Pentagon announces trial of alleged Cole mastermind on new Guantanamo website

Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, 46, a former Saudi millionaire, faces the death penalty in al Qaida’s suicide bombing of a U.S. Navy warship in a Yemen port a decade ago. The announcement came on a new website that news organizations had requested. | 09/28/11 17:34:00 By - Carol Rosenberg

Report: Pentagon to beam war crimes trials to US soil

The Obama administration’s handpicked choice to run prosecutions at the Guantánamo war crimes court is pledging a new era of transparency from the remote base, complete with near simultaneous transmissions of the proceedings to victims and reporters on U.S. soil. | 09/26/11 15:20:13 By - Carol Rosenberg

Pentagon plans to transmit Guantanamo trials to U.S. points

The Obama administration’s choice to run prosecutions at the Guantanamo war crimes court is pledging a new era of transparency from the remote base, including the nearly simultaneous broadcast of the proceedings to locations in the United States where reporters and families of victims would be able to view them. | 09/25/11 20:10:44 By - Carol Rosenberg

Stinky Guantanamo prison camp standoff over

The waste war is over — for now. War on terror captives are no longer smearing their cells with feces in a stomach-wrenching power struggle with the guards at the maximum security Camp 5 lockup on this remote navy base. | 09/21/11 15:55:05 By - Carol Rosenberg

Admiral prepares Guantanamo for 9/11 tribunals

In the few weeks since Rear Adm. David B. Woods took charge At Guantanamo Bay, he has looked in on the men accused of killing two of his Naval Academy classmates, walked the camps where President Barack Obama’s closure order has faded in the Caribbean sun and presided over a somber ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of America’s 21st Century Day of Infamy. | 09/16/11 06:54:18 By - Carol Rosenberg

At Guantanamo, Woods quietly takes command

The Pentagon has quietly installed a Navy aviator who lost classmates in the 9/11 attacks as the 11th commander of its Guantánamo detention center in Cuba. | 08/29/11 06:56:11 By - Carol Rosenberg

With 9/11 trials looming, Guantanamo makes a practice run

Court was abruptly recessed when a captive tried to make a speech. Guantánamo guards found a suspicious package and ordered an evacuation. Translators struggled to keep pace with a lawyer reciting from a transcript of the Omar Khadr “child soldier” trial. All of it was scripted, a string of travails bedeviling the war court while Tropical Storm Emily bore down on the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba last week | 08/12/11 17:03:02 By - Carol Rosenberg

Navy pilot named Guantanamo's commander

The Pentagon on Wednesday named Rear Adm. David B. Woods, a pilot now working on Navy policy and strategy, as the 11th commander of its detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. | 08/10/11 18:18:00 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo prisoners face Ramadan fasting

With the vast majority of the prisoners at Guantánamo now marking their 10th Ramadan in a row behind the razor wire, the military is providing food around the clock for both the faithful honoring the dawn-to-dusk fast and those Muslim captives who choose to ignore it. | 08/05/11 15:52:12 By - Carol Rosenberg

USS Cole bombing case called 'too tainted' for death penalty trial

The military’s case against a former Saudi millionaire accused of masterminding the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole is tainted by delay, torture and destruction of evidence, lawyers argued Friday in a bid to spare the Guantánamo captive a death penalty trial. | 07/18/11 07:08:41 By - Carol Rosenberg

Paul, McConnell question Obama strategy on alleged terrorists

Sen. Rand Paul pressed Homeland Security officials during a hearing Wednesday on how suspected terrorists have been able to slip through the nation's security net and get into the United States. | 07/13/11 19:13:24 By - Halimah Abdullah

Navy photographer in Guantanamo case settles for probation

A U.S. military veteran of the Iraq surge and Guantánamo averted a federal passport fraud trial on Tuesday by settling for probation in a deal that lets him stay in the United States for now and perhaps continue Navy service. | 07/12/11 12:27:43 By - Carol Rosenberg

Navy Guantanamo photographer freed pending trial

A federal magistrate ordered a veteran U.S. military combat photographer released from a federal detention center Friday, on condition he returns to court for next week’s federal passport fraud trial. | 07/08/11 18:45:56 By - Carol Rosenberg

EU still supports resettling Guantánamo detainees

Europe is still open to resettling Guantánamo detainees on a case by case basis despite U.S. domestic politics that are thwarting President Barack Obama’s closure ambitions, the European Union Ambassador to the United States said Wednesday. | 07/06/11 17:58:19 By - Carol Rosenberg

Florida Rep. Wilson steps in for jailed Navy photographer

A South Florida congresswoman is going to bat for a U.S. military war veteran from her district who is in a Miami lockup on a passport fraud charge and fears deportation to his mother’s native Bahamas. | 07/01/11 12:51:17 By - Carol Rosenberg

Deal could help Navy photographer of Guantanamo detainees avoid trial

A federal judge disclosed Tuesday that the U.S. Attorney’s office has made a secret offer to resolve the curious passport prosecution of a Miami combat veteran who photographed detainees at Guantánamo and is now a detainee himself. U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga revealed the offer of “pretrial diversion” without elaboration in a conference that set a July 12 trial date for Navy Reserves Petty Officer Elisha Dawkins, 26. | 06/28/11 22:25:24 By - Carol Rosenberg

Latest Guantánamo prison camp suicide was 'indefinite detainee'

An Afghan man who was found hanging from a bedsheet at Guantánamo last month was held by the Pentagon as an "indefinite detainee" — an Obama administration designation originally conferred on 48 captives at the prison camps in Cuba. | 06/28/11 13:04:10 By - Carol Rosenberg

Pentagon names new Guantanamo war crimes prosecutor

The Pentagon on Thursday named a Harvard Law trained career Army general as the chief war crimes prosecutor at Guantánamo, which has two major death penalty prosecutions in the pipeline, notably the 9/11 mass murder trial of five former CIA captives charged as co-conspirators. | 06/23/11 21:15:41 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantánamo Navy photographer in Miami lock-up

A Miami veteran of U.S. service in Iraq, who took some of the military’s most intimate photos of captives in the prison camps at Guantánamo as a combat photographer, was in a detention center Thursday, facing a federal fraud trial. | 06/23/11 20:08:13 By - Carol Rosenberg

Another former Guantanamo detainee named to terrorist list

The State Department Thursday added a freed Guantánamo detainee to its list of government-sanctioned terrorists, saying the Saudi Arabian soldier is now a fundraiser for the Yemeni offshoot Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula. | 06/17/11 06:55:54 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo captives ‘weaponize’ bodily fluids

When a fiddle player and her band toured the prison camps at Guantánamo recently, guards told of a new devious and disturbing tactic confronting them. A captive on a hunger strike had been jamming something foul up his nose to contaminate the pathway for medical staff who feed him a nutritional shake twice a day. | 06/16/11 17:14:07 By - Carol Rosenberg

Pentagon files death penalty case against five accused 9/11 plotters

Guantánamo war court prosecutors filed fresh death penalty charges against five men for allegedly plotting the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, accusing the former CIA captives of murder, conspiracy and terrorism, the Pentagon said Tuesday. The new charge sheet reflected a political setback for the Obama administration. | 05/31/11 18:12:22 By - Carol Rosenberg

U.S. returns Guantanamo detainee's remains to Afghanistan

The military has repatriated to Afghanistan the remains of a 47-year-old Guantánamo captive who apparently committed suicide with a bed sheet at a prison camp for compliant captives. | 05/23/11 06:54:15 By - Carol Rosenberg

Afghan Guantanamo detainee uses bedsheet to commit suicide

An Afghan detainee who died this week at Guantanamo had a history of psychological problems so severe that his lawyer arranged to bring a civilian psychiatrist to the base to work with him. The man had been found dangling by a bed sheet in a prison camp recreation yard and apparently had hanged himself. | 05/19/11 13:57:06 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo prisoners may get family visits

Pentagon officials are discussing with the Red Cross whether to allow family members to visit prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, The Washington Post reported Wednesday, saying the proposal had stirred discontent in Congress. | 05/11/11 23:39:36 By - Carol Rosenberg

Tip that led to bin Laden may have come from Guantanamo

More than 8,000 miles from the walled compound where U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden, some of the men who helped make it happen are probably sitting today in cells at Guantanamo. While it's not publicly known which detainees gave CIA or Guantanamo interrogators the nom de guerre of one of the few al Qaida couriers trusted by bin Laden, a senior U.S. official confirmed that crucial piece of intelligence was gathered from "detainees in the post-9/11 period." | 05/02/11 18:48:11 By - Tom Lasseter

Guantanamo's detainees come into view for first time

Using some 750 secret military-intelligence files obtained by the WikiLeaks website, and comparing them with other public documents and interviews with lawyers and U.S. officials, McClatchy has been able to give names, and frequently faces, to the 172 men who are still at Guantanamo nearly 10 years after the prison camps opened and more than two years after Obama ordered them closed. | 05/02/11 09:39:51 By - Carol Rosenberg

Who's still being held at Guantanamo

Until now, there has been no comprehensive list of who is still held at the Guantanamo detention center in Cuba. McClatchy determined who was still there using secret intelligence files obtained by WikiLeaks and passed to McClatchy. Clicking on a name will allow you to read the file and in most cases view a photo of the detainee. | 05/01/11 00:01:00 By -

Death penalty expert to defend USS Cole bomber in trial

The Pentagon has moved one step closer to putting the alleged USS Cole bomber before a capital war crimes trial at Guantanamo, assigning an Indiana attorney with extensive death penalty experience to help defend a Saudi-born Yemeni captive who was water-boarded by the CIA. | 04/29/11 19:04:24 By - Carol Rosenberg

WikiLeaks files on Guantanamo unlikely to help those jailed on flawed evidence

Newly released Wikileaks documents detail how the U.S. government held many Guantanamo detainees based on shaky evidence. Even so, the revelations are unlikely to dramatically change their fates. | 04/27/11 19:06:18 By - Marisa Taylor and Chris Adams

Guantanamo secret files show U.S. often held innocent Afghans

Naqibullah was about 14 years old when U.S. troops detained him in December of 2002 at a suspected militant's compound in eastern Afghanistan. A secret U.S. intelligence assessment written in 2003 concluded that Naqibullah had been kidnapped and forcibly conscripted by a warring tribe affiliated with the Taliban. The boy told interrogators that during his abduction he'd been held at gunpoint by 11 men and raped. Nonetheless, Naqibullah was held at Guantanamo for a full year. | 04/26/11 19:58:08 By - Tom Lasseter

WikiLeaks: Just 8 at Gitmo gave evidence against 255 others

U.S. military intelligence assessing the threat of nearly 800 men held at Guantanamo in many cases used information from a small group of captives whose accounts now appear to be questionable, according to a McClatchy analysis of a trove of secret documents from the facility. | 04/25/11 19:33:15 By - Tom Lasseter and Carol Rosenberg

Pentagon seeks death penalty for Cole bombing mastermind

Pentagon prosecutors Wednesday pressed the first Obama-era war crimes charges against a Guantánamo captive, seeking the death penalty in the case of a Saudi man accused of masterminding the 2000 suicide attack on an American Navy warship off Yemen that killed 17 American sailors. | 04/20/11 16:41:50 By - Carol Rosenberg

Rate drops for ex Guantanamo detainees labeled terrorists

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that three of the 68 Guantanamo detainees released since Barack Obama became president have engaged in terrorism or insurgency, a senior administration told Congress Wednesday. | 04/13/11 19:47:20 By - Carol Rosenberg

Pentagon lawyer apologizes to Seminole Tribe for al Qaida analogy

The Pentagon’s top lawyer has sent the Seminole Tribe of Florida what amounts to an apology for Guantánamo war court lawyers likening al Qaida to the Native American tribe in 1818. | 04/11/11 06:43:57 By - Carol Rosenberg

Obama reverses course: No civilian trial for 9/11 plotters

In an about face on the day President Barack Obama announced his re-election bid, Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday ordered military trials at Guantanamo for confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other alleged co-plotters now held there for the mass murder of thousands on Sept. 11, 2001. | 04/04/11 12:37:13 By - Carol Rosenberg

WikiLeaks cable casts doubt on Guantanamo medical care

The Bush administration was so intent on keeping Guantanamo detainees off U.S. soil and away from U.S. courts that it secretly tried to negotiate deals with Latin American countries to provide "life-saving" medical procedures rather than fly ill terrorist suspects to the U.S. for treatment, a recently released State Department cable shows. | 03/30/11 17:20:57 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo prosecutors apologize for comparing Indians to al Qaida

Pentagon prosecutors touched off a protest — and issued an apology this week — for likening the Seminole Indians in Spanish Florida to al Qaida in documents defending Guantánamo’s military commissions. | 03/24/11 07:39:38 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo lawyers aren't happy with new work rules

With a new round of Guantanamo prosecutions on the horizon, a senior Pentagon official has ordered war court defense lawyers to sign freshly minted ground rules that not only gag what they can say to their alleged terrorist clients but also to the public. | 03/18/11 20:34:40 By - Carol Rosenberg

Pentagon is dividing up Guantanamo detainees for trials

The Obama administration is still deciding where to stage the 9/11 mass murder trials of five alleged co-conspirators now held at Guantánamo, the Defense Department’s top lawyer told Congress on Thursday. | 03/18/11 07:10:47 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo tribunals resume but death penalty questions remain

Now that the Obama administration has decided to go forward with both military trials and indefinite detention at Guantánamo, it has yet to resolve a key element: How does the Pentagon plan to execute war criminals condemned to death? The question is particularly ripe as the Pentagon prepares its case against a Saudi-born captive blamed for the al Qaeda bombing of the USS Cole, Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, 46. | 03/11/11 07:10:01 By - Carol Rosenberg

U.S. lawmakers keep quiet about Guantanamo tour

Florida Rep. Allen West toured the secretive Camp 7 at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — where the alleged Sept. 11 plotters are held — but wouldn’t say Tuesday what he saw. The reputed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators are held at the secluded site and West did acknowledge, “I did see one very popular individual.” | 03/09/11 07:01:16 By - Lesley Clark

Alleged USS Cole bomber likely to be charged by tribunal

The first captive at the U.S. Naval Base on Guantanamo Bay to be charged in a military tribunal during the Obama presidency is expected to be one of the prison's most notorious inmates — Abd al-Rahim Al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the 2000 USS Cole bombing that killed 17 sailors. | 03/08/11 20:50:03 By - Richard A. Serrano and David G. Savage

Obama to resume military tribunals for Guantanamo terror suspects

The Obama administration on Monday announced that it will resume using military tribunals to try suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but officials said they're not giving up on trials in civilian courts and are still considering their options for trying 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other accused 9/11 plotters. | 03/08/11 06:32:32 By - Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor

Guantanamo visit on tap for some Congress members

Tea Party Rep. Allen West, a retired Army officer with detainee experience of his own, travels to Guantánamo on Monday with five other members of Congress on an inspection tour. | 03/07/11 06:42:26 By - Carol Rosenberg

Prisoners at Guantanamo's Camp 5 aren't like the others

These are the war criminals of Guantánamo Bay. They are four convicts — captured as a cook, a kid, a small-arms trainer and a videographer — kept out of sight of visitors in a segregated cellblock of a SuperMax-style 100-cell $17 million penitentiary. | 02/28/11 22:29:05 By - Carol Rosenberg

Sudanese war criminal at Guantánamo turns government witness

A Sudanese former terror camp instructor traded a promise to turn government witness for release from prison by 2014 in a plea bargain made public Friday — moments after a military jury sentenced the man to a symbolic 14 more years at Guantánamo. | 02/18/11 21:36:49 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantánamo war court screens waterboarded terrorist’s recruiting video

Long before CIA agents waterboarded him, prized war-on-terror captive Abu Zubaydah praised the 9/11 attacks as “truly magnificent” and sought recruits to fight the Jews and Christians. | 02/17/11 13:34:19 By - Carol Rosenberg

Panetta: Osama bin Laden would go to Guantanamo if captured

President Barack Obama may want to close these prison camps, but the CIA director said Wednesday that, if U.S. forces catch Osama bin Laden or his deputy, they would likely airlift them to Guantanamo from Afghanistan. | 02/17/11 07:04:46 By - Carol Rosenberg

Third plea deal for Guantanamo prisoner

A Sudanese man accused of training a generation of terrorists ahead of the 9/11 attacks pleaded guilty Tuesday to supporting terror and conspiring with al Qaeda — handing the Obama administration its third plea in a row at the reformed war court. | 02/15/11 11:52:46 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo detainee might not return to Sudan after sentence

Confessed al Qaida cook Ibrahim al Qosi, who is serving a two-year terrorism sentence, will not automatically go home to his native Sudan in July 2012 when his punishment ends, a Pentagon spokeswoman said Monday. | 02/15/11 07:11:57 By - Carol Rosenberg

At Guantanamo, pre-trial hearing for alleged terror trainer is scrapped

The Pentagon Thursday abruptly canceled a pre-trial hearing at Guantánamo next week and said it would instead hold “other proceedings” at the war court for an alleged Sudanese terror trainer -- the strongest sign yet that the Obama administration had secured another plea agreement in its revamped military commissions. | 02/11/11 08:01:19 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo detainee gets 2-year sentence in Pentagon deal

A former al Qaeda cook who pleaded guilty to war crimes at Guantánamo could go home to Sudan in the summer of 2012, under a secret deal just approved by a senior Pentagon official and made public Wednesday by the Defense Department. Ibrahim al Qosi, 50, is the first Guantánamo captive to reach a war court settlement during the Obama administration. | 02/09/11 21:28:59 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo detainee, Ghailani, sentenced to life in prison

A judge sentenced the first Guantanamo detainee to have a U.S. civilian trial to life in prison Tuesday, | 01/25/11 15:59:39 By -

Pentagon might increase Guantánamo war court cases

The Obama administration is preparing to ramp up its use of military commissions to prosecute Guantánamo detainees, and predicted charges would be brought soon against the accused architect of al Qaeda's October 2000 USS Cole suicide bombing off Yemen, The New York Times reported Thursday | 01/20/11 10:39:14 By -

Obama signs law, decries its limits on Guantanamo detainees

President Barack Obama on Friday reluctantly signed into law a military-funding bill that limits him from transferring terrorism detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the U.S. or foreign countries, but he signaled that he may get past the restrictions by using non-Pentagon resources to get the job done. | 01/07/11 19:07:05 By - Margaret Talev and Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo detainee repatriated to Algeria

The Pentagon Thursday sent home from Guantánamo an Algerian captive who feared repatriation, even as the White House grapples with new congressional restrictions on releases from the prison camps in southeast Cuba. Saed Farhi's lawyers asked that he be resettled elsewhere, like other Guantánamo captives, because he feared Islamic extremist violence in his native Algeria. He also feared government retaliation for the stigma of having been held at Guantánamo, even though he had been cleared. | 01/07/11 07:03:59 By - Carol Rosenberg

Algerian repatriated from Guantanamo despite his fears of returning home

The Pentagon Thursday sent home from Guantánamo an Algerian captive who feared repatriation, even as the White House grapples with new congressional restrictions on releases from the prison camps in southeast Cuba. | 01/06/11 17:46:21 By - Carol Rosenberg

Yemeni Guantanamo detainees get video link to home from Red Cross

With the prison camps at Guantánamo approaching their 10th year, some of the majority Yemeni captive population have just received a new perk: video conferencing back to family via a new link set up by the International Committee of the Red Cross. | 12/29/10 09:39:55 By - Carol Rosenberg

No White House timetable for closing Guantanamo: Gibbs

The Obama administration acknowledged Sunday that it has no new timetable for closure of the prison camps at Guantánamo, while reiterating a White House talking point that the controversial detention center is an al Qaeda ``recruiting tool.'' | 12/27/10 08:18:56 By - Carol Rosenberg

Holder blasts attempt to block 9/11 domestic trials

The Obama administration Thursday urged Senate leaders to reject a legislative ban on the transfer of any Guantánamo prisoner to U.S. soil, a move meant to corner the White House into staging a Sept. 11 mass murder trial at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba. The House included the clause in a catchall spending bill Wednesday that passed by a 212-206 vote. The Senate has yet to vote on it. | 12/10/10 07:13:34 By - Carol Rosenberg

One-fourth of freed Guantánamo captives may have turned to terrorism

About one fourth of all released Guantánamo detainees have been confirmed or suspected of engaging in terrorism or insurgency activity, the vast majority of them freed in the Bush years, according to a new U.S. intelligence report. | 12/08/10 17:56:04 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo's Camp 6 becomes detainees' cellblock of choice

The imposing steel and concrete building known here as Camp 6 once was the bane of Guantánamo detainees and human rights groups alike. Now, however, Camp 6 has become the lockup of choice for captives. | 12/01/10 06:59:05 By - Carol Rosenberg

Congressman didn't tell fellow Dems of his Guantanamo role

It's one of the Pentagon's most sensitive and carefully guarded secrets: Who interrogated the prisoners at Guantánamo? So it came as a surprise last month when a Pennsylvania congressman seeking reelection campaigned as the only member of the U.S. Congress to have interrogated a Guantánamo detainee. | 11/18/10 07:04:53 By - Carol Rosenberg

Jury convicts Ghailani on single count in embassy bombings

Tanzanian-born Ahmed Ghailani, 36, who had always claimed he was duped into buying a truck and components for explosives used in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, was acquitted of the bulk of the charges against him. But the lone conviction on a conspiracy charge is enough to send him to prison for 20 years to life — but that won't quiet opponents of civilian trials for accused terrorists. | 11/17/10 19:55:54 By - Carol Rosenberg

U.S. shows no sign of following Brits' Gitmo prisoners payoff

A British government decision to settle a lawsuit by former Guantanamo detainees who claimed they were tortured after they were turned over to U.S. authorities is bringing renewed attention to Obama administration detention policies that remain under fire from human rights groups. | 11/16/10 20:30:15 By - Carol Rosenberg and Margaret Talev

Appeals court overturns judge's Guantanamo release order

The U.S. Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., said a district judge should have asked more questions about the detainee's past links to al Qaeda before ruling they were too long ago to be relevant to his detention at Guantanamo. It suggested he may need to take more testimony before reaching a new ruling. | 11/05/10 13:56:21 By - Carol Rosenberg

Despite 40-year sentence, Khadr likely to go home in a year

A military jury at Guantanamo on Sunday sentenced teen terrorist Omar Khadr to 40 years in prison for killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, but the judge revealed after the sentence was announced that Canada had agreed a week ago in a diplomatic note that "it is inclined to favourably consider" Khadr's application to be transferred to Canada next year. | 11/01/10 20:48:16 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantánamo prosecutor asks jury to jail Khadr 25 more years

A Pentagon prosecutor on Saturday asked a military jury to send both U.S. troops and al Qaeda warriors a message by sentencing confessed war criminal Omar Khadr to 25 more years confinement. | 10/30/10 13:42:04 By - Carol Rosenberg

Khadr tells Guantanamo jury of interrogators' rape threats

Confessed war criminal Omar Khadr, through his Army lawyer, told his military jury Friday that as a 15-year-old in Afghanistan, U.S. interrogators told him a horrifying tale of being gang raped to death. The jury is to begin deliberations on his sentence Saturday. | 10/29/10 15:14:43 By - Carol Rosenberg

U.S. soldier's widow speaks at Omar Khadr's Guantanamo trial

Tabitha Speer, the Army wife left widowed by teen terrorist Omar Khadr, and the Canadian "child soldier'' finally spoke to each other on Thursday, across the war crimes tribunal. | 10/29/10 07:13:37 By - Carol Rosenberg

Omar Khadr's defense paints different picture of Guantanamo detainee during hearing

An Air Force defense lawyer used a forensic psychiatrist's own files Wednesday to paint a far more westernized, tolerant image of confessed teen terrorist Omar Khadr -- one day after the doctor called the Canadian radical, angry and "highly dangerous.'' | 10/28/10 07:12:03 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr is 'highly dangerous,' psychiatrist says

Confessed teen terrorist Omar Khadr is a dangerous threat to the West, a "rock star" who has "been marinating in a radical Islamic community" inside Guantánamo's showcase camp for cooperative captives, a forensic psychiatrist hired by the Pentagon told a military jury Tuesday. | 10/27/10 07:12:24 By - Carol Rosenberg

Khadr plea deal reveals a 'get out of Guantanamo' strategy

On Monday, Omar Khadr, now 24, pleaded guilty to five separate war crimes in exchange for an eight-year prison sentence, only one of them to be served in Guantánamo. His plea bargain is the second that reveals an emerging strategy for getting out of Guantánamo. | 10/26/10 07:14:48 By - Carol Rosenberg

Omar Khadr pleads guilty, avoiding Guantanamo trial

Toronto-born Omar Khadr, Guantánamo's youngest and last Western detainee, pleaded guilty Monday to committing war crimes as a teen in 2002 Afghanistan under a plea deal meant to send him home to his native Canada next year. | 10/25/10 11:06:24 By - Carol Rosenberg

Trial of Guantanamo 'celebrity' Omar Khadr resumes Monday

With two days until resumption of his terror trial, Guantanamo's youngest and last Western detainee betrayed no signs Saturday of the drama of coming proceedings. Khadr's trial was abruptly recessed on its first day in August after his lone defense attorney, an Army lieutenant colonel, collapsed in court. | 10/23/10 17:55:19 By - Carol Rosenberg

Judge upholds Guantánamo detention of Yemeni captive

In a third straight win for the Obama administration, a federal judge has upheld the Guantánamo detention of a Yemeni captive whose brother is also held indefinitely without charges at the Pentagon's prison camps in southeast Cuba. | 10/15/10 16:59:16 By - Carol Rosenberg

Khadr's Guantanamo trial postponed while lawyers work on plea deal

A military judge Thursday postponed the Guantánamo war crimes trial of Omar Khadr, the Canadian captured in Afghanistan at age 15, buying time for his lawyers to negotiate a plea deal and avert the so-called "child-soldier" terror trial. Toronto-born Khadr, 24, faces a maximum life in prison if he's convicted at a military commission of throwing a grenade that mortally wounded a U.S. soldier in 2002 wartime Afghanistan. | 10/15/10 07:09:01 By - Carol Rosenberg

No plans at Guantanamo for holding detainees for life

Prison camp staff are making no plans for the lifetime detention of 48 captives the Obama administration has determined will not be released, the admiral in charge of the detention center said Wednesday. Navy Rear Adm. Jeffrey Harbeson described an air of uncertainty at the detention center, where he said President Barack Obama's closure order still governs, eight months after the camps were supposed to be emptied. | 09/23/10 07:03:59 By - Carol Rosenberg

Prosecutor: Guantanamo detainee trained 9/11 hijackers

The assertion that Noor Uthman Mohammed helped train Zacarias Mousaoui, the only person convicted in the 9/11 attacks, and two unnamed hijackers who were aboard the planes, was the prosecution's clearest statement yet on the captive's ties to terrorism. Noor's defense lawyer labeled the allegation an effort to "sensationalize" the case. | 09/21/10 22:05:33 By - Carol Rosenberg

Judge upholds Guantanamo detention in rare government win

The decision by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly that the U.S. military can continue to hold Fayiz Kandari brought to 17 the number of habeas corpus cases decided in the government's favor. The government has lost 38. | 09/21/10 08:19:17 By - Carol Rosenberg

U.S. transfers 2 more Guantanamo detainees — to Germany

Germany's leading Der Spiegel newspaper identified one as Ahmed Mohammed al Shurfa, 34, a stateless man of Palestinian descent who was born in Saudi Arabia, and the other as Mahmoud Salim al Ali, 36, a Syrian citizen. | 09/16/10 16:54:17 By - Carol Rosenberg

Mark Sanford, Guantanamo reports win honors for two McClatchy papers

The Miami Herald took first place in three categories and The State of Columbia, S.C., won in one catgory at the 60th Annual Green Eyeshade Awards, which recognize journalism excellence in 11 southern states. | 09/14/10 19:02:10 By -

Cost of housing prisoners at Guantanamo revised upwards

A Bureau of Prisons spokesman on Monday revised upwards the cost of housing a captive in federal detention, days after the bureau said it spends a tiny fraction of what the military spends at Guantanamo Bay. | 09/13/10 18:36:55 By - Carol Rosenberg

Another reason to close Guantanamo: It's expensive

President Obama pointed out that it's much more expensive to keep prisoners at Guantanamo than in a federal prison in the United States. The Pentagon reports the annual cost of running Guantanamo is $116 million — about $650,000 per prisoner. By contrast, it costs about $5,575 a year to keep a prisoner in federal detention. | 09/11/10 17:33:49 By - Carol Rosenberg

Band Bowling for Soup gets celebrity tour of Guantanamo camps

Bowling for Soup, made famous by its 2003 "Drunk Enough to Dance'' album, toured the Pentagon's notorious prison camps for suspected terrorists on Sunday. A Pentagon spokesman said the tour was intended give guards who couldn't attend the band's concert as chance to meet them. | 09/09/10 13:49:20 By - Carol Rosenberg

Judge rules Afghan shopkeeper Khan should remain at Guantanamo

A federal judge has agreed with the government that it can indefinitely hold at Guantanamo an Afghan man whom military intelligence says belonged to an anti-American cell near Kandahar. Justice Department lawyers argued in the small portion of its case made public that Shawali Khan, 47, held at U.S. Navy base since February 2003, belonged to an anti-American cell of Hezb Islami Gulbuddin. | 09/07/10 06:55:34 By - Carol Rosenberg

Full military court to review appeal of bin Laden's driver

The Pentagon's war crimes appeals court announced without explanation Friday that the full U.S. Court of Military Commission Review, not a smaller panel, would review the conviction of Osama bin Laden's driver, now free and living in Yemen. | 09/03/10 17:28:53 By - Carol Rosenberg

Khadr's Guantanamo trial to resume Oct. 18

Accused teen terrorist Omar Khadr's Guantanamo murder trial will resume Oct. 18, more than two months after the Canadian captive's lone defense attorney collapsed in court. | 08/31/10 14:23:09 By - Carol Rosenberg

Hunger-striking Guantanamo detainees are being force-fed at night during Ramadan

Here's a new twist in the U.S. military's Islamic sensitivity effort in the prison camps for suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo Bay Navy base: Military medical staff are force-feeding a secret number of prisoners on hunger strike between dusk and dawn during the Muslim fasting holiday of Ramadan. | 08/24/10 06:53:10 By - Carol Rosenberg

U.S. still holds detainee Pentagon wanted freed in 2004

According to a judge's order made public this week, the Pentagon first recommended that Adnan Abdul Latif be sent home from Guantanamo in 2004. The Bush administration agreed in 2007. Yet the Obama administration is still trying to decide if it should appeal the judge's ruling that Latif's detention is illegal and he should be sent home. | 08/17/10 19:06:53 By - Carol Rosenberg

Khadr's attorney airlifted from Guantanamo, trial delayed one month

The military was evacuating Omar Khadr's lone defense attorney from this remote Navy base for medical treatment on U.S. soil Friday, delaying for at least a month the first full war crimes trial of the Obama administration. Army Lt. Col. Jon Jackson, 39, collapsed in the tribunal chamber hours after opening statements Thursday. He had undergone gall bladder surgery six weeks ago. | 08/13/10 09:59:40 By - Carol Rosenberg

Khadr's Guantanamo trial halted by lawyer's hospitalization

Omar Khadr's lone defense attorney collapsed in court Thursday and was taken away to a base hospital on a stretcher, halting the first day of the Canadian's war crimes trial. Depending on Lt. Col. Jon Jackson's condition, the trial might not resume until Monday, or even beyond. | 08/12/10 20:03:42 By - Carol Rosenberg

On first day of Khadr's Guantanamo trial, attorney faints

Canadian-born terrorist suspect Omar Khadr's lone defense attorney, an Army lieutenant colonel, collapsed in court Thursday and was taken away to a base hospital on a stretcher, forcing a military judge to suspend the first day of the war crimes trial. Military officials offered no information on the status of the lawyer, Lt. Col. Jon Jackson. | 08/12/10 15:45:29 By - Carol Rosenberg

Jury chosen for Khadr's Guantanamo war crimes trial

An Army judge impaneled a seven-member military commission Wednesday to hear terror suspect Omar Khadr's war-crimes case, including a Marine colonel with a Purple Heart from Iraq and a Navy captain who called Guantanamo a "no-win situation." Khadr, captured at 15, allegedly hurled a grenade that killed U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, 28, of Albuquerque, N.M., in a July 2002 raid on a suspected al Qaida compound in Afghanistan. Khadr is now 23. | 08/12/10 07:09:14 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo jury gives al Qaida cook 14-year sentence

A military jury handed down a 14-year war crimes sentence against an al Qaida cook and driver Wednesday, unaware that prosecutors made a secret deal that will reportedly send him home much earlier. The military commission of 10 U.S. military officers deliberated just over an hour at the $12 million maximum-security courtroom at Camp Justice to issue the for-the-record sentence against Ibrahim al Qosi, 50, of Sudan. | 08/12/10 07:02:48 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo jury chosen for al Qaida cook's sentencing

An Air Force judge seated a 10-officer war crimes commission Wednesday in the case of a confessed al Qaida cook and driver, finally starting the sentencing phase of the government's first Guantanamo plea deal of the Obama administration. Ibrahim al Qosi, 50, of Sudan, reportedly agreed to a secret two-year prison sentence as part of his July 7 guilty plea to supporting and conspiring with al Qaida. | 08/11/10 14:24:29 By - Carol Rosenberg

Khadr wears suit to Guantanamo trial, jury selection begins

Accused Canadian terrorist Omar Khadr came to court Tuesday in a business suit and tie, stood and said "hello'' to a jury pool of American military officers brought to this base from around the world to sit in judgment at his war crimes tribunal. | 08/10/10 13:04:58 By - Carol Rosenberg

Khadr's confessions can be used during Guantanamo trial, judge rules

All of Canadian captive Omar Khadr's confessions to U.S. military interrogators can be used at the accused teen terrorist's trial, including one that followed a tawdry tale of rape, a war court judge ruled Monday to set the stage for the first full war crimes tribunal of the Obama administration. | 08/10/10 07:06:06 By - Carol Rosenberg

Khadr trial will be a window into America's war on terror

Across his eight years in U.S. custody, Americans have seen Canadian Omar Khadr grow from a child found near dead in a war zone in Afghanistan to a brooding, weeping teenager and more recently a defiant young man spurning a guilty plea deal at Guantanamo. While his coming trial must tackle those competing tales, the first full war crimes prosecution of the Obama administration may reveal much more. | 08/07/10 17:09:29 By - Carol Rosenberg

Pentagon may change rules for covering Guantanamo trials

Faced with protests from a number of news organizations, the Pentagon is considering revising the rules it invoked in May to ban four reporters from covering the trials of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. | 08/05/10 19:22:28 By - Lesley Clark

Reporters complain they can't get Guantanamo court records

Reporters covering trials of accused terrorists at Guantanamo on Monday will have their first-ever face-to-face chance to air their complaints about the U.S government's restrictive rules, which journalists say make it nearly impossible for the public to follow the proceedings. | 07/29/10 18:06:50 By - Roy Gutman

Commentary: For reporters, the rules at Guantanamo change daily

Guantanamo is a place the Pentagon likes to call the most transparent detention center on Earth. Hundreds of reporters have visited there, they say, since the first al Qaida suspects arrived eight years ago. They skip the part about how few go back more than once — stymied by the sheer frustration at the rules, the hoops, the time, and the costs of doing basic journalism. | 07/26/10 16:44:23 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo detainees still waiting for day in court

Communal living and small perks have improved conditions for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Navy Base, but many are still waiting for their day in court. | 07/26/10 07:11:44 By - Frances Robles

Another Yemeni ordered released from Guantanamo

A federal judge ordered the immediate release of a Yemeni man who has spent long periods of captivity in the Guantanamo psych ward in split decisions Wednesday that upheld the indefinite detention of another Yemeni. | 07/22/10 00:22:56 By - Carol Rosenberg

Court clears Guantanamo captives for return to Algeria

The U.S. Supreme Court late Friday cleared the way for the repatriations from Guantanamo of two Algerian men who argued they'd be in danger if they were sent home. | 07/17/10 18:11:44 By - Carol Rosenberg

Yemeni captive sent home from Guantanamo

The Pentagon Tuesday bowed to a federal court order and sent a captive home to Yemen -- the first transfer since the Obama administration halted detainee repatriations to the Arabian Peninsula nation over the botched Christmas Day bombing. | 07/13/10 17:46:14 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo detainee Khadr rejects U.S. plea deal

Alleged ex-teen terrorist Omar Khadr said Monday he rejected a U.S. deal that offered him a "Get out of Guantanamo card" in five years if he admitted to committing war crimes in Afghanistan as a 15-year-old. | 07/13/10 07:18:19 By - Carol Rosenberg

Youngest captive at Guantanamo seeks to defend himself

Canadian Omar Khadr was captured eight years ago, nearly dead after a firefight with U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He was 15 and grew into manhood here behind the razor wire. Now, a strapping 23-year-old, he appears before an Army judge Monday to tackle a thorny question: Is Guantanamo's youngest and last Western captive equipped to defend himself on war-crime charges punishable by life in jail? | 07/12/10 00:01:33 By - Carol Rosenberg

U.S. has now lost 75 percent of Guantanamo habeas cases

A federal judge has ordered the release of another Yemeni captive, Hussein Almerfedi, at Guantanamo, the 37th time a war on terror captive in southeast Cuba has won his unlawful detention suit against the U.S. government. | 07/08/10 17:40:10 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo detainee pleads guilty at military commission

Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi, 50, of Sudan, pleaded guilty today to charge of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. He's the first Guantanamo detainee to be convicted of war crimes during the Obama administration and the fourth since the camp was opened in 2002. | 07/07/10 13:14:01 By - Frances Robles

Government loses appeal in Guantanamo habeas case

An appeals court put government prosecutors on notice that they must show evidence that an Algerian detainee held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for more than eight years is actually "part of" al Qaida, or set him free. | 07/02/10 20:00:28 By - Michael Doyle

Pentagon ban on Guantanamo reporters is illegal, news group says

A coalition of major news organizations is challenging as unconstitutional Pentagon rules that were used in May to ban four reporters from covering military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. | 07/02/10 18:43:44 By - Lesley Clark

Guantanamo judge weighs detainee's request for psychologist

A military judge will decide whether a Sudanese detainee who says he's undergone "various methods of interrogation" since 2002 can use an Arabic-speaking psychologist with experience in post-traumatic stress disorder to help him prepare for trial. | 06/30/10 19:07:52 By - Lesley Clark

Guantanamo detainee asks court for a psychologist

A Sudanese man who says he has been subject to "numerous interrogations'' since he arrived here in 2002 will ask a judge Wednesday to appoint a clinical psychologist with experience in post traumatic stress disorders to help him prepare for trial. | 06/30/10 15:52:18 By - Lesley Clark

New prison commander takes over Guantanamo

The Pentagon has installed a new prison camps commander at Guantanamo and brought home Rear Adm. Thomas Copeman III, the admiral who was supposed to be ``the Closer'' for the controversial U.S. Navy base. | 06/28/10 18:06:45 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo plea deal could send bin Laden's cook home

Ibrahim al Qosi has been a prisoner at Guantanamo since 2002. Now negotiations are under way that would allow him to plead guilty and be sent home to Sudan rather than face a possible life sentence for allegedly serving on a Taliban mortar crew. | 06/21/10 16:03:31 By - Carol Rosenberg

Federal judge removes himself from Guantanamo case

Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., took the action at the request of a Guanantamo detainee's attorney who said comments he made to ProPublic showed he would factor his own fears into deciding whether the detainess should be released instead of issuing a verdict based solely on the evidence presented. | 06/17/10 20:05:46 By - Chisun Lee

Pentagon upholds ban on Guantanamo reporters, but offers possibility of return

The Department of Defense said Monday it acted correctly when it barred three journalists, including reporter Carol Rosenberg of McClatchy's Miami Herald, from covering military hearings at Guantanamo Bay. But it said the reporters might be allowed to return if they acknowledged they had violated the rules. | 06/15/10 16:49:18 By -

Federal judge calls Guantanamo inmate's detention 'unlawful'

A federal judge has forcefully put Yemeni citizen Mohammed Mohammed Hassan Odaini on the path to freedom after eight years of incarceration at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. | 06/10/10 15:26:54 By - Michael Doyle

Judge orders Yemeni detainee released in latest Guantanamo habeas decision

The Yemeni is the third detainee ordered released from Guantanamo who was captured in a single 2002 raid. U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr.'s ruling of in the case of Mohammed Hassen, 27, raised to 36 the number of detainees ordered released from Guantanamo under habeas corpus challenges. | 05/26/10 17:31:48 By - Carol Rosenberg

Court: Bagram prisoners don't have Guantanamo habeas rights

A key appellate court on Friday concluded that prisoners held at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan do not have the right to challenge their captivity in U.S. courts as detainees at Guantanamo can. Citing geographic and other differences between the air base in Afghanistan and the naval base in Cuba, the three-judge panel overturned a trial court's conclusion that the Bagram detainees were constitutionally similar to those held in Guantanmo. | 05/21/10 13:22:35 By - Michael Doyle

Change you can believe in? Secrecy still veils Guantanamo hearings

The military commission hearings on Canadian Omar Khadr's claim of abuse at Guantanamo and in Afghanistan opened with a new rule book and closed with the Pentagon banishing four veteran reporters. One of the witnesses was subpoened in secret, six testified under pseudonyms, and security officers closed the court to screen a video that's available on YouTube. Critics say the spectacle underscored that military commissions under Barack Obama are no more transparent than under George W. Bush. | 05/17/10 12:56:34 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo detainees find island homes — this time it may the Maldives

First some freed Guantanamo captives went to Bermuda in the Atlantic. Later, others went to Palau in the Pacific. Now it appears that the Obama administration is poised to send captives cleared for release from the remote prison camps in southeast Cuba to another island nation -- the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean. | 05/15/10 15:23:30 By - Carol Rosenberg

Russian dancer ordered freed in Guantanamo habeas case

A federal court on Thursday ordered the Pentagon to set free from Guantanamo Ravil Mingazov, a former Russian Army ballet dancer turned devout Muslim whose plight captured the imagination of a Massachusetts college town. | 05/14/10 07:52:14 By - Carol Rosenberg

News outlets appeal Pentagon's ban on Guantanamo coverage

Arguing that a Pentagon order banning four journalists from covering military commissions at Guantanamo Bay was illegal and unconstitutional, The Miami Herald and two Canadian news outlets appealed on Wednesday. | 05/13/10 01:23:04 By -

Guantanamo detainee Khadr's trial date set for August

A military judge on Tuesday set Aug. 10 for the opening of Canadian Omar Khadr's terror trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Toronto-born captive has spent a third of his life in the prison camps on suspicion he was a teen terrorist and murderer. | 05/12/10 07:04:03 By - Carol Rosenberg

New trial date set for Guantanamo detainee Khadr

A military judge on Tuesday set Aug. 10 for the opening of Canadian Omar Khadr's terror trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. | 05/11/10 18:22:16 By - Carol Rosenberg

Interrogator says Khadr was told he'd likely be raped in U.S.

Interrogators told a wounded Canadian teenager, held at the U.S. detention center at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, that another Afghan detainee had been gang raped in a U.S. prison after he'd been sent there for not telling the truth, a former Army interrogator told a military court at Guantanamo Thursday. The story was fictitious, but intended to frighten Khadr. | 05/06/10 13:35:04 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo hearing: Ex interrogator felt sorry for Khadr

A former U.S. Army interrogator known to captives at a lockup in Afghanistan as "The Monster'' testified Wednesday that he felt sorry for a gravely wounded, recently captured Omar Khadr because "he was probably in one of the worst places on Earth.'' | 05/05/10 15:31:05 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo hearing: Canadian teen was sedated when questioned

The first person to interrogate 15-year-old Omar Khadr — while he was gravely wounded and lying sedated on a stretcher — was an Army interrogator who was later convicted of detainee abuse, according to testimony Tuesday in a Guantanamo Bay courtroom. | 05/04/10 20:53:41 By - Carol Rosenberg

Medic doesn't recognize Canadian Khadr who was shackled

In a curious twist, the Pentagon called a specially trained Army interrogator to defend the treatment of Canadian captive Omar Khadr in U.S. custody -- and the decorated soldier didn't recognize the accused terrorist Tuesday as he sat in the war court just a few feet away. | 05/04/10 13:54:14 By - Carol Rosenberg

More Guantanamo detainees released abroad

The Pentagon downsized its detention center census to 181 on Tuesday, announcing it had sent a Yemeni captive to Spain for resettlement and another man to the custody of the Bulgarian government. | 05/04/10 13:51:07 By - Carol Rosenberg

Medic at Guantanamo hearing says Khadr chained to door

A former U.S. Army combat medic testified Monday that he once found Canadian teen captive Omar Khadr with his hands chained above eye level to the door of a five-foot-square cage. It was the first testimony by a government witness supporting Khadr's claims that he was abused while in U.S. custody. | 05/03/10 15:20:01 By - Carol Rosenberg

Changes to key Guantanamo evidence innocent, officer says

An Army Special Forces officer testified Saturday that he altered a field report to directly implicate a Canadian detainee now being held at Guantanamo in a fatal grenade attack in Afghanistan years later because he realized that he got it wrong and wanted to fix the historical record. The officer denied suggestions that he changed the report at prosecutors' urging. | 05/01/10 17:34:16 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo court cleared to screen 'secret' YouTube video

The video was of the interrogation of Canadian Omar Khadr and remains classified, even though the Canadian Supreme Court ordered it made public two years ago and it can be seen on YouTube. For the third straight day, Khadr was not in court as U.S. officials determine whether confessions he made were coerced. | 05/01/10 12:55:11 By - Carol Rosenberg

Khadr bomb-making video in dispute during Guantanamo hearing

Alleged teen terrorist Omar Khadr appeared in a grainy video making bombs and reeled off a Who's Who of the al Qaida inner circle for interrogators soon after his capture in Afghanistan, an FBI agent testified in a dramatic day at the war court Thursday. At issue this week is whether the Toronto-born teen voluntarily spoke to interrogators after his capture. Tortured confessions plus those obtained through coercion, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment are forbidden under Barack Obama era reforms of military commissions. | 04/30/10 07:00:34 By - Carol Rosenberg

Khadr refuses to attend Guantanamo hearing

Accused Canadian war criminal Omar Khadr refused to come to his hearing Thursday, complaining that guards were "trying to humiliate" him by clamping blinders over his eyes. Khadr, who claims he was tortured while held as a teen in Afghanistan and Guantanamo, missed the second day of his hearing considering whether his confessions to interrogators years ago were voluntary. | 04/29/10 12:30:32 By - Carol Rosenberg

Key issues unanswered by Guantanamo tribunals manual

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates Tuesday night signed the long-awaited manual just in time for the beginning Wednesday of military commission hearings in the case of Omar Khadr. But the manual, intended to outline the rules of military commissions, had a rushed feel. | 04/28/10 18:37:36 By - Carol Rosenberg

U.S. attorney Bush fired now a Guantanamo prosecutor

For hearings on whether U.S. forces tortured confessions out of a Canadian teenager accused of killing an American soldier in Afghanistan, the Pentagon Monday unveiled a new face to advocate military commissions: Fired former Bush-era prosecutor David Iglesias, a key figure in the so-called Attorney-Gate scandal. He was mobilized last year to the war court as a U.S. Navy Reserves captain. | 04/26/10 15:49:43 By - Carol Rosenberg

Judge dismisses scores of Guantanamo habeas cases

The judge said that because the 105 cases had been filed by Guantanamo captives who've been released or transferred to other countries, there was no need to decide if they'd been held illegally. The decision disappointed defense attorneys, who said a U.S. court decision in their clients' favor would have helped lift the stigma and other restrictions their clients face because of their Guantanamo detention. | 04/09/10 12:35:51 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo judge says detainee's trial won't begin for a year

A Navy judge said Wednesday that it will take her nearly a year to sift through classified evidence before she can begin the military trial of a Sudanese man who's been held at the U.S. prison camp for terrorist suspects since 2002. | 04/07/10 20:45:40 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo war court resumes hearings amid uncertainty

Still operating under Bush-era policies that President Barack Obama last year called "a mess," the Pentagon will resume military commission hearings for accused terrorists Wednesday in a top secret compound originally designed for the trial of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. | 04/06/10 22:36:21 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo gets new commander

The Defense Department has designated a Navy captain for promotion to admiral and assignment as the 10th commander of the prison camps the White House wants closed at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. | 04/01/10 19:16:27 By - Carol Rosenberg

CNN poll: Americans favor keeping Guantanamo open

A CNN poll says U.S. public opinion has eroded — sharply — over President Barack Obama's plan to close the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A clear majority now, 60 percent, according to the poll of some 501 people interviewed March 19-21, favor continuing to operate the prison camps. CNN said the survey questioned a sample of Democrats, Republican and Independents. | 03/30/10 11:23:21 By - Carol Rosenberg

Georgia (the state) doesn't want prisoners from Guantanamo

Just days after the Defense Department released three Guantanamo detainees to the Republic of Georgia, the state of Georgia has weighed in with its own Keep Out notice. | 03/26/10 13:02:13 By - Carol Rosenberg

Obama appoints new chief for war court at Guantanamo

In the clearest sign yet that the Obama administration is re-energizing tribunals for captives at a Guantanamo it wants closed, the Pentagon this week installed a retired three-star admiral with national security and international law experience to run the war court. | 03/25/10 16:02:27 By - Carol Rosenberg

Judge upholds Yemeni's detention at Guantanamo

A federal judge Thursday upheld the Guantanamo detention of a Yemeni who claimed he worked in a medical clinic in Afghanistan during the 2001-2002 U.S. invasion. | 03/25/10 12:08:36 By - Carol Rosenberg

Detainees leave Guantanamo for Switzerland, Republic of Georgia

The United States said Wednesday it sent two Uighur brothers from Guantanamo to start new lives in Switzerland, despite opposition from Beijing over what to do with the Chinese citizens. | 03/24/10 13:02:52 By - Carol Rosenberg

U.S. sends 3 Guantanamo captives to Republic of Georgia

The United States said Tuesday it had sent three Guantanamo detainees to the Republic of Georgia, but declined to name them. | 03/23/10 17:29:29 By - Carol Rosenberg

No dissent in Guantanamo detainee review, Senate told

All U.S. intelligence agencies agreed unanimously on which war-on-terror captives now held at Guantanamo can be let go and which alleged terrorists must be held — with or without trial, President Barack Obama's national intelligence director and attorney general told the Senate on Thursday. | 03/22/10 20:56:53 By - Carol Rosenberg

Judge orders detainee abused at Guantanamo to be freed

A federal judge on Monday ordered the Pentagon to release a long-held Mauritanian captive held at Guantanamo Bay who was once considered such a high-value detainee that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld designated him for "special interrogation techniques." | 03/22/10 19:40:06 By - Carol Rosenberg

Supreme Court dismisses case of Uighurs held at Guantanamo

The Supreme Court on Monday dropped a case filed by Uighur detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in which the Uighurs sought to be brought to the U.S. because no other country would accept them. | 03/01/10 18:25:28 By - Michael Doyle and Carol Rosenberg

Judge orders another Guantanamo detainee freed

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr., ordered the Obama administration to "take all necessary and appropriate diplomatic steps" to free Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman. Kennedy ordered the administration to report back on its progress April 1. Uthman is the 33rd detainee to have successful sued for his release in U.S. federal court. | 02/25/10 13:13:14 By - Carol Rosenberg and Mark Seibel

Judge rules against 2 at Guantanamo that Bush panel cleared for release

A federal judge in Washington on Wednesday ruled that the Pentagon can continue to hold two Yemenis at Guantanamo who had sought release through habeas corpus petitions. Ironically, the Bush administration had cleared the two for release two years ago. | 02/24/10 17:25:27 By - Carol Rosenberg and Mark Seibel

Petraeus backs closing Guantanamo, limits on harsh interrogation

In an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," the top commander for Iraq and Afghanistan says interrogations that conform to the Army Field Manual avoid possile abuses that serve only to recruit more forces for the enemy and that the memory of such incidents never goes away. He said he continued to support closing Guantanamo in a "pragmatic and sensible manner." | 02/22/10 12:03:33 By - Carol Rosenberg

Switzerland takes 2 Uighur brothers held at Guantanamo

The decision brings to a close what perhaps is one of the saddest tales to come from Guantanamo. The Uighur brothers were among 17 Uighurs the Bush administration declared eligible for release in 2008. But no country would accept one of the brothers because he is mentally ill and the other brother would not leave without him. | 02/03/10 19:40:44 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo releases continue: 4 detainees sent to Europe

The release was the second since the White House put on indefinite hold the transfer of Yemenis back to their homeland in light of the Christmas Day near-bombing of a Detroit-bound passenger plane. The nationalities of the four were not announced. Last week, two Algerians were sent home. | 01/25/10 16:32:52 By - Carol Rosenberg

Updated: Where the Guantanamo cases stand now

Over the years, the Pentagon has sworn out military commission charges against 26 detainees at Guantánamo. Here's how those cases stand in early 2010 following Attorney General Eric Holder's Nov. 13, 2009 announcement that five 9/11 conspirators will be prosecuted in civilian court in New York. | 01/07/10 17:33:10 By -

12 Guantanamo detainees freed; captive count at 8-year low

The captives released this week included six Yemenis, four Afghans and two Somali citizens. Their departures from Guantanamo brought the headcount there to 198, the first time the number of suspects at the prison camp for supposed terrorists has dropped below 200 since February, 2002. | 12/19/09 16:49:40 By -

Graham: Thanks for not sending detainees to South Carolina

Sen. Lindsey Graham on Tuesday praised President Barack Obama for heeding his advice to bypass the naval brig in Charleston, S.C., and transfer terror suspects instead to an Illinois prison from the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. | 12/15/09 20:20:51 By - James Rosen

U.S. will move its war court from Guantanamo to Illinois

The White House said Tuesday it will move its war court from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to President Barack Obama's home state of Illinois, but officials could not say how soon or at what cost, and acknowledged they'll need support from Congress to fully implement the transition. | 12/15/09 19:52:59 By - Margaret Talev and Carol Rosenberg

U.S. frees Kuwaiti who judge said was abused at Guantanamo

Military prosecutors accused Fouad al Rabia, 50, of being a key aide to Osama bin Laden at the battle of Tora Bora, the 2001 battle where bin Laden escaped a U.S. cordon. But a federal judge ruled earlier this year that there was no evidence to hold Rabia and that military interrogators knew a confession they'd coerced from him at Guantanamo was false. | 12/09/09 17:19:04 By - Carol Rosenberg

U.S. sends two Guantanamo detainees to Italy for trial

The Pentagon sent two long-held Tunisian captives from Guantanamo to trials in Italy Monday, the Obama administration's first outsourced prosecutions of detainees from the prison camps to a third country. The latest transfers downsized the detainee population at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba to 213 as part of a continuing trend by Europe to assist US. efforts to close the camps. | 11/30/09 19:59:48 By - Carol Rosenberg

Obama's detainee policy chief abruptly quits Pentagon

The Pentagon's top detainee affairs policy appointee has quit the Defense Department just seven months into the job, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday. Phil Carter, a former Army captain and Iraq War veteran, had been an outspoken critic of Bush-era war on terror detention policy as an attorney and blogging commentator. | 11/24/09 19:06:20 By - Carol Rosenberg

Algerian is 31st Guantanamo detainee ordered freed

A federal judge Friday ordered the Obama administration to free a long-held Guantanamo captive who fled his native Algeria years ago and kicked around Europe as a construction worker for a decade before his capture in Pakistan. Judge Gladys Kessler's order to free Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed, 48, is still under seal, so her precise findings have not been made public. | 11/20/09 19:04:27 By - Carol Rosenberg

Here's the current status of proposed military commission cases

Over the years, the Pentagon has sworn out military commission charges against 26 detainees at Guantanamo. Here's how those cases stand after Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement that five 9/11 conspirators will be prosecuted in civilian court in New York. | 11/13/09 18:50:41 By -

White House allies say Obama bungled Guantanamo closing

President Barack Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison by Jan. 22 was followed by a series of mistakes and missteps by his administration that will delay the prison's closure for months, according to a report from a policy organization with close ties to the White House. | 11/11/09 14:40:21 By - Steven Thomma

Need a job? McDonald's has an opening at Guantanamo

McDonald's is advertising for an assistant manager for its sole franchise in Cuba — serving up burgers and fries that sometimes feed detainees at the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay. It didn't specify the salary, but the incentives include half your rent paid and, potentially, tax-free status for year-round residents. | 11/10/09 20:15:42 By - Carol Rosenberg

N.J. man alleges FBI torture threat in Kenyan jail

An American Muslim who was captured while fleeing Somalia in 2007 accused two FBI agents and two other U.S. officials Tuesday of illegally interrogating him and threatening torture while he was allegedly held at U.S. behest in Kenyan and Ethiopian jails. | 11/10/09 19:42:22 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Justice Department won't appeal order to free Guantanamo detainee

A Kuwaiti Airways engineer who the U.S. military has accused of being a key aide to Osama bin Laden has been moved to the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center's minimum-security wing that's reserved for prisoners slated to be released. | 11/03/09 19:44:46 By - Mark Seibel

Guantanamo prisoners to get swine flu vaccine

Even as some Americans await the arrival of their swine flu vaccines, the Pentagon has decided to vaccinate both soldiers and terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. | 10/28/09 17:21:40 By - Carol Rosenberg

So what do troops at Guantanamo think of commander's Nobel?

Here in the land of limbo, the news of President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize landed with more of a whimper than wild enthusiasm among those waging their part in the war on terror. | 10/15/09 00:36:52 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo detainees sent to Kuwait, Belgium

Belgium on Friday became the latest European nation to resettle a freshly released Guantánamo detainee, confirming ``the free man'' would be provided work papers and ``a smooth integration into society.''

State-run Belgian media said the freed captive, who was pointedly not identified, arrived at the military airport in Melsbroek.

A foreign ministry statement urged the media to protect his privacy, noting he was being offered an opportunity to integrate into Belgian society ``after a particularly difficult time in Guantánamo.''

It did not elaborate but emphasized that the former detainee, whose nation of birth was also withheld, had been cleared of charges by a U.S. court.

``He comes to Belgium as a free man, and all the necessary measures for adaptation and rapid integration are being provided,'' it said. Bermuda, France, Ireland and Portugal have also granted resettlement privileges to foreign men once held at the prison camps whom the Obama administration has chosen to let go. Spain and the Pacific island nation of Palau have said they would soon follow.

The latest U.S. military transport mission from the remote Navy base, coupled with Kuwait sending a jet to collect cleared captive Khalid Mutairi, 34, raised to 20 the number of detainees sent from the base this year.

Eighteen were freed. One was sent to New York for trial as an alleged co-conspirator in the East Africa embassies bombing and the 20th committed suicide and his remains were repatriated to Yemen.

It also lowered to 221 the detainee census at the prison camps, of whom the Pentagon's war crimes prosecutor says perhaps 65 might face military trial. Ten are currently charged.

Ambassador Daniel Fried, President Barack Obama's Guantánamo closure czar, has been shuttling between the State Department and Europe, mostly, to find countries to absorb long-held war on terror prisoners that the new administration has concluded are safe enough to let go.

Mutairi went home three months after a federal judge in Washington ruled the Pentagon evidence against him was insufficient to hold him. Defense lawyers said he was inaugurating a Kuwaiti rehabilitation center at the emirate designed to help men jailed for years as jihadists reenter society in the oil-rich emirate.

``The new facility will provide detainees with access to education, medical care, group discussions and physical exercise to help them recover from their long ordeal in Guantánamo,'' said a statement issued by a Kuwaiti support group that announced Mutairi's repatriation.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has likewise cleared fellow Kuwaiti Fouad Rabia, 50, on grounds he was held for years in a case of mistaken identity but the Justice and Defense Department's are still studying his file to decide whether to appeal to another civilian court rather than let him go.

A U.S. Justice Department statement identified Mutairi but withheld the name of the other man freed noting the privacy consideration was at the request of the Government of Belgium.

The transfer to Belgium came one month after a team of experts visited the prison camps in southeast Cuba to interview a candidate for resettlement who had been suggested by the Obama administration.

Spain may be next to receive up to three men freed from Guantanamo. The EFE news agency reported on Thursday that Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero planned to conclude the agreement with Obama during a White House visit next week. | 10/11/09 01:23:08 By - Carol Rosenberg

Graham moves to block Obama from trying 9/11 suspects in U.S.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Friday that he'd attached an amendment to an appropriations bill that would prohibit the Obama administration from spending money on the prosecution and trial of the accused terrorists before U.S. civilian federal judges. | 10/09/09 21:31:15 By - James Rosen

New group of soldiers going to Guantanamo -- for a year

The Puerto Rican National Guard is heading home soon and soldiers from their Virgin Islands and Rhode Island counterparts are mobilizing for yearlong tours at the detention center President Barack Obama said he would shut in January. | 10/07/09 20:24:20 By - Carol Rosenberg

Canadian held at Guantanamo gets two new civilian lawyers

Omar Khadr, a Canadian who's accused of throwing a grenade that killed an American soldier in Afghanistan, will be represented by a pair of former U.S. federal prosecutors -- if he's ever brought to trial. Khadr was only 15 when the alleged attack took place and his new lawyers say they'll argue he was too young to face a war crimes tribunal. | 10/07/09 18:05:23 By - Carol Rosenberg

U.S. admits it has no case against teen held at Guantanamo

The Justice Department conceded Friday that it lacks the evidence to hold a teenage Guantanamo detainee as an enemy combatant after a federal judge last week ruled that his confession was inadmissible. The Afghan government said Mohammed Jawad was 12 years old when he was seized by U.S. troops. | 10/06/09 17:21:35 By - Marisa Taylor

U.S. says it's willing to send young Afghan detainee home

The Obama administration on Wednesday said it plans to release Mohammed Jawad after military and civilian judges banned almost all evidence against him that they ruled was extracted through torture. Government attorneys, however, reserved the right to file new charges in federal court against Mohammed Jawad if they find evidence against him in the next three weeks, he time needed to set him free. | 10/06/09 17:21:09 By - Marisa Taylor

Military officially drops charges against Mohammed Jawad

Pentagon prosecutor Navy Capt. John Murphy notified the military commission that charges were being withdrawn in a one-sentence filing that provided no reason for the dismissal. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle ruled that Jawad was being detained illegally at Guantanamo and ordered the Obama administration to release him by Aug. 21. | 10/06/09 17:20:41 By - McClatchy Newspapers

Attorneys ask that Guantanamo detainee be sent home

Last week, the Justice Department acknowledged it had no evidence that Mohammed Jawad was an enemy combatant. Tuesday, his attorneys asked that he be released and said the Afghan government would provide a plane to take him home. Jawad has been moved to an area reserved for prisoners ready for release, where his attorney said he's "learning to play the Wii." | 10/06/09 17:20:08 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo prisoner detained as teen meets with Karzai

Mohammed Jawad's six-year imprisonment came to symbolize much of what was wrong with the Bush administration's war on terror policies. His confession to throwing a grenade that wounded two American soldiers was ultimately thrown out by a U.S. military judge as coerced by torture. A federal judge last month ordered the U.S. government to release him, saying that without the confession there was no evidence to hold him. His uncle told McClatchy today that no U.S. investigator ever came to talk to him, though his defense attorney came twice. Jawad may have been 14 years old when he was detained. | 10/06/09 17:19:13 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Carol Rosenberg

Probe: Yemeni detainee at Guantanamo committed suicide

A Navy criminal investigation has concluded that a Yemeni man found dead in the Guantanamo prison camps' psychiatric ward in June committed suicide, the detention center commander said Tuesday. It's the fifth suspected suicide at the camp. | 10/06/09 16:59:50 By - Carol Rosenberg

Judge's order to release Kuwaiti detainee puts Obama in a bind

A year ago, an Air Force prosecutor swore out charges of conspiracy and providing material support to a terrorist organization against Fouad al Rabia, a 50-year-old Kuwaiti aviation engineer who was seized by U.S. forces in Afghanistan nearly eight years ago. Now a U.S. district court judge in Washington has ordered him released from the Guantanamo military prison, saying the government has presented no evidence of his guilt. | 10/05/09 17:49:16 By - Carol Rosenberg

Judges siding with detainees in Guantanamo habeas cases

Fifteen months after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuked the Bush administration by ruling that Guantanamo captives can sue for their freedom, civilian judges have ordered the release of 29 detainees and sided with the Defense Department only seven times. There are still scores of cases to be decided, but if the trend holds, it suggests that Guantanamo isn't holding just the "worst of the worst." | 10/05/09 17:52:01 By - Carol Rosenberg

4 prosecutors vie to try 9/11 suspects in civilian courts

Four different civilian prosecutors' offices — two in New York, two near the Pentagon — are studying whether to charge and put on trial five alleged 9/11 conspirators. The Pentagon's chief war crimes prosecutor revealed the behind-the-scenes rivalry in comments to reporters at Guantanamo, where the suspects are currently being held. | 10/05/09 17:49:58 By - Carol Rosenberg

U.S. releases 3 Guantanamo prisoners to Yemen, Ireland

Even as the White House left doubt on whether it would meet its own prison camps closure deadline, the Obama administration said Saturday it had freed three detainees from Guantánamo — one by order of a federal judge to Yemen, two others for new lives in Ireland. | 09/27/09 01:13:57 By - Carol Rosenberg

U.S. says some Uighurs soon to leave Guantanamo

In a letter to the Supreme Court, the solicitor general said six Guantanamo detainees from China have accepted an offer from the Pacific island nation of Palau to resettle there. The court is considering whether to hear a case that could undercut the government's ability to hold prisoners that judges have ordered freed. | 09/24/09 20:08:56 By - Michael Doyle and Marisa Taylor

Algerian seized with Abu Zubaydah loses habeas case

A federal judge has upheld as lawful the indefinite detention of an Algerian accused of being an al Qaeda bomb maker, raising the tally of U.S. government victories in Guantanamo habeas corpus lawsuits to eight. The government has lost in 30 other cases. Sufiyan Barhoumi, 36, was arrested in a Pakistan safe house along with Abu Zubaydah, the first CIA secret detainee to undergo waterboarding. | 09/24/09 14:59:43 By - Carol Rosenberg

Alleged 9/11 mastermind given copy of My Lai massacre film

War court prosecutor Robert Swann said Monday that he'd arranged for alleged al Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheik Mohammed to get a copy of Judgment: The Court Martial of Lt. William Calley, a 1975 docudrama about an American Army officer held responsible for the murder of Vietnamese civilians by a squad of U.S. soldiers. | 09/21/09 20:29:38 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo judge delays 9/11 cases; civilian trials pondered

The military judge overseeing the 9/11 mass murder case on Monday approved a 60-day delay in the proceedings to give the Obama administration time to decide whether to try the cases in U.S. civilian courts. On Sunday, the military's chief prosecutor said four U.S. attorneys in the United States are vying for the right to try the suspects. | 09/21/09 16:43:23 By - Carol Rosenberg

Yet another Kuwaiti at Guantanamo is ordered freed

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly late Thursday ordered the Obama administration to released Fouad al Rabia, a 50-year-old Kuwaiti aeronautics engineer who's been held at Guantanamo since 2002. He is the 30th detainee ordered released since prisoners at the U.S. detention center in Cuba won the right to challenge their imprisonment in U.S. civilian courts. | 09/17/09 23:35:37 By - Carol Rosenberg

Administration defends military commissions but wants delay in hearings

The Obama administration Wednesday broadly defended as constitutional its predecessor's format for military commissions at Guantanamo but said it would seek to delay next week's sanity hearings in a Sept. 11 case while it revamps its war on terror prosecution strategy. | 09/16/09 17:30:50 By - Carol Rosenberg

Algerians, freed from Guantanamo, still paying the price

In 2001, the Bosnian government, at the insistence of American officials, arrested six Algeria-born Bosnians and accused them of plotting to bomb the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo. Despite a Bosnian investigation that found no evidence for the charge, the six were turned over to U.S. authorities who flew them to Guantanamo. Now, five of the six have been released. But their lives have hardly returned to normal. | 09/10/09 06:00:00 By - Seema Jilani, M.D.

New photos emerge of alleged 9/11 plotter at Guantanamo

Pictures of accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his nephew posing for Red Cross delegates this summer at Guantanamo turned up on the Web Wednesday, offering a rare glimpse into life inside the prison's secret Camp 7 just days ahead of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The pictures were taken in July under an agreement that lets Red Cross delegates photograph detainees and send photos to family members. | 09/09/09 11:00:58 By - Carol Rosenberg

Read the rulings in the decided cases

Here are the rulings issued so far in habeas corpus cases filed by detainees at Guantanamo Bay. | 09/07/09 22:05:47 By - Carol Rosenberg

Belgium offers asylum to Guantanamo detainee

Belgium on Friday became the latest European country to offer asylum to a Guantanamo Bay detainee, announcing that it would resettle a captive now at the prison camps who has been cleared of prosecution by a U.S. court. | 09/04/09 17:44:07 By - Carol Rosenberg

Pentagon lawyers: First Amendment protects Al Qaida propaganda

Pentagon defense lawyers this week appealed the war crimes conviction of Osama bin Laden's media secretary at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on free speech grounds. They argued that filmmaker Ali Hamza al Bahlul of Yemen was simply exercising his First Amendment rights when he spliced together footage of fiery Osama bin Laden speeches into a recruiting film. | 09/02/09 17:04:31 By - Carol Rosenberg

Judge rules U.S. detention of Kuwaiti at Guantanamo is legal

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Ketelly's ruling that Fawzi al Odah was in fact an al Qaida foot soldier when he was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and therefore can be held legally as an enemy combatant is a rare victory for the government in habeas hearings. So far, judges have ordered the release 29 Guantanamo prisoners, while endorsing the continued detention of only seven. | 09/01/09 12:46:12 By - Carol Rosenberg

Court documents name detainees sent to Portugal

The two Guantanamo detainees sent to Portugal last week were a Syrian man whose father is still held at the prison camps and a former Syrian Army recruit once accused of joining forces with Afghanistan's Taliban militia, according to court documents made public Monday. | 08/31/09 12:41:38 By - Carol Rosenberg

U.S. sends two Syrians from Guantanamo to Portugal

The U.S. government has sent two Syrian men -- who had been held for years as war on terror captives at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo -- to Portugal for resettlement, the Justice Department announced Friday. | 08/28/09 19:10:15 By - Carol Rosenberg

Army judge: 9/11 lawyers can't see CIA 'black sites'

A military judge says defense lawyers for an alleged Sept. 11 plotter held at Guantanamo don't need to inspect secret CIA overseas prisons to determine whether the accused al Qaeda terrorist is competent to stand trial. | 08/25/09 14:20:25 By - Carol Rosenberg

Shackles and blindfold for freed detainee on his way home

A young Afghan held for six years at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rejoined his family in southern Kabul late Monday, ending an odyssey that came to symbolize many of the problems of the Bush administration's war on terror detention policies. Mohammed Jawad arrived in Afghanistan shackled and blindfolded, his lawyer said, but ended the day being hugged by relatives after meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He was ordered released by a U.S. judge. | 08/24/09 19:03:54 By - Jonathan S. Landay, Hashim Shukoor and Carol Rosenberg

Judge orders another Guantanamo detainee released

The Yemeni father of two is the 29th Guantanamo detainee ordered freed by a U.S. federal judge after a habeas hearing. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled that the government didn't have enough evidence to hold Mohammed al Adahi, who'd been jailed at Guantanamo since 2002. She ordered the government to immediately notify Congress as required by law that he was being released. | 08/18/09 18:22:44 By - Carol Rosenberg

Canada court says its officials knew U.S. abused detainee

Canada must seek the immediate return of Toronto-born Guantanamo captive Omar Khadr rather than await the outcome of his U.S. military trial because American troops mistreated the alleged teen terrorist and Canadian officials knew about it, Canada's appeals court ruled Friday. The order effectively instructs the Canadian government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to intervene in the case before Khadr is tried by military commission. | 08/14/09 14:07:23 By - Carol Rosenberg

Will Michigan prison become Guantanamo alternative?

Demonstrating that it's still determined to bring Guantamamo captives to U.S. soil, the Obama administration has sent a team to inspect a remote maximum-security prison in Michigan as a potential alternative to its prison camps in Cuba. The team from the Pentagon, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security and the Bureau of Prisons will look at the facility in Standish, 145 miles northwest of Detroit, on Thursday. | 08/12/09 19:09:34 By - Carol Rosenberg

Judge: 9/11 plotter's counsel can't know how CIA treated him

U.S. military defense lawyers for accused 9/11 conspirator Ramzi bin al Shibh cannot learn what interrogation techniques CIA agents used on the Yemeni before he was moved to Guantanamo to be tried as a terrorist, an Army judge has ruled. | 08/10/09 14:47:47 By - Carol Rosenberg

Civilian trials won't be cake walks for Guantanamo detainees

Trying Guantanamo detainees in U.S. courts could prove to be a prosecutor's nightmare, haunted by allegations of torture, tainted evidence and compromised witnesses. Nevertheless, as U.S. attorneys in New York, Virginia and Washington consider whether to charge some terrorism suspects in U.S. courts, they may find comfort in their own past success. | 08/07/09 19:21:10 By - Marisa Taylor

Portugal to resettle 2 Syrians from Guantanamo

Portugal announced Friday that it will resettle two Syrian men now held as detainees at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, following France and Ireland in the humanitarian gesture. | 08/07/09 12:50:23 By - Carol Rosenberg

Kansas GOP senators step up efforts to keep detainees out

Kansas Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts have stepped up their battle to block the Obama administration from possibly moving detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Fort Leavenworth, Kan. | 08/06/09 19:26:42 By - David Goldstein

Michigan might be open to Guantanamo detainees

Leavenworth County may be the prison capital of the United States, but don't expect leaders to roll out the welcome mat for Guantanamo Bay detainees. But in Michigan, a community desperate to keep a state prison from closing isn't as quick to dismiss the concept. | 08/04/09 06:16:03 By - Dawn Bormann and Mark Wiebe

Brownback: Kansas doesn't want Guantanamo detainees

Led by Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, national, state and local leaders came together in Leavenworth, Kan., Monday to once again oppose transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Fort Leavenworth. "We don't want them here," Brownback said. | 08/03/09 15:23:30 By - Dan Bormann

Defense attorneys proving key to Guantanamo resettlement

Defense attorneys who fought the Bush administration tooth-and-nail on its detention policies are now emerging as key partners in the effort to resettle prisoners from Guantanamo. Long before Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle ordered the U.S. government to free a young Afghan named Mohammed Jawad, his military lawyers arranged with UNICEF and the Afghan Human Rights Commission to get him education and support, once back home with his mother. | 08/02/09 09:27:36 By - Carol Rosenberg

Judge orders Afghan teen home after years at Guantanamo

A young Guantanamo detainee appears likely to be sent home by late August after a federal judge concluded Thursday that he'd been held illegally and ordered him released after almost seven years. U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle said she wanted him on his way home by Aug. 21. | 07/30/09 16:31:25 By - Marisa Taylor

9/11 victims' families: Don't close Guantanamo

Heartbroken relatives of 9/11 attack victims have emerged as a key constituency in the campaign to stop Obama from making good on his Jan. 22 executive order to empty the prison camps and revise the controversial military trials within a year. | 07/20/09 22:50:20 By - Carol Rosenberg

Five 9/11 terror suspects boycott Guantanamo hearing

All five alleged co-conspirators in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks boycotted a pretrial hearing Thursday morning, frustrating prosecutors and denying kin of victims a chance to see the men in the flesh. | 07/16/09 18:40:35 By - Carol Rosenberg

'Support for terrorism' charges in dispute at Guantanamo

Defense attorneys asked a judge to dismiss a charge of material support for terrorism against an accused terrorist held at Guantanamo, saying the Obama administration appears to have determined that the crime isn't a traditional war crime and can't be prosecuted in a military court. | 07/15/09 19:01:35 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo war court resumes hearings despite Obama-imposed delay

The Pentagon plunged forward Wednesday with pretrial hearings against eight detainees in its beleaguered war court system with challenges to both the ongoing terror prosecutions and their remote state-of-the-art technology. | 07/15/09 14:19:05 By - Carol Rosenberg

Fearful Guantanamo captive wants to stay behind

Even as the White House pledges to empty the prison camps at Guantanamo, a 30-year-old prisoner is so afraid of returning to his native Tajikistan that he is asking to stay at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba. | 07/07/09 20:06:16 By - Carol Rosenberg

Obama officials may prefer civilian trials for 9/11 plotters

The Obama administration has not yet decided where to try those accused of involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks who are now held at Guantanamo Bay, government lawyers told a Senate committee on Tuesday. The fact that the 9/11 attacks targeted civilians inside the continental United States argues for a civlian trial, said one. | 07/07/09 15:39:04 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo sends 3 more detainees to Saudi Arabia

The Pentagon sent three Guantanamo detainees to Saudi Arabia on Friday, capping a week of far-flung transfers that the Obama administration said signaled global cooperation in its effort to close the controversial prison camps in southeast Cuba. | 06/12/09 20:05:06 By -

Congress won't try to keep Guantanamo detainees out of U.S. — for now

Congressional negotiators have agreed to drop an amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would have prevented the Obama administration from releasing any freed Guantanamao detainees into the United States or transferring them to U.S. prisons for trial. They also agreed not to ban the release of photos of detainee abuse after Obama promised to continue to oppose the photos' publication. | 06/12/09 13:31:01 By - David Lightman

Dead detainee sent from Guantanamo to Yemen

Still mum on the circumstances of the death, the United States on Thursday sent to Yemen the autopsied remains of a long-held detainee at Guantánamo who the military said committed suicide in his cell. | 06/05/09 14:30:33 By - Carol Rosenberg

Senate Democrats postpone funds to shut Guantanamo

Senate Democrats, under pressure from Republicans eager to brand them as ready to release terrorists into America's backyards, prepared Tuesday to strip $80 million for closing the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, out of a war-spending bill. | 05/19/09 19:17:46 By - William Douglas and David Lightman

GOP ratchets up debate over release of Gitmo detainees

Republicans on Thursday amped up opposition to President Barack Obama's plan to close the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay, even as Attorney General Eric Holder sought to reassure senators that the United States won't release anyone it considers a terrorist. | 05/07/09 18:06:37 By - Lesley Clark

Detainee who won Guantanamo habeas case to go to France

Lakhdar Boumediene, 43, was arrested along with five other Algerians in 2001 in Bosnia, suspected in a bomb attack plot against the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo. But he's best known for being the named plaintiff in the case that led the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that detainees held at Guantanamo have the right to challenge their imprisonment in U.S. courts. | 05/06/09 15:41:23 By -

First hearing since Obama took office set for Guantanamo

Shortly after he was inaugurated, Obama asked for and received a 120-day delay in military commission hearings against suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo. With that delay soon to expire, the military commission's chief judge has scheduled a hearing for May 27. | 05/06/09 15:03:14 By - Carol Rosenberg

House Democrats won't give Obama funds to close Gitmo

The Obama administration's bid for $50 million to move prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility was left out of the Democratic-authored emergency war spending bill unveiled Monday. Spokesmen explained there were two problems: The Pentagon has no policy in place yet for using the money, and Republicans as well as skeptical Democrats were likely to block the whole spending bill if the Guantanamo funds were included. | 05/04/09 18:21:11 By - David Lightman

McConnell asks more scrutiny of Guantanamo closing costs

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky used a Senate floor speech on Tuesday to urge more transparency in the Obama administration's plans to empty the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, something he's opposed to doing. Obama's supplemental defense spending requests includes $81 million in money for closing the detention center. | 04/21/09 16:34:18 By - Carol Rosenberg

No decisions yet on relocation of Guantanamo detainees

The Obama administration said Monday it has made no decisions on how many of the 240 or so Guantanamo detainees will be moved to U.S. soil, and whether they will be scattered around lockups throughout the United States or concentrated in one place. | 04/13/09 13:10:37 By - Carol Rosenberg

Judge: U.S. hid witness's mental illness in Guantanamo cases

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that the Justice Department improperly withheld important psychiatric records of a government witness who was used in a "significant" number of cases against Guantanamo detainees. One of those cases was that of a Yemeni doctor who the Justice Department announced last week it would no longer try to detain. Sullivan called the Guantanamo cases a "travesty" and "a horror story." | 04/06/09 19:17:28 By - Marisa Taylor

McClatchy wins investigative award for Guantanamo series

A McClatchy series on detainee abuse at U.S. prison facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan on Tuesday tied for top honors as the best newspaper investigative report of last year. | 04/01/09 03:50:44 By - McClatchy Newspapers

U.S. officials meeting with Uighur detainees in Guantanamo

A team of lawyers from the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. immigration enforcement, and the Department of State is in Guantanamo to meet with 17 Uighurs imprisoned at the detention center for suspected terrorists. Last fall, a federal judge in Washington, saying there was no evidence they were terrorists, ordered them released and granted asylum in the United States. | 03/31/09 19:01:13 By - Carol Rosenberg

Guantanamo detainee to go free after Obama-ordered review

Ayman Batarfi, a Yemeni surgeon, was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 and accused of treating al Qaida wounded at Tora Bora. But his lawyers said he was simply a humanitarian worker caught up in fighting. On Monday, the Obama administration agreed, telling a federal judge in Washington that the U.S. would no longer argue for Batarfi's detention and instead would arrange for his release from Guantanamo. | 03/30/09 19:03:56 By - Carol Rosenberg

Help wanted: Pentagon seeks lawyers to defend detentions

Even as the Obama administration has dropped the term ''enemy combatant'' in reshaping its war-on-terror policy and ordered the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo, the Pentagon is advertising for lawyers to fight habeas corpus motions filed in federal court by the 200-plus captives still held in Cuba. The positions are based in Washington, D.C. | 03/28/09 08:15:42 By - Carol Rosenberg

Obama's new detainee policy: Break from Bush, or the same?

The Obama administration on Friday abandoned two key aspects of the Bush administration's policies on suspected terrorists, including the term "enemy combatant," setting off a wide debate over the status of prisoners who are detained at the Guantanamo Bay. | 03/13/09 17:27:34 By - William Douglas and Carol Rosenberg

Obama: Moving Guantanamo inmates won't harm U.S. towns

President Barack Obama noted that U.S. prisons already hold convicted terrorists and that the decision of where to put detainees now held at Guantanamo would include avoiding "a situation that elevated the risks for surrounding communities." | 03/11/09 18:54:38 By - David Goldstein

Guantanamo detainee arrives in Britain, renews torture claims

Binyam Mohamed, a gaunt-looking, bearded man wearing a cream sweater, white tennis shoes and a white skullcap, stepped off a chartered jet at a British air base Monday after a 10-hour trip from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, closing a dark chapter in his life that he claims included torture. | 02/23/09 17:48:02 By - Julie Sell

An Air Force lawyer fights to free a Guantanamo inmate

A U.S. military lawyer blitzed London this week, calling for the immediate release of her client, who allegedly was trained in an al Qaida terrorist camp, from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. | 02/13/09 16:23:21 By - Julie Sell

Brits say U.S. has vowed quick review of Guantanamo case

A former British resident who has been on hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay prison since December 29th is now a “priority” case for review by the Obama administration and could return to Britain soon, Britain's Foreign Secretary said Wednesday. | 02/11/09 15:50:00 By - Julie Sell

More accuse Britain in torture of Guantanamo detainee

Despite years of denials, new questions are being raised about Britain's possible involvement in the torture of a detainee now on a prolonged hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. | 02/10/09 18:25:37 By - Julie Sell

Admiral begins Guantanamo review Obama ordered

A fact-finding team led by a senior Navy official was on the ground at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Wednesday, checking the prison camps' compliance with the Geneva Conventions by order of President Barack Obama. | 02/04/09 15:51:57 By - Carol Rosenberg

Next step unclear as judge defies Obama on Guantanamo

The chief judge of the Guantanamo war court Thursday spurned a presidential request to freeze the military commissions for 120 days, saying he would go forward with next month's arraignment of an alleged USS Cole bomber in a capital terror case. The judge said the request would deny the public's interest in a speedy trial. | 01/29/09 18:21:51 By - Carol Rosenberg

With Guantanamo closing, where will the detainees go?

If not Guantanamo, then where? Anything but a welcoming party is forming at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. When President Barack Obama signed an order Thursday forcing the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention center within a year, he put in sharp relief the possibility that some of the world's most potentially dangerous terror suspects could be hauled to the military's maximum security facility in Kansas. | 01/22/09 19:20:06 By - Scott Canon and David Goldstein

Detainees could end up in South Carolina

Obama's decrees Thursday on the detention and interrogation of accused terrorists increase the likelihood that some detainees now held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will be moved to South Carolina in a year or less. | 01/22/09 18:58:54 By - James Rosen

Obama to sign order next week to close Guantanamo prison

President-elect Barack Obama will sign an executive order in his first week in office that sets in motion the closure of the Guantanamo Bay military prison, the highest-profile symbol of the Bush administration's detention policies, two individuals familiar with Obama's thinking said on Monday. | 01/13/09 08:17:25 By - Jonathan S. Landay

Bush calls Coast Guardsman at Guantanamo to thank him

President-elect Barack Obama has vowed to close it. The international community has condemned it. On Christmas Eve, however, when it came time for him to wish some American service members a Merry Christmas for his last time in office, President George W. Bush rang up a North Carolina man who's assigned to the military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. | 12/26/08 17:46:37 By - Carol Rosenberg and David Lightman

Gates orders development of plans to close Guantanamo

The Defense Department is drawing up plans to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison in anticipation that one of President-elect Barack Obama's first acts will be ordering the closure of the detention center associated with the abuse of terror suspects. | 12/18/08 19:52:28 By - Jonathan S. Landay and Margaret Talev

Some detained Yemenis guilty, some aren't, attorneys say

Attorneys for dozens of Yemenis held at Guantanamo Bay say that the prisoners range from "high-value" terrorism suspects to people who were mistakenly arrested, and they include a number who apparently were jailed because they're related to other suspects. | 12/18/08 20:01:38 By - Shashank Bengali

Obama detainees pledge raises concerns in South Carolina

South Carolina lawmakers are mobilizing against the possible transfer of terrorist suspects from the Guantanamo Bay military prison to the Charleston naval brig under President-elect Barack Obama's pledge to close the controversial U.S. facility in Cuba. | 12/18/08 20:04:03 By - James Rosen

Obama's biggest Guantanamo dilemma may lie in Yemen

Barack Obama has pledged to close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But he faces a major obstacle: Yemen. The largest group of prisoners still being held at Guantanamo are Yemenis. For them to go home, the Bush administration wants the Yemeni government to agree to keep them in jail. The Yemeni government has refused. Will Obama insist on the same? | 12/18/08 20:02:50 By - Shashank Bengali

Guantanamo jury sentences al Qaida video-maker to life

A military jury Monday convicted Osama bin Laden's media secretary of war crimes for creating an al Qaeda recruiting video that prosecutors argued incited suicide bombers. Within hours, the jury sentenced him to life in prison. | 12/18/08 20:03:13 By - Carol Rosenberg

Judge orders release of 5 Guantanamo detainees

A federal judge ordered the speedy release Thursday of five Algerian men held for nearly seven years in Guantanamo Bay prison. One of those ordered released is Lakhdar Boumediene, whose appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court became the underpinning of a 5-4 decision that gave Guantanamo prisoners the right to challenge their detention in court. | 12/18/08 20:02:26 By - Marisa Taylor

New Guantanamo chief judge warns of change with Obama

Army Col. James Pohl, who presided over the courts martial of several guards in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, was named the new chief judge for military commissions at Guantanamo on Monday. He warned participants there that while Obama might change military commissions, they need to remain focused on what they are doing for now. | 12/18/08 20:01:59 By - Carol Rosenberg

Senate probe blames top Bush officials for abuses

Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top officials were responsible for the use of "abusive" interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay, in Afghanistan and at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, a bipartisan Senate report concluded Thursday. | 12/11/08 16:26:10 By - Roy Gutman and Jonathan S. Landay