Legal Commentary

Military Lawyer: Gitmo Conditions Have Worsened Since Inauguration

By Jeralyn

Lieutenant-Colonel Yvonne Bradley, an American military lawyer for 20 years, is in Great Britain where tomorrow she will demand the release of Binyam Mohamed who as we wrote the other day, is dying in his Guantanamo cell.

Bradley...will reveal that Mohamed, 31, is dying in his Guantánamo cell and that conditions inside the Cuban prison camp have deteriorated badly since Barack Obama took office. Fifty of its 260 detainees are on hunger strike and, say witnesses, are being strapped to chairs and force-fed, with those who resist being beaten. At least 20 are described as being so unhealthy they are on a "critical list", according to Bradley.

In addition to her own observations, she shares what Binyam told her: [More...]

"Binyam has witnessed people being forcibly extracted from their cell. Swat teams in police gear come in and take the person out; if they resist, they are force-fed and then beaten. Binyam has seen this and has not witnessed this before. Guantánamo Bay is in the grip of a mass hunger strike and the numbers are growing; things are worsening.

"It is so bad that there are not enough chairs to strap them down and force-feed them for a two- or three-hour period to digest food through a feeding tube. Because there are not enough chairs the guards are having to force-feed them in shifts.

Another hearing in Great Britain in Binyam's case, which seeks to determine if the British were complicit in his rendition and torture, is being held Tuesday.

Tomorrow, in San Francisco, the ACLU returns to court to seek to reinstate Binyam and two other detainees' Ghost Air complaint against Jeppeson Dataplan.

American civil liberties lawyers are hoping to shine a light on the defence firm that allegedly carried out the practice of "rendition" on behalf of the CIA. Jeppesen Dataplan, a Boeing subsidiary, helped to arrange rendition flights for several terror suspects, including Mohamed, to nations where they claim they were tortured.

The case was originally dismissed after the Bush administration asserted "state secrets privilege", indicating that it would endanger national security - the same argument used by Miliband. However, Obama has repeatedly stressed his willingness to be less secretive than his predecessor and a similar decision would lead to claims that the current administration is bent on suppressing evidence of torture.

On the Jeppeson suit: In 2007, the ACLU filed suit against Jeppeson , a subsidiary of Boeing, over Mohamed's (and two other detainees') treatment, but the case was dismissed. In September, 2008, the ACLU asked the federal appeals court in California to reinstate the lawsuit. The ACLU's brief is here.

The ACLU says the Obama Administration is not bringing change:

"Hope is flickering. The Obama administration's position is not change. It is more of the same. This represents a complete turn-around and undermining of the restoration of the rule of law. The new American administration shouldn't be complicit in hiding the abuses of its predecessors."

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 08, 2009 (boomark / email).