"Court" in session

[2pac Shakur]

Behind the razor wire-topped fences of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba, the proceedings of the so-called "war court" have fully resumed under the new management of the Obama administration.

Pretrial hearings are being held in two major cases that are to be heard under the direction of a military judge, Army Col. James Pohl, and argued before a hand-picked jury of US military officers, with the defendants facing the death penalty.

The first is the capital murder trial of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, charged as the architect of the October 12, 2000 suicide bombing attack on the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen, in which 17 American sailors lost their lives. The second is the death penalty trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other men accused of organizing the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In the 9/11 case, an arraignment date has been set for May 5.

The character of this brand of military "justice" was evident in the motions put forward in the Nashiri case this week. Lawyers for the 47-year-old Saudi, who has been held first by the CIA and then the military since November 2002, asked the judge for their client to be exempted from the standard requirement at Guantanamo that inmates be shackled to the floor when meeting with legal counsel.

The lawyers argued that, thus shackled, Nashiri was unable to participate in preparing his defense because it revived the trauma of being similarly shackled during the years of torture to which he was subjected while in CIA custody. The motion touched off a brief controversy over whether the media would be allowed to hear Nashiri describe his torture, or if the testimony would be taken in secret. The military judge sidestepped the issue by granting the defense request without hearing Nashiri’s testimony.

The motive for preventing the airing of these issues is clear. A heavily redacted 2004 CIA inspector general’s report provides an indication of the criminal methods to which Nashiri was subjected. The report acknowledges that Nashiri was waterboarded 83 times, a form of induced drowning which was prosecuted as a war crime after the Second World War.

Another technique, described in the report as "unauthorized," involved the revving of a power drill next to the detainee’s head as he stood naked and hooded. Similarly, a gun was cocked and placed to his head repeatedly in what the agency described as "mock executions."

Interrogators threatened to bring Nashiri’s mother to the torture center and sexually abuse her in front of him. He was hung from his arms, which were bound behind his back, until interrogators feared he would dislocate both shoulders. His skin was rubbed raw with a scrub brush and interrogators deliberately stepped on his ankle shackles, causing them to cut into his flesh. They also gripped him by the neck, cutting off his carotid artery until he would pass out, and then revived him, repeating the process. Extreme cold, sleep deprivation and blaring noise were also employed.

Interrogators were also accused of using smoke as an "enhanced interrogation technique" instrument, but in their defense, they insisted that they smoked cigars merely to cover the stench of the cell where Nashiri was kept confined round-the-clock.

http://uruknet.com/?p=m87306&hd=&size=1&l=e

And Obama ain't changed a thing.

[MathinTucson]

There have been almost 800 persons sent to Guantanamo. Around 600 have been released, most without charges. Symbolic of the gross incompetence of Washington, D.C.

[General Apathy]

If you know how to waterboard you only have to do it once. I doubt that story is true.

[2pac Shakur]

You only have to do it once to accomplish what?
Absolute certainty of having received truthful info?
Sounds like Standtall and the death penalty.