Justice Department won't appeal order to free Kuwaiti at Guantánamo

[sabra]

Source: mcclatchy

WASHINGTON -- A Kuwaiti Airways engineer whom the U.S. military has accused of being a key aide to Osama bin Laden has been moved to the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention center's collective prison camp for detainees cleared for release.

Fouad al Rabia, who the Pentagon once alleged was bin Laden's logistics chief during the 2001 battle at Tora Bora in Afghanistan, was transferred to Camp Iguana after the Justice Department decided not to appeal a judge's order that he be released, his civilian lawyer, David Cynamon, said Tuesday.

In separate letters to the Senate Armed Services Committee and the inspectors general of the Defense and Justice departments, Cynamon demanded an investigation into allegations that Rabia was tortured by his American interrogators at Guantánamo, where he's been held for nearly eight years.

Cynamon noted in the letters that U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's Sept. 17 ruling ordering Rabia's release included "a detailed description of the abusive and coercive tactics used by interrogators to extract patently false confessions from Mr. al Rabia." Cynamon said he made a similar request to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Oct. 5, but hasn't received a response.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/guantanamo/story/1314591.html

[Solly Mack]

1. Letting him go free in no way makes up for the torture he endured

and an investigation needs to be made.

Nothing about detainees at GTMO finally going free should be about NOT going after those Americans who have engaged in crimes against humanity/war crimes.

It can't be a trade-off. It's not enough that they go free.... America's war criminals MUST be held accountable as well.

Going free in no way means investigations are no longer necessary.

[Soylent Brice]

2. +infiniti

[Solly Mack]

4. Thanks, SB.

I've been getting the vibe that some do see it that way...that freeing them is enough...that freeing them means it is over. That freeing them means justice has been done.

Justice demands more than just freeing the detainees. It demands accountability for America's war crimes.

[Soylent Brice]

5. i was just talking to a co-worker about the 23 Americans convicted today.

explained the CIA rendition, etc.
she's a bit of a moderate dem, but her reaction said it all.

pure disgust. glad they were convicted, but she thinks, as i and you believe, that accountability doesn't stop at those who committed torture. it's the waste of life Bybee, Bush, and Darth.

it's all who were complicit that allowed something like this in the first place that need to be brought to justice. we're fucked if we don't. it'll just happen again the next time an (R) weasels their way into the oval office.

those that are free are only free physically. they will face prison for the rest of their lives, just mentally.

[Solly Mack]

6. That is so true! For the rest of their lives they will remember the abuse

and torture - of being stripped of their humanity.

And we do run the risk of it happening again if torture & other war crimes are treated as policy differences instead of the horrible crimes that they are.

[Soylent Brice]

8. i'm astonished by the silence on this thread.

the outrage is disappearing. scary thought.

[Solly Mack]

16. There's a big difference in outrage

from what it used to be

[EFerrari]

19. A lot of people have very immediate worries right now.

:kick:

[No Elephants]

11. Yes, but Justice seems destined to be disappointed about those demands.

[Solly Mack]

15. Yes it does

and that should shame all Americans...but it doesn't. Some are all too willing to just forget about it.

[Iowa]

7. Well said. I agree. K&R

[No Elephants]

10. It's not a trade off. One hting has nothing to do with the other.

Obama said he was not going to prosecute because he wanted to look forward, not back. He didn't say

[Solly Mack]

14. I wasn't saying that it was a trade-off

but I do think it is seen that way by some people. I've read comments around the web (regarding other freed detainees) where the attitude is "it's over-they're free" as if the torture the detainees endured no longer mattered...as if the prolonged detention without cause no longer mattered.


When it does matter

[EFerrari]

13. The statement reframes the fact that once released, these individuals

will be "unavailable" to US courts -- remember, that's how they got around the claims made by the very first victims of abuse after 9/11 whose abuse at the Metropolitan Correctional Center was taped. The "freed" captives became "unavailable" -- whooooooooosh.

Remember these guys?

NEW MUSLIM DETAINEE SUIT

BY LARRY COHLER-ESSES DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Monday, February 21th 2005, 6:45AM

A SUIT ALLEGING a Muslim detainee was abused at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center following 9/11 echoes complaints from suspects held in a Brooklyn federal prison that were largely backed by a federal probe.

The attorney for Osama Awadallah, 24, who filed the suit, names two other clients who are former detainees, now deported, who were also allegedly abused by guards. Awadallah, Yazeed Al-Salmi and Mohdar Abdullah allege that MCC guards subjected them to freezing temperatures and beatings, according to San Diego lawyer Randall Hamud.

As with the suspects held in Brooklyn, the Manhattan detainees, who were never charged in the terror attacks, say they were strip-searched and subjected to sexual taunts in front of female guards.

The suit was filed by Awadallah, a Jordanian living in San Diego, in September 2002, but a ruling has been delayed because of a separate criminal charge. He goes on trial May 31 on charges of lying to a federal grand jury investigating the terror attacks. Authorities say he lied about knowing Khalid Almihdhar, one of the men who crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.

http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2005/02/21/2005-02-21_new_muslim_detainee_suit.html

[Solly Mack]

17. Yep! That wasn't too far from my mind at all

Out of sight, out of mind....out of court

[sam kane]

18. +infinity again. nt.

[Soylent Brice]

3. K&R

[robinlynne]

9. If he was the logistics chief at tora-bora, then he is a close friend of the CIA,

Bush-Cheney who let BinLAden walk away from Tora-Bora on an open road to Pakistan..

[No Elephants]

12. What if the D of J appealed this decision and Bybee was the judge who heard the appeal?

His being a federal judge really gets me riled.