Newly released documents show Defense Department involved with secret prisons

By GottaLaff

President Obama better damn well call for change on this one:

The Department of Defense’s involvement in the CIA’s “ghost” detention program is certain, according to three human rights groups -- Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. They released documents today from the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of State that, they said, prove the existence of secret prisons at Bagram and in Iraq as well as the Department of Defense cooperation with the CIA ghost detention program. They also said the documents show one case where the Defense sought to delay the release of Guantanamo prisoners. [...]

“It is astonishing that the government may have delayed releasing men from Guantánamo in order to avoid bad press,” said Center for Constitutional Rights attorney Gitanjali Gutierrez, who represents many of the men held in Guantánamo and has made 30 trips to the base since 2004. “Proposing to hold men for a month and a half after they were deemed releasable is inexcusable. The Obama administration should avoid repeating this injustice and release the innocent individuals with all due haste.”

This is the first time the Defense Department has provided any documents in response to the 2007 lawsuit based on Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests dating back to 2004, the groups said.

Through their lawsuit, the human rights groups seek the disclosure of government documents that relate to secret detention, extraordinary rendition and torture, they said.

Here are links to the documents: 1., 2., 3., 4., 5., 6., 7., 8.

As more information comes out, more evidence of war crimes is revealed, and as a consequence, the odds that there will be prosecutions increases.

Gitmo prisoner's lawyers accuse Defense Secretary Gates of lying about torture

By GottaLaff

Nobody's talking about this. No, the priorities of the news media are Caroline Kennedy and the Rod Blagojevich scandal. Big hair, bad running suits, repeated use of the F-word, and condemning the Dem du Jour are far weightier than whether or not our Secretary of Defense might have falsified an affidavit about some dark-skinned detainee:

Lawyers for a British resident held at Guantánamo Bay have accused Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, of signing a "flagrantly false" affidavit to avoid having to disclose evidence of torture.

In a sworn affidavit to a district court in Washington, Gates says the US authorities have provided Binyam Mohamed's lawyers and the British government with all the information they possess relating to Mohamed's treatment while held in secret prisons. Gates declared his affidavit to be the truth "under penalty of perjury".

Clive Stafford Smith, Mohamed's lawyer and director of Reprieve, the charity that fights miscarriages of justice and human rights abuses, has told the court that Gates's affidavit is "flagrantly false". He has asked the court whether Gates was aware Mohamed was held incommunicado for three years in Pakistan, Morocco, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. Stafford Smith says there seems to be only one explanation for the affidavit: the defence secretary has been "misadvised".

The claims refer to what US officials knew about Mohamed's treatment and where he was rendered to. They also refer to obligations under international law and US domestic law.

When you stop and think about all the horrendous secrets that shouldn't be kept, all the crimes that shouldn't have been committed, and all the deceitful U.S. officials (former and current) who shouldn't have skated, it's stunning.

We all know these things are happening, but we are reduced to the status of rubberneckers driving by a multi-car pileup.