Kafka Would Be Proud

/in /by

The BoGlo reports what we already know–many of the people at Gitmo who have been determined to not be a threat in status review hearings remain in Gitmo. And, at the same time, some people who have been released to their home country have not undergone review hearings.

About a quarter of detainees who were cleared to leave GuantanamoBay prison after hearings in 2005 and 2006 remain in custody, raisingquestions among inmates and their lawyers about the legitimacy of thesystem of hearings to review evidence against the prisoners.

The military’s failure torelease all of those who were cleared to leave – combined with the factthat dozens of other inmates who were not cleared have nonetheless beenreleased – has led many inmates and their lawyers to contend that thesystem is a sham, and that the real decisions are being made elsewhere.

Themilitary says most of the cleared inmates remain in custody because ofdifficulties in negotiating terms of their release to their homecountries. But officials also acknowledge that the hearings are not thefinal decision on an inmate’s fate, and that the Pentagon retains thepower to hold even those who have been cleared by the three-officerpanels who review the inmates’ cases.

For example, if you’re Saudi, they may send you home even if you haven’t been cleared.

While those detainees have languished, dozens of others have been senthome or declared eligible to leave even though they were not clearedthrough the hearings. Among a planeload of 14 Saudis sent home lastweek, only one appears to have been cleared through the hearings.

Twelve of the 14 detainees who were sent home failed to show up at their hearings last year.

And here’s the takeaway summary of where things stand.

Defense lawyers say they believe the review hearings are designed togive the impression of due process, while the real decisions are madethrough a separate process in which the foreign policy interests of theUnited States and other countries takes precedence over fairness to thedetainees. Therefore, they say, the detainees are being denied theirright to contest their detentions before an impartial decision maker,as the Supreme Court ordered in 2004.

I’m curious what Paul Clement will have to say about this state of affairs when he visits his friends at SCOTUS coming up. You think SCOTUS will be cross that the detainees have not gotten the reviews SCOTUS ordered?

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  1. Anonymous says:

    I am shocked, SHOCKED, that there is illegal detention going on at the illegal detention center.
    Yours Truly,
    Cpt. Renault

  2. emptywheel says:

    Thanks Captain.

    Just got to put the story out there, though, so we can get some fresh outrage before we got before SCOTUS. I do think the 14 Saudis is a nice touch. Would have been neater if it were 15, the same number as hijackers from SA. Maybe they snuck another Saudi out in secret.

  3. LisainManistee says:

    Un-freaking-believable!

    I weep for what our country has become. This is what we are now? This is what the world sees us as having approved?

    Great piece emptywheel, depressing but needed.

  4. Anonymous says:

    And can anyone imagine it’s better in the far larger prison camps we run in Iraq and Afghanistan?

  5. Peterr says:

    Kafka would be smacking himself on the head, saying ”Why didn’t I think of that?”

    As for your final question, I’d say the answer — by a vote of 6-3 — is Yes.

  7. Mary says:

    Unfortunately, I think what Clement will have to say is, ”MCA” and as an argument goes, it works much better than the AUMF arguments they made for wiretapping.

    GITMO isn’t a Bush creation anymore. It’s a Bush + Congress creation, including many many Democrats who voted for, and all who refused to truly FIGHT against.

    I think Judge Roberts (James – who resigned his position on FISC over revelations of illegal spying) was one of the first to invoke Kafka when he ruled last Dec. that the detention of two Chinese Uighurs was illegal, but that he had no remedy he could provide. That case about to go to the Sup Ct provoked some quiet releases to a third country, but even Judge Roberts has been defeated so far by the abomination of the MCA.

    A great deal of what Hamdan was based upon was the Congressional right to determine how the military would conduct itself, including its tribunals. And great Democrats like Sherrod Brown came forth and spoke to that and massaged the MCA into place.

    So far, the only arguments I think might have a chance, I don’t see being made and I think you may see a repeat of the horribly shameful situation when the el-Masri case, despite international press reports of Rice’s admissions of US torture and kidnap of el-Masri, die at the S. Ct with state secrets invocations.

    The disposition of that case, more than anything else to date, puts sealed on what this country has become. Everyone, everywhere, knows the US assaulted, kidnapped, abused and tortured that man, but all three branches of government have been conjoined to deny him any access to justice.

    All three branches of government have said, ”our law won’t protect you and a petty frat boy from Texas can treat you worse than a dog and nothing will happen except that Congress will hand out medals to torturers and the courts will close their doors to victims.”