In which detention schemes do the 172 remaining Guantanamo Bay detainees fit?

After President Obama signed his Executive Order on Periodic Review, I didn’t find immediately a handy breakdown of the number of detainees which fitted into the new detention schemes introduced by this order. These numbers are derived from a public presentation of the US Department of State I recently attended: 59 detainees are currently approved [...]

Guantanamo Detainee Transfer Policy and Recidivism

Hearing at the House Armed Services Committee Mr. Robert Wittman Chairman Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Mr. William K. Lietzau Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Policy U.S. Department of Defense Ambassador Daniel Fried Special Envoy for the Closure of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility U.S. Department of State Mr. Ed Mornston Director, Joint Intelligence [...]

Rumsfeld complained of ‘low level’ Guantanamo prisoners, memo reveals

Georgetown’s Security Law Brief notes that a newly found 2003 memo by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appears to directly contradict claims that Guantanamo held only the “worst of the worst” suspected terrorists. “We need to stop populating Guantanamo Bay with low-level enemy combatants,” Rumsfeld says in the memo, addressed to the chairman of the [...]

CCR sues ‘Guantanamo North’ detention facilities in Aref et al v. Holder

NPR has a story about the “Communications Management Units” in Terre Haute, Ind., and Marion, Ill. The special detention unit in Terre Haute contains 50 cells housing some of the people the U.S. describes as the “country’s biggest security threats”, including John Walker Lindh. The units’ population has included men convicted in well-known post-Sept. 11 [...]

George Bush calls off trip to Switzerland amid fear of violence at demonstration… or an arrest warrant

The Guardian reports that George W Bush has had to call off a trip to Switzerland next weekend amid planned protests by human rights groups over the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay and the threat of a warrant for his arrest. The visit would have been Bush’s first to Europe since he admitted in [...]

DC Circuit: No need to release full info on high value detainees (ACLU v. U.S. Dep’t of Def)

(ASIL) The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has upheld a lower court ruling in favor of the U.S. government regarding the release of documents related to fourteen “high value” detainees held at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay. The request for the release of the documents was filed by the [...]

Rights Groups Urge Spanish Judge to Subpoena Former Guantánamo Commander for Role in Detainee Torture

Today, the U.S.-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) asked a Spanish Judge to subpoena the former commanding officer at Guantánamo Bay to explain his role in the torture of four former detainees.  CCR and ECCHR filed a 12-page dossier detailing the key role of Major [...]

Cable describes US view on Council of Europe

The March 2009 cable 09STRASBOURG6 summarizes the Council of Europe as follows: The Council of Europe (COE) likes to portray itself as a bastion of democracy, a promoter of human rights, and the last best hope for defending the rule of law in Europe – and beyond. It is an organization with an inferiority complex [...]

Obama May Bypass Guantánamo Rules

The NYTimes reports that President Obama’s legal advisers, confronting the prospect of new restrictions on the transfer of Guantánamo detainees, are debating whether to recommend that he issue a signing statement asserting that his executive powers would allow him to bypass the restrictions, according to several officials. One option on the table, according to officials [...]

Congress Bars Gitmo Transfers

The WSJ reports that Congress on Wednesday passed the 2011 Defense Authorization Bill that would effectively bar the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. for trial, rejecting pleas from Obama administration officials who called the move unwise. The measure for fiscal year 2011 blocks the Department of Defense from using any money to move [...]