Freed Gitmo detainee is still tortured

By GottaLaff

The effects of being locked up in a cell at Guantanamo Bay and tortured for years, especially if you're an impressionable teenager, lasts well beyond the time spent imprisoned. Case in point:

Old friends he last saw when they were flying kites are now in college, married with children, enjoying their careers. He's happy for them, but he feels like he's watching life flash by and he's not a part of it.

These are the shadows of the lost youth of Mohammed Jawad, the Afghan who many believe was Guantanamo's youngest prisoner. [...]

Six inches taller and 40 pounds heavier than when he left his country nearly seven years ago, Jawad alternately smiles shyly, tenses with anger, then smiles again, the mood swings of someone trying to figure out how he lost a third of his life. [...]

He says he was grabbed by police who beat him and threatened to kill his family unless he put his thumbprint to paper and admitted he'd tried to kill two U.S. soldiers. The Pashto speaker, largely illiterate, didn't understand their Persian and had little idea what he'd agreed to, he says. A U.S. judge would later agree. [...]

Eventually, military and civilian judges threw out most of the Pentagon's evidence against Jawad, with U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle describing the case as an outrage "riddled with holes." In August, Jawad was set free. [...]

But he suffers from frequent headaches, he says, and often rests during the day. Prison memories haunt him, something doctors warn may never end. He worries about those left behind, his de facto family. He's out and they're not, and that's a source of guilt. Though the Obama administration has said it will close Guantanamo, hundreds of detainees remain there and at Bagram.

He asks a reporter to tell President Obama, the United Nations, someone, to help them. "People there are sick," he says. "They should be treated. They should be freed." [...]

He talks about having his hands bound behind his back and being forced to eat like a dog, being kicked, beaten and pepper-sprayed and subjected to excessive heat, loud noise, solitary confinement.

After a year, Guantanamo records show, Jawad tried to commit suicide by banging his head against his cell wall repeatedly.

"I was tortured and faced many problems," he says. "They also play with your mind."

His jailers refused to put him with other Afghans, he said, only with Arabs whose language he didn't understand. He says officials hung heartwarming pictures of families in the interrogation room, then asked about his family. They repeatedly denied his requests for school books or a Pashto dictionary.

Guantanamo military officials did not immediately respond to questions about his alleged mistreatment. [...]

Jawad says only faith and a Koran prevented him from going insane. [...]

Jawad's family is now mulling a lawsuit, which his lawyer says could be filed within the next month.

Hey Judith Miller, would you care to revise your assessment now?

Imagine how well you, or a loved one, would hold up under these circumstances. Imagine having done nothing to deserve being abused and tortured for nearly a decade, finally getting released, and having to deal with the culture shock and emotional trauma encountered as a result. None of it is fair, none of it is deserved, but all of it is horrifying and bewildering.

There is much more to the article, so please read the rest here.

Here is a refresher course, courtesy of Rachel Maddow, on Jawad's case (I've previously posted about Jawad's former lawyer Darrel Vandeveld's p.o.v. here, and also here, here, and here):



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Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Torture Victim May Get His Day in (Inter-American) Court

By GottaLaff

I have posted several times about Mohammed Jawad, the very young detainee whose testimony was ruled inadmissible by two U.S. judges because it was coerced. He was tortured and his attorney, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, quit over Jawad's treatment and asked that he be released.

Jawad is in the news again:

If You’re Old Enough to Be Tortured, You’re Old Enough to Sue for Being Tortured

Adam Serwer talks to his lawyer in Kabul:

Lawyers for Mohammed Jawad, the Afghan national who was a minor when he was first detained by the U.S. government and was recently released to Afghanistan after spending seven years in detention based on evidence gained through torture, intend to sue the U.S. government in part to prevent torture from being ever used again.

Speaking from Kabul, Maj. Eric Montalvo, Jawad’s military commissions defense lawyer, said that “From a policy standpoint, it’s a disincentive for the United States to engage in that type of conduct…you have punitive damages, you have a lawsuit that creates precedent…and it may create a pause for the U.S. government should they decide to do this in the future.”

And he's not the only one who wants his day in court:

From a newly released statement:

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has accepted a petition filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Khaled El-Masri, an innocent victim of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program. The U.S. government has two months to respond to allegations of kidnapping and torture summarily rejected by U.S. courts in 2007.

“The United States has an opportunity to reverse one of the most shameful legacies of the Bush administration and finally give an innocent victim of the extraordinary rendition program his day in court,” said Steven Watt, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program. “The State Department should fully engage in this process and comprehensively address the gross violation of El-Masri’s human rights, including his forcible disappearance and torture. To date, the United States hasn’t so much as acknowledged its involvement in El-Masri’s extraordinary rendition.”

Meantime, Fayiz al-Kandari (see below) is still waiting for his day in court. But, hey, no biggie. It's only been about eight years.

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All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Darrel Vandeveld Helped Secure Release of Prisoner Who Confessed Under Torture; Now He's a Pariah

By GottaLaff



I've previously posted about Darrel Vandeveld, most recently here, and also here, here, here, and here.

So. Take a look at what happens to truth-tellers who pose a serious challenge the powers that be:

(CBS) One of the youngest detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison is expected to be returned this weekend to Afghanistan where he was arrested seven years ago for allegedly throwing a grenade at American soldiers.

Mohammed Jawad's break came when a U.S. military lawyer made a choice - to follow his conscience, as CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan reports.

Reserve Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld could not keep silent. As he put it, "Silence in the face of evil is collaboration with evil."

Vandeveld was a military prosecutor at Guantanamo - until he decided to speak against the corruption of justice he found there.

"Our fighting men and women who've been putting themselves in harms - They're not fighting for rigged, kangaroo trials," Vandeveld said.

Vandeveld had been the lead prosecutor in seven cases.

"I would characterize him as a true believer at that point," said Maj. David Frakt, a military commission defense counsel.

Frakt was the defense attorney in the case that would ultimately compel Vandeveld to risk everything.

[...] [I]mportant evidence in the case had been withheld.

"I saw something that floored me," he said.

In the evidence file of an unrelated trial, Vandeveld discovered that Jawad had made a statement to military investigators - a statement that was backed up by the U.S. guard force at his prison.

"He had been hooded and slapped, that he had been shackled, hooded, and thrown down stairs," Vandeveld said. "I knew nothing about the existence of the statement. … The evidence was in a state of chaos."

By law, Vandeveld had to share his discovery with the defense. He now believed Jawad had been tortured even though he had no intelligence to offer. And he did not believe Jawad could be convicted.

See how fair our so-called legal system (read: military commissions) is to Gitmo prisoners? Just ask Fayiz al-Kandari, he'll tell you... well, he would if he could. He's still stuck in a cell after nearly 8 years.

His lawyer, Lt. Col. Barry Wingard says he's innocent, the only time he's made such a definitive statement about a detainee.

Frakt says that discovery changed Vandeveld forever. He could not ignore the violations of law he discovered - critical evidence that was missing, lost, or withheld. [...]

That led Vandeveld to make the most agonizing decision of his life. In September 2008, he resigned from the military commissions.

But, Vandeveld, said, "My conscience is not clear. I prosecuted Mohmmed Jawad for too long. I participated in the commissions for too long."

The Pentagon, in a statement to CBS News said, "Vandeveld's statements are proven to be unsubstantiated."

But Frakt asserts that "The Pentagon propaganda machine is hard at work to try to discredit Darrel Vandeveld."

He received a poor evaluation report, which effectively ends his military career.

"You do the right thing, you will be forever grateful that you did it no matter what happens to you," Vandeveld said.

Next question: What will happen to Lt. Col. Wingard? Stay tuned...

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All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

Military Lawyers Claim U.S. Paid Gitmo Prosecution Witnesses

By GottaLaff

I have posted about several times about Mohammed Jawad, the very young detainee whose testimony was ruled inadmissible by two U.S. judges because it was coerced. He was tortured and his attorney, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, quit over Jawad's treatment and asked that he be released.

Jawad is in the news again. Voila! Bombshell:

In a startling accusation, defense lawyers in the case of an adolescent arrested and brought to Guantanamo Bay six years ago claim the Justice Department may bring a criminal case against the young man based on testimony from witnesses paid by the U.S. government for their cooperation. [...]

Now, although the Justice Department has conceded it can’t rely on those confessions and can no longer imprison Jawad based on the laws of war, it’s said it may file new criminal charges against him based on previously unavailable eyewitness testimony to the crime. Those witnesses, however, according to Jawad’s U.S. military defense lawyer, were all paid in gifts or cash in exchange for their testimony.

U.S. Marine Corps Major Eric Montalvo, one of Jawad’s military defense lawyers, said he’s spoken to all of “the government’s star witnesses” and “they all have a couple of things in common.” First, “they know how to describe the day of the incident anywhere from two to five different ways, placing themselves in different locations for each of these descriptions and witnessing or not witnessing different things,” he said in a recent e-mail message. Second, “they have all received some sort of U.S. government compensation, from shoes and a trip to the United States to $400 for cooperation, which is a princely sum in Afghanistan.”

Furthermore, Montalvo says, when he spoke with officials from the government of Afghanistan, which has been demanding Jawad’s return home, they “openly admit that the matter was not handled properly and they don’t even know what happened because the Americans in their lust for bloodletting snatched Jawad away before the incident could be investigated.” [...]

Asked about the claims that the government’s witnesses had been paid for their testimony, Dean Boyd, spokesman for the Justice Department’s National Security Division, wrote in an e-mail that “Jawad has not been charged with any crime in federal court. To begin speculating in public about possible evidence or witnesses in such a case is inappropriate and not an exercise the government will engage in.” He did not say that the government would not or cannot pay or otherwise compensate witnesses in these circumstances, however. Jawad’s defense lawyers, meanwhile, have not been reticent about their view of the evidence.

While explaining that he cannot describe the evidence because it’s classified, Hafetz insisted that “it is not new and it is not credible or reliable.” So far, the government has lost 28 out of 33 habeas corpus cases brought by Guantanamo detainees and heard by a federal court because the courts have found the evidence unreliable or otherwise insufficient to justify their continued detention. The Justice Department is reportedly planning to bring criminal charges against “dozens more” Guantanamo prisoners.

Stay tuned.
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All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

H/t: BuzzFlash