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From Bloomberg: Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian who faces terrorism charges for his role in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies, asked a judge to order U.S. prosecutors to surrender information about “black sites” where he was held. Ghailani faces federal charges over the bombings of U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. Ghailani had been held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006, before being transferred to the U.S. in June. He is the first detainee from Guantanamo Bay to be tried in a U.S. civilian court. In a...

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood gunman, had sought military prosecutions against soldiers he claimed confessed "war crimes" to him during counselling sessions. Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, last threatened to pursue prosecutions against other soldiers on Nov 2. Two days later he went for extra target practice at a shooting range where he bought 10 targets and fired more than 200 rounds He also closed his bank safety deposit box, telling a bank worker: "You'll never see me again." The day after that he went on a murderous rampage at Fort Hood, America's largest military installation, killing 13 people...

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department is investigating whether Guantanamo Bay detainees charged with roles in the Sept. 11 attacks were improperly given photos of CIA officers or contractors, according to a person familiar with the investigation. The investigation, headed by the Justice Department's counterespionage chief, John Dion, is trying to determine if military lawyers defending the detainees divulged classified information or compromised covert CIA officers, according to the person, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke only on condition of anonymity. It is a violation of federal law to identify CIA covert personnel, and it is a...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- Former and current U.S. officials say a CIA report details the U.S. agency’s threatened use of a drill and gun in the interrogation of an al-Qaida suspect. The unidentified officials said the report, due for release to the public next week, details how captured al-Qaida commander Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was threatened with a power drill and a gun by CIA interrogators in an attempt to procure information, The Washington Post said Saturday. The anonymous officials said he gun and drill were not used on Nashiri but placed nearby in an attempt to instill fear in...

Criminal investigation into CIA treatment of detainees by Eric Holder is expected

District Court Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle Thursday morning granted Guantanamo detainee Mohammed Jawad, a writ of habeas corpus that could result in his being freed on August 21. Justice Department officials 22 more days to determine whether or not they can try Jawad in a criminal court in the U.S. Jawad was arrested by Afghan police in December 2002 for allegedly throwing a grenade into a vehicle containing two US troops and an Afghan interpreter. It's unclear how old Jawad was at the time, but he was almost certainly 17 years old or younger. Jawad confessed to Afghan police that...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - After more than five years, the Pentagon revealed why it is holding a Saudi nicknamed "the Professor" at Guantanamo Bay, saying he once lived with a Sept. 11 conspirator and received a stipend from Osama bin Laden. Shaker Aamer's lawyer denies the allegations, made after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week requested the release of the Saudi, who has been an unofficial leader among the detainees, and four other former residents of Britain. The Bush administration, which has been urging other nations to accept Guantanamo prisoners amid international pressure to close the military jail,...

What does it mean when a country that likes to proclaim itself a defender of freedom plays a song about liberation to people it is torturing? When the architects of torture assert that enhanced interrogation is strictly “by the book,” it turns out that they mean this in a more literal sense than we might have imagined: the Bible, it turns out, was used as a form of torture at Abu Ghraib. Iraqi POW Haj Ali Shalal (“the man behind the hood”) has reported that he was forced to listen to loud and constant repetitions of Psalm 137—in the jaunty,...

On Friday, the CIA busted one of its own and charged him — or her — with leaking classified information. While this guy or gal goes to jail, over at The Washington Post, reporter Dana Priest is still admiring the brand new Pulitzer Prize sitting on her mantle, for writing about what this very leaker told her: the secret prison story. It was last November when Priest published a story in The Washington Post that the U.S. was maintaining a secret array of prisons where American intelligence could interrogate Al Qaeda-types who had been captured on the field of battle...

Republicans ignited a firestorm of controversy on Thursday by revealing some of what they had been told at a closed-door Intelligence Committee hearing on the interrogation of terrorism suspects. Democrats immediately blasted the GOP lawmakers for publicly discussing classified information, while Republicans said Democrats are trying to hide the truth that enhanced interrogation of detainees is effective. GOP members on the Intelligence Committee on Thursday told The Hill in on-the-record interviews that they were informed that the controversial methods have led to information that prevented terrorist attacks.

Republicans ignited a firestorm of controversy on Thursday by revealing some of what they had been told at a closed-door Intelligence Committee hearing on the interrogation of terrorism suspects. Democrats immediately blasted the GOP lawmakers for publicly discussing classified information, while Republicans said Democrats are trying to hide the truth that enhanced interrogation of detainees is effective. GOP members on the Intelligence Committee on Thursday told The Hill in on-the-record interviews that they were informed that the controversial methods have led to information that prevented terrorist attacks. When told of the GOP claims, Democrats strongly criticized the members who revealed...

The most successful interrogation of an Al-Qaeda operative by U.S. officials required no sleep deprivation, no slapping or "walling" and no waterboarding. All it took to soften up Abu Jandal, who had been closer to Osama bin Laden than any other terrorist ever captured, was a handful of sugar-free cookies. (snip) "He was a diabetic and couldn't eat anything with sugar in it." At their next meeting, the Americans brought him some sugar-free cookies, a gesture that took the edge off Abu Jandal's angry demeanor.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney will appeal a CIA decision denying his request for the release of memos he's contended are crucial to proving the success of "enhanced interrogation techniques" of detainees. Cheney's office released a two-sentence statement reacting to the denial, "The Obama Administration has denied Vice President Cheney's request for the declassification of two documents that provide information about the effectiveness of the detainee program. Vice President Cheney is preparing his appeal to this denial."

Charles Krauthammer opined on Special Report on Fox News about Nancy Pelosi.

Mark down the date. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended. By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their antiterror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret. Policy disputes, often bitter, are the stuff of democratic politics. Elections settle those battles, at least for a time, and Mr. Obama's victory in November has given him the right to change policies on interrogations, Guantanamo, or anything on which he can muster enough support. But...

WASHINGTON -- CIA interrogators waterboarded an Al Qaeda prisoner 183 times, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memo, and another prisoner 83 times, the New York Times reported on Monday. Quoting the CIA inspector general in a 2004 investigation, the memo from May 30, 2005 says interrogators used the waterboard at least 83 times during August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah, a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda and close associate of Usama bin Laden, the Times said. In March 2003, the controlled method of simulated drowning was used on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the admitted mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001...

WASHINGTON — As the president-elect’s incoming administration looks at possible locations to relocate detainees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Republican lawmakers from those districts have already begun voicing opposition to the moves. Sources within Barack Obama’s transition team have said that an announcement on the closing of the Guantanamo detention facilities could come within hours of his inauguration. Shutting down the prison and relocating the 260-plus terrorist suspects to other locations was one of Obama’s campaign promises. But moving those prisoners to U.S. military bases could create a distraction or possible target for future terrorist attacks, lawmakers warned this week....

US agents at Guantanamo Bay tortured a Saudi man suspected of involvement in the 11 September attacks, the official overseeing trials at the camp has said. Susan Crawford told the Washington Post newspaper that Mohammad al-Qahtani had been left in a "life-threatening condition" after being interrogated. She said Mr Qahtani had been subjected to sustained periods of cold, isolation and sleep deprivation. Mr Qahtani remains at Guantanamo, but all charges against him were dropped. He had been facing trial on counts of conspiracy, terrorism, and murder in violation of the laws of war.

A Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo Bay says the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Washington Post reported. "We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," Susan J. Crawford told the Post. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution. Crawford is the first senior Bush administration official who investigates Guantanamo dealings to publicly say a detainee was tortured.

During a recent interview on ABC News, Vice President Dick Cheney said the following with respect to waterboarding senior al Qaeda terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM): “There was a period of time there, three or four years ago, when about half of everything we knew about al Qaeda came from that one source [KSM]. So, it's been a remarkably successful effort. I think the results speak for themselves.” Put aside for a moment the debate over waterboarding, which has been discussed ad naseam, and think about what Cheney is saying with respect to the totality of America’s intelligence on al...

US calls for sacking of Iraq's interior minister over Sunni prisoner abuse Jonathan Steele Saturday December 17, 2005 The Guardian (UK) The US is pressing for the sacking of Bayan Jabr, Iraq's Shia interior minister, whose staff have been discovered to be torturing Sunni prisoners. With a strong Sunni role in Iraq's next government apparently secure after their high turnout in Thursday's election, US officials want to ensure that cabinet posts are no longer exploited for sectarian or partisan ends. Sunnis have long complained that the interior ministry is one of the worst offenders. Inspections of two detention centres on...

The government never accused Muslim Tatar, a 55-year-old pizza shop owner, of doing anything illegal. But Tatar says his life fell apart after his son was among six men charged last May in connection with a plot to attack Fort Dix. He sees his son, who he says is innocent, only through the glass wall at a federal detention center. He has been called a terrorist - and worse. He has health problems. He lost his pizza shop and struggled to find another job as a part-time cook. "My mortgage is behind," he said. "Everything's a big problem. My family...

A recently released propaganda video by the Islamic extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir is quite revealing. Not only does the video demonstrate the group’s growing effort to package arguments in a manner designed to appeal to Westerners on the political left, but it also serves as a barometer of radical Muslim groups’ broader shift in rhetorical strategy. The video, “Iraq: Past and Present Colonialism,” appears for the first twenty-seven minutes to be a standard leftist critique of the Iraq war, indistinguishable from Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. The slickly-produced video begins with the history of past colonialism in Iraq—including the Mongol conquest...

Prosecuting High-level Americans for War CrimesOn September 13-14, 2008, over two hundred people from the United States and abroad gathered in Andover. Massachusetts for ... Conference on the Planning for Prosecution of High Level American War Criminals... Impeachment of Bush-Cheney... the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney was very much on the table ... Local, state and federal criminal prosecution ...the Brattleboro, Vermont, ordinance that calls for the arrest on sight of Bush and/or Cheney... One particular scenario ... was to charge Bush and Cheney with murder of U.S. soldiers who have died in the Iraq...

President Bush could pardon officials involved in brutal interrogations -- but he may also face a sweeping investigation under the new president. WASHINGTON -- With growing talk in Washington that President Bush may be considering an unprecedented "blanket pardon" for people involved in his administration's brutal interrogation policies, advisors to Barack Obama are pressing ahead with plans for a nonpartisan commission to investigate alleged abuses under Bush. The Obama plan, first revealed by Salon in August, would emphasize fact-finding investigation over prosecution. It is gaining currency in Washington as Obama advisors begin to coordinate with Democrats in Congress on the...

our democratic senators are finally applying the desperately needed checks and balances regarding the out of control and lawless bu$hit administration! in regard to the ridiculous stonewalling and secrecy over their absurd torture memos: "Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) warned Ashcroft that his refusal might have consequences. In one testy exchange, Biden snapped, "Well, general, that means you may be in contempt of Congress." "You've got to have a reason not to answer our questions, as you know from sitting up here," Biden told Ashcroft, a former senator. "If such a memo existed . . ....

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney chose someone in his own likeness to be his new chief of staff. Like Cheney, David Addington shuns the limelight. And like Cheney, Addington already has made a large imprint on the Bush White House. At Cheney's side since the 1980s, Addington has been a behind-the-scenes player in one after another of the hot-button controversies the Bush administration has faced: _The CIA leak probe. _The fight to disclose which corporations advised the White House on energy policy. _The dispute over the treatment of suspected terrorists. _The White House disagreements with the Sept. 11 commission...

They were loyal conservatives, and Bush appointees. They fought a quiet battle to rein in the president's power in the war on terror. And they paid a price for it. A NEWSWEEK investigation. Feb. 6, 2006 issue - James Comey, a lanky, 6-foot-8 former prosecutor who looks a little like Jimmy Stewart, resigned as deputy attorney general in the summer of 2005. The press and public hardly noticed. Comey's farewell speech, delivered in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, contained all the predictable, if heartfelt, appreciations. But mixed in among the platitudes was an unusual passage. Comey thanked "people...

A retired U.S. soldier who was ambushed by armed fighters holed up in the mud compound where Omar Khadr was captured said on Tuesday the Canadian deserves to be at Guantanamo Bay. Sergeant Layne Morris said he had not seen the dramatic interrogation video released by Mr. Khadr's lawyers, in which the young detainee cries for help, but he brushed off the footage as a public relations exercise. Sgt. Morris said the defence lawyers' strategy seemed to be to win sympathy for their client, and that he found it "troublesome" the public had to be constantly reminded of what Mr....

Politicians and human rights groups want to go on board US-registered planes that are believed to be carrying terror suspects when they land in Norway for refueling. Planes believed to be chartered by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have landed at the Sola Airport outside Stavanger as many as 15 times since 2003, reports local newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad. It's also believed that the planes, officially owned by Aviation Specialties Inc of the US, have landed for refueling at airports in Bergen and Evenes as well. A report to the European Parliament in 2006 claimed that Aviation Specialties is a...

(CBS) A German resident held by the U.S. for almost five years tells 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley that Americans tortured him in many ways - including hanging him from the ceiling for five days early in his captivity when he was in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Even after determining he was not a terrorist, Murat Kurnaz says the torture continued. Kurnaz tells his story for the first time on American television this Sunday, March 30, at 7 p.m. ET/PT. Kurnaz, an ethnic Turk born and raised in Germany, went to Pakistan in late 2001 at age 19 to study Islam and...

81 protesters arrested at Supreme CourtFri Jan 11, 3:56 PM ET WASHINGTON - Eighty people were arrested at the Supreme Court Friday in a protest calling for the shutdown of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Demonstrators wearing orange jump suits intended to simulate prison garb were arrested inside and outside the building in the early afternoon. "Shut it down," protesters chanted as others kneeled on the plaza in front of the court. They were charged with violating an ordinance that prohibits demonstrations of any kind on court grounds. Those arrested inside the building also were charged under...

The only Army officer charged with a crime as a result of the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has been cleared of all criminal responsibility in the case after a general this week dismissed the one conviction against him and wiped away the sentence. Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan was convicted last year on one charge of disobeying an order when a jury found that he spoke to others about the Abu Ghraib investigation after he was ordered not to do so. Though Jordan was exonerated at trial of any connection to the abuse of Iraqi detainees...

Pakistani convicted for plot to bomb New York subway05-25-2006, 00h32 NEW YORK (AFP) In this courtroom illustration, James Elshafay (C) and Shahawar Matin Siraj (R) appear August 2004 in Federal District Court in New York, before Magistrate Kiyo Matsumoto (R rear) during an arraignment on charges related to an alleged plot to bomb a New York City subway station. Standing at left are Assistant US attorneys John Nathanson (L) and Kelly Currie (2nd L). (AFP/Getty Images/File) A Pakistani man was convicted of planning to blow up a New York subway station ahead of the Republican National Convention held before the...

An Iraqi man accused of being a key aide to Osama bin Laden and a top leader of al-Qaeda was arrested late last year on his way to Iraq and handed over to the CIA, the Pentagon announced yesterday, in what became the first secret overseas detention since President Bush acknowledged the existence of such a program last September. -snip- He spent 15 years in Afghanistan as a trainer and planner beginning in the early 1990s, the Pentagon said. Before leaving his home country to join al-Qaeda's Islamic movement, al-Iraqi served in Saddam Hussein's military, rising to the rank of...

FORT BLISS, Texas - A man once considered a top al-Qaida operative escaped from a U.S.-run detention facility in Afghanistan and cannot testify against the soldier who allegedly mistreated him, a defense lawyer involved in a prison abuse case said Tuesday. Omar al-Farouq was one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants in Southeast Asia until Indonesian authorities captured him in the summer of 2002 and turned him over to the United States. A Pentagon official in Washington confirmed Tuesday evening that al-Farouq escaped from a U.S. detention facility in Bagram, Afghanistan, on July 10. The official spoke on condition of...

May 15, 2004 Earlier Jail Seen as Incubator for Abuses in IraqBy DOUGLAS JEHL ASHINGTON, May 14 — An American-run detention center outside Baghdad known as Camp Cropper was reportedly the site of numerous abuses of Iraqi prisoners several months before the mistreatment of prisoners unfolded last fall at Abu Ghraib prison, according to documents and interviews.The detention facility, on the outskirts of Baghdad International Airport, appears to have served as an incubator for the acts of humiliation that were inflicted months later on Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. At both sites, the mistreatment has been linked to interrogations overseen...

George W. Bush was quoted in The New York Times for the first time in 1967. Back then he didn’t use the W., but it’s still him. The story was about his Yale fraternity being in trouble for torturing initiates by branding them with a hot iron in the shape of a Greek letter. Bush, quoted as the former president of the fraternity, told the newspaper the burn wasn’t as bad as it sounded and really amounted to “a cigarette burn.” Bush and all of us have been talking about torture a lot lately, 39 years after that Yale experiment....

A former POW in Iraq names an Ashley-based reservist in a complaint against the U.S. Army. And he compared the treatment at his camp to the abuse that's making international news. Hossam Shaltout said widespread mistreatment from soldiers in Camp Bucca, where he was imprisoned last year, was as inhumane as that depicted in recent photos from Camp Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Shaltout described Camp Bucca as a "torture camp" where soldiers beat and humiliated prisoners, had them lie naked atop each other or pose in sexual positions. "They wanted us to have sex with each other," Shaltout said. He...

Some U.S. House Democrats who want to close the Guantánamo Bay detention center are floating an idea to move captives to American military brigs on U.S. soil. Republicans are opposing the idea, with one Florida congressman issuing a press release, ``America's Most Wanted Terrorists Not Welcome in the Sunshine State.'' Rep. James Moran, D-Va., a member of the House defense subcommittee, said in a recent interview on Fox News Channel, ``I'm simply offering some options. If you close [the Guantánamo detention center], we do have military brigs that are secure.'' ''I don't see the momentum yet within Congress, although I...

The metamorphosis of Condoleezza Rice from the chrysalis of the protégé into the butterfly of the State Department has not been a natural evolution but has demanded self-discipline. She has burnished an image of the ultimate loyalist, yet betrayed her mentor, George H.W. Bush's national security advisor Brent Scowcroft. She is the team player, yet carefully inserted knives in the back of her predecessor, Colin Powell, climbing up them like a ladder of success. She is the person most trusted on foreign policy by the president, yet was an enabler for Vice President Cheney and the neoconservatives. Now her public...

TAMPA - Maybe it was his desire to stand and stretch in the airplane. Maybe it was the gruesome images of torture he watched on his laptop that caught attention. Something about Iyad Abuhajjaj's behavior on a Southwest Airlines flight from Phoenix to Tampa on Wednesday afternoon concerned airline officials enough to call police. Police have not accused Abuhajjaj, 36, of any wrongdoing on the plane, but a search of his name revealed an Okaloosa County warrant for his arrest. On Thursday, the Palestinian health care worker and actor who lives in California was held without bail in the Hillsborough...

A human rights group is asking President Bush to disclose the fates of all terror suspects held since 2001, including at least 16 it believes have been locked up in secret CIA facilities. Human Rights Watch said it compiled a report about the 16, whose whereabouts are unknown, along with 22 others possibly held by the CIA, based on interviews with former detainees, press reports and other sources. The report — "Ghost Prisoner: Two Years in Secret CIA Detention" — includes an accounting from Marwan Jabour, a Palestinian who says he was held incommunicado for more than two years by...

The Pentagon expressed concern yesterday about a "frivolous" complaint filed against Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld by a leftist group that is using a new German law that claims the right to investigate war crimes anywhere in the world.     The reaction was in response to a Nov. 30 lawsuit filed in Berlin by the Center for Constitutional Rights, whose founders include liberal activist William Kunstler.     The New York-based center filed the German complaint against Mr. Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials on behalf of four Iraqis who, the complaint says, were abused by U.S. guards at the Abu Ghraib prison...

GERMAN prosecutors have ordered arrest warrants for 13 people working for the CIA in connection with the alleged kidnapping of a Lebanese-born German man, public broadcaster NDR reported today. Authorities in the southern city of Munich are probing allegations by Khaled el-Masri that he was abducted by US agents in the Macedonian capital Skopje on New Year's Eve 2003 and flown to a prison in Afghanistan for interrogation before he was released five months later in Albania. Masri has said he was tortured while imprisoned. The Munich prosecutor's office declined to confirm the report. NDR said that the 13 suspects...

President Bush tried to armor the Republican Party before the mid-term elections by projecting himself as the commander-in-chief. Now he has torn the epaulets from his uniform to reveal himself as something no other president has ever been: torturer-in-chief. ... Bush imagined that he would use the period surrounding the 9/11 commemorations to revive his popularity and lift the Republican Party before the mid-term elections on the national security theme. His atmospherics, however, have been blown away by his grim realities. Going into the election, he has split the Republican Party and forced the country to face a debate on...

OTTAWA — When the prime minister unleashes his lap dogs to join a parliamentary pack attack, someone is about to die. Conservative MPs treated RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli with kid gloves during his first appearance before a parliamentary committee two months ago to explain his involvement in the Maher Arar affair. They dropped the gloves and savaged him during his second appearance on Tuesday, when he admitted to misleading MPs due to a severely flawed memory. It was an all-party Zach attack and when Stephen Harper stood in the Commons a few hours later, urging patience for ‘due process’ before...

Terrorism and Security: Major Canadian Media Organizations Possibly a Haven for Single-Issue Activists Government policy analyst lodges request for investigation of lop-sided media coverage of two terrorism related cases. Poor journalism widespread while watchdog bodies ineffective or biased. (I-Newswire) - Literally millions of Canadians have read the newspapers or seen coverage of the cases of Muhammed Mahjoub, a suspected terrorist being held indefinitely on a secret service security certificate, and Maher Arar, also suspected of having terrorist connections. While Canadian media such as the CBC and the Canadian Press have provided ample opportunities for Maher Arar and Muhammed Mahjoub and...

The Canadian edition of Time Magazine has chosen Syrian born Maher Arar as its Newsmaker of the Year. The Ottawa Ontario resident landed at JFK International Airport in New York in September 2002 after returning from Tunisia where his wife has family. The Canadian citizen was detained in New York and then shipped off to his native Syria where he was detained and tortured for over a year before being released. After returning to Canada, Arar chose not to blend into the woodwork but forced the Canadian government to hold an inquiry into his arrest and detention and to examine...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Three undercover CIA officers arrived in Norway in the spring of 2003 as part of a possible secret operation targeting for rendition an Islamic militant living in Oslo known as Mullah Krekar, The Washington Post reported. Citing lawyers and unnamed European investigators, the newspaper said shortly after the agents arrived, Krekar received a warning from an anonymous Norwegian official that Krekar, then head of a Kurdish insurgent group, was a CIA target and should watch his back. The spies left Norway by the end of the summer, the report said. If the CIA was planning to abduct...