KABUL — A Toyota Corolla full of former Taliban officials and armed guards stopped in front of Abdul Salam Zaeef’s home in western Kabul this month, awaiting the man who helped direct the Taliban from Pakistan before his capture and detention at Guantanamo Bay. Read full article > >

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Former Taliban officials find new role

The Obama administration, as part of an accelerated push toward an endgame in Afghanistan, last month reached a tentative accord with Taliban negotiators that would have included the transfer of five Afghans from U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the Taliban’s public renunciation of international terrorism. Read full article > >

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U.S. deal with Taliban breaks down

Robert McCaw, 29, Government Affairs Coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), is urging President Obama to veto the National Defense Authorization Act , whose provisions would allow prosecutors to circumvent the civilian legal system for those suspected of aiding terrorists. McCaw is not alone. “The bill contains a sweeping worldwide ‘indefinite detention’ provision…to indefinitely detain without charge or trial American citizens and others picked up in the United States,” says Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU’s Washington legislative office. “ We encourage the president to seriously consider what it will mean for America, for the first time since the McCarthy era, to enshrine indefinite detention without charge or trial right into the statute books.” The New York Times editorial page also has stood up against the bill. Editor Andrew Rosenthal blogged while Congress was debating the bill, “When President Obama came into office in 2009 he promised to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and end the extra-judicial system that his predecessor had created to imprison terrorist suspects without trial, often without even filing charges. He has broken that promise.” Returning to the subject last week, after Congress approved the act, the editorial noted “There is no doubt this bill will make it harder to fight terrorism and do more harm to the country’s international reputation.”

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An Assault on America, From America’s Lawmakers

The White House Thursday threatened to veto the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act because of a series of provisions within the bill that mandate military custody for some terrorism suspects and prevent the administration from transferring detainees out of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. “Any bill that challenges or constrains the President’s critical authorities to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists, and protect the Nation would prompt the President’s senior advisers to recommend a veto,” the White House said in a statement. Read full article > >

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Veto threatened over detention provisions

Lawyers representing detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, say authorities at the military base have begun reading privileged attorney-client communication — in a sharp break with past practice. Legal mail is the principal means of communication between detainees charged in military commissions and their military defense attorneys, who are based in the Washington area. Read full article > >

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Guantanamo authorities reading attorney-client mail, lawyers say

A senior Pentagon official Wednesday referred the first death penalty case under President Obama for trial by military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was charged in April by military prosecutors with murder, terrorism and other violations of the laws of war for his role in the October 2000 al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. Read full article > >

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Death penalty case set for USS Cole defendant

D ick Cheney ’s best-selling memoir, “ In My Time ,” has rekindled verbal jousting over the Iraq war, Guantanamo Bay and waterboarding — and with it the intense rancor seen whenever people debate those matters. The former vice president’s book — with its steadfast, no-apologies defense of invading Iraq to destroy all those weapons of mass destruction, his sharp criticisms of other top George W. Bush administration officials, and his reminders of the many Democrats who supported the war at the time — has doubtless ratcheted up the acrimony. Read full article > >

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An addendum, if you will, to the Cheney book

KABUL — Haji Shahzada never leaves home without a neatly folded scrap of paper that is the closest thing to an apology the United States offered after keeping him locked up in Guantanamo Bay for more than two years. “This individual has been determined to pose no threat to the United States Armed Forces or its interests in Afghanistan,” reads the April 2005 release document, which includes a squiggle of a signature and the initials of a sergeant first class. “This certificate has no bearing on any future misconduct.” Read full article > >

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For some former Guantanamo detainees, present bleaker than past

The BBC’s Peter Taylor has been given rare and extensive access to film inside Guantanamo Bay.

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VIDEO: Rare glimpse inside Guantanamo Bay

So much for closing Guantanamo and ending indefinite detentions.

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Obama’s new Gitmo policy is a lot like Bush’s old policy

US President Barack Obama is lifting the two-year freeze on new military trials for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

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US to restart Guantanamo trials

Guantanamo Bay prison isn’t going anywhere soon. President Obama approved the resumption of military trials for detainees at the Cuba prison today, ending a two-year ban instituted by Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the day of Obama’s inauguration….

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Obama to Resume Gitmo Trials

There seems to be some inconsistencies in policy here. CIA Director Leon Panetta said Wednesday that if Osama bin Laden were to be captured, he would probably be sent to the prison at Guantanamo Bay-while the White House said Wednesday that President…

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CIA: Bin Laden Would Go to Gitmo

At his first prime-time press conference in February 2009, President Barack Obama was asked for his view on a proposal by Sen. Patrick Leahy for a “truth and reconciliation” commission to investigate whether the predecessor Bush administration had committed crimes in its handling of suspected terrorist detainees. read more

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Bush, Obama, Wiki and the CIA

When U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced African Embassy bombing conspirator Ahmed Ghailani to life in prison Tuesday he wasn’t just making up for his pre-trial ruling that prevented federal prosecutors from telling jurors that Ghailani had confessed to his crimes. Judge Kaplan was also making good on an implicit promise the federal judiciary made to the executive branch in the immediate wake of the terror attacks on America: You play by our rules in these terror trials and we’ll get your back when you need it. I guess we all have our own definitions of “success” when it comes to criminal cases. In my view, it is a big ”success” for the government when federal prosecutors are able to get a life sentence in a case where they were prevented from showing jurors their best and strongest evidence – here, Ghailani’s confession, which was deemed inadmissible because of the way in which it was obtained. To argue otherwise, as so many have over the past few months, is to eschew substance over form. No appeals court judge is going to overturn this result precisely because Judge Kaplan was fair to the defendant.    United States v. Ghailani  wasn’t pretty — many big trials aren’t — but from the government’s perspective it got the job done. The feds get their conviction and the maximum sentence set forth in the indictment. The courts kept their honor, at least so far, and the rule of law is still sound. And, lo and behold, New York City did not tumble into the sea because it hosted yet another terror trial. What can the ”What’s So Bad About Guantanamo Bay?” crowd  possibly say today, now that yet another federal defendant (this one, the first from Gitmo) is off to the Supermax  prison facility in Colorado for a likely life of solitary confinement and Special Administrative Measures? I know what they will say. They will say that a case which generates 284 acquittals and one conviction is not a success. They will say that the government barely scraped by, hanging on by its skin with that lone conviction, which doesn’t even make much sense in light of all of the acquittals that surrounded it. They will say that the acquittals reflect a weakness in our civilian justice system; that men like Ghailani do not deserve the kindnesses and niceties they receive when they stand trial in open court. I see it completely the other way. In a case that was 12 years old when it was brought, about an event that happened in East Africa long before 9/11, with federal prosecutors hamstrung by Bush-era interrogation policies, I think the lone conviction says more, and more eloquently, than do the hundreds of acquittals. To me, the Ghailani trial teaches that terror defendants can get convicted and thrown in prison for life even when the cases against them are weakened mightily by circumstance. To me, the result here, right down to Judge Kaplan’s firm sentence, reflects the great strengths of our civilian system. We gave Ghailani a fair trial — fairer than many wanted – and he’s still gone forever. What is so wrong about that?    The “feds got lucky and may not be so lucky next time” argument just doesn’t wash with me. Besides, the feds sure do seem to get “lucky” a lot in terror cases, don’t they? They got lucky when jurors in Miami rushed back from deliberations to convict Jose Padilla, the once-upon-a-time dirty bomb suspect. They got lucky when Richard Reid, the shoe bomber,  pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison by Chief U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston. They got lucky when federal jurors in Alexandria, Virginia saw through Zacarias Moussaoui’s ploy to martyr himself. The list goes on and on — and I have covered almost all of it. Now, on the other hand, give me a name of a suspected terrorist since 9/11 who was tried and acquitted in federal court and is now walking around? Judge Kaplan’s sentence thus serves three important functions in the ongoing debate over what to do with the detainees remaining at Gitmo:  It reminds lawmakers that federal judges are not their enemies, or even necessarily their adversaries, in the legal war on terrorism. It reassures everyone else that affording the detainees due process rights guarantees them no breaks. It re-establishes the role and prominence of our federal courts, still and always, as the most reliable way to dispatch justice to those accused of crimes. Now, please, on the topic of successful federal criminal trials for terror suspects, let’s bring Khalid Sheik Mohammed to trial in federal court in New York; let him, too, be convicted; and let’s then be done with him once and for all. And let’s start in that direction, finally,  before September 11, 2011, the 10th anniversary of the biggest crime in American history.

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Success for the U.S. Courts: Gitmo Detainee Sentenced to Life in Prison