Guantanamo

The D.C. Circuit has refused to block the release of videos showing a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay being force-fed, The Intercept's Cora Currier reports. Media organizations are seeking footage of Abu Wa'el Dhiab's force-feedings, and the district court granted their motion to unseal and release the video.

The court concluded that the district court's decision was not an immediately appealable order and that it lacks jurisdiction

The D.C. Circuit has refused to block the release of videos showing a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay being force-fed, The Intercept's Cora Currier reports. Media organizations are seeking footage of Abu Wa'el Dhiab's force-feedings, and the district court granted their motion to unseal and release the video.

The court concluded that the district court's decision was not an immediately appealable order and that it lacks jurisdiction

According to an investigation by The Guardian, Richard Zuley, a detective on Chicago’s north side from 1977 to 2007 and who interrogated terrorism detainees at Guantanamo Bay, imported the type of harsh tactics used at America's holding center for terrorism suspects into his work as a police officer. The newspaper's Spencer Ackerman reports that Zuley allegedly "repeatedly engaged in methods of interrogation resulting in at least one wrongful conviction and subsequent cases more recently thrown into doubt following allegations of abuse." The Guardian alleges that Gitmo detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi and domestic defendants "confessed untruthfully to try and stop the treatment by Zuley."

Matt Apuzzo, writing in the New York Times, reports that one of retiring Attorney General Eric Holder's legacies is shifting terrorism cases from military tribunals to the civilian courts: "Five years ago, the debate over whether terrorists should be prosecuted in criminal courts was so contentious that it made its chief advocate, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., a political liability. Republicans argued that F.B.I. interrogation was not suited to wartime intelligence-gathering. By extension, civilian courtrooms were no place for terrorists, who did not deserve the same rights as common criminals." In contrast, Guantanamo Bay tribunals have had problems, including two convictions overturned on appeal.

The Justice Department has moved to halt the plans of a federal judge "for releasing videotapes showing a Guantanamo Bay hunger striker being forcibly removed from his cell, strapped to a restraining chair and force-fed his meals," the Associated Press reports. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler has ruled that classified information about Abu Wa'el Dhiab's detention at Guantanamo Bay, including the 28 videos of his force-feedings should be released after identifying information of government personnel be blocked out.

Lawyers for the Justice Department has moved to keep the public out of a court hearing on the practice of force feeding detainees at Guantanamo Bay, reports Politico's Josh Gerstein. Syrian Wa'el Dhiab has complained that the force-feeding procedures are too harsh.

The government's motion to seal the court hearing appears to be under seal too, Gerstein said. "'There is no reason to close the upcoming hearing, other than the government's intense desire to hide from public scrutiny the evidence we have managed to uncover over the past few months,' attorney Jon EIsenberg told POLITICO Saturday."

The Washington Post has an editorial arguing that some progress has finally been made on closing Guantanamo. The Post writes that the Senate voted this month "to preserve language in the pending National Defense Authorization Act that would ease restrictions on repatriating Guantanamo detainees and allow their transfer to the United States for trial, detention or medical treatment." However, The Post reports that the defense bill is in danger of not passing for the first time in 51 years.

Overall, "a legal regime will be needed for the arrest, interrogation and long-term detention of foreign terrorist suspects who cannot be handled by the domestic U.S. justice system" after Guantanamo is closed, The Post concludes.

The Miami Herald reports that the latest military hearings for Guantanamo detainees are going to be closed to the press. "Officials have not been able to explain why the Pentagon is unprepared to fulfill its transparency pledge. First Amendment attorney Dave Schulz said he had been seeking assurances from the Defense Department’s Office of General Counsel that reporters would be able to watch captives argue for their freedom since soon after the Pentagon published its 23-page PRB procedures in May 2012," the Herald further reports.
 

 U.S. military action in Afghanistan will be over next year. "Blocked by Congress from releasing or transferring many of the remaining 164 detainees and able to try only a small number of them, administration officials are examining whether the withdrawal of U.S. troops at the end of 2014 could open the door for some to challenge the legal authority of the United States to continue to imprison them," The Washington Post reports. At issue is whether the authority to detain prisoners as belligerents and enemy combatants expires if the "hot war" is over.

ALM's The Legal Times reports on en banc arguments held yesterday "in a case that could undo a terrorism conviction and reshape how the government prosecutes criminal charges against other detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."