(Appeals) Court: Judges Need All Detainee Evidence

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Court: Judges Need All Detainee Evidence

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer

Friday, July 20, 2007

(07-20) 08:40 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

When Guantanamo Bay detainees challenge their status
as "enemy combatants," judges must review all the
evidence, not just what the military chooses, a federal
appeals court ruled Friday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit rejected the Bush administration's plan to limit
what judges can review when considering whether the
military tribunal acted appropriately.

When detainees are brought before military tribunals,
they are not allowed to have lawyers with them and the
Pentagon decides what evidence to put forward. If the
tribunal determines a prisoner is an enemy combatant,
he can challenge that designation in a federal appeals
court.

But government attorneys argued that the federal
judges only had the authority to review a summary of
the evidence put forward during the tribunal hearing.
The appeals court ruled Friday that they needed all
the evidence.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/07/20/national/w083611D87.DTL

[William769]

1. I wonder if Guantanamo Bay will end up falling under "Executive Privilege".

[Kagemusha]

2. It's a legitimate question. Bush could say, court can't force its will here

But that's a basis for an appeal, you'd think, not wholesale defiance - but well, he's doing it in so many other areas, what's one more.

[DrDan]

3. this is unbelievable

the Pentagon can decide what the Appeals court can see?

This is f*****g unbelievable.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Court Tells U.S. to Reveal Data on Detainees at Guantánamo

Source: The New York Times

A federal appeals court ordered the government yesterday to turn over virtually all its information on Guantánamo detainees who are challenging their detention, rejecting an effort by the Justice Department to limit disclosures and setting the stage for new legal battles over the government’s reasons for holding the men indefinitely.

The ruling, which came in one of the main court cases dealing with the fate of the detainees, effectively set the ground rules for scores of cases by detainees challenging the actions of Pentagon tribunals that decide whether terror suspects should be held as enemy combatants.

It was the latest of a series of stinging legal challenges to the administration’s detention policies that have amplified pressure on the Bush administration to find some alternative to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where about 360 men are now being held at the United States naval base.

...........

The court said meaningful review of the military tribunals would not be possible “without seeing all the evidence, any more than one can tell whether a fraction is more or less than half by looking only at the numerator and not the denominator.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/us/21gitmo.html?hp

---

Once again, our Chimperor gets his ass handed to him by the courts.

I'd like to thank the courts for doing the right thing. And I'd like to thank The Founders for their foresight in designing the judiciary so that it would function even when the other two branches are badly broken.

[Hekate]

5. KnR. Sometimes I think there's still hope for our benighted nation.

Gratitude to the courts.

Hekate

:kick:

[Knightly_Knews]

6. Now if they follow through............

and actually hold someone accountable, I will be surprised. But given the recent and past history, this administration will not comply, and will probably have some Signing Statement Session blocking the courts.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Court grants evidence to lawyers for Guantanamo

Court grants evidence to lawyers for Guantanamo
Published: Sunday, 22 July, 2007, 02:08 AM Doha Time

WASHINGTON: A federal appeals court on Friday ruled lawyers for Guantanamo prisoners should have access to nearly all government evidence so they can challenge detainees’ designation as “unlawful enemy combatants.”

The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals in Washington was a blow to the Bush administration’s attempt to limit the lawyers’ access to only the evidence presented to a US military tribunal that made the determinations.

The ruling came on the same day President George W Bush ordered the CIA to comply with Geneva Conventions against torture in dealing with detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and secret CIA prisons elsewhere.

“Contrary to the position of the government, the record on review consists of all the information a tribunal is authorised to obtain and consider,” the court ruling stated.

More:
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=162353&version=1&template_id=43&parent_id=19

[Judi Lynn]

8. For DU'ers who wonder if there are still men hunger striking at Guantanamo:

AP IMPACT: Force-Feeding at Guantanamo
Friday July 20, 2007 8:31 PM

By BEN FOX
Associated Press Writer

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - Twice a day at the U.S. military prison here, Abdul Rahman Shalabi and Zaid Salim Zuhair Ahmed are strapped down in padded restraint chairs and flexible yellow tubes are inserted through their noses and throats. Milky nutritional supplements, mixed with water and olive oil to add calories and ease constipation, pour into their stomachs.

Shalabi, 32, an accused al-Qaida militant who was among the first prisoners taken to Guantanamo, and Ahmed, about 34, have refused to eat for almost two years to protest their conditions and open-ended confinement. In recent months, the number of hunger strikers has grown to two dozen, and the military is using force-feeding to keep them from starving.

An Associated Press investigation reveals the most complete picture yet of a test of wills that's taking place out of public view and shows no sign of ending, despite international outrage.

The restraint chair was a practice borrowed from U.S. civilian prisons in January 2006. Prisoners are strapped down and monitored to prevent vomiting until the supplements are digested.

The British human rights group Reprieve labeled the process ``intentionally brutal'' and Shalabi, according to his lawyer's notes, said it is painful, ``something you can't imagine. For two years, me and Ahmed have been treated like animals.''

The government says force-feeding detainees in the restraint chair was not meant to break the hunger strikes, but it had that effect. A mass protest that began in August 2005 and reached a peak of 131 detainees dwindled at one point to just two - Shalabi and Ahmed. In recent months, though, the number has grown again.

The military won't identify strikers, citing privacy rules and a desire to keep detainees from becoming martyrs.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6794376,00.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To refresh your memory, it was revealed that in force feeding these guys, the military people conducting the action were known to rip tubes from one prisoner, after feeding and jam them right into another prisoner, without benefit of even WASHING the damned things.

Detainees told lawyers that all effort was made to slam tubes into the prisoners brutally with the intention to make it so painful the men would simply give up and end their hunger strikes in order to escape unbearable pain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over 250 Medical Leaders Condemn Brutal Force-Feeding Methods at Guantánamo

Physicians for Human Rights calls for an end to cruel, inhuman and degrading tactics designed to break detainees' hunger strike.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) today endorsed the statement of over 250 medical leaders calling on US authorities to cease brutal and inhumane force-feeding tactics against hunger striking detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. In a letter published in the March 11 issue of the British medical journal, The Lancet, the medical leaders condemn the practice of force-feeding detainees "strapped into restraint chairs in uncomfortably cold isolation cells to force them off their hunger strike."

Attorneys for Guantánamo detainees have reported extreme suffering among their clients as a result of painful force-feeding methods via nasal tubes and prolonged shackling in the restraint chairs. US military officials have acknowledged the use of such aggressive tactics in order to break hunger strikes at the detention facility.

"The Lancet letter reflects an emphatic response by the international medical community against this abusive treatment," said PHR President Holly G. Atkinson, MD, one of the lead signers of the letter. "The infliction of pain and suffering to discourage a hunger strike violates US law and basic principles of human rights." The letter is signed by distinguished medical figures from the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Australia.
(snip/...)

http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/news-2006-03-10.html