Detainees

WASHINGTON -- Nov. 17, 2009 – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy Tuesday joined 56 other Senators to defeat an amendment to the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act that would have prohibited the use of funds to construct or modify prison facilities to hold individuals currently being detained at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Leahy has opposed similar measures designed to curb the tools and resources available to the Federal Government to bring charges against detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. The amendment was opposed by the Attorney General, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security.

Statement Of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.),
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee,    » read more »

WASHINGTON, DC (November 14, 2009) -- Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-IL, released the following statement in response to proposals that Guantanamo Bay deatainees will be relocatoted to a prison in Illinois.

“The Guantanamo Bay facility is a recruiting tool for Al Queda and a mark against the morals of the United States. In closing ‘Gitmo’ and moving some detainees to Illinois, we strengthen our national security, create thousands of jobs, and bring long overdue justice to those who have committed atrocities against the United States.

"Our American criminal justice and penal systems are fuIly capable of handling these individuals. In fact, today there are 340 domestic and international terrorists in U.S. prisons, including 35 in Illinois.    » read more »

Decisions on Accused 9/11 Plotters, Alleged Mastermind of USS Cole Attack & Others

November 13, 2009 -- WASHINGTON – The Departments of Justice and Defense today announced forum decisions for ten detainees at Guantanamo Bay whose cases were previously charged in military commissions, including five detainees accused of conspiring to commit the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and a detainee accused of orchestrating the attack on the USS Cole.    » read more »

Speech of Attorney General Eric Holder

Washington, D.C. -- Friday, November 13, 2009 -- Good morning. Just over eight years ago, on a morning our nation will never forget, nineteen hijackers working with a network of Al Qaeda conspirators around the world launched the deadliest terrorist attacks our country has ever seen. Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in those attacks, and in the years since, our nation has had no higher priority than bringing those who planned and plotted the attacks to justice.

One year before, in October 2000, a terrorist attack on the USS Cole killed seventeen American sailors.

Today we announce a step forward in bringing those we believe were responsible for the 9/11 attacks and the attack on the USS Cole to justice.    » read more »

As New Facility Opens, Prisoner Rights Still Lacking

November 14, 2009 -- (London) - The Obama administration should revise its detention policies in Afghanistan to make them consistent with international law, Amnesty International, Human Rights First, and Human Rights Watch said today. The United States military is hosting the media and some nongovernmental organizations today at its recently constructed but empty detention facility in Parwan province, Afghanistan.

The three organizations urged the US to end arbitrary detention in Afghanistan and to fully align US detention practices with international law.    » read more »

November 13, 2009 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Representative of Ground Zero and Lower Manhattan as well as Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, issued the following statement on the announcement today by the Department of Justice regarding certain Guantanamo detainees:    » read more »

05/22/2009 -- WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate unanimously passed an amendment last night introduced by U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) which establishes a procedure to block release of the detainee photos.

Last week, after consulting with General Petraeus, General Odierno, and others, President Obama decided to fight the release of photographs that depict the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. Those photographs are the subject of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.    » read more »

May 15, 2009 -- Military commissions have a long tradition in the United States. They are appropriate for trying enemies who violate the laws of war, provided that they are properly structured and administered. In the past, I have supported the use of military commissions as one avenue to try detainees, in addition to prosecution in Article III courts. In 2006, I voted in favor of the use of military commissions.    » read more »

May 13, 2009 -- THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Sorry to keep you guys waiting. Good to see you. I want to take a few moments at the top to talk about something that, with all the big issues going on, hasn't received much attention, but I think is worth talking about briefly.

As some of you know, we have a humanitarian crisis that's taking place in Sri Lanka, and I've been increasingly saddened by the desperate news in recent days. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians are trapped between the warring government forces and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka with no means of escape, little access to food, water, shelter and medicine. This has led to widespread suffering and the loss of hundreds if not thousands of lives.    » read more »

Human Rights Watch Researchers Saw Ibn Al-Sheikh Al-Libi in Late April

May 11, 2009 -- (New York) – The Libyan authorities should carry out a full and transparent investigation of the reported suicide of the Libyan prisoner Ali Mohamed al-Fakheri, also known as Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, Human Rights Watch said today.

Al-Libi, who was held in secret US and Egyptian detention from late 2001 to at least 2005, was found dead in his cell in Abu Salim prison in Tripoli. Human Rights Watch spoke with him briefly in the Tripoli prison on April 27, though he refused to be interviewed.    » read more »

March 13, 2009 -- In a filing today with the federal District Court for the District of Columbia, the Department of Justice submitted a new standard for the government’s authority to hold detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility.

The definition does not rely on the President’s authority as Commander-in-Chief independent of Congress’s specific authorization. It draws on the international laws of war to inform the statutory authority conferred by Congress. It provides that individuals who supported al Qaeda or the Taliban are detainable only if the support was substantial. And it does not employ the phrase "enemy combatant."    » read more »

Part I of the Committee’s Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody

June 17, 2008 -- Today’s hearing will focus on the origins of aggressive interrogation techniques used against detainees in U.S. custody. We have three panels of witnesses today and I want to thank them for their willingness to voluntarily appear before the Committee.

Intelligence saves lives. Knowing where an insurgent has buried an IED can keep a vehicle carrying Marines in Iraq from being blown up. Knowing that an al Qaeda associate visited an internet café in Kabul could be the key piece of information that unravels a terrorist plot targeting our embassy. Intelligence saves lives.    » read more »

June 12, 2008 -- WASHINGTON, DC— Anthony Coley, spokesman for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, today issued the following statement on the Supreme Court’s decision in Boumediene v. Bush.

“When Congress passed the Military Commissions Act in 2006, Senator Kennedy called the Act ‘fatally flawed’ and said ‘its evisceration of the writ of habeas corpus for all non-citizens is almost surely unconstitutional.’ Today, the Supreme Court agreed, and rejected the Bush Administration’s blatant attempt to create a legal black hole beyond the reach of the rule of law.”    » read more »

Jerusalem / Tel Aviv (ICRC) – The Israeli authorities must take immediate measures to allow Palestinian families from Gaza to resume visits to their relatives detained in Israel, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said today.

The family visits organized by the ICRC since 1967 had to be suspended on 6 June 2007 following a decision by the Israeli authorities. As a result, the parents, wives, husbands, sisters, brothers and children of more than 900 detainees have been deprived of direct contact with their detained relatives for almost one year. Detainees depend on these visits not only for psychological support but also for material assistance such as clothes and blankets.    » read more »

21 May 2008 -- The United States has defended its policy of detaining juveniles in prisons in Iraq, and Afghanistan. The issue is expected to be high on the agenda Thursday when the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child examines U.S. compliance with U.N. rules on dealing with children in armed conflict.

In a report submitted to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, the United States acknowledges it has detained almost 2,500 youths under the age of 18 since 2002. Almost all have been detained in Iraq under President Bush's anti-terrorism campaign.

Washington says it is holding more than 500 juveniles suspected of being "unlawful enemy combatants" in detention centers in Iraq. Another 10 are being held at the U.S. base at Bagram, Afghanistan.    » read more »