Tapes Provide First Glimpse of Secret Gitmo Panels

[dailykoff]

This is a really sickening story that I heard this morning on NPR. My apologies if this is a dupe or not considered LBN.

"Tapes Provide First Glimpse of Secret Gitmo Panels"
by Jackie Northam Morning Edition, November 21, 2006.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6514923

Audio recordings obtained by NPR provide the outside world with its first window into the secret world of military tribunals at the U.S. prison camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The recordings, made by the U.S. military, are of tribunals held in the fall of 2004 to review the "enemy combatant" status of six detainees who were arrested in Bosnia in late 2001. Lawyers for the men obtained the tapes under the Freedom of Information Act and provided NPR with copies of the recordings.

(snip)

Lawyers at Seton Hall University recently evaluated the records and transcripts for nearly 400 similar military hearings at Guantanamo. In most cases, they found, the government did not produce any witnesses at the tribunals, and detainees were only allowed to use other detainees at witnesses.

"Ninety-six percent of the time, {the government} produced no evidence of any sort," Seton Hall law professor Mark Denbeaux told NPR's Robert Siegel. Denbeaux represents two detainees and co-authored the report.

"They relied instead on secret evidence that was classified," Denbeaux says. "And the government's procedure was, anything in that secret evidence was presumed to be valuable and valid. And then the detainee was given the opportunity to rebut the secret evidence. But he was never told what the secret evidence was."
.................
The recordings are at the link and the proceedings are utterly farcical. :puke:

[Dammit Ann]

1. this is SO wrong.

notice, this is BEFORE the detainee bill was even mentioned in congress. imagine how grim it is now. god help them. and us.

[dailykoff]

2. That's a really good point.

Yeah the tapes I heard were from two 2004 trials and what do you know, both guys were re-certified as "enemy combatants" and are still rotting away in Gitmo two years later, and still have not been charged with anything!

It's so unbelievably twisted. The saddest part is that they were both apologizing to the kangaroo court and wondering why the witnesses they'd requested hadn't shown up. Nobody told them they hadn't even been contacted. :cry:


Hadj Boudella (left) and Mustafa Ait Idir were arrested in Bosnia on suspicion of plotting to bomb the U.S. and British embassies in Sarajevo. After their acquittal by a Bosnian court, they were taken into custody by U.S. officials and sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Family photos

[joemurphy]

3. This is would be laughable if real human lives weren't at stake.

But they are. Anyone who values due process and civil liberties should be outraged.

[dailykoff]

5. It's utterly unbelievable.

What's worse is that thanks to the detainee bill, this is their one and only chance to get their case reviewed. After this, nothing, they're stuck there until they die, literally.

[Dammit Ann]

4. more people need to know about this.

why are the lawyers not screaming bloody murder?

[dailykoff]

7. I wish I knew.

I just heard a Pacifica interview with the lawyer who requested the tapes, Mark Denbeaux, and he says it's even worse than it sounds -- on the few occasions a tribunal releases a detainee, they're simply tried and retried until a second or third panel recertifies them as enemy combatants.

Is that straight out of Kafka or what?

p.s. here's a link to his report that he gave on the radio:

"Latest GUANTÁNAMO REPORT: No-Hearing Hearings"
http://law.shu.edu/

[AZCat]

10. Oh my god.

From the article:

In three of the 102 CSRT returns reviewed, the Tribunal found the detainee to
be not/no-longer an enemy combatant. In each case, the Defense Department
ordered a new Tribunal convened, and the detainee was then found to be an
enemy combatant. In one instance, a detainee was found to no longer be an
enemy combatant by two Tribunals, before a third Tribunal was convened
which then found the detainee to be an enemy combatant.

I don't know how Kafka-esque this is (I'm not as familiar with his work as our well-read Great Leader) but this is the sort of thing that makes me lay awake at night.

Disturbing, absolutely f**king disturbing.

[dailykoff]

12. Disturbing is right.

What in hell do they think they're going to do with these guys, anyway? Do they really think their families are going to just forget about them, or let the rest of the world forget about them? It's insane.

[AZCat]

13. If you're talking about the Bush clan...

they probably don't think about things like that - don't want to dirty their beautiful minds with such rot. The rest of the conspirators, I don't know. I guess if you've already convinced yourself that these people are truly "threats" then it isn't that far of a jump to dehumanizing them to where they don't have families (at least as far as the jailors are concerned).

[Dammit Ann]

9. i just listened to most of this.

i am appalled, ashamed and dismayed. we are not america if this is happening. war is crime, this is shameful.

[SteveG]

6. can we say "Kangaroo Courts?"

that's what these travesties amount to. They are complete shams, and mock everything that our founding fathers stood for.

[dailykoff]

8. Exactly.

It's like they're trying to add insult to injury, and knowing these clowns, they probably are.

[Javaman]

11. Gitmo isn't a gulag, it's the repukes version of the Inquisition. nt

[daleo]

14. Who knew Kafka was an American writer?

Talk about metamorphosis.

[Canuckistanian]

17. I was just thinking how Kafkaesque this was

And just as in The Trial, their punishment is meted out without their ever knowing why they were punished.

[Morgana LaFey]

15. You have to ask yourself

in circumstances like that, why go through the motions at all? Sheesh.

[Jack Rabbit]

16. Ninety-six percent of the time, {the government} produced no evidence of any sort

Then the government obviously has no case. The detainee should be released.