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Where to prosecute terrorism suspects?

The World — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:47:54 +0000

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Neither Attorney General Eric Holder nor Congress is backing down in the fight over where to prosecute terrorism suspects. Holder maintains that Federal Courts are the best place to try 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his 5 co-conspirators. A bipartisan group of Senators, meantime, is trying to force the Administration to prosecute terrorists in military courts. Guantanamo would be the obvious choice for military trials. The suspects are already there, and the legal system to try them is ready to go. The World’s Katy Clark has more.

Closing Guantanamo
Katy Clark’s Guantanamo stories

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MARCO WERMAN: The Obama administration is still reviewing its options as to where to try key terrorism suspects, and that includes alleged 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Plans to try him at a federal court in New York generated a lot of opposition, and that’s kept alive the option of military trials. Guantanamo could be the venue. The suspects are already there, and the legal system to try them is ready to go, as The World’s Katy Clark reports.

KATY CLARK: Former President George W. Bush signed orders back in 2006 setting up military tribunals for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo. In doing so, Mr. Bush was adapting a long established system of military commissions to a modern threat. Still, critics charged that the commissions were a lesser form of justice than either civilian or other military courts. President Obama seemed to agree, and shortly after taking office he suspended the military tribunals and launched a review. Realizing, though, that the commissions might be a necessary option, President Obama signed his own version of the Military Commissions Act last fall. Navy Captain John Murphy is Chief Prosecutor in the Military Commissions office at the Pentagon. One of the biggest changes under President Obama, he says, is limits on the type of evidence that can now be admitted.

JOHN MURPHY: “There can be no torture, obviously. That was true in the previous statute as well. But no cruel, inhumane or degrading evidence or evidence obtained in that manner can be introduced.”

CLARK: Also any statements introduced in trial now have to be voluntary, rather than merely reliable. And when it comes to hearsay evidence, the burden is now on the party who offers it, to prove its reliability. Captain Murphy says defendants also have greater freedom to select their own military lawyers under the revamped Military Commissions Act or MCA.

MURPHY: “I think that the new MCA that is currently in effect is an improvement over our prior law, and I believe it represents fair justice. We’re ready to move forward, when we’re directed by our leadership to prosecute cases under that statute.”

CLARK: But not all lawyers are as enthusiastic as Captain Murphy is to see the military commissions resume. Law Professor Mark Denbeaux of Seton Hall University has represented several Guantanamo detainees. He says it remains unclear to him what the government means when it says no cruel, inhumane or degrading evidence or evidence obtained in that manner will be allowed. Denbeaux wonders if that includes evidence obtained after a detainee has been deprived of sleep for several days.

MARK DENBEAUX: “Now, I think you could argue evidence after 48 hours of being kept awake with loud noises and strobe lights isn’t reliable. But the standard here also is – is it humane? Are courts gonna say keeping people awake for 24 hours are inhumane? Fourteen hours? Eighteen hours? The questions here can’t be solved by saying we’re not only not allowing in torture. We’re also not allowing inhumanely obtained evidence.”

CLARK: Captain John Murphy says it’s up to the judge to determine what’s admissible, based on what Murphy describes as ‘the totality of the circumstances’.

MURPHY: “I would also add, too, that prosecutors make their own decisions before we ever offer evidence. And within my office, if we make a determination that a statement or other evidence is likely to be excluded under those rules, that is, that it’s cruel, inhumane, degrading or torture or not voluntarily provided, then we’re not gonna offer it.”

CLARK: Still, other legal experts interviewed for this story say that no matter what changes the Obama administration makes, the military commissions at Guantanamo are flawed beyond repair.

JOHN HUTSON: “For me, there’s absolutely no question that the best place to try terrorists is in federal court.”

CLARK: John Hutson served as Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy from 1997 to 2000. He’s now Dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, New Hampshire.

HUTSON: “Let’s say that you came here from Mars. And you were told that we have some really, really bad guys that we want to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. And we’ve got two judicial systems that we have to choose between. One of them, it successfully prosecuted 200 cases since September 11^th, ’01, and most of those guys are still in prison. It has experienced judges and prosecutors and court personnel. And it clearly complies with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. That’s one system.”

CLARK: Hutson describes the other system as having tried just three cases since 9/11. Two of the defendants pleaded guilty and are now free. The third didn’t participate and was found guilty in absentia.

HUTSON: “Which one would you select? To me, that’s just a no brainer.”

CLARK: Captain John Murphy of the Military Commissions Office has heard such arguments before and shrugs them off. He maintains there’s no better law team than his to handle terrorism cases. Captain Murphy adds that one of the reasons why the Office of Military Commissions has only held three trials at Guantanamo so far is because proceedings have been on hold there for the past year. The Office of Military Commissions is now preparing three more cases. Preliminary hearings at Guantanamo are expected to resume later this month. The next trial is set to begin in July. For The World, this is Katy Clark.

CLARK: Captain John Murphy says it’s up to the judge to determine what’s admissible, based on what Murphy describes as ‘the totality of the circumstances’.

CLARK: Still, other legal experts interviewed for this story say that no matter what changes the Obama administration makes, the military commissions at Guantanamo are flawed beyond repair.

JOHN HUTSON: “For me, there’s absolutely no question that the best place to try terrorists is in federal court.”

CLARK: John Hutson served as Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy from 1997 to 2000. He’s now Dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, New Hampshire.

HUTSON: “Which one would you select? To me, that’s just a no brainer.”

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Gitmo debrief

The World — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:50:51 +0000

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Shortly after taking office, President Obama issued an executive order to shut down the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay within a year. The White House has now acknowledged it won’t make that January deadline. The World’s Katy Clark has reported several times from the detention facility on Cuba, she just returned from her most recent reporting trip. Jeb Sharp gets a debrief.

JEB SHARP: I’m Jeb Sharp and this is The World. When Barack Obama became president he promised to shut down the US prison at Guantanamo Bay within one year. He’s going to miss the deadline. In fact the closure of Guantanamo has become even more difficult since Christmas day. That’s when a man who studied in Yemen allegedly attempted to blow up a US airliner. The White House then suspended the repatriation of Yemeni prisoners from Guantanamo. Those Yemenis account for about half the prison’s population. In a moment we’ll speak with a top Yemeni diplomat about the terror threat from his country. But first we turn to the world’s Katy Clark for an update on Guantanamo. She’s just returned from her third trip to the facility since August 2002. So Katy I guess the question is what’s new there?

KATY CLARK: Well you get the sense that it’s no longer this high risk interrogation operation but more of a babysitting operation right now.

SHARP: How so?

CLARK: Well I mean maybe that’s exaggerating things a little bit but one of the starkest examples of that was in our tour of Camp 5 which is one of the maximum security prisons that have been built there over time. One of the cell blocks that they walk us down on our tour used to have an interrogation room in the first room of that cell block and now it’s a TV lounge with a refrigerator and detainees goes in there one at a time. And although they still have a shackle around one of their legs they can watch movies and get drinks out of the fridge and sit on this cushy couch. I mean it was weird to see that.

SHARP: Any other sort of really striking changes or developments?

CLARK: Well they take art classes now. They take language classes now. And that sort of underscores the sense that it’s not such a dangerous place anymore. The people being held there maybe are not so dangerous as they used to be. And one of the things that does seem to be different down there as well as the effort that is being made to have the guards and the detainees get along a little better than they have in the past. One of the individuals that I met down there is a fellow, a US military contractor, who was introduced simply as Zack – we didn’t get his real name or his full name.

SHARP: You mean it was withheld.

CLARK: Yeah the name was withheld for security reasons. And he is a Muslim-American who is employed as a cultural advisor at Guantanamo. He’s been there since September 2006. He’s only recently started talking to reporters. And his job he says is to work to teach and educate everybody who interacts with detainees about the detainees’ culture and religion. And it was really interesting the way he described his job. I want to play a bit of an interview that I did with him there. And it starts with how he says he helps newly arrived guards.

ZACK: I show them you know. They pray five times a day. This is how it’s performed you know so if you’re knocking on the cell door and you see the person doing all the movements you know that’s done do not knock the door. Wait until that one person is done praying because you know he’s not going to answer you. All these little things you know I was able to teach you know and you know we have new people all the time here you know so I’m always continuing to teach everyone who works on the blocks about all these things.

CLARK: How do they detainees here view what you do? It seems as if they might look at you as the enemy.

ZACK: It’s not an easy job. It’s a difficult job because some they call me you know traitor, some they call me enemy of guard you know. Some you know because I was able to learn you know which group of detainees want to talk to me. Which one want to sit down man to man and do business you know.

CLARK: You talk about some of the games that were played early on. For instance … .

ZACK: Some of the games that were played you know it’s happened to me you know when I first came here you know. One detainee says a guard stepped on the Koran and urinated on it. I said okay.

CLARK: A story that was reported.

ZACK: A story that was reported. And he said come on down and see it with your own eyes. So I go down there you know. And I say to the detainee where is it? And my eye contact with the detainee says where is the footprint? The boot prints? You know boot prints are not easy to remove you know because once they go it’s not the [INDISCERNIBLE]. I dusted it off. I said okay then where is the urine. Smell it. I’m smelling you know. I’m not smelling it. But I’m not arguing also because my job is to listen and take in whatever I’m hearing and not argue. And I was saying where is the urine. He said look at it. So here is the book. Here’s the edge of the book. And it was exactly half a circle. You give me one human being that can urinate that uniformly. See you’re laughing. I did not laugh for the detainee or nothing. I said here is another copy but I went to another detainee who was more religious leader you know and I said guys this is what this person did so quit it.

CLARK: What kind of response did you get? I mean where they like kids who were caught in a lie?

ZACK: Yes, yes, yes. You know it’s something you know nobody’s going to admit you know. I mean another … . I mean just their ideology and their thinking you know just makes them believe you know. Like another example they’ll say as well it says in the Koran kill Americans. I looked at the kid – not kid you know just a guy – anybody younger than me is kid you know. You know and I said you know, okay no problem and just [INDISCERNIBLE] to somebody else, I said, can you show me where it says that? Maybe you know all these years I have not been able to find it you know. No he means this and he means that. So there’s always that game and manipulation and using religion as a weapon.

CLARK: That’s Zack, the US Defense Department’s cultural advisor down at Guantanamo Bay.

SHARP: He sounds like an interesting character. What was his background before he went to Guantanamo?

CLARK: He is Muslim-American. He said he’s of Jordanian descent and he had worked for the US military in Iraq back in 2003 as an interpreter and he sees this as just a continuation of this work. And it was interesting because I asked him if he had any concerns at some point in the job that he has had interacting very closely with the detainees, if he fears for his safety at some point when these men are released from Guantanamo if they might seek him out, which has been a common fear of the guards there. Some would describe it as a paranoia even. And he said if it happens it happens. I can’t really do anything about it. But I’m not going to let them kill me easily.

SHARP: Katy thank you.

CLARK: You’re welcome.

SHARP: The World’s Katy Clark just back from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Gitmo update

The World — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:45:31 +0000

Shortly after taking office, President Obama issued an executive order to shut down the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay within a year. That year is almost up and and the President’s plan has hit a few bumps in the road. The White House recently acknowledged that it won’t make that January 22nd deadline, after all. There are just under 200 men still being held at the prison camp in Cuba. The World’s Katy Clark has reported several times from the detention facility, now she’s back for an update. Download MP3

MARCO WERMAN: The would-be bomber on the Christmas Day flight from Amsterdam to Detroit reportedly got his explosives and training in Yemen. That’s focused a lot of attention on the country. Yesterday the Obama Administration announced it’s suspending the repatriation of several detainees from Yemen currently held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. The reason given is the deteriorating security situation in their home country. The World’s Katy Clark is in Guantanamo. Katy, just how many detainees will be affected by this decision?

KATY CLARK: Well, it’s tough to say. I mean, they won’t go into details about specifics. I was under the impression that fewer than 200 detainees are being held here. A good half of those were to be released to Yemen. Now, I’ve heard various numbers that maybe it was 75, maybe it was as many of 91, but they are in a holding pattern right now. So that’s a good size of the population still being held here.

WERMAN: Have you had a chance to speak with any of the detainees?

CLARK: No, that’s never an option here. They are kept very much for their own privacy reasons away from reporters whenever reporters come here. So basically what I know about what’s going on with them is what I am told from the guards, from the people in charge of the mission here. And we’ve asked whether or not the current situation has people frustrated. People were getting ready to get on an airplane to go home or to go to Yemen anyway, or to go to somewhere else, and that that’s all been put on hold. But the guards say right now that they haven’t seen any overt frustration on the part of the detainees. Maybe it’s just, you know, that they’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting and this is just waiting some more.

WERMAN: How do the detainees know what’s going on? Do they have access to newspapers or radio?

CLARK: They do and that’s actually one of the changes that I’ve been seeing since my previous trips here. They have access to three newspapers in different languages. They have access to satellite television. Some of the detainees could watch television 20 hours a day if they wanted to so they could be following the news. They also get news bulletins posted in their recreation areas, but it seems to be that the newspapers and the satellite TVs, they’re really keeping them plugged in.

WERMAN: If they are in this limbo state for right now, is there any sense of what will happen to these detainees instead of repatriation to Yemen?

CLARK: No, nobody seems to know and every time you ask that question here, people say, “Our job is just to make sure things run smoothly here. Any of those types of decisions are happening in Washington and we’re just waiting word on that.”

WERMAN: The World’s Katy Clark speaking with us from the U.S. Detention Facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Thank you very much, Katy.

CLARK: My pleasure, Marco.

WERMAN: By the way, when Katy Clark says prisoners are not allowed to give interviews for privacy reasons, this is in fact in accordance with the policies of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Geneva Conventions prohibit prisoners of war being paraded or subject to public humiliation. There’s no outright ban on media interviews, but according to the ICRC, it’s better to discourage interviews since it’s impossible to tell if a prisoner is being forced to say things.

Life after Gitmo

The World — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:10:19 +0000

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President Obama signed an executive order to close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba by January 2010. That date is getting closer and the remaining detainees there are awaiting their release. The World’s Katy Clark tells us about how former Guantanamo detainees often struggle to reintegrate into society after their release.

MARCO WERMAN: Guantanamo’s detainee population is now down to 223. In the past few years, several hundred men have already been released. A few more have been cleared for release, and are expected to be sent overseas soon for resettlement. For some former detainees, life after Guantanamo is a huge challenge. The World’s Katy Clark reports.

KATY CLARK: It was quite a sight. Four former detainees frolicking in the Atlantic Ocean off the Coast of Bermuda this past summer. It gave the impression that life post-detention might be pretty sweet, but that’s not necessarily the norm. Take the case of Sami Al-Haj, who was on assignment as a cameraman with Al-Jazeera when he was captured in Pakistan in late 2001. He was held for more than six years as an enemy combatant at Guantanamo. During his detention he says he was beaten and sexually assaulted. Then May 2008, Al-Haj was released and returned to his native Sudan. He was never charged with a crime. Yet Al-Haj told Iranian-based Press T.V. that more than a year after his release he remains “A misfit” at home.

AL-HAJ: Still, my son doesn’t deal with me as a normal father, and even my wife and our close family like sister, brother, and even our friend is keeping away from me because they doesn’t want to want to put themselves in trouble and I lost many friends.

CLARK: What Al-Haj is experiencing is part of what Eric Stover calls the Guantanamo Stigma, something that haunts some of the more than 500 freed detainees. Stover is a Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He spent last year interviewing 62 men once held at Guantanamo. He says many of them said they were ostracized by their own families and communities after their release.

ERIC STOVER: We heard of cases in many countries where former detainees were trying to find work but unable to do so. You know, they were away, and a three or four years hole in resume, and if they said they were in US custody, they often didn’t get the jobs they were seeking. We found that in fact six of the 62 former detainees only six had actually found meaningful employment.

CLARK: Without jobs and the proper support networks, Stover says there’s little to stop these men from turning or in some cases returning to Jihad against the United States. Joshua Colangelo-Bryan is a New York based attorney who represented six detainees. All of them are now free. He would like to see the United States and other governments do more to keep these guys on track.

JOSHUA COLANGELO-BRYAN: It certainly is in the interest of all reasonable people to have the Guantanamo detainees who were released integrate themselves back into their societies. Where home countries have the capacity to provide support, be it psychological or material, they certainly should.

CLARK: The State Department has the job of facilitating transfers of released detainees to their home countries or to third countries, but it won’t say whether it does any more than that to help these men readjust. Often the mental wounds former Guantanamo detainees carry with them re-open after their release. Berkeley’s Eric Stover says one man now living in the Middle East whom he tried to interview, went into hiding during the week they were scheduled to talk. Stover describes him as “the worst case scenario” of any of the former detainees he met.

STOVER: The family said that he had left the house without shoes and that this was happening quite often. He just was completely disoriented and was in clear need of psychiatric care.

MOAZZEM BEGG: Where is the welfare for the people who have been tortured? Where is the support system for people who have endured cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment?

CLARK: This is Moazzem Begg speaking at the launch of the Guantanamo Justice Center in London. Begg and other former detainees created the center to help men like themselves who’ve been left traumatized by their experiences at Guantanamo. It’s not the kind of organization that will win plaudits in Washington, but its goals may just coincide with Washington’s so long as those goals focus on former detainees moving past their time in captivity and living peaceful lives. For The World this is Katy Clark.