Peace and Justice Post

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees told a U.S. appeals court Wednesday the United States violated its own rules when it branded hundreds of prisoners as enemy combatants – and based the argument on statements by two U.S. military officers.

The lawyers asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to order the immediate release of Mohammed Sulaymon Barre, a Somali among some 360 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Barre was arrested in Pakistan in November 2001 after he obtained refugee status from a UN agency.

Shane Kadidal, a New York City lawyer, said petitions will be filed for other Guantanamo detainees, alleging the military violated rules of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals – military panels that determine whether someone was an enemy combatant who should be held.

Barre’s lawyers said a navy rear admiral who was in charge of the tribunal system noted in an affidavit the military, at least in some cases, did not present all exculpatory evidence.

In his May 31 statement, Rear Admiral James McGarrah acknowledged “if certain information which suggested that the detainee should not be designated as an enemy combatant was duplicative” then that “duplicative information” might not have been presented to the tribunals at Guantanamo.

Evidence indicating a detainee was not an enemy combatant may also have been excluded “if it did not relate to a specific allegation being made against the detainee,” McGarrah said.

Combatant Status Review Tribunals have been held for about 570 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, a U.S. naval base in southeastern Cuba. The military determined all but 38 were “no longer enemy combatants.”

Rules issued by deputy secretary of defence Gordon England in July 2006 stipulate any “evidence to suggest that the detainee should not be designated as an enemy combatant” must be presented to the tribunal.

A Pentagon spokesman defended the process Wednesday, referring to a statement by U.S. Justice Department lawyers that said: “It is manifestly reasonable not to fill the administrative record with duplicative material.”

Furthermore, presenting exculpatory evidence unrelated to a specific allegation against the detainee “would be useless at best and confusing at worst,” the Justice Department lawyers argued.

Wednesday’s petition was filed by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many of the Guantanamo detainees. It did not file the petition on behalf of other detainees because the court previously requested cases be presented individually, Kadidal said.

The petition also cited a statement by Army Reserve Lt.-Col. Stephen Abraham, a 26-year veteran of military intelligence who served as a main liaison between the Combatant Status Review Tribunals and intelligence agencies. Abraham’s affidavit, submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in June, said Combatant Status Review Tribunal members relied on vague and incomplete intelligence, while under pressure to rule against detainees.

Wednesday’s petition said Abraham’s statements show the Combatant Status Review Tribunals “were an irremediable sham.”

It said among the exculpatory evidence the military failed to present was that Barre was recognized by the United Nations as a refugee from war-torn Somalia.

His lawyers maintain he was never a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer.

He is accused of having links to al-Wafa, a charity the U.S. State Department classifies as a terrorist organization. Barre has consistently denied that.