Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Le Shorter: Binyam Mohamed Freed

Update:  Who are you going to believe, Eric Holder the new Attorney General or Ahmed Ghappour who represents 31 detainees at the gulag?  Holder just returned from an inspection tour of the facility which he called "professionally run".   He reported he saw no incidents of abuse while he was there (Really?), and despite his positive impression of the detention camp reaffirmed the US administration's promise to close it within a year.  Ghappour, a British-American lawyer who has visited the camp six times since September tells a different story.   Says Ghappour, "there has been a ramping up of abuse since President Obama was inaugurated".  He thinks the increase in incidents is due to "traumatized guards....basically trying to get their kicks in" before the camp closes.  Admiral Patrick Walsh, who conducted a two week review of conditions at Guantanamo at the request of the President, reluctantly confirmed 14 instances of substantiated detainee abuse out 20 cases reviewed.  In one camp according to Ghappour all the detainees are on hunger strike and subjected to force feeding including laxatives that induce chronic diarrhea while strapped to feeding chairs.  Ghappour said several of his clients have had toilet paper pepper sprayed while suffering from hemorrhoids.  

{posted 02/23/09}Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed {2/10/09} was flown to freedom in Britain today where he will be allowed to reapply for UK residency.  The Ethiopian national landed at a British military base and emerged from an unmarked business jet looking thin and weak from his hunger strike while incarcerated at the gulag.  Lawsuits to obtain secret documents detailing his torture in Morocco with the cooperation of US and British intelligence agencies are continuing. Binyam's prepared public statement read by one of his attorneys said that prior to his capture torture was just an abstract word. In his darkest dreams he never thought he would be a victim.