Guantanamo Bay

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Obama's Delayed Gitmo Plan Upsets Rights Groups

President-elect urged to stop tribunals before child soldier's trial

(Newser) - Human rights groups are worried about Barack Obama's plan to wait over 100 days before closing the Guantanamo Bay detenion center, reports the Miami Herald. Activists fear that Obama plans to keep the system of military tribunals going and are especially concerned about the upcoming trial of prisoner Omar Khadr,...

Obama Will Issue Order to Close Gitmo

Exec edict may come as soon as Jan. 20: transition team

(Newser) - President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to issue an executive order in his first week in office—perhaps his first day—to close the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, according to two transition-team advisers, the AP reports. Nonethless, it is unlikely the detention facility at the US Navy base in...

Obama Not Looking Back on Torture
Obama Not Looking Back
on Torture
TALK SHOW ROUNDUP

Obama Not Looking Back on Torture

Bush says GOP 'got whipped;' Burris claims seat, 'no question'

(Newser) - Saying his administration will be “looking forward,” Barack Obama suggested he won’t pursue criminal charges against national security officials accused of committing crimes in President Bush’s war on terror. The president-elect also told ABC’s This Week that closing Guantanamo Bay—a key tenet of his...

Who's Still at Guantanamo?
 Who's Still at Guantanamo? 

Who's Still at Guantanamo?

A significant portion of the final 110 have combat, recruiting experience

(Newser) - Before he can close Guantanamo, Barack Obama must decide what to do with the 250 detainees still there. About 80 are scheduled to be tried and will serve their sentences in their home countries, USA Today reports. The Pentagon has approved the release of 60 more, but has not found...

EU Considers Taking Gitmo Prisoners
EU Considers Taking Gitmo Prisoners

EU Considers Taking Gitmo Prisoners

Allies offer to help Obama 'clean up Bush's mess'

(Newser) - European Union countries are considering giving Barack Obama a helping hand by accepting released Guantanamo Bay prisoners for resettlement, the Washington Post reports. Requests from the Bush administration to take Gitmo detainees were flatly rejected by the EU, but Portugal has now signaled its willingness to accept some prisoners and...

Pentagon Warned: Prepare to Shut Gitmo

Dilemma is what to do with worst inmates

(Newser) - The Pentagon has been ordered by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to draw up plans to be prepared to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center soon after President-elect Obama takes office, reports the Voice of America. The immediate problem is what to do with prisoners who likely can't be convicted in...

Cheney: I OK'd Waterboarding
 Cheney: I OK'd Waterboarding 

Cheney: I OK'd Waterboarding

VP gave go ahead for 'remarkably successful' tactic

(Newser) - Vice President Dick Cheney personally approved using waterboarding to interrogate 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he reveals in a wide-ranging interview on ABC News. "I was  involved in helping get the process cleared. The agency came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do," said...

Portugal Offers to Take Gitmo Detainees

Move may help close prison

(Newser) - Portugal is willing to resettle some detainees freed from Guantanamo Bay, and it urged its fellow European countries to do likewise. It’s a diplomatic breakthrough that could help close the controversial US prison, the New York Times reports. Of the 250 detainees still in Guantanamo, 60 have been cleared...

Born in the USA Tops Gitmo Torture Charts

Boss' anthem among tunes favored by US interrogators for disorienting prisoners

(Newser) - The music played at high volume for hours on end by US interrogators to torture prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay spanned all genres. But the military overseers did have a few favorite songs, including:
  • Born in the USA, by Bruce Springsteen
  • American Pie, by Don McLean
  • Staying Alive, by the
...

Bands Blast Blaring 'Music Torture' at Gitmo

Campaign against use of rock to break war prisoners

(Newser) - Rock musicians are banding together to protest use of their music—played loudly and incessantly—to torture war prisoners. US interrogators have bragged about breaking detainees by endlessly playing the same pulsating music for months. "Plenty lost their minds"—not just to Eminem, but Sesame Street songs and...

Gitmo Trial Could Pose a Big Dilemma for Obama
Gitmo Trial Could Pose a Big Dilemma
for Obama
OPINION

Gitmo Trial Could Pose a Big Dilemma for Obama

Death penalty or move case to US courts?

(Newser) - If the trial of alleged 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed carries over into Barack Obama’s presidency, it would mean a “messy” moral decision for the president-elect: Follow through with a Mohammed death sentence, or overturn it and move the Guantanamo case to US courts, writes Bronwen Maddox in...

9/11 Suspects Withdraw Plea Offers in Fight for Death

Confessions could block death penalty for suspects seeking 'martrydom'

(Newser) - Five  9/11 suspects yesterday withdrew offers to plead guilty when a military judge warned them that confessions could foil their plans to get the death penalty. A death order may require a military jury conviction, he said. The men want the death penalty so they can die as martyrs. "...

9/11 Suspects Ask to Confess
 9/11 Suspects Ask to Confess 

9/11 Suspects Ask to Confess

Alleged plotters drop attempts at legal defense, face execution

(Newser) - Five men charged with plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks told a military judge today they want to immediately confess at their war-crimes tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, setting up likely guilty pleas and their possible executions. The five said they decided to abandon all efforts to defend themselves against the...

Raul Castro Offers to Meet Obama at Gitmo

Cuban prez seeks talks for US trade deal, he tells Sean Penn

(Newser) - Raul Castro wants to normalize trade with the US and he's eager to meet with Barack Obama in order to do so, the Cuban leader told actor Sean Penn in an interview in the Nation. Castro said it wouldn't be fair to expect either leader to go to the other's...

Bin Laden's Driver Leaves Guantanamo

Convict transferred to Yemen to serve remainder of sentence

(Newser) - Salim Hamdan, the former driver of Osama bin Laden and one of only two suspected terrorists convicted at Guantanamo Bay, is being transferred to his homeland of Yemen. Hamdan was sentenced in August to just 5 months' detention on top of the 5 years he served at the prison camp,...

Art Classes Coming to Gitmo
 Art Classes Coming to Gitmo 

Art Classes Coming to Gitmo

Prison camp staff will offer more activities to distract detainees

(Newser) - Art class at Guantanamo Bay? Yes, it's in the works—along with geology class, Game Boys, access to newspapers, and more movie nights. The prison staff wants to keep prisoners "stimulated," Guantanamo's cultural adviser told the Miami Herald. "Once they are engaged and busy, they leave the...

5 Ordered Freed From Gitmo on Feds' Lack of Evidence

Governments' classified case insufficient to justify further detention

(Newser) - A federal judge today ordered the release of five Guantánamo Bay inmates, ruling that the US government’s evidence was not enough to justify their continued detention, the New York Times reports. The men were among the inmates who won a Supreme Court verdict in June that found they...

Defense Lawyers Let Inside Secret Gitmo Camp

First-ever visit to undisclosed locale 'helpful:' defense attorney

(Newser) - Defense lawyers were allowed for the first time into a section of the prison at Guantanamo Bay so restricted that even its location on the US base is secret. The pair of military attorneys for an alleged Sept. 11 plotter went to Camp 7 to gauge the effects of the...

Obama Girds for 'Unprecedented' Economic Crisis

President-elect focusing on security, trust, downturn and Gitmo, he tells 60 Minutes

(Newser) - National security, the economy and breaking America's addiction to fossil fuels are Barack Obama's key priorities, he revealed in his first sit-down TV interview since becoming president-elect. He's focusing first on security because "transition periods are times of vulnerability to a terrorist attack," he explained on 60 Minutes ...

To Close Guantánamo, US Must Go Through Yemen

Officials reluctant to send prisoners back to unstable nation

(Newser) - As the new administration decides how to make good on its promise to close Guantánamo Bay, the little nation of Yemen is proving to be big trouble. US officials began sending detainees to be held in their home countries in 2005, but have kept all 100-odd Yemenis over fears...

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