Yemeni prisoner dies in Guantanamo

Adrian Latif died in confinement at Guantanamo prison on September 5. The cause of death is under investigation. Latif had a history of mental illness but also of consistent challenges against his confinement.

Obama made closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison one of his campaign promise. On January 22, 2009 he signed an order that the facility be closed within a year. However two years later with Guantanamo still open Obama on March 7, 2011 signed another executive order that reversed his position on trying the detainees in civilian courts. He ruled that detainees could be tried by military tribunals.

Of course Guantanamo not only continues to be open but it is being upgraded. The U.S. taxpayer also continues to pay approximately $800,000 per detainee per year.

Detainees are held indefinitely without trial and challenges against their being held without trial have not been successful so far. Adrian Latif is one detainee who had constantly challenged his imprisonment.

In July 2010 a judge ruled that a classified report was not sufficient evidence that Latif had trained at a training camp and ordered him released. The government naturally appealed and a higher court ruled that courts should assume government documents were accurate and reliable. In June the Supreme Court refused to hear Latif's appeal. For those accused there is no challenge available to the government's decision since it must be assumed evidence is accurate and reliable. The question of holding someone indefinitely without trial does not even seem to have been addressed. This led to a great lack of hope among many prisoners. Latif himself tried to commit suicide a number of times and also joined in a hunger strike.

Latif also suffers mental problems perhaps caused by a traffic accident he had suffered before being sent to Guantanamo. In fact when he was captured he claimed he was going to Pakistan for medical treatment.

Latif often battled guards at the facility. On one occasion he threw "bodily fluids" at a guard and another time spit in the face of another guard. He was constantly being subject to disciplinary measures as a result. This no doubt simply fueled his anger.

At one time Latif was actually cleared for release as no danger to the U.S and a court ordered his release but this was just at the time that the Obama administration had decided that no more detainees would be released to Yemen because at least some had joined radical Islamist groups. There were no plans even now to try Latif for any crimes. At most he is claimed to have been trained with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

David Remes Latif's attorney said:

"Anyway you look at it, he died because he was there... If he committed suicide, it was because his detention killed his spirit. If it wasn't suicide it could have been medical neglect. It could have been mistreatment by the guards. But at the end of the day he died because he was there."

Latif was in his early to mid thirties when he died. He had been at Guantanamo for over a decade.

UN Human Right's Chief criticizes Obama

   Navi Pillay is the chief of Human Rights for the UN. She criticized Obama for not following through on his promise to close Guantanamo three years ago.
    In a statement Pillay said:  “It is ten years since the US Government opened the prison at Guantanamo, and now three years since 22 January 2009, when the President ordered its closure within twelve months,”“Yet the facility continues to exist and individuals remain arbitrarily detained – indefinitely – in clear breach of international law.”  The U.S. considers that the detainees are unprivileged combatants in hostilities between the U.S. and Islamic terrorists and it is legal to hold them indefinitely. However many legal analysts would side with the UN position that holding people indefinitely with no charges is against international law.
   Certainly the practice entails that anyone suspected of terrorism has no right of habeas corpus and can be detained indefinitely without charge. A considerable number of detainees have been released. However in many cases the U.S. cannot find countries willing to receive those who are released. Only six trials have been held so far. Obama has said that some of those detained will probably spend the rest of their lives in custody without trial.
    Eight people detained died in custody. Six of those committed suicide. Advisers to Obama claim he is still committed to closing Guantanamo. I doubt it will be a prominent issue in the upcoming election campaign as the Republicans for the most part are quite happy that the facility remains open. For more see this article.

New U.S. defense bill legalizes indefinite detention for terror suspects

 The new 2012 defense bill was passed by the House of Representatives by a 283 to 136 vote and now the Senate has passed the bill by a vote of 86 to 12. Among the provisions the bill allows for indefinite detention of terrorism suspects.
     The U.S. has been in practice doing this for some time but this bill now makes clear that it is lawful at least according to U.S. law. Now persons accused of the crime of being a terrorist does not require any charges every be brought against them and yet they can be held indefinitely. The historic right of habeas corpus is simply gone.
     One would think that Obama might veto the bill. He did actually threaten to veto the bill but not because it violated any one's rights but because it limited his own power. Obama wants to do as he sees fit with terror suspects who are US citizens. He did not even mention that the bill does away with any right to due process for suspects.
    The Senate dutifully revised the bill so that now the president will have the right to waive the requirement mandating military custody of  U.S. citizens accused of terrorism. The Obama administration even asked the principle sponsors of the bill John McCain and Carl Levin to include language that ensured the indefinite detention provisions would apply to U.S. citizens.
    The ACLU said that if Obama signs this bill into law ”it will damage both his legacy and America’s reputation for upholding the rule of law. The last time Congress passed indefinite detention legislation was during the McCarthy era and President Truman had the courage to veto that bill. We hope that the president will consider the long view of history before codifying indefinite detention without charge or trial.” The president is considering not the long view of history but the upcoming presidential elections. If Obama is seen as tough on terrorists then this will probably help him get elected. For more see this article.

Reversed ruling allows lawsuits of Guantanamo prisoners

THis is just part of an article from MSNBC.
The Bush administration has done everything possible to deny the prisoners any rights. The administration is attempting to keep lawyers from visiting their clients.


SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A judge Friday reversed his ruling that created new hurdles for some lawyers seeking to visit clients held prisoner at Guantanamo Bay.

District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina in Washington reinstated 16 lawsuits challenging the indefinite confinement of about 40 men held at the military prison on a U.S. base in Cuba.

Last month, Urbina dismissed the petitions of habeas corpus — a ruling that prompted the Department of Justice to warn attorneys for detainees that they would be barred from any contact with their clients unless they filed new challenges and agreed to tighter restrictions on visits and letters.

No Right of Habeas Corpus in US constitution: Gonzales

Gonzales seems to interpret anything and everything in such a way that it strengthens presidential powers. His views on torture do the same thing.


Gonzales says the Constitution doesn't guarantee habeas corpus
Attorney general's remarks on citizens' right astound the chair of Senate judiciary panel
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, January 24, 2007


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One of the Bush administration's most far-reaching assertions of government power was revealed quietly last week when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified that habeas corpus -- the right to go to federal court and challenge one's imprisonment -- is not protected by the Constitution.

"The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas,'' Gonzales told Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Jan. 17.

Gonzales acknowledged that the Constitution declares "habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless ... in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.'' But he insisted that "there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution.''

Specter was incredulous, asking how the Constitution could bar the suspension of a right that didn't exist -- a right, he noted, that was first recognized in medieval England as a shield against the king's power to dispatch troublesome subjects to royal dungeons.

Later in the hearing, Gonzales described habeas corpus as "one of our most cherished rights'' and noted that Congress had protected that right in the 1789 law that established the federal court system. But he never budged from his position on the absence of constitutional protection -- a position that seemingly would leave Congress free to reduce habeas corpus rights or repeal them altogether.

Gonzales did not propose any such drastic rollback and devoted most of his discussion to fending off senatorial attacks on a law signed by President Bush last October. That law included a provision stripping federal courts of authority to hear habeas corpus suits by noncitizens classified by the government as "enemy combatants.'' Specter and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Judiciary Committee chairman, are sponsoring legislation to undo the restriction.

But critics on both ends of the ideological spectrum said the attorney general was claiming a broader and more chilling power.

"This is the key protection that people have if they're held in violation of the law,'' said Erwin Chemerinsky, a Duke University law professor who has criticized the administration's actions on civil liberties. "If there's no habeas corpus, and if the government wants to pick you or me off the street and hold us indefinitely, how do we get our release?''

Chemerinsky was joined by Douglas Kmiec, a Pepperdine University law professor and former Justice Department official under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

If Gonzales' view prevailed, Kmiec said, "one of the basic protections of human liberty against the powers of the state would be embarrassingly absent from our constitutional system.''

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said this week that Gonzales stood by his remarks but was asserting only that the text of the Constitution does not guarantee habeas corpus. The attorney general recognizes, Roehrkasse said, that the Supreme Court has declared "the Constitution protects (habeas corpus) as it existed at common law'' in England. Any such rights, he added, would not apply to foreigners held as enemy combatants.

Habeas corpus was recognized in English law at least as early as the Magna Carta, in 1215, and perhaps earlier. In the United States, it refers to bringing a prisoner's case before a federal judge, who has the power to order the government to release anyone who is being held illegally.

It has become an issue in Bush's efforts to hold military captives at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with little or no access to civilian courts. The Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that that those prisoners could file habeas corpus claims in court, rejecting the administration's argument that inmates held outside the United States had no such right. That ruling was based on the court's interpretation of laws passed by Congress and did not discuss whether Guantanamo inmates had a constitutional right to habeas corpus.

The distinction is potentially crucial, because Congress, in the law signed last October, prohibited federal courts from reviewing habeas corpus suits by Guantanamo prisoners or any other noncitizens held as enemy combatants. The law's validity depends on whether the Supreme Court concludes that the prisoners' constitutional rights are being violated.

The issue of habeas corpus came up during last week's hearing when Specter asked Gonzales how a congressional statute could withdraw the right "when there's an express constitutional provision that it can't be suspended and an explicit Supreme Court holding that it applies to Guantanamo alien detainees?''

The court ruled only on the right to habeas corpus that was created by statute, Gonzales replied. He then asserted that the Constitution does not contain any express right of habeas corpus, only "a prohibition against taking it away.''

The issue extends far beyond Guantanamo.

The Supreme Court has interpreted federal judges' powers of habeas corpus to apply to prison systems around the nation and the legality of convictions in state as well as federal court.

For example, federal judges, who are appointed for life, regularly invoke habeas corpus when overturning convictions or death sentences of state inmates, overruling decisions by elected state judges.

Bruce Fein, a former Reagan Justice Department attorney who has become an outspoken critic of the Bush administration, noted that the day before his Judiciary Committee appearance, Gonzales had denounced "activist judges'' and advised them to stay out of national security matters.

Gonzales' comments to the committee on habeas corpus, Fein said, contained a message that "Congress doesn't have to let them (judges) decide national security matters.''

"It's part of an attempt to create the idea that during conflicts, the three branches of government collapse into one, and it is the president,'' Fein said.



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What Gonzales, Specter said
Excerpts from the exchange between Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Jan. 17:

Gonzales: There is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There's a prohibition against taking it away. ...

Specter: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. The Constitution says you can't take it away except in cases of rebellion or invasion. Doesn't that mean you have the right of habeas corpus unless there's an invasion or rebellion?

Gonzales: I meant by that comment, the Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas. Doesn't say that. It simply says the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except...

Specter: You may be treading on your interdiction and violating common sense, Mr. Attorney General.

Source: Senate Judiciary Committee transcript

E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.