The high cost of Guantánamo Bay
Jul 17th 2008
IT SHOULD have been the start of catharsis: justice would be seen to be done when the man who had boasted of masterminding the September 11th attacks on America was made to answer for his crimes. Instead, the arraignment hearing of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other al-Qaeda suspects became another instalment in the long-running farce—or tragedy—of America’s prison camp at Guantánamo Bay.
“KSM”, as security types usually refer to the camp’s most famous inmate, was chatting, laughing and reciting Koranic verses throughout the proceedings. He told the military judge that he welcomed the prospect of a death sentence. “I have been looking to be a martyr [for] a long time.”
The Geneva Conventions, which America belatedly recognises as applying to the camp’s “unlawful enemy combatants”, protect prisoners from being paraded in public. KSM had to approve an artist’s sketch of him in court, but complained that his nose had been drawn too big. The artist agreed it was “a little beaky” and rushed off to change it.
Guantánamo Bay became a symbol of legal abuse, maltreatment and torture from the moment the first orange-clad inmates stumbled in with their shackles, blindfolds and earmuffs in early 2002. It was built in the belief that, as an American base on leased Cuban soil, it was beyond the reach of America’s federal courts. But that rationale has been dismantled by successive rulings of the Supreme Court. Last month, by a narrow vote of five to four, the court recognised the inmates’ right to seek their freedom before a federal judge.
Still, the legal process ahead is likely to be messy, because the Supreme Court has left much unsaid. It did not pronounce on the legality of the military commissions, the standard of proof required to be held in detention, the admissibility of evidence obtained under duress, and what access prisoners will have to secret information. Moreover, the ruling does not cover the roughly 21,000 prisoners held by American forces in Iraq or the 650-odd in Bagram in Afghanistan, which get far less scrutiny.
Donald Rumsfeld, the former American defence secretary, famously said that Guantánamo Bay was meant to house the “worst of the worst”. Yet the majority of the 780 or so prisoners who have passed through the hands of the interrogators there have been sent back to their home countries without charge.
Of the remaining 270, only 20 have had charges for war crimes filed against them. Between 60 and 80 may eventually be prosecuted. About 60 have been approved for release but for various reasons cannot go. That leaves an awkward group of perhaps 120 against whom there is insufficient evidence to prosecute but who are still considered dangerous. Some legal experts argue that a new national security court should decide whether they can be interned without trial.
According to a tally by the Centre on Law and Security at New York University, American civilian courts have convicted more than 80 people, mostly Americans, on terrorism charges, whereas the military commissions at the camp have processed only one case.
Doubtful legality, doubtful value
Guantánamo Bay has become an embarrassment. Even President George Bush has said he wants to shut it down. Both the Democratic and the Republican candidates to succeed him in his job have promised to do so.
Guantánamo Bay has two main functions aside from handing out justice: to stop potential fighters from returning to the “battlefield” (which could mean indefinite imprisonment) and to gather intelligence. The Bush administration claims that its dark web of security measures—including “waterboarding” (simulated drowning) of prisoners, secret CIA prisons and the “rendition” of suspects to their countries of origin, where they may be tortured—have saved countless lives and generated a wealth of information. Perhaps so. But it is impossible to judge the quality of such information, or to know how many other lives have been lost or endangered by the outrage that such methods have caused among Muslims.
Certainly those methods have proved an obstacle to international co-operation, a vital component of the fight against global terrorism. Even as some Western countries have hardened their antiterrorist legislation, extending periods of detention without charge, widening conspiracy laws and restricting free speech, they have viewed America’s attempts to bend the rules with suspicion.
Mr Garzón, Spain’s best-known investigating judge, is baffled by America’s refusal to give him information about the whereabouts of Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, a prominent al-Qaeda ideologue wanted in Spain in connection with the Madrid bombings. Mr Nasar is widely reported to have been arrested in Pakistan and handed over to the Americans, but he does not figure on any list of detainees.
Hamed Abderrahaman Ahmad, a Spaniard sentenced to six years in prison for membership of al-Qaeda, had his conviction overturned by the Spanish courts in 2006 in part because it had been based on possibly tainted evidence gathered at Guantánamo. In March this year Mr Garzón dropped his request for the extradition to Spain of two British residents recently freed from the camp, on the ground that the mental and physical suffering they had endured made prosecution impossible.
Likewise, Peter Clarke, a former British counter-terrorism police chief who advises Policy Exchange, a London-based think-tank, says that “any evidence obtained in Guantánamo is inadmissible.” He also underlines the moral power of criminal prosecution; after a spate of terrorism-related convictions (and guilty pleas) in Britain, he says, the dialogue with British Muslims may now become more constructive. Indeed, British Muslims have started to report suspicious activity to the police, leading to at least one arrest. In an age of fragmented, even “leaderless” jihadists, that kind of intelligence volunteered may prove much more helpful than the sort extracted by simulated drowning
Jul 17th 2008
IT SHOULD have been the start of catharsis: justice would be seen to be done when the man who had boasted of masterminding the September 11th attacks on America was made to answer for his crimes. Instead, the arraignment hearing of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other al-Qaeda suspects became another instalment in the long-running farce—or tragedy—of America’s prison camp at Guantánamo Bay.
“KSM”, as security types usually refer to the camp’s most famous inmate, was chatting, laughing and reciting Koranic verses throughout the proceedings. He told the military judge that he welcomed the prospect of a death sentence. “I have been looking to be a martyr [for] a long time.”
The Geneva Conventions, which America belatedly recognises as applying to the camp’s “unlawful enemy combatants”, protect prisoners from being paraded in public. KSM had to approve an artist’s sketch of him in court, but complained that his nose had been drawn too big. The artist agreed it was “a little beaky” and rushed off to change it.
Guantánamo Bay became a symbol of legal abuse, maltreatment and torture from the moment the first orange-clad inmates stumbled in with their shackles, blindfolds and earmuffs in early 2002. It was built in the belief that, as an American base on leased Cuban soil, it was beyond the reach of America’s federal courts. But that rationale has been dismantled by successive rulings of the Supreme Court. Last month, by a narrow vote of five to four, the court recognised the inmates’ right to seek their freedom before a federal judge.
Still, the legal process ahead is likely to be messy, because the Supreme Court has left much unsaid. It did not pronounce on the legality of the military commissions, the standard of proof required to be held in detention, the admissibility of evidence obtained under duress, and what access prisoners will have to secret information. Moreover, the ruling does not cover the roughly 21,000 prisoners held by American forces in Iraq or the 650-odd in Bagram in Afghanistan, which get far less scrutiny.
Donald Rumsfeld, the former American defence secretary, famously said that Guantánamo Bay was meant to house the “worst of the worst”. Yet the majority of the 780 or so prisoners who have passed through the hands of the interrogators there have been sent back to their home countries without charge.
Of the remaining 270, only 20 have had charges for war crimes filed against them. Between 60 and 80 may eventually be prosecuted. About 60 have been approved for release but for various reasons cannot go. That leaves an awkward group of perhaps 120 against whom there is insufficient evidence to prosecute but who are still considered dangerous. Some legal experts argue that a new national security court should decide whether they can be interned without trial.
According to a tally by the Centre on Law and Security at New York University, American civilian courts have convicted more than 80 people, mostly Americans, on terrorism charges, whereas the military commissions at the camp have processed only one case.
Doubtful legality, doubtful value
Guantánamo Bay has become an embarrassment. Even President George Bush has said he wants to shut it down. Both the Democratic and the Republican candidates to succeed him in his job have promised to do so.
Guantánamo Bay has two main functions aside from handing out justice: to stop potential fighters from returning to the “battlefield” (which could mean indefinite imprisonment) and to gather intelligence. The Bush administration claims that its dark web of security measures—including “waterboarding” (simulated drowning) of prisoners, secret CIA prisons and the “rendition” of suspects to their countries of origin, where they may be tortured—have saved countless lives and generated a wealth of information. Perhaps so. But it is impossible to judge the quality of such information, or to know how many other lives have been lost or endangered by the outrage that such methods have caused among Muslims.
Certainly those methods have proved an obstacle to international co-operation, a vital component of the fight against global terrorism. Even as some Western countries have hardened their antiterrorist legislation, extending periods of detention without charge, widening conspiracy laws and restricting free speech, they have viewed America’s attempts to bend the rules with suspicion.
Mr Garzón, Spain’s best-known investigating judge, is baffled by America’s refusal to give him information about the whereabouts of Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, a prominent al-Qaeda ideologue wanted in Spain in connection with the Madrid bombings. Mr Nasar is widely reported to have been arrested in Pakistan and handed over to the Americans, but he does not figure on any list of detainees.
Hamed Abderrahaman Ahmad, a Spaniard sentenced to six years in prison for membership of al-Qaeda, had his conviction overturned by the Spanish courts in 2006 in part because it had been based on possibly tainted evidence gathered at Guantánamo. In March this year Mr Garzón dropped his request for the extradition to Spain of two British residents recently freed from the camp, on the ground that the mental and physical suffering they had endured made prosecution impossible.
Likewise, Peter Clarke, a former British counter-terrorism police chief who advises Policy Exchange, a London-based think-tank, says that “any evidence obtained in Guantánamo is inadmissible.” He also underlines the moral power of criminal prosecution; after a spate of terrorism-related convictions (and guilty pleas) in Britain, he says, the dialogue with British Muslims may now become more constructive. Indeed, British Muslims have started to report suspicious activity to the police, leading to at least one arrest. In an age of fragmented, even “leaderless” jihadists, that kind of intelligence volunteered may prove much more helpful than the sort extracted by simulated drowning
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق