UN body condemns torture of Guantánamo detainee awaiting death penalty trial
The news
A United Nations human rights panel has released a damning report blaming the United States and seven other countries for the CIA’s “torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” of a Saudi detainee now awaiting death penalty trial at Guantánamo Bay .
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention also named as responsible the United Arab Emirates, where the detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was captured in 2002, and Afghanistan, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Romania and Thailand, where he was held as part of an extradition and interrogation program of the George W. Bush administration.
The working group, which has no enforcement powers, has the Report of 18 pages on November 15, but didn’t release it until this weekend.
The group called for the immediate release of and compensation for Mr Nashiri, accused of orchestrating the bombing of the US Navy destroyer Cole off the coast of Yemen nearly 23 years ago. It said the Guantánamo war crimes court, which was devised to prosecute only non-US citizens, deprives Mr Nashiri of “the guarantees of due process that would normally apply within the justice system of the United States.”
Why it matters: Criticism of Guantánamo Bay is on the rise again.
The finding is the latest in a series of UN investigations condemning the past and current treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay at a time when lawyers and the International Committee of the Red Cross have protested inadequate health care for the last detainees there.
The UN bodies are also refocusing attention on the Pentagon prison, which holds 30 war on terror prisoners, including 17 men for whom the Biden administration is seeking lands to offer them resettlement.
The report could be submitted to a sentencing jury of US military officers in Mr. Nashiri’s case. In October 2021, a military jury in the case of another Guantánamo detainee who had been tortured by the CIA urged clemency, calling that detainee’s abuse “a blemish on the moral fiber of America”.
Background: Torture was central to the Cole case.
US investigations and testimony in Mr. Nashiri’s case show that he was waterboarded by psychologists working as contractors for the CIA, locked naked in a claustrophobic wooden box, and subjected to threats and violence, including rectal abuse, by employees from the desk.
His military commissions case has been under preliminary investigation since 2011. Seventeen American sailors were killed in the suicide bombing of the Cole in the port of Aden, and prosecutors claim the case could be tried in the court set up in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Mr. Nashiri’s lawyers describe him as a torture survivor who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other conditions attributed to untreated physical, psychological and sexual abuse.
What’s Next: More pre-trial hearings and countries are asked to respond.
Mr Nashiri has more hearings this month on what evidence can be used in his eventual death penalty trial. The judge in the case is retiring and a new judge is expected to take office this summer.
One of Mr Nashiri’s lawyers, Katie Carmon, said on Sunday that if Mr Nashiri were convicted, the latest UN report could form the basis for a legal application to face sentencing, as he was subject to “provisional sentence as a prisoner of the United States.
The UN panel asked countries to report on any human rights reforms they had implemented and whether they had followed any of the recommendations.