what he called years of "intensive interrogation and torture" in the U.S. prison camp on Cuba.

CCR FILES VISIT REQUEST TO SEE CLIENT MAJID KHAN IN EARLY OCTOBER

Synopsis

On September 28, 2007, attorneys with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a visit request with the Defense Department to see their client, Majid Khan, who was transferred one year ago from secret CIA detention to Guantánamo.

Two attorneys from the Center received Top Secret SCI clearance this week, higher than many members of the military who conducted the detainees’ Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT’s), and expect to finally meet their client after a year of fighting for access. The request was made for visits either the week of October 8 or the week of November 5.

La charla que Joanne Mariner dio el otro día en la Argentina fue muy interesante, entre otras cosas porque la dio en la Argentina. Mariner es la directora del Programa de Terrorismo y Contraterrorismo del Human Rights Watch, la principal organización de derechos humanos de los Estados Unidos.

Ante un auditorio de unas 20 personas en la sede del CELS, contó los resultados de su investigación sobre el tratamiento que reciben los prisioneros de la CIA acusados de actos de terrorismo. La experta empezó diciendo que, a raíz de su visita para dictar un taller a organizaciones de derechos humanos, acababa de leer el último documento que emitió la dictadura argentina sobre la lucha contra los movimientos armados, el llamado “Documento Final de la Lucha contra la Subversión y el Terrorismo” de 1983. En ese documento los militares intentaron justificar el uso de “procedimientos inéditos”, un eufemisno para encubrir su plan de exterminio. “Lamentablemente, en Estados Unidos hoy se usa el mismo enfoque para combatir al terrorismo, sólo que el eufemismo que usa el gobierno para describir la tortura es ‘métodos de interrogación alternativos’.” El paralelo no termina ahí. Así como militares argentinos secuestraron, torturaron y desaparecieron personas, lo mismo hace la CIA, que secuestra sospechosos en cualquier parte del mundo, los tortura en cárceles propias o extrañas, y en algunos casos los hace desaparecer, apuntó Mariner.