Sorting out Guantánamo detainees
President Obama orders a thorough review of pending terror cases.
from the January 22, 2009 edition
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Pat Murphy talks with
Monitor staff writer Warren Richey about President Obama's pledge to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
After examining Mr. Qahtani's interrogation records, the top military commissions official at the Pentagon, Susan Crawford, refused to authorize military commission charges against him. She told the Washington Post last week that she considered Qahtani's treatment torture.
Qahtani's lawyers say he should be allowed to return home to Saudi Arabia and enter a Saudi rehabilitation program. Bush administration officials have said he remains a dangerous man.
The Obama administration is expected to conduct a new assessment of the dangerousness of each detainee at Guantánamo as part of its plan to close the detention facility as quickly as possible.
"It is hard for someone on the outside to say what threat still exists, how credible those threats are, and how many people we are talking about," says Diane Amann, an international and military law expert at the University of California, Davis, School of Law. "My suspicion is that it is not going to end up being that many people at the end of the day. We may end up with three, four, five people that are the nut of the concerns that have been raised."
Professor Amann says it would be a mistake to continue to rely on a version of the Bush enemy combatant detention regime. "Are we going to depart from 200 years of legal tradition prohibiting this kind of detention [without charge] and craft an entirely new program on account of three people?" she asks. "It is a political decision that we need to make, and we need to make it with open eyes rather than out of vague fears."
Releasing terror suspects isn't necessarily a setback for the US. American intelligence agents could be tasked to watch them, trace their movements overseas, and tap their phones. If former detainees seek to contact Al Qaeda, their movements and contacts could provide fresh intelligence on the terror group.
"To me, released detainees are a window into the world that is out there, and if we are not looking through that window it is a waste," Denbeaux says.
Timeline of events at Guantánamo Bay military prison
January 2002: First 20 detainees arrive at Guantánamo Bay military prison and are held in cages with concrete floors.
December 2002: Defense Department authorizes use of interrogation methods including hooding, sensory deprivation, and dogs on Guantánamo detainees.
May 2003: Gitmo's population peaks at 680 people.
October 2003: International Red Cross notes the deterioration of the mental health of many detainees.
August 2004: Combatant Status Review Tribunals begin to determine whether each detainee is an enemy combatant.
June 2004: US Supreme Court rules that detainees have some right to challenge their captivity.
March 2005: Thirty-eight detainees are found not to be enemy combatants and therefore eligible for release.
May 2005: Riots erupt over alleged desecration of the Koran at Guantánamo.
February 2006: A UN report recommends closure of Guantánamo.
June 2006: Three detainees die in apparent suicides.
March 2007: Australian detainee David Hicks pleads guilty to material support for terrorism during hearing, is sent to prison in Australia, and later released.
June 2006: Supreme Court rules that Geneva Conventions apply to Gitmo detainees.
June 2008: Supreme Court rules that detainees have a constitutional right to challenge detention in federal court.
June 2008: Five detainees are arraigned in connection with the 9/11 attacks.
July 2008: The first trial of a Guantánamo detainee, Salim Hamdan, takes place before a military commission. Mr. Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver, is convicted of providing material support for terrorism and acquitted of conspiracy, then transferred to Yemen in November to serve the remaining month of his term .
January 2009: Hours after taking office, President Obama orders military prosecutors in Guantánamo war crimes tribunals to ask for a 120-day suspension in all pending cases.
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