Guantanamo: A Prison Built On Lies

Published on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Guantanamo: A Prison Built On Lies

by Andy Worthington

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The irony -- that all the prisoners have been enduring a form of "preventive detention" for over seven years -- is apparently lost on the government

In an article last week, I analyzed a devastating ruling by District Court Judge Gladys Kessler in the habeas corpus hearing of Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed. A Yemeni, Ali Ahmed has always maintained that he was a student, staying in a guest house in Faisalabad, Pakistan, and that, when he was seized in a raid on the house, on March 28, 2002, he had no knowledge that the house was, apparently, tangentially connected to the alleged senior al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah. Furthermore, in response to the government's other allegations, he has also "denied ever going to Afghanistan, training at an al-Qaeda camp, fighting against anyone, or being a member of a terrorist group."

Authorizing Ali Ahmed's habeas claim, Judge Kessler demolished the government's case against him, painting a disturbing picture of unreliable allegations made by other prisoners who were tortured, coerced, bribed or suffering from mental health issues, and a "mosaic" of intelligence, purporting to rise to the level of evidence, which actually relied, to an intolerable degree, on second- or third-hand hearsay, guilt by association and unsupportable suppositions.

This follow-up article looks in depth at Ali Ahmed's story, and those of the 15 men seized with him in the "Issa" guest house in Faisalabad, with the aim of encouraging the Justice Department to abandon its cases against these other men, either as part of its secretive Executive review of the prisoners in Guantánamo (with its uncomfortable echoes of the Bush administration's love of Executive decisions made without consulting Congress or the judiciary) or by refusing to contest their habeas cases in the District Courts.

I propose this course of action because the cases against these other men demonstrate a similar reliance on dubious allegations, and a similar "mosaic" of inferences that will not stand up to outside scrutiny, as was noted by Judge Kessler in her ruling, when she wrote, "It is likely, based on evidence in the record, that at least a majority of the (redacted) guests were indeed students, living at a guest house that was located close to a university."

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way more:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/20-2