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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/worthington04232010.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/worthington04232010.html<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">April 23 - 25,
2010<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>Judge Rules
Yemeni's Detention Based Solely on Torture<br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
Guantanamo and Habeas Corpus
</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By ANDY
WORTHINGTON <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">O</font><font size=3>n
February 24, as I reported in an article entitled,
“<a href="http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/03/02/the-black-hole-of-guantanamo/">
The Black Hole of Guantánamo</a>,” Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. granted the
habeas corpus petition of Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman, a Yemeni
who was seized crossing the border from Afghanistan to Pakistan in
December 2001. In the absence of the judge’s unclassified opinion
explaining why he had ordered his release, I provided only a brief
explanation of what was publicly known of his story, stating:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>As I explained in my book
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745326641/counterpunchmaga">
The Guantánamo Files</a></i>, Uthman, who was 22 years old at the time of
his capture, “said that he had traveled between Kabul and Khost teaching
the Koran from March to December 2001.” Although he “admitted that he had
stayed at a Taliban house in Quetta, Pakistan, which was the normal entry
point for volunteers who had come to fight with the Taliban,” he stated
that this was “only because he had been told that it was the only way for
him to enter Afghanistan.”<br><br>
</dl>Judge Kennedy’s opinion was released a month ago
(<a href="http://media.miamiherald.com/smedia/2010/03/16/12/uthmanhabeas.source.prod_affiliate.56.pdf">
PDF</a>), but was then abruptly withdrawn, and, perhaps with unnecessary
delicacy, I held off from analyzing it, waiting for it to be reissued, as
I was uncertain how much would be redacted. When the revised opinion was
finally released on April 21
(<a href="http://static1.firedoglake.com/28/files/2010/04/UthmaanDecision.pdf">
PDF</a>), I realized that the name of a criminal investigator with the
Naval Criminal Investigative Service had been removed, as had other named
operatives, but that other key elements had not; specifically, the names
of two other prisoners who alleged that Uthman “acted as a bodyguard for
Osama bin Laden.” These two men are Sharqwi Abdu Ali al-Hajj and Sanad
Yislam Ali al-Kazimi, and in the most important part of the opinion,
Judge Kennedy stated:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>The Court will not rely on the statements of Hajj or Kazimi because
there is unrebutted evidence in the record that, at the time of the
interrogations at which they made the statements, both men had recently
been tortured.<br><br>
</dl>The torture of Sharqwi Abdu Ali al-Hajj<br><br>
This, alarmingly, was something of an understatement. Al-Hajj (also
identified as Abdu Ali Sharqawi, but more commonly known as Riyadh the
Facilitator) was seized in a house raid in Pakistan in February 2002 and
was then rendered to Jordan, one of
<a href="http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/01/29/un-secret-detention-report-asks-where-are-the-cia-ghost-prisoners/">
at least 15 prisoners</a> whose torture was outsourced to the Jordanian
authorities between 2001 and 2004, where he was held for nearly two years
before being transferred to the CIA’s “Dark Prison” near Kabul, and then,
via Bagram, to Guantánamo. <br><br>
As Judge Kennedy explained, he told his lawyer, Kristin B. Wilhelm, that,
“while held in Jordan, he ‘was regularly beaten and threatened with
electrocution and molestation,’ and he eventually ‘manufactured facts’
and confessed to his interrogators’ allegation ‘in order to make the
torture stop.’” In the “Dark Prison,” he added, he was “kept in complete
darkness and was subject to continuous loud music.”<br><br>
Al-Hajj’s descriptions of the “Dark Prison” correspond with those of
numerous other prisoners, including the British resident
<a href="http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/02/12/binyam-mohamed-evidence-of-torture-by-us-agents-revealed-in-uk/">
Binyam Mohamed</a>, whose descriptions were included in my article,
“<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/worthington12152008.html">Hit Me
Baby One More Time: A History of Music Torture in the War on Terror</a>.”
However, what is missing from the analysis of his time in Jordan is a
more sustained narrative of torture, false confessions and his torturers’
regular contact with the CIA, which emerged in
<a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/04/09/well-make-you-see-death">a
letter given to Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch</a> during a visit
to Jordan in 2008, which had been written by al-Hajj during his
detention, around October 2002. In this note, which was smuggled out of
the prison, he explained that he “was held as a secret prisoner by the
Jordanian intelligence service: unregistered, cut off from all
communication and hidden during visits by representatives of the
International Committee of the Red Cross,” and gave the following “short
summary of my sufferings,” as reported by Mariner:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>“They beat me up in a way that does not know mercy,” Sharqawi wrote,
referring to his Jordanian captors, “and they're still beating me. They
threatened me with electricity, with snakes and dogs ... [They said]
we'll make you see death.” <br><br>
<dd>Sharqawi described his interrogations, explaining that the Jordanians
were feeding his responses back to the CIA. <br><br>
<dd>“Every time that the interrogator asks me about a certain piece of
information, and I talk,” Sharqawi said, “he asks me if I told this to
the Americans. And if I say no he jumps for joy, and he leaves me and
goes to report it to his superiors, and they rejoice.”<br><br>
</dl>In Human Rights Watch’s final report,
“<a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/node/62263/section/5">Double
Jeopardy</a>,” the extent to which he was interrogated about other men --
using photos that, in Afghanistan and Guantánamo, were apparently
described as “the family album” -- was revealed in the following passage,
which not only explains the pressures that led to him providing a false
allegation against Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman in Bagram, but also
indicates how hundreds -- or thousands -- of other false allegations may
have been extracted:<br><br>
I was being interrogated all the time, in the evening and in the day. I
was shown thousands of photos, and I really mean thousands, I am not
exaggerating ... And in between all this you have the torture, the abuse,
the cursing, humiliation. They had threatened me with being sexually
abused and electrocuted. I was told that if I wanted to leave with
permanent disability both mental and physical, that that could be
arranged. They said they had all the facilities of Jordan to achieve
that. I was told that I had to talk, I had to tell them
everything.<br><br>
The torture of Sanad al-Kazimi<br><br>
The story of Sanad al-Kazimi’s false confession is just as distressing.
Seized in the United Arab Emirates in January 2003, he was subsequently
handed over to U.S. forces, who rendered him to an unidentified secret
CIA prison, and then to the “Dark Prison” and Bagram, and, as Judge
Kennedy explained, he told his lawyer, Martha Rayner, that, “while [he]
was detained outside the United States, his interrogators beat him; held
him naked and shackled in a cold dark cell; dropped him into cold water
while his hands and legs were bound; and sexually abused him. Kazimi told
Rayner that eventually “[h]e made up his mind to say ‘Yes’ to anything
the interrogators said to avoid further torture.”<br><br>
After this he was relocated to the “Dark Prison,” where, he said, “he was
always in darkness and … was hooded, given injections, beaten, hit with
electric cables, suspended from above, made to be naked, and subjected to
continuous loud music. Kazimi reportedly tried to kill himself on three
occasions. He told Rayner that he realized ‘he could mitigate the torture
by telling the interrogators what they wanted to hear.’”<br><br>
At Bagram, he continued, “he was isolated, shackled, ‘psychologically
tortured and traumatized by guards’ desecration of the Koran’ and
interrogated ‘day and night, and very frequently.’ [He] told Rayner that
he ‘tried very hard’ to tell his interrogators in Bagram the same
information he had told his previous interrogators ‘so they would not
hurt him.’”<br><br>
This is damning enough, but back in August 2007, Jane Mayer of the
<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mayer">
New Yorker</a></i> spoke to Ramzi Kassem, another of al-Kazimi’s lawyers,
who, as I explained in
<a href="http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2007/08/13/an-unreported-story-from-guantanamo-the-tale-of-sanad-al-kazimi/">
an article at the time</a>, added further details, telling her
that:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>[Al-Kazimi] was “suspended by his arms for long periods, causing his
legs to swell painfully … It’s so traumatic, he can barely speak of it.
He breaks down in tears.” He also said that al-Kazimi “claimed that,
while hanging, he was beaten with electric cables,” and explained that he
also told him that, while in the “Dark Prison,” he “attempted suicide
three times, by ramming his head into the walls”: “He did it until he
lost consciousness. Then they stitched him back up. So he did it again.
The next time he woke up, he was chained, and they’d given him
tranquillizers. He asked to go to the bathroom, and then he did it
again.” On this last occasion, Kassem added, he “was given more
tranquillizers, and chained in a more confining manner.”<br><br>
<br>
</dl><h2><b>The story of Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed
Uthman</b></h2><font size=3>These accounts, sadly, fit a pattern of
torture and false confessions that only becomes clearer as time passes
and more evidence is revealed, and they also confirm that the two men
described above were
<a href="http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/04/23/ten-terrible-truths-about-the-cia-torture-memos-part-two/">
amongst the 94 prisoners</a> -- many still unaccounted for -- who were
held in secret CIA prisons and subjected to particularly brutal treatment
(<a href="http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/UN-Secret-Detention-Report.pdf">
PDF</a>). Compared to them, Uthman’s own story is easily
overshadowed.<br><br>
This is perhaps understandable, as nothing in the government’s supposed
evidence thoroughly refutes his own assertions that he was in Afghanistan
as a missionary, because the entire case against him is based on
allegations made by other prisoners (in addition to al-Hajj and
al-Kazimi), or attempts to infer guilt by association on the part of the
government that make him something of a cipher in his own case. <br><br>
Throughout the rest of the judge’s opinion, further attempts by the
government to prove that Uthman was a bodyguard for bin Laden, that he
trained in an al-Qaeda camp and was present at the battle of Tora Bora
(where al-Qaeda and the Taliban fought the U.S. military and its Afghan
proxies in November and December 2001) are bedeviled with identifications
based on a photograph and a variety of kunyas (nicknames) that Judge
Kennedy found unconvincing. The only allegations given any substantial
weight are claims that an individual who “supported jihad” financed his
trip, that he followed a route that was typically used by al-Qaeda
recruits, and that he was seen in two guesthouses in Afghanistan that
were reportedly associated with al-Qaeda. <br><br>
Other prisoners drift in and out of this narrative -- Abdul Hakim
Bukhari, a Saudi
(<a href="http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2007/09/11/guantanamo-the-stories-of-the-16-saudis-just-released/">
released from Guantánamo</a> in September 2007) who arrived in
Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks for jihad but was imprisoned as a spy,
who unconvincingly alleged that Uthman “was a member of the Osama bin
Laden … security detail” before 9/11, when Bukhari wasn’t in the country
and could have had no such knowledge; and Richard Belmar, a British
citizen (released in January 2005), who was seized in Pakistan in
February 2002, and who, “when shown a picture of Uthman,” stated that he
“’may have been a lower amir,’ or leader, ‘in the Kandahar guest house,’”
even though, as seems apparent, Belmar was not in Kandahar at the same
time as Uthman. <br><br>
The judge refused to disregard this statement entirely, but, to be
honest, it is difficult to see why not, as its basis in reality appears
to be as flimsy as everything else thrown at Uthman by the government in
the hope that some of it would stick, and, moreover,
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005/feb/27/guantanamo.usa">
Belmar stated</a> on his release that, on one occasion in Bagram, “a
handgun was forced into his mouth,” and he explained, “It tasted cold,
bitter. I thought, ‘Yeah, this is getting serious, there’s a good chance
they will pull the trigger.’” <br><br>
Elsewhere, the government resorted to trying out guilt by association,
claiming that, because Uthman was seized in the vicinity of Tora Bora
with approximately 30 other men, “a few of whom he knew from Yemen,” who
“were admitted -- or at least, alleged, al-Qaeda members, some of whom
were likely coming from Tora Bora,” the Court should draw an inference
that Uthman’s missionary story was a lie.<br><br>
The truth, to be honest, is difficult to establish, as Judge Kennedy
recognized. The group of approximately 30 men with whom Uthman was seized
have long been referred to by the government as the
“<a href="http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/04/29/fair-article-dangerous-revisionism-over-guantanamo/">
Dirty Thirty</a>,” and portrayed, as in Uthman’s case, as bodyguards for
bin Laden. Until this case came to court, it had been presumed that the
bodyguard allegations came solely from Mohamed al-Qahtani, the supposed
20th hijacker for the 9/11 attacks, whose torture at Guantánamo is
well-known (and was
<a href="http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/01/20/bush-era-ends-with-guantanamo-trial-chiefs-torture-confession/">
admitted by Pentagon official Susan Crawford</a> in January 2009), but
al-Qahtani is mysteriously absent from Uthman’s case, as are alleged
al-Qaeda member Ibrahim al-Qosi (currently facing
<a href="http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/12/10/chaos-and-confusion-the-return-of-the-military-commissions/">
a trial by Military Commission</a>) and convicted al-Qaeda member
<a href="http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/02/01/lawyers-appeal-guantanamo-trial-convictions/">
Ali Hamza al-Bahlul</a>, who were also captured at this time. <br><br>
It may dismay the government to have to concede that it is all but
impossible to establish that everyone seized at this time was part of
al-Qaeda, and that some of the men may have been missionaries or
humanitarian aid workers, attempting to flee the chaos of post-invasion
Afghanistan as part of general Arab exodus, but it is not beyond the
bounds of reason that this is the case, as Judge Kennedy accepted in his
conclusion, when he stated:<br><br>
In sum, the Court gives credence to evidence that Uthman (1) studied at a
school at which other men were recruited to fight for al-Qaeda; (2)
received money for his trip to Afghanistan from an individual who
supported jihad; (3) traveled to Afghanistan along a route also taken by
al-Qaeda recruits; (4) was seen at two al-Qaeda guesthouses in
Afghanistan; and (5) was with al-Qaeda members in the vicinity of Tora
Bora after the battle that occurred there.<br><br>
Even taken together, these facts do not convince the Court by a
preponderance of the evidence that Uthman received and executed orders
from al-Qaeda. Although this information is consistent with the
proposition that Uthman was a part of al-Qaeda, it is not proof of that
allegation. As explained, the record does not contain reliable evidence
that Uthman was a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden or fought for al-Qaeda.
Certainly, none of the facts respondents have demonstrated are true are
direct evidence of fighting or otherwise “receiv[ing] and execut[ing]
orders” … and they do not, even together, paint an incriminating enough
picture to demonstrate that the inferences respondents ask the Court to
make are more likely accurate than not. Associations with al-Qaeda
members, or institutions to which al-Qaeda members have connections, are
not alone enough to demonstrate that, more likely than not, Uthman was
part of al-Qaeda. <br><br>
In granting Uthman’ habeas petition, Judge Kennedy added that, “at first
blush,” some of the government’s evidence was “quite incriminating of
Uthman and supportive of the position that he is lawfully detained,” but
that, on close examination, there was “reason not credit some of it at
all and reason to conclude that what remains is not nearly as probative
of respondent’s position as they assert.”<br><br>
</font><h2><b>An alarming conclusion</b></h2><font size=3>This is indeed
the case, but what is missing from Judge Kennedy’s conclusion, but is
glaringly obvious from his opinion as a whole, is that the shadows which
never quite coalesce around the barely fleshed-out figure of Uthman Abdul
Rahim Mohammed Uthman are populated not by reliable witnesses, but by a
procession of torture victims or other prisoners worn out by endless
interrogation, who, when shown photographs, invented stories to get the
torture to stop, or to get the interrogators off their back.<br><br>
As a demonstration of how to produce false confessions to incriminate
insignificant prisoners at Guantánamo, it would be harder to find a
document that more perfectly expresses the brutal pointlessness of the
“War on Terror” than this opinion, and when the bigger picture is
examined -- Sharqwi Abdu Ali al-Hajj ‘s statement that, in Jordan, “I was
shown thousands of photos, and I really mean thousands” -- the scale of
this shocking witch-hunt is explicitly revealed. <br><br>
Beyond Guantánamo, where habeas judges are not empowered to tread, who
knows
<a href="http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/06/18/world-exclusive-new-revelations-about-the-torture-of-ibn-al-shaykh-al-libi/">
how many other men</a> were seized because of false confessions made
through the use of torture?<br><br>
Note</b>: For more on Guantánamo and habeas corpus, see my project,
“<a href="http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/04/19/guantanamo-habeas-results-prisoners-34-government-13/">
Guantánamo Habeas Week</a>.”<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Andy Worthington</b> is a British
journalist, the author of
'<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745326641/counterpunchmaga">
The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's
Illegal Prison'</a> (published by Pluto Press), and the co-director (with
Polly Nash) of the new Guantánamo documentary,
‘<a href="http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/outside-the-law-stories-from-guantanamo/">
Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo</a>.’ Visit his website at:
<a href="http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/">www.andyworthington.co.uk
</a><br><br>
He can be reached at:
<a href="mailto:andy@andyworthington.co.uk">andy@andyworthington.co.uk</a>
<br><br>
<br><br>
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