Parallel tracks of reviewing Guantanamo cases on collision course

The dispute arises over running two parallel tracks of reviewing detainee cases — one by the courts, the other by an interagency task force that President Obama set up in January, two days after he took office. Read all about it at Scotus.

The taskforce is currently reviewing the status of each of the 241 current detainees. It will decide whether each is to be prosecuted for some crime, transferred elsewhere, set free, or held indefinitely somewhere else. The task force is working independently from government lawyers who have been working opposite detainees’ lawyers in the habeas cases in District Courts in Washington.

However, eight of the District judges handling detainee cases began issuing orders (until now in up to 42 cases) which require the President’s task force to share with detainees’ lawyers information about them that the task force gathers.

Some 23 of the orders, issued by five judges, require the government to go over all of the information assembled by the task force, find anything that might help the detainees challenge their imprisonment, subject to a possible court order to turn it over for use in those cases. Some 19 other orders, issued by three judges, would compel the task force to automatically hand over such helpful evidence to detainees’ lawyers.

This would place a new demand, the government filings said, to go over at least 1.8 million pages of information now in the task force’s database, and maybe other government files to which the task force has access.

Declaring its commitment to fulfill the Supreme Court’s order last June 12 in Boumediene v. U.S. for “a prompt hearing” for detainees, the Administration said that the goal “cannot be reconciled” with new obligations that the judges have imposed on the government.

Turkey reorganizes counter-terrorist institutions

Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek revealed plans to establish a new organization responsible for implementing an effective counter terrorism strategy. This organization will be headed by an undersecretary of the interior ministry. It is expected that the under secretary for counter-terrorism (USCT) will start functioning in June.

Interior Minister Besir Atalay, revealed the details of the new institution. The USCT will analyze counter-terrorist operations and subsequently formulate new security policies. Under the USCT the new counter-terrorism committee will consist of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, the commander of the gendarmerie, under secretaries from the interior and foreign ministries, as well as the heads of the Turkish National Police, National Intelligence Service and the coastguard.

As the government has established the new institution under the interior ministry, rather than the defense ministry, political observers consider that this transfers the responsibility for counter-terrorism strategy from the military to the civil government

However, according to Jamestown:

“Reflecting the resistance from the military, the new institution will have no operational capability to either plan or conduct counter-terrorist operations. Thus, the USCT has been created to serve as a think-tank for the civil government. It is expected to coordinate the counter-terrorist activities of the other security agencies. (…) On May 12 terrorism experts within different security institutions told Jamestown that the USCT will not function as an effective institution -rather the government is establishing yet another paper tiger.”

Obama Considers Detaining Terror Suspects Indefinitely

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration is weighing plans to detain some terror suspects on U.S. soil — indefinitely and without trial — as part of a plan to retool military commission trials that were conducted for prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who met this week with White House Counsel Greg Craig to discuss the administration’s plans, said among the proposals being studied is seeking authority for indefinite detentions, with the imprimatur of some type of national-security court.

Bush-era interrogation techniques discussed at Senate panel hearing

Read witness testimonies of Philip Zelikow , Ali Soufan, David Luban and Jeffrey F. Addicott before the Senate Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts on whether Bush administration interrogation techniques constituted torture.Jay Bybee had declined to testify at the hearing.

Terror laws built up after 9/11 and 7/7 may be scaled back, says Jack Straw

Speaking at law firm Clifford Chance on Tuesday, Straw said: “There is a case for going through all counterterrorism legislation and working out whether we need it. It was there for a temporary period.”The announcement is the first indication that Labour ministers want to scale back counterterrorism laws, amid growing consensus that recent powers have gone too far.

Senior Conservative sources also told the Guardian they would introduce a “repeal bill” to scrap laws that erode civil liberties following a wide-ranging audit covering at least the past 12 years.

The shadow security minister, Baroness Neville-Jones, said: “One of the most powerful deterrents to terrorism is successful prosecution and imprisonment. The government needs to allow intercept evidence in court so that real terrorists don’t get let off for lack of admissible evidence.”

U.S. Provides Pakistan With Drone Data

The United States military for the first time has provided Pakistan with a broad array of surveillance information collected by American drones flying along the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, American military officials said Wednesday. The offer to give Pakistan a much larger amount of imagery, including real-time video feeds and communications intercepts gleaned by remotely piloted aircraft, was intended to help defuse a growing dispute over how to use the drones and which country should control the secret missions flown in Pakistani airspace, American officials said.

American military officials said Wednesday that there was no plan to allow the military to join the C.I.A. in operating armed drones inside Pakistan. They disputed a report in The Los Angeles Times on Tuesday that said Pakistan had been given joint control of armed American military drones inside Pakistan.

Two-thirds of UK terror suspects released without charge

Only 340 of 1,471 people arrested between 2001 and 2008 were charged with terrorism-related offences, Home Office says. So far, the courts have convicted only 196 of those charged with such offences.

The statistics also show that as of March 2008 there were 125 people in prison in England and Wales for terrorist-related offences and a further 17 for domestic extremism or separatism, mainly for animal rights protests. Most of the terrorist prisoners – 75 – described themselves as British, with 111 declaring themselves to be Muslim.

The Guardian breaks down the figures even more. Read it here.

Federal judge adopts new standard in ordering release of Yemeni Alla Ali bin ali Ahmed

Judge Gladys Kessler of the US District Court for the District of Columbia has released an opinion to accompany last week’s order granting the habeas corpus petition of Yemeni Guantanamo Bay detainee Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed.

In the heavily redacted opinion, released Monday, Kessler adopted a “substantially supported” standard for reviewing the habeas petitions filed by detainees, which makes no reference to the “enemy combatant” classification upon which the previous standard was based. Kessler wrote that the government failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Ahmed was “part of, or substantially supported, Taliban or al-Qaida forces or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” According to the opinion, the government failed to prove that Ahmed participated in fighting, received military training, or substantially supported al Qaeda or the Taliban. At least four witnesses on whose statements the government based its case against Ahmed were speculative, vague, or not credible. The credibility of one was called into question by another judge. A second’s statements were riddled with “equivocation and speculation,” Kessler wrote. A third alleged that he was tortured, Kessler wrote, and apparently suffered from “psychosis.” And a fourth prisoner provided only a vague statement that could have been about another detainee, she wrote. Ahmed denied he ever engaged in terrorist activities.

She ordered the government to enter into diplomatic negotiations to release Ahmed, though it is unclear whether that will work.

Five men convicted in Liberty City Six terrorism trial

(LA Times) After back to back mistrials, five men from one of Miami’s poorest neighborhoods were convicted Tuesday of trying to join with Al Qaeda in plots to topple the Sears Tower in Chicago and bomb government buildings in South Florida. Though a sixth man was acquitted, federal prosecutors claimed victory in a case that had dragged on for years and cost millions of taxpayer dollars. Defense lawyers said their clients were harmless dupes entrapped by government informants. They vowed to appeal.

New US Army Field Manual on Legal Support to the Operational Army in the US (FM 1-04 (27-100)

Focusing on the role of Judge Advocate Generals, including

An appendix A on rules for the use of force and targeting

An appendix B on ‘Detainee operations’, which addresses the legal aspects of detainee operations. It outlines the basic rules for detainee treatment and the requirements for treating detained persons in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and other applicable international agreements.

Read the document here.