MISCELLANEOUS NEWS REPORTS * 2003.11.18 to 2003.11.30 misc_digest_2003_6b.txt * Aljazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage * Associated Press (AP): http://www.ap.org/ * Inter Press Service (IPS): http://ipsnews.net/ * Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/ * ABC News (Aus): http://www.abc.net.au/news/ * BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/ * CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/ * CNN: http://www.cnn.com/ * The Age (Melbourne): http://www.theage.com.au/ * Baltimore Sun: http://www.sunspot.net/ * Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/ * Dawn (Islamabad): http://www.dawn.com/ * The Guardian (UK): http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/ * Toronto Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/ * The Independent (UK): http://www.independent.co.uk/ * Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/ * The Mirror (UK): http://www.mirror.co.uk/ * The Observer (UK): http://www.observer.co.uk/ * Newsweek: http://www.msnbc.com/news/NW-front_Front.asp * San Francisco Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/news/ * Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/ * The Telegraph (UK): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ * The Times (UK): http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ ================================================================================ November 30, 2003 PATRIOT ACT AUTHOR HAS CONCERNS Detaining citizens as 'enemy combatants' -- a policy not spelled out in the act -- is flawed, the legal scholar says. By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer http://www.latimes.com/la-na-justice30nov30,1,632079.story WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department's war on terrorism has drawn intense scrutiny from the left and the right. Now, a chief architect of the USA Patriot Act and a former top assistant to Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft are joining the fray, voicing concern about aspects of the administration's anti-terrorism policy. At issue is the government's power to designate and detain "enemy combatants," in particular in the case of "dirty bomb" plot suspect Jose Padilla, the Brooklyn-born former gang member who was picked up at a Chicago airport 18 months ago by the FBI and locked in a military brig without access to a lawyer. Civil liberties groups and others contend that Padilla -- as an American citizen arrested in the U.S. -- is being denied due process of law under the Constitution. Viet Dinh, who until May headed the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, said in a series of recent speeches and in an interview with The Times that he thought the government's detention of Padilla was flawed and unlikely to survive court review. The principal intellectual force behind the Patriot Act, the terror-fighting law enacted by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Dinh has steadfastly defended the Justice Department's anti-terrorism efforts against charges that they have led to civil-rights abuses of immigrants and others. While the Patriot Act does not speak to the issue of enemy combatants, his remarks still caught some observers by surprise. In an interview, Dinh, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said the Padilla case was not within his line of authority when he was in the department, but that he began to think about the issue later, and came to the conclusion that the administration's case was "unsustainable." Another top former Justice Department official, Michael Chertoff, who headed the department's criminal division, has said he believed the government should reconsider how it designates enemy combatants. "Two years into the war on terror, it is time to move beyond case-by-case development," Chertoff said, according to an excerpt from a speech he gave last month at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill law school. "We need to debate a long-term and sustainable architecture for the process of determining when, why and for how long someone may be detained as an enemy combatant, and what judicial review should be available," he said. Chertoff, a federal appeals court judge, also mentioned at a judicial conference in Philadelphia this month the need to reexamine procedures for combatants. "Inevitably, decisions of war are made with imperfect information," he said. "Perhaps the time has come to take a more universal approach." Chertoff emphasized in an interview that he wasn't venturing an opinion on the Padilla case, which is being litigated in the federal courts, or criticizing the decisions that the government has made to date in the case. The comments by Dinh and Chertoff offer some of the first public utterances by Justice Department officials who stood watch in the weeks and months after Sept. 11 on how they felt about the work done by them and their colleagues. The comments also illustrate the uncharted legal terrain they and others were operating under. Mark Corallo, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to comment on the remarks by the former officials, citing the fact that the Padilla case is pending in court. The department has staunchly defended its anti-terrorism record and its use of the tools in the Patriot Act, portions of which have been attacked as an abuse of government power by groups as diverse as the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Conservative Union. Dinh first flagged his concerns in a speech he gave in September at a human rights conference in The Hague sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He reiterated them this month during a panel discussion with Chertoff and others on national security and civil liberties at the conference in Philadelphia. "The person next to me said, 'My God. He is saying that the Padilla case is wrong!' " said Philip Heymann, a Harvard Law School professor who also sat on the panel in Philadelphia and who agrees that the administration view in the case is wrongheaded. "There has to be some form of judicial review and access to a lawyer," said Heymann, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration. "That is what habeas corpus was all about. That is what the Magna Carta was all about. You are talking about overthrowing 800 years of democratic tradition." In the interview, Dinh said he believed the president had the unquestioned authority to detain persons during wartime, even those captured on "untraditional battlefields," including on American soil. He also said the president should be given flexibility in selecting the forum and circumstances -- such as a military tribunal or an administrative hearing -- in which the person designated an enemy combatant can confront the charges against him. The trouble with the Padilla case, Dinh said, is that the government hasn't established any framework for permitting Padilla to respond, and that it seems to think it has no legal duty to do so. "The president is owed significant deference as to when and how and what kind of process the person designated an enemy combatant is entitled to," Dinh said. "But I do not think the Supreme Court would defer to the president when there is nothing to defer to. There must be an actual process or discernible set of procedures to determine how they will be treated." Padilla was arrested at O'Hare International Airport on May 8, 2002, after arriving on a flight from Pakistan. Initially, he was taken to New York and held as a "material witness," presumably to testify against others. The following month, he was transferred to a military prison in South Carolina after Ashcroft announced that the government had determined that he was part of an unfolding terrorist plot to explode a radioactive dispersion device, or so- called dirty bomb. Padilla's lawyers subsequently filed a writ of habeas corpus saying that he was being illegally held. The Justice Department responded by saying that the detention was a proper exercise of the president's wartime powers. A decision is pending before a federal appeals court in New York. * * * Toronto Star: November 30, 2003 KHADR BACK IN TORONTO Canadian diplomats in Sarajevo issued him travel documents, CBC reports From Canadian Press Abdulrahman Khadr returned to Toronto during the weekend after a trip that took him from a U.S. jail in Cuba for terrorist suspects to Afghanistan, to across much of Europe looking for help from Canadian embassy officials, CBC-TV's Sunday Report said today. He told the CBC he walked into the Canadian Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia last week and was given a special permit to return to Canada. Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was accompanied on his trip to Toronto by a consular official and is believed to have arrived early today. He was released in secret last month by U.S. authorities at Guantanamo Bay where he had been held without charges for nine months as a terrorist suspect. Khadr's case hit the headlines this week when word broke that he'd been released from the prison camp where he'd been held without charges as an "enemy combatant." While the family insisted he had been desperately trying to get back to Canada, the federal government said there was no truth to claims he's been turned away by Canadian officials in Pakistan and Turkey. Khadr insisted he was turned away in Pakistan. He said that when he was released, American authorities refused to take him to Canada and flew him instead to Afghanistan, where he was originally captured during the hunt for terrorist suspects, and dropped off without a Canadian passport or money. He said he borrowed money from friends and went to the Canadian High Commission in Islamabad, Pakistan looking for help. Khadr said they asked him for identity documents. "I told them I don't have anything, because I don't and they just says leave," he told the CBC. Khadr then went to Iran and Turkey before arriving late last week in Bosnia. "I am happy to be back in Canada for every reason," he said shortly after arriving at Pearson International Airport. He would not talk about his time in jail, but said he was captured only because he had a gun, which is commonplace in war-torn Afghanistan. "Why was I captured? Because I was armed. That was the only reason I was captured in Kabul. There was nothing against me. There was nothing against until this day, anywhere. Afghanistan, anywhere. That's why I was released, after two years of my life being wasted." * * * Time Magazine: November 30, 2003 INSIDE "THE WIRE" Security breaches. Suicidal detainees. A legal challenge heading to the Supreme Court. Welcome to Guantanamo By Nancy Gibbs with Viveca Novak in Guantanamo Next to the alternatives, Camp Four is paradise. Real, colored prayer rugs, thicker mattresses, pillows even, and soccer shoes. Pure-white clothes instead of glaring catch-me-you-if-you-can orange. A librarian comes around with books, and lunch is on picnic tables, family style. This is where the prisoners get to come if they are good, meaning well behaved and fruitful in their interrogations. "We try to sell this place," says Army Colonel Jerry Cannon, a National Guard member who in his other life is the sheriff of Kalkaska County, Mich. Military interrogators mention Camp Four to the prisoners, who get a glimpse of it as they pass it on their way to the hospital or elsewhere. It is one more step toward the day when some of the detainees might actually get out for good. That goal is reinforced by Arabic posters in the exercise yards, like the one full of children's faces. Loosely translated, it reads, Dad, how can I grow up without you? Of course, how to get out of the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is as great a mystery as the place itself. Escape is a long shot. The base is a prison, and a jewelry box. "You can't be too careful protecting this enormously valuable intelligence trove," says Army General Geoffrey Miller, commander of the joint task force that runs the detainee operation on the 45- square-mile. base. And so there are constant perimeter patrols by infantry squads in full battle gear, and visitors get turned inside out before they're allowed anywhere near the cellblocks. Getting out legally doesn't seem much easier. The detainees -- 660 suspects from 44 countries, scooped up in the war on terrorism -- cannot challenge their arrests or plead their cases or even talk to a lawyer, because the U.S. government denies that they have those rights. They are not U.S. citizens, and the base, while under total U.S. control, is not on American soil; since 1903, it has been leased from Cuba for 2,000 gold coins a year, now valued at $4,085, in perpetuity. That leaves one last exit strategy when desperation takes hold. According to military officials, there have been 32 suicide attempts in 18 months, at least one of which left a man in a coma. (Cannon calls the attempts "manipulative behavior.") Former detainees say in most cases the prisoner made a noose out of clothes or sheets and tried to hang himself from the cell bars; one, they say, tried to slit his throat with a knife he had made from metal. "Whenever we saw someone trying to kill themselves," says Ghazi Salahuddin, a detainee from Pakistan released in July, "we would all shout, attracting the attention of the guards." The new mental-health clinic on the base is usually close to full. Though U.S. officials have released some inmates deemed harmless, new ones are still arriving, with about 20 coming and going last week. Amid a global argument about their rights, the Supreme Court recently agreed to decide whether the captives at Guantanamo can at least challenge their detention in federal court. But in the meantime, however great the outcry from allies and human-rights groups, the U.S. military, along with the White House and the Justice Department, has not retreated from an unprecedented approach to prisoners captured in an unprecedented war. If you are a government hungry for clues about the enemies' plans, one problem with the Geneva Convention governing treatment of traditional prisoners of war is that it includes strict rules limiting interrogation. So these detainees are called "enemy combatants," and there is no field manual outlining the rules for handling them. Inmates arrive with no knowledge of how long they will stay, facing the possibility of trial by a military tribunal whose procedures have yet to be tested, on charges that have yet to be revealed and that carry sentences that may depend on not just what crimes they committed but what country they are from. The U.S. last week cut a deal with Australia that if its detainee David Hicks is found guilty, he will not be executed and will be allowed to have his family in the courtroom and talk to his lawyers without Americans listening in. But the Brits are pushing for more, and what about the inmates from Yemen or Pakistan or Afghanistan? Seeing the risks of multiple standards of justice, Pentagon officials said last week that they are conducting a wholesale review of the tribunal rules. Washington attorney Thomas Wilner represents the families of 12 Kuwaiti detainees whose case is among those the Supreme Court will hear early next year. He rejects the Bush Administration's insistence that detainees have no legal rights. "The arrogance of saying 'Well, we're feeding them well' is just absolutely absurd," he argues. Two of his clients' fathers have died while they were incarcerated. "They have had children born and parents die. They don't get to see their families, and they have no hope of getting out, even if they are innocent. That is what the Geneva Convention is about." Wilner has no problem with the U.S. imprisoning proven terrorists. He just wants a way to establish who the bad guys are. "Can you imagine being an innocent person being swept up into this thing and having no opportunity to say to somebody 'Hey, you've got the wrong guy?'" So far, the processing of detainees, whether for trial or release, has been slow; the Supreme Court's intervention, however, may have delivered a jolt. A U.S. military official tells Time that at least 140 detainees -- "the easiest 20%" -- are scheduled for release. The processing of these men has sped up since the Supreme Court announced it would take the case, said the source, who believes the military is "waiting for a politically propitious time to release them." U.S. officials concluded that some detainees were there because they had been kidnapped by Afghan warlords and sold for the bounty the U.S. was offering for al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. "Many would not have been detained under the normal rules of engagement," the source concedes. "We're dealing with some very, very dangerous people, but the pendulum is swinging too far in the wrong direction." Still, even as he speaks, new interrogation headquarters are being built to replace the long beige trailers where questioning occurs. If over the past two years conditions at Guantanamo -- Gitmo for short -- have become more humane, it is partly because they are also more permanent. The standards have come a long way from Camp X-Ray, the holding pen established during the Afghan war, where the world saw shocking images of detainees on their knees, blindfolded and shackled in a compound of cages. These days at X-Ray, vines curl through the old cells; turkey vultures circle overhead. X-Ray has been replaced by Camp Delta, but because the Army has allowed no outside photographers to shoot the new facilities, it is the old image that lingers. The population of the naval base, civilian and military, has tripled to more than 6,000 since January 2002. To accommodate the growth, a great deal of new construction is going on beyond the cellblocks. In addition to McDonald's, there are now Pizza Hut, Subway and KFC. Another gym is being built, and town houses, and a four-year college opens next month. Amenities matter because the troops have nowhere else to go; the rest of Cuba is off limits. Asked what he misses most besides his family, Sergeant John Campbell, a National Guardsman on a one- year deployment, talks as if he's in detention too: "the ability to get in a car and drive somewhere else." The priority of the base is security -- keep terrorists off the streets -- but the product is information. Every week close to half the detainees are brought in for sessions that may last anywhere from one to 16 hours. They are conducted by any of the 40 four-person "tiger" teams -- two interrogators, a linguist and an analyst. The commanders have concluded that interrogators should be young, maybe mid-20s, fairly new to the service. "Intelligence gathering is a young person's job," says Miller. "They're inventive and thoughtful." The idea is to build rapport with the detainees and come at them again and again, using new leads from intelligence gathered at Gitmo or elsewhere. "We got five times as much intelligence (from the detainees) last month as in January '03," says Miller, which, depending on whom you talk to, means that either the interrogators are getting better or the inmates more willing to say anything. British detainee Moazzam Begg is among the first six prisoners cleared for possible trial. His parents say he had gone to Afghanistan to do humanitarian work -- set up a school, install water pipes -- and was picked up in Pakistan by American soldiers at the house where he was staying. "It is nearly a complete year since I have been in custody," he wrote to his parents early this year. "After all this time, I still don't know what crime I am supposed to have committed. I am beginning to lose the fight against depression and hopelessness." According to lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, Begg confessed to an al-Qaeda plot to load a drone aircraft and then dust the House of Commons with anthrax. Smith, who represents the British detainees at the behest of their families, dismisses the confession as nonsense. "If you're held in solitary confinement, you're going to start making things up just to try and get out of that," he says. "Part of this whole Alice in Wonderland world is that in order to get charged with an offense down there and in order to get a lawyer, you have to agree to plead guilty." All new inmates at guantanamo start in Camp Three, the highest-security unit. (There is no logic to the camp names: Camp Three is tighter than Two or One, but Camp Four is the least restrictive.) Cells are 6 ft. 8 in. by 8 ft., with a squat-style toilet, a metal sink and a sleeping berth affixed to green steel- mesh walls. Each new detainee is issued a pair of shorts, a pair of long pants and two T shirts, all in orange, plus shower shoes, a towel and washcloth, toothpaste and shampoo, a prayer mat, beads, prayer oil, a prayer cap, a copy of the Koran and basic bedding, though no pillow. Twice a week, detainees get 20 to 30 minutes to shower and exercise. The guards say inmates spend much of the day reading the Koran; an arrow in their cells points the way to Mecca, and there are five calls to prayer daily via loudspeaker -- instituted after a five-day hunger strike by some inmates. Former Pakistani detainee Salahuddin recalls that the prisoners who spoke English would try teaching their U.S. guards about Islam. "Some of the soldiers were interested," he says. "They even learned to recite the Kalma, the invocation of the Koran." Guards patrol the hall of each 48-cell unit constantly, on routes designed to have a set of eyes on each prisoner every 30 seconds. Female guards have a harder time than males. "It's stressful," says Sergeant Rebecca Ishmael. "Sometimes they won't look at females or will refuse their food if it's been handled by a female." Prisoners have sometimes thrown bodily waste at the guards. Detainees in turn tell stories of punishment for bad behavior. Mohammed Sagheer, 52, a Pakistani preacher who has filed a $10.4 million lawsuit against the U.S. government for wrongful imprisonment, claims the Guantanamo wardens used drugs to control the prisoners. "They would give us these tablets that made us senseless," he says. "I'd hide the pill under my tongue and then spit it out when the guard was gone." Sagheer says he was twice put into solitary confinement in a dark cell for spitting at guards, who, he says, provoked him by throwing his Koran on the ground and beating him. A Guantanamo official said the task force doesn't address individual allegations, but she insists that the detainees are treated "humanely." With good behavior, inmates can move up to Camp Two, then One, in hopes of new privileges -- bottled water and a cup, a checkerboard and checkers, more exercise time. There are three juvenile prisoners, ages 13 to 15, who live outside the gates of Camp Delta at Camp Iguana. Once an officer's cottage, it has a magnificent view of the ocean, which none of the underage detainees had seen before coming to Guantanamo. Inside are two bedrooms, each with two beds, and a room with a TV and a vcr. Videos with animals are popular with the kids; their favorites include White Fang and The Call of the Wild. The kitchen has a refrigerator where fruit and other snacks are kept. Among the guards is Sergeant P., who, like almost everyone else at Camp Delta who has contact with the detainees, covers the name on his uniform with duct tape so the prisoners can't identify him now or ever. Sergeant P. did not even want his full last name used in this story. A middle-school teacher in his nondeployed life, he, along with some of the other guards, was handpicked because of his experience with juveniles. "We do a lot of math and science with them," he says. "We don't try to indoctrinate them in Americanism." The juveniles pick up English quickly, he notes. Outdoors, the teenagers play soccer, boccie and volleyball. "We've lost quite a few balls to the ocean," he says. Officials at Gitmo say most detainees have gained weight since they arrived at the facility. In the kitchen, where food is prepared for both detainees and troops, boxes of bananas and pita wait to be incorporated into a dinner menu. Bread, milk, vegetables and fruit -- bananas, apples, pears or dates -- are included in each meal. The cooks use a lot of curry -- breakfast might be curried eggs, dinner a curried-chicken stew -- to approximate the cuisine of at least some of the prisoners. "The food I ate there was the best I'd ever had in my life," says Pakistani Shah Mohammed, now 21, who says he landed at Gitmo after he was kidnapped by an Uzbek commander and sold to the Americans for a bounty being offered for al-Qaeda fighters. He was released last July, after his interrogators concluded that he not only had had no contact with Osama bin Laden's group but also hadn't even known 9/11 had happened until they showed him pictures. "I'd like to visit America someday," he says. "Some of the wardens and soldiers became my friends." In letters to their families, which are censored coming in and going out, some detainees have given the conditions at Gitmo decent reviews. Airat Vakhitov, one of eight alleged Talibs from Russia, wrote to his mother in Tatarstan that his conditions in Gitmo were much better than in the best Russian sanatorium. In fact, his mother Amina is concerned lest the Americans extradite her son to face a worse fate back home; she and another Russian mother have petitioned the U.S. government not to deport their sons. One detainee's brother, Arsen Mokayev, who served two years in prison for a criminal offense, sees it this way: "If they get into the hands of Russian investigators, they will be tortured and humiliated, and their will and beliefs might be broken. In the U.S., even if they are executed, they will think they are dying for their religion, which is just fine for a devout Muslim." But the grandmother of a Canadian detainee has a different experience. One of Fatmah Elsamnah's two grandsons at Gitmo was released. She says the other, Omar Khadr, 17, is still recovering from wounds suffered during a fire fight with U.S. troops in Afghanistan in July 2002. The U.S. military has accused Omar of tossing a grenade that killed a 28-year-old Army medic during that battle. Omar is the son of Ahmed Said Khadr, described by counterterrorism experts in Canada and Egypt as al-Qaeda's financier and ace bombmaker. Elsamnah, who lives in the Toronto area, chokes back tears as she recounts a letter from Omar: "How are you, how are you doing, I miss you, do something for me, pleeeeease, do something for me." By next July, the Supreme Court should rule whether the detainees may have access to the federal courts -- but even if such rights are granted, that may not change much. Captives could force the government to show why they should be held, but it would take an unusual judge to stand up to a military that says a detainee is dangerous and possesses critical antiterrorist intelligence; judging guilt will be a completely separate process. Still, allowing prisoners a hearing would be a major step forward. "We ask that they have access to a lawyer, access to their families and, most important, have access to some tribunal to see whether there is a basis for them to be there," attorney Wilner says. "We ask for all those things, subject to any reasonable security regulations the government wanted to impose." He says at least two high-level government officials have told him they would welcome that kind of ruling. Among other things, it would affirm the values the war is defending in the first place. [ With reporting by Helen Gibson in London, Tim McGirk and Ghulam Hasnain in Islamabad, Siobhan Morrissey in Miami, Simon Crittle in New York, Cindy Waxer in Toronto, and Yuri Zarakhovich in Moscow. ] Copyright © 2003 Time Inc. All rights reserved. * * * November 30, 2003 U.S. TO FREE 140 GUANTANAMO WAR DETAINEES -REPORT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States plans to release 140 of the 660 prisoners at its Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison for suspects in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism, Time magazine reported on Sunday. Slated for release were "the easiest 20 percent" of detainees, a military official told the magazine. It did not identify its source, who said the military was waiting for "a politically propitious time to release them." A Pentagon spokesman was not immediately available for comment. No charges have been filed against any of the 660 prisoners at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba. Defense officials say many are suspected of being members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network or Taliban fighters from the war in Afghanistan. Human rights groups have criticized the United States for holding the detainees without charges. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a case involving two Britons, two Australians and 12 Kuwaitis, has agreed to decide if foreign nationals can use U.S. courts to challenge their incarceration at the base. According to Time, activities leading toward release of the 140 prisoners have accelerated since the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. It said U.S. officials had concluded some detainees were kidnapped for reward money offered for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Separately on Sunday, a British human rights lobbyist said five European nations were close to a deal to repatriate citizens held by the United States in Guantanamo Bay, possibly as soon as Christmas. Stephen Jakobi, director of Fair Trials Abroad, said his group had been tracking negotiations over the prisoners between Washington and Britain, France, Denmark, Sweden and Spain. Since the prison opened in January 2002, prisoners from 42 countries have been taken to Guantanamo Bay for detention and questioning. As of Nov. 24, a total of 84 prisoners had been transferred to their home countries for release and four were returned to Saudi Arabia for imprisonment. * * * VOA News: November 30, 2003 - 22:46 UTC US To Release Guantanamo Bay Terrorist Suspects U.S. military officials say 140 terrorist suspects will be released from the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Officials said the release date will be soon but declined to give a specific time frame. The U.S. Navy base in eastern Cuba holds 660 prisoners from more than 40 countries with suspected links to the ousted Taliban regime in Afghanistan or the al-Qaida terrorism network led by Osama bin Laden. No charges have been filed against any of the detainees. Since the prison opened in 2002 a total of 88 prisoners have been returned to their home countries. The facility has been the target of criticism by human rights groups as none of the detainees are eligible for representation by a lawyer. The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to hear an appeal from lawyers of two Britons, two Australians and 12 Kuwaitis. The court will decide if the detainees are outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. Some information for this report provided by AFP, AP and Reuters. * * * The Independent (UK): November 30, 2003 BRITISH PRISONER 'CONFESSES' PLOT TO POISON-BOMB PARLIAMENT By Severin Carrell A Briton held in Guantanamo Bay has claimed that he took part in an al-Qa'ida plot to attack the House of Commons with anthrax in an attempt to kill Tony Blair. The confession by Moazzam Begg, 35, one of nine Britons being held at the US base in Cuba, was disclosed to The Independent on Sunday by his lawyer, who says it was obtained under duress and is completely implausible. Clive Stafford Smith, a British lawyer based in New Orleans, Louisiana, said his client's admission was secured after months of interrogation and segregation in Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay. Mr Stafford Smith said Mr Begg, who now faces prosecution by a US military tribunal, was put under intense pressure to plead guilty because the White House wants to stage quick and successful trials in the run-up to next year's presidential elections. "Moazzam has agreed to plead guilty to this absurd story that allegedly he was part of an al-Qa'ida plot to get a drone - an unmanned aircraft - and fly it from Suffolk over London to drop anthrax over the House of Commons," said the lawyer. "The Americans must think we're incredibly stupid." The plot was "laughable" because unmanned aircraft sophisticated enough for such an attack were tightly controlled by the armed forces, and cost at least $5m each. Getting hold of anthrax capable of being dropped from an aircraft was even less feasible. Meanwhile, British authorities released a terrorism suspect held in Birmingham on Thursday, though searches continued. Turkey announced that it was holding a suspect over two synagogue bombings in Istanbul which preceded an attack on British targetsless than a week later. The suspect was said to have tried to cross into Iran using false identity papers. Yesterday the British embassy in Saudi Arabia warned terrorist attacks might be imminent there. * * * The Scotsman (UK): November 30, 2003 WARNING OF 'SHABBY DEAL FOR GUANTANAMO BRITONS' By Lia Hervey, PA News. http://www.news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2241397 A leading human rights campaigner today welcomed claims that nine British prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay could be repatriated back to Britain by Christmas, but warned it could be under a "shabby" deal which includes forced confessions. Stephen Jakobi, director of Fair Trials Abroad, said the "devil was in the detail" of a possible deal which secured the release of Europeans from the United States detention camp on Cuba, set up after the September 11 terrorist attacks. He added that it was "pure speculation" that detainees could be forced to confess to terrorist activities, but a "real possibility". "What concerns me is a deal that is essentially a shabby deal," he said. "Anything that stops the prisoners coming under the laws and fundamental rights of Britain will be a shabby deal. "There is a real risk that they could be put under a special category when they arrive back in Britain which puts them under emergency legislation brought in quickly by the House of Commons." "Whatever deal is brought in -- it must be under the legislation of the European Court of Human Rights. "The whole situation in Guantanamo is totally reminiscent of preparation for show trials. Members of public are familiar with the regime in Stalinist Russia and all the conditions in Guantanamo are right for that sort of thing." "Forced confessions are the sort of thing that can happen and has happened in the past, especially when people are held in certain conditions. The same thing happened in Saudi Arabia three years ago. Sandy Mitchell admitted to a bombing campaign in the country, something he couldn’t possibly have done. The whole thing is an outlandish joke." Clive Stafford Smith, a US-based British human rights lawyer, told The Observer newspaper: "The British Government has finally realised it has to help the Americans out of the corner they have painted themselves into. "This deal will most likely consist of the British having to plead guilty on some nonsense charge and come back here to serve their sentence." But Mr Stafford Smith suggested that two of the nine British detainees, Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal, the so-called "Tipton Two", could be freed outright. "It seems highly improbable that Iqbal and Rasul will be charged with anything," he said. "There simply is nothing there." Mr Jakobi said the official announcement on the repatriation was expected in the ne * * * Los Angeles Times: November 30, 2003 ARMY OFFICER ACCUSED OF GUANTANAMO SECURITY VIOLATION * Military says the colonel had classified items in his luggage and lied about it. He's the fourth base worker charged. From Times Staff and Wire Reports SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- An Army intelligence officer was charged Saturday with violating security at the U.S. detention camp for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He is the fourth worker at the base accused of security breaches. Two Arabic translators and a Muslim chaplain face charges ranging from espionage to adultery. U.S. Army Col. Jackie Duane Farr was charged with "wrongfully transporting classified material without the appropriate locking container" and "making a false statement in the course of the investigation," according to a military charge sheet by the U.S. Southern Command in Miami. Military officials said there did not appear to be any link between Farr and the other workers. They noted that Farr -- a 58-year-old reservist who was returning home after a six-month stint -- was not arrested or detained, and he voluntarily agreed to remain at Guantanamo Bay pending the resolution of the investigation. "These are different cases," said Lt. Cmdr. Chris Loundermon, a spokesman for the Southern Command. "The commander [in charge of the investigation] weighed the evidence and decided Col. Farr did not present a flight risk and was not likely to engage in any further serious criminal conduct." As Farr was leaving Guantanamo Bay on Oct. 11, officials searched his luggage and discovered classified documents, Loundermon said. When he was questioned, Farr falsely claimed that the documents were locked up and would not have left the island, according to the charge sheet. Security measures at Guantanamo Bay have been tightened in recent months amid charges that some officials violated military law, perhaps in an effort to assist detainees. The former Muslim chaplain at the base, Army Capt. James Joseph Yee, has been charged with transporting sketches of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, where he counseled prisoners accused of links to Afghanistan's deposed Taliban regime or the Al Qaeda terrorist network. Yee was held in a military brig for 67 days before being released Tuesday, when the military announced additional charges. He is also accused of adultery and of storing pornography on a government computer. He faces a preliminary hearing Monday at Ft. Benning in Georgia. Yee is one of three men who had contact with terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay to face charges. An Arabic translator, Air Force Senior Airman Ahmad I. Al Halabi, has pleaded innocent to charges of espionage and aiding the enemy. A civilian interpreter, Ahmad F. Mehalba, was arrested last month in Boston and charged with lying to federal agents. Investigators said Mehalba denied that computer discs he was carrying had classified information from Guantanamo Bay. He has pleaded innocent. It was not immediately known whether Farr had direct contact with prisoners at the camp, where some 660 men from 44 countries are being interrogated. They have not been charged or allowed access to lawyers. Farr had been on temporary duty there, serving as an intelligence staff officer, a military statement said. The charges against Farr have been forwarded to the commander of the base, who could dismiss them, refer them to a court-martial or direct a pretrial investigation, the statement said. He has been assigned two Army attorneys and has the right to retain a civilian lawye * * * NEWS.com.au: November 30, 2003 ARMY OFFICER IN SECURITY BREACH http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8022563^2,00.html A US Army reservist on a six-month assignment at the US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay has been charged with violating security for allegedly transporting secret documents illegally. Army Col Jack Farr, an intelligence officer, became the fourth person charged with breaches at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Two Arabic translators and a Muslim chaplain face charges ranging from espionage to adultery at the base, where interrogators are questioning some 660 detainees from 44 countries. Farr was charged yesterday with "wrongfully transporting classified material without the proper security container on or around October 11," and lying to investigators, said a statement from the US Southern Command. Lt Cmdr Chris Loundermon, speaking from the command's headquarters in Miami, said he did not know if Farr had direct contact with detainees. He declined to describe the classified material. "He was departing when the investigation revealed that he had some security violations," Loundermon said. "He voluntarily came back." Farr is not under arrest and has not been suspended, Loundermon said: "He didn't present a flight risk and he was not likely to engage in any further serious misconduct." Farr is a reservist who had been on temporary duty at Guantanamo Bay for six months and left to return to his home state, which Loundermon did not know. Farr's charges have been forwarded to the base commander, who could dismiss them, refer them to a court-martial or direct a pre-trial investigation. Security has been tightened at Guantanamo Bay since the first arrests were announced in September and military investigators arrived. New measures include firewalls on computer systems, increased bag screening and inspection of workers' electronic equipment before they leave the remote base on Cuba's eastern tip, which can only be reached by aircraft chartered by the military. The first person arrested was Senior Airman Ahmad al-Halabi, an Air Force translator detained on July 23 at Boston's Logan International Airport when he returned from a visit to Egypt. A naturalised US citizen, al-Halabi worked as an Arabic translator and is accused of collecting secrets about the base and messages from prisoners with plans to transmit them to an unspecified enemy in his native Syria. He has pleaded innocent to 32 charges, including espionage and aiding the enemy. The most serious charges carry a possible death sentence. Officials did not announce al-Halabi's arrest until news broke of the September 10 arrest of Army Captain Yousef Yee, the Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay who is a Chinese-American native of New Jersey. Federal agents said Yee, who converted to Islam after graduating from the US Military Academy, was found carrying sketches of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, where he counselled prisoners and advised the detention mission commander about Islam and its culture. Rumours grew that Yee, 35, would be charged with espionage, but instead he was charged on October 10 with disobeying a general order by taking classified material home and transporting it without proper security. On Tuesday, the military released him, but at the same time pressed additional charges of storing pornography on a government computer and committing adultery, an offence under the military code. Yee, who has pleaded innocent, faces a preliminary hearing tomorrow at Fort Benning, Georgia. The third arrest came on September 29, also at Logan airport. Customs agents found 132 compact discs, including one with hundreds of classified documents labelled "SECRET," in the luggage of Ahmad Mehalba, who was a civilian interpreter at the base. Mehalba, 31, was arrested as he arrived from his native Egypt. The government on November 12 charged him with gathering defence information and lying to federal investigators. Mehalba says he is innocent. The United States has defended its prolonged detention of the detainees, who are suspected of links to Afghanistan's fallen Taliban regime and the al-Qaeda terrorist network, saying they still are providing important intelligence. AAP * * * BBC: November 30, 2003 - 02:57 GMT GUANTANAMO BRITONS DEAL 'CLOSE' http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3250282.stm Shafiq Rasul has no case to answer, Stafford Smith claims A deal to repatriate British terror suspects held by the US at Guantanamo Bay could be finalised by Christmas, according to reports. The nine Britons could be flown back to the UK whether or not they are charged with any crimes, The Observer claims. Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith said: "This deal will most likely consist of the British having to plead guilty on some nonsense charge". The British Foreign Office refused to say whether such a deal was close. She said discussions with the US were continuing at all levels. "The British Government have made it clear we have reservations about military commissions and have been raising this and other issues, including the return of detainees to the UK," she said. 'Tipton Two' The US is keen to return the Britons to the UK to end tension over the issue, the Observer claimed. Mr Stafford Smith, who is based in the US, told the newspaper: "The British Government has finally realised it has to help the Americans out of the corner they have painted themselves into." He claimed that most of the Britons would have to plead guilty to an offence, the sentence for which would be served back in the UK. But he suggested that two of the nine British detainees, Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal, the so-called "Tipton Two", could be freed outright. "It seems highly improbable that Iqbal and Rasul will be charged with anything," he said. "There simply is nothing there." 'Monstrous failure' Last week US secretary of state Colin Powell appeared to have dashed hopes of an early deal over the nine Britons held by the US in Guantanamo Bay. Seven were still being questioned to ascertain whether "they have done something wrong", he told the Guardian. And there were still "legal issues" to be settled over two, Feroz Abbasi and Moazzem Begg, who had been listed as due to face a military commission. Hopes had been raised during US President George Bush's state visit to the UK that a deal on the Britons, held on suspicion of being Taleban or al-Qaeda suspects, was imminent. One of Britain's top judges, Lord Justice Steyn, condemned the detentions at Guantanamo Bay as "a monstrous failure of justice". The judge said the detainees were being deliberately held beyond the rule of law and the protection of any courts. * * * The Observer (UK): November 30, 2003 TERROR CAMP BRITONS TO BE SENT HOME Guantanamo Bay deal 'before Xmas' By Kamal Ahmed and Tracy McVeigh http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1096508,00.html A deal to return British terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo Bay is to be sealed before Christmas, according to officials from America and the United Kingdom. The 'returns policy' is now believed to be the leading option being considered in Washington which has made clear that it wants to end the tension between the US and Britain over the issue. Under the agreement, the nine British detainees will be sent back to Britain, either after pleading guilty to charges in America and being sent to serve their sentences in British prisons, or without being charged. It is then likely that some of them will be sent to Belmarsh prison in south London and held under prevention of terrorism legislation. At least two, Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal, the so-called 'Tipton Two' could be freed. The agreement will end one of the most damaging conflicts between the White House and Downing Street, which has been pressing for fair trials for the Britons who have been held under military command at the US base in Cuba for two years. Many observers thought that a deal would be signed to mark President George Bush's visit to London two weeks ago. But complex legal arguments, which are still on-going, meant a delay. America has been moving rapidly in recent weeks to solve the Guantanamo problem which has seen strained relations with a number of countries whose citizens are held at the same base. Last week Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, indicated that although a deal was not yet done with Britain, they had finished questioning two of the nine detainees, thought to be Rasul and Iqbal. An American diplomat also recently announced the release of 20 other non-British inmates. Australia has also agreed a deal on its nationals held there. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, and David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, have consistently made it clear that they wanted to see the suspects sent back to face British justice. The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, has also made trips to Washington to try to secure a deal. British human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, who is working with the suspects, said he was confident that a deal had been struck. 'The British Government has finally realised it has to help the Americans out of the corner they have painted themselves into,' he said. 'This deal will most likely consist of the British having to plead guilty on some nonsense charge and come back here to serve their sentence. 'However it seems highly improbable that Iqbal and Rasul will be charged with anything. There simply is nothing there.' It appears that Downing Street would be comfortable with some charges being brought but it is clear that the British Government could not guarantee a trial of anyone sent back to the UK, one of the original demands made by the US. 'The Americans just want these people to plead guilty so that it looks as if they have been telling the truth that these are all "bad dudes",' Stafford Smith said. 'We know that is nonsense. There is no evidence of any kind against them. In one man's case all he was doing was running a school.' Stafford Smith said Iqbal had been taken abroad for an arranged marriage by his parents who were concerned about his 'westernised ways', including a fondness for Manchester United. He disappeared on his stag night and turned up several weeks later in an Afghan jail. At the time the US was offering local people $4,500 to hand in 'foreign Taliban fighters'. 'The idea this rowdy football supporter from Tipton is a terrorist is laughable,' Stafford Smith said. 'He doesn't know how to load a gun.' The families of the two men had not been told of the imminent deal but professed delight if their relatives were to be returned home. Iqbal's sister, Nasreen Iqbal said: 'We have heard nothing about this at all. If it is true then obviously we would be very happy but I don't really want to say anything until we know the details for sure.' · A US Army intelligence officer was charged yesterday with violating security at the camp - the fourth worker at the base accused of such violations. * * * ABC: November 29, 2003 GUANTANAMO BAY OFFICER CHARGED Army Intelligence Officer Charged With Violating Security at Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20031129_674.html SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - An Army intelligence officer was charged Saturday with violating security at the U.S. detention camp for terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He is the fourth worker at the base accused of such violations. Two Arabic translators and a Muslim chaplain face charges ranging from espionage to adultery. U.S. Army Col. Jack Farr was charged Saturday with failing to obey a lawful general order and making a false official statement, all violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, said a statement from the U.S. Southern Command in Miami. "Specifically, he's charged with wrongfully transporting classified material without the proper security container on or around Oct. 11, and making a false statement in the course of the investigation into his handling of classified material," it said. It was not immediately clear if Farr was under arrest, nor if he is still at Guantanamo Bay. He had been on temporary duty there for six months, serving as an intelligence staff officer, the statement said. His charges have been forwarded to the commander of the base, who could dismiss them, refer them to a court-martial or direct a pre-trial investigation, it said. He has been assigned two Army attorneys and has the right to retain a civilian lawyer. * * * The Boston Globe: November 29, 2003 CHAPLAIN IS CALLED VICTIM OF HYSTERIA By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/333/nation/ Chaplain_is_called_victim_of_hysteria+.shtml WASHINGTON -- Army Captain James "Yousef" Yee spent 76 days this autumn locked up in a Navy brig alongside so-called "enemy combatants" who are suspected of aiding Al Qaeda and threatening national security. Yee, the former Muslim chaplain at the Guantanamo Bay prison, spent most of that time in maximum-security lockup in a South Carolina brig where he was only let outside his cell in shackles for one hour per day, according to his lawyer. Meanwhile, news reports repeatedly quoted unnamed officials as saying he was suspected of spying for the other side in the war on terrorism. Yet the actual charges turned out to be far less serious. In mid-October, he was formally accused of improperly handling classified material -- by taking it home and transporting it without its proper container. On Monday, when he was released from the brig, the government added charges of adultery, making a false statement, and downloading pornography on his government computer. Now, the distance between the initial reports and the comparatively trivial charges has provoked outrage by Yee's defenders and concerns by some legal specialists that Yee may be a victim of hysteria over national security. Even as a military spokesman suggested that more charges could still be brought, some civil libertarians expressed concern that the government's decision to hold Yee in maximum security, alongside enemy combatants, may have left him with no way to clear himself of the taint of treason. And the long period of holding Yee may have led prosecutors to bring the adultery and pornography charges as a way of justifying their decision to arrest him in the first place. "The danger of an all-encompassing war on terrorism is when you pick up someone on suspicion alone, and you can't confirm your suspicion, you end up charging him with offenses like adultery and pornography, which seem to have little to do with homeland security," said Harold Koh, former assistant secretary of state for human rights in the Clinton administration. "Would he have been charged with adultery and pornography if he had not first been picked up on suspicion of affiliation with Al Qaeda? I don't think so," Koh said. "It sounds like he has been charged with a crime that he would never have been charged with, but for a desire to arrest him on charges that proved unfounded." Yee's lawyer, Eugene Fidell, who is hoping the charges will be dropped, said that Yee's reputation has been destroyed. He compared his client's predicament to that of Richard Jewell, the security guard who was falsely accused of the 1996 Olympics bombing, and Wen Ho Lee, the Los Alamo National Laboratory scientist who was arrested on espionage charges in 1999 only to be found not guilty after months in solitary confinement. "Will our society ever forget him or think of [Yee] other than the guy who was accused [of spying]," Fidell said. "I think that's indelibly attached to him now and I don't know how the government is ever going to make it up to him, or make up the fact that he spent 76 days in confinement over this. Some things are just irreparable." Fidell said the military prosecutor has proposed holding a preliminary hearing as soon as Monday, though that will probably be logistically impossible. A spokesman for the US Southern Command, which oversees the Guantanamo Bay prison, said the military has no control over what anonymous sources choose to tell a reporter. All it can be responsible for is what is said in official statements, which never accused Yee of spying for Al Qaeda. "No [Department of Defense] official has said that Captain Yee and espionage were linked together," said Navy Lieutenant Commander Chris Loundermon. "As for unnamed government officials -- unfortunately there are lots of people out there who have their opinions on it, but they're unnamed and they're not giving an official statement." Yee was arrested at a naval air station in Jacksonville on Sept. 10, but news of his detention was first broken by a Sept. 20 front-page report in The Washington Times. Setting the tone for the coverage that would follow, the newspaper cited an anonymous "law enforcement source" who said that Yee had been charged with "sedition, aiding the enemy, spying, espionage, and failure to obey a general order" and might be charged with treason, which could carry a life sentence. In fact, he had not been charged with anything at that point. Numerous other media outlets who followed The Washington Times story got that part right, but remained suspicious. Other anonymous government sources were cited saying that Yee may have had a diagram of the prison facilities and a list of both detainees and their interrogators. Asked for comment, several Washington Times editors referred the Globe to the reporter who wrote the original story. He did not return a voice mail left on his cellphone yesterday afternoon. Although no one made an official public statement accusing Yee of being a spy, military officials have routinely brought up his case in the context of a review of security procedures at the base and the arrests of two former Guantanamo translators -- Senior Airman Ahmed I. al Halabi, who has been charged with espionage, and former civilian interpreter Ahmad F. Mehalba, who has been charged with carrying away classified information from Guantanamo. Both have pleaded not guilty. Laura Donohue, of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, said the military should not be able to escape responsibility for leaked stories so easily. "To what extent is the government forming public opinion by leaking information, by making anonymous comments to reporters, and by taking certain steps that would lead reasonable people to conclude there were substantive concerns behind the anonymous allegations?" she said. "Trying to escape responsibility by saying, 'Oh, we didn't officially hold a press conference and say this is our position about it' -- well, this is how it works." [ Charlie Savage can be reached at csavage@globe.com. ] © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company. * * * Toronto Star: November 29, 2003 OTTAWA PLAYED ROLE IN TORTURE OF ARAR: LAWYER Intervening in Bouzari appeal Says government didn't protect Arar By Graham Fraser, National Affairs Writer OTTAWA -- The Canadian government caused Maher Arar serious psychological distress by failing to protect him from torture -- and is protecting his torturers if it upholds the legislation that prevents him from suing Jordan and Syria, Arar's lawyer says. These are two of the arguments that Lorne Waldman will be making before the Ontario Court of Appeal next week when he intervenes on behalf of an Iranian- Canadian who is seeking the right to sue Iran for torture he suffered when he was imprisoned there. Arar, who was deported to Syria from the United States by way of Jordan and tortured for a year before he was released from prison, is intervening in part to reinforce his own attempt to sue Jordan and Syria for his incarceration and torture. "It was not only the torture itself that caused Mr. Arar to suffer serious psychological distress but the government of Canada's failure to protect him from this torture," Waldman states in the factum submitted to the Court of Appeal yesterday. "What the Arar case raises is the extent to which our country can and will protect its citizens. Mr. Arar sought protection and it was not provided," he writes. "Now he seeks compensation from his torturers, agents of a foreign government who cannot be sued in their own country, and his own government argues that he cannot get it because other considerations of international comity are more important. With respect, Mr. Arar submits that there can be nothing more important to citizens than obtaining adequate protection from their government." Houshang Bouzari, an Iranian-Canadian, is attempting to sue the Iranian government for the torture he endured when he was imprisoned after he refused to direct an oil contract to a highly placed Iranian official in exchange for a bribe. When the Ontario Superior Court heard the Bouzari case, the federal department of justice intervened to say that the case should be dismissed because foreign governments enjoy immunity from lawsuits. The federal government intervened in that case to uphold that immunity. Bouzari lost his case before the Ontario Superior Court in May, 2002. In her decision, Judge Katherine Swinton concluded that section 3 of the State Immunity Act "is not inconsistent with customary international law respecting torture," or with Canada's treaty obligations. "Indeed, it reflects the current norms of customary international law with respect to state immunity," she wrote. Swinton also found that because the Canadian government had no connection with Bouzari's torture, he cannot claim that his right to security of the person under article 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been denied. Bouzari's appeal is being heard on Dec. 3. * * * Toronto Star: November 28, 2003 ARAR TO SPEAK IN TORTURE CASE Court grants intervener status Iran target of Ontario appeal By Graham Fraser, National Affairs Writer OTTAWA -- Maher Arar will have a chance next week to argue in court that Canada should not be protecting states that engage in torture. Arar, 33, the Syrian-Canadian who was deported by the United States to Syria and imprisoned and tortured for a year, has been granted intervener status in a case being heard next week by the Ontario Court of Appeal. Houshang Bouzari, an Iranian-Canadian, is attempting to sue the Iranian government for the torture he endured when he was imprisoned after he refused to direct an oil contract to a highly placed Iranian official in exchange for a bribe. Arar is intervening in part to reinforce his own attempt to sue Jordan and Syria for his incarceration and torture. When the Ontario Superior Court heard the Bouzari case, the federal department of justice intervened to say the case should be dismissed because foreign governments enjoy immunity from lawsuits. Bouzari lost his case in May, 2002, and the appeal is being heard on Dec. 3. In her decision, Judge Katherine Swinton concluded that Section 3 of the State Immunity Act "is not inconsistent with customary international law respecting torture," or with Canada's treaty obligations. "Indeed, it reflects the current norms of customary international law with respect to state immunity," she wrote. Swinton also found that because the Canadian government had no connection with Bouzari's torture, he cannot claim that his right to security of the person under Article 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been denied. Article 7 states: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice." But Arar's lawyer, Lorne Waldman, told the Star yesterday that Arar is in a different situation from Bouzari. Arar sought help from consular officials and was deported from the U.S. in part on the basis of information supplied by Canadians. "The government of Canada was involved in the process even prior to his torture," Waldman said. "Mr. Arar has a stronger claim under Section 7 than Mr. Bouzari does." Waldman said the Canadian government has to balance the needs of Canadian citizens to be protected against the international obligation to respect state sovereignty. He said that the Arar case has struck an emotional chord with Canadians, who are feeling increasingly vulnerable because of what happened to Arar. "A lot of Canadians are wondering what it means to be a Canadian citizen," he said. "What does it mean to be a Canadian if you are constantly disappointed in seeking protection abroad, and seeking justice?" * * * The Ottawa Citizen: November 28, 2003 KHADR 'LIKELY PICKED AFGHANISTAN' Canadian is believed to have been released by U.S. in July Mike Blanchfield OTTAWA -- Abdulrahman Khadr, a Canadian who has been detained by the U.S. in Guantanamo Bay as a suspected terrorist, likely asked to go back to Afghanistan and has no interest in returning to Canada -- despite claims to the contrary by his grandmother, says a well-placed source. And the Pentagon's version of events -- that Khadr was released in July -- is likely true, and consistent with the U.S. government's approach of keeping foreign governments in the dark about what goes on in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said the source. "It's conceivable that he was released in July when you look at his travel pattern. He's been out for some time, if he's gone from Afghanistan, to Pakistan, to Turkey and now in Serbia. That's a fair bit of travel. In four months you can do that sort of thing," said the source. The mystery surrounding the circumstances of Khadr's release deepened this week with allegations from his family that the government is trying to block his return to Canada, and new developments in the U.S. that suggest the 20-year-old may have been released months ago. Earlier this week, a Pentagon official who briefed Canadian reporters in Washington said Khadr was likely among 27 detainees released from Guantanamo Bay on July 18. The Canadian government was not informed until a few weeks ago that Khadr had been released. Khadr's grandmother, who lives in Toronto, also complained this week that the Canadian embassies in Turkey and Pakistan have blocked Khadr's attempts to travel back to Canada. Foreign affairs denies the allegation, saying Khadr has not contacted its embassies, and if he had, he would have been given full assistance. The source suggested the concerns of Khadr's family in Canada might be unfounded. "I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he asked to go back to Afghanistan," said the source. Khadr has family members living in the area, the source added, including a sister and brother in Pakistan. "I think there's a miscommunication in terms of what Abdulrahman is saying to the grandmother." Khadr was born in the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain but is a Canadian citizen. Though there appears to be no direct evidence linking him to terrorism, Khadr comes from a family with more than its share of alleged ties to terrorist activities. His father is Ahmed Siad Khadr, an Egyptian-born Canadian citizen whom Canadian and U.S. intelligence believe is an associate of al-Qaida terrorist leader, Osama bin Laden. His younger brother, Omar, 17, is still being held in Guantanamo Bay and has been accused of tossing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan last year. His older brother, Abdullah, ran an extremist training camp in Afghanistan, says Canada's spy agency, CSIS. "We've always insisted that he has the right to return. If he showed up at any embassy, any mission anywhere in the world, we would provide him with all the documentation to return home," Jim Munson, Prime Minister Jean Chretien's director of communications, said Thursday. "For national security reasons we can't comment." * * * Los Angeles Times: November 28, 2003 New Muslim Chaplain to Have Limited Role at Guantanamo * Replacement for Army Capt. James Yee won't have access to suspected terrorist detainees. By Matthew Hay Brown, The Orlando Sentinel GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba -- A new Muslim chaplain is expected here early next month but, unlike his predecessor, he will not be allowed to meet with the 660 suspected terrorists now held at Camp Delta, officials said. The new chaplain will replace Army Capt. James Joseph Yee, who was arrested in September after he allegedly was found carrying a map of the cellblocks and a list of detainees. Yee was released from a military brig Tuesday, but he faces new charges of adultery at the naval base and viewing pornography on his government computer there. Yee's release came one day after his lawyers sent a letter to President Bush complaining about his confinement and urging that he be freed until his criminal case could be resolved. Officials have not named Yee's replacement, but they have been clear about the new chaplain's role. "His mission will be to be the advisor to the commander of the Joint Task Force and to provide for the needs of the Joint Task Force members, not the detainees," said Gen. Mitchell R. LeClaire, deputy commander of Joint Task Force-Guantanamo. Yee had advised the task force and the detainees. In addition to advising Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller on religious and cultural sensitivity and counseling service members as an Army chaplain during his 10 months here, Yee met with prisoners to offer what he called "a sympathetic ear." LeClaire said it "was never his job officially" to meet with the detainees. "I can't say it was at the approval of his commanders," LeClaire said. He added that the matter was under investigation. Yee's lawyer, Washington attorney Eugene R. Fidell, rejected the suggestion that Yee's superiors did not know about his contact with prisoners. For months before his arrest, Yee described the interactions to reporters in interviews that were arranged and monitored by military public affairs officials. "Any claim that the command was unaware of Capt. Yee's activities will be investigated to the fullest extent of the law," Fidell said. "My sniffer tells me that people are running for cover." After his release Tuesday, Yee was assigned to Ft. Benning in Georgia, where he is to report to the chief chaplain to "perform duties commensurate with his rank." Yee is one of three Joint Task Force workers arrested in recent months on charges related to mishandling classified information about the operation. Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi, who worked at Camp Delta as a translator, is accused of passing secrets to individuals from Qatar and his native Syria. Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, a civilian translator, has been charged with lying about computer discs on which authorities say he was carrying classified information. While the Joint Task Force awaits the new Muslim chaplain, a Christian chaplain has assumed responsibility for ensuring that the religious needs of the detainees are met. This includes taking orders for Korans and making sure that the Muslim call to prayer is played five times daily -- procedures developed by Yee. "A lot of the things were already set in place," said Maj. Dan O'Dean, the current chaplain. "There's been a couple of cycles of the religious calendar, so a lot of the lessons learned from how the camp operates has kind of found a root. I don't really think it takes somebody guiding it now. It's pretty much found its place." * * * The Guardian (UK): November 28, 2003 HOW BRITISH CHARITY WAS SILENCED ON IRAQ By Kevin Maguire One of Britain's most high-profile charities was ordered to end criticism of military action in Iraq by its powerful US wing to avoid jeopardising financial support from Washington and corporate donors, a Guardian investigation has discovered. Internal emails reveal how Save the Children UK came under enormous pressure after it accused coalition forces of breaching the Geneva convention by blocking humanitarian aid. Senior figures at Save the Children US, based in Westport, Connecticut, demanded the withdrawal of the criticism and an effective veto on any future statements blaming the invasion for the plight of Iraqi civilians suffering malnourishment and shortages of medical supplies. Uncovered documents expose tensions within an alliance that describes itself as "the world's largest independent global organisation for children" but which is heavily reliant on governments and big business for cash. Save the Children UK, which had an income of £122m in 2002-03, boasts the Queen as patron and Princess Anne as president, plus a phalanx of the great and the good lending their titles and time. The row over Iraq erupted in April when the London statement said coalition forces had gone back on an earlier agreement to allow a relief plane, packed with emergency food and medical supplies for 40,000 people, to land in northern Iraq. Rob MacGillivray, the UK wing's emergency programme manager, released a statement which stated that the "lack of cooperation from the coalition forces is a breach of the Geneva conventions and its protocols, but more importantly the time now being wasted is costing children their lives". Within hours of the statement appearing, the US wing was demanding its withdrawal. Emails sent to staff in Britain by Dianne Sherman, associate vice- president for public affairs and communications in Connecticut, headed "Save/UK criticises US military", expressed dismay and censured the UK operation. Ms Sherman said the Americans were "really astonished at today's release, which went out without our prior knowledge, that attacks the US military". Her email went on: "This is undermining all the great work we've done, much of it in collaboration with you. We'll have to see the consequences of how this plays out - including affecting our future funding from the government." A number of less controversial "joint messages" were proposed by Ms Sherman, none of which criticised any aspect of the invasion or occupation. She instead wanted the UK and US groups to point out that humanitarian organisations were still not permitted access to most of Iraq, that delays harmed children and, on a positive note, that relief work was under way in Umm Qasr, Masul and northern Iraq. "Safe, secure conditions must be created immediately to allow humanitarians to bring in essential supplies and expertise to the people of Iraq," was her alternative version. Accounts published by Save the Children US highlight its vulnerability to political pressure from a Republican White House with "government grants and contracts" generating some 60%, nearly £71m, of its £119m operating support and revenue. The proportion is also high in the UK, where £60.1m - 49% - of the organisation's income is "grants and gifts in kind from institutional donors", including the government. Ms Sherman copied her broadside to US executives including Ann van Dusen, the executive vice-president, Rudy von Bernuth, vice-president and managing director of its children in emergencies section, and Andrea Williamson-Hughes, corporate secretary. When she discovered the London statement had been posted on the UK organisation's website, Ms Sherman also demanded the deletion of US press officer Nicole Amoroso's name as a contact, adding in a second email: "I would also strongly suggest that the press release be removed until we have agreed upon language of the release." A well-placed source in the UK operation said "all hell let loose" over the US intervention, with telephone calls "flying across the Atlantic" and a series of high-level meetings called to discuss the crisis. The removal of the US press officer's name was agreed to placate Connecticut but the source confirmed the Americans were also assured they would be sent all future UK statements on Iraq before they were issued. According to the source, the UK wing toned down later statements to avoid offending the US side of the operation. A statement issued in London on April 25, for example, was cleared in advance with the US, the source said. Headed "The war is not over for the children of Iraq", it made no mention let alone criticism of coalition forces. The looting of some hospitals was highlighted but not the widespread criticism at the time that troops were standing by and doing nothing. Save the Children US concentrates on fundraising and is said by London insiders to be anxious to curb campaigning by the UK arm. Ms Sherman was unavailable for comment until next week, her office said. But in a statement to the Guardian, Save the Children UK said it had not retracted the release at the heart of the row but had removed the name of Ms Amoroso, saying it had been an error not to consult her. Subsequent statements, it added, reflected the fact that the situation "had moved on" as medical supplies had landed in Jordan to be moved to Baghdad. "We do not agree news releases issued in Save the Children UK's name with Save the Children US or any other member of the International Save the Children Alliance," the London statement said. "Wherever possible we do share Save the Children UK news releases before they are issued with other alliance members working in the same area. If any changes are suggested by other alliance members to Save the Children releases, they are made or not at our discretion." The tensions over potential donor influence are not limited to the Iraq crisis. Other internal emails and documents disclose how Save the Children UK was nervous about the reaction of a major donor company, Serco, which makes huge profits from outsourcing, when the charity prepared to criticise the impact of privatisation on children. A number of staff were aghast in the summer of 2002 when a chapter critical of private finance initiatives, written for a report published ahead of the Johannesburg sustainable development summit, was deleted by senior figures in the charity just before it was printed. There is nothing in the documents to suggest that Serco exerted any pressure, but according to the emails, the charity's staff were anxious not to upset it. One email copied widely in the organisation admitted "underlying tensions" existed between the corporate fundraising unit and campaigners arguing that PFIs in basic services did not benefit children. Another warned that criticism of PFIs by the charity was "naturally making some of our corporate sponsors edgy", and the director general, Mike Aaronson, wanted a full briefing ahead of a meeting with a big private donor. As the internal debate raged, fundraiser Helen Barnes warned she was in a "tricky position" with Serco, which ran hospitals, prisons and schools for the government. Although about to cease being a corporate member, the firm, she said, "is still keen to support us" as she argued against portraying it as a company operating solely for profit. "Serco takes its social responsibilities very seriously and invests in the communities in which it operates," Ms Barnes said. Serco, which is heavily involved in the defence sector, raised a total of £626,500 for the charity, as well as naming its yacht Save the Children in the BT Global Challenge race three years ago. The charity's statement yesterday said: "At no point [in] the relationship did Serco attempt to influence Save the Children UK policy on any issue." It continued: "We were able to edit most of the report to meet the required standard but one chapter required further work before it could be approved for publication. Because time was short we decided to drop this chapter to allow the rest of the report to be published in time for the conference." * * * The Guardian (UK): November 28, 2003 POWELL: NO QUICK DEAL ON GUANTANAMO US needs more time to decide if Britons held in Cuba are dangerous, he tells Guardian By Julian Borger WASHINGTON - The US military authorities at Guantanamo Bay have not finished interrogating seven of the nine British detainees and have yet to decide whether "they have done something wrong", Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, said yesterday, nearly two years after the prison camp was set up in Cuba. Mr Powell's remarks, in an interview with the Guardian in his state department office, appear to dash hopes of a swift resolution to the fate of the British inmates. The US struck a deal with the Australian government this week, under which two Australian suspects would have lawyers from their own country if they faced military tribunals and might be able to serve their sentences in Australia. Mr Powell said there were still some legal obstacles to overcome before a deal could be reached on the two Britons, Feroz Abbasi and Moazzam Begg, who have been named among the first group of prisoners to face a military commission. "The specific cases of two detainees that are before our military tribunal, the British detainees, is a difficult one," Mr Powell said. "There are some very complex legal issues that our lawyers are still working out. But the president is anxious to do what he can to resolve that one. And we're trying to be very sensitive to the needs of Tony Blair's government." He did not specify what the outstanding legal issues were, but his remarks about the other seven inmates - Asif Iqbal, Shafiq Rasul, Ruhal Ahmed, Richard Belmar, Tarek Dergoul, Martin Mubanga, and Jamal Udeen - offered even less hope that they would be freed or at least learn their fate any time soon. "The other seven are in a different track and they have not yet gone through the entire intelligence and interrogation process that exists in Guantanamo to determine whether or not they have done something wrong and therefore should be subject to some judicial process, or whether they should be released, and what danger they present," he said. The comments were greeted with outrage from human rights groups and the prisoners' lawyers. Relatives of all nine Britons, who were captured in Afghanistan, have denied they had links with terrorist groups. Stephen Jakobi, the director of the pressure group Fair Trials Abroad and an adviser to the European parliament on the issue of Guantanamo Bay, said: "It is necessary under international law to bring people before a court promptly. I have yet to see a definition of 'promptly' that means two years. The idea that intelligence can't process people over two years in risible. What Powell has said makes no sense." Rights The US supreme court agreed earlier this month to hear arguments from lawyers for a group of prisoners, including Mr Iqbal and Mr Rasul, demanding access to civilian lawyers and other rights enjoyed by defendants in civilian trials. That hearing is due in spring, but the British government will have to decide by Christmas whether to file an amicus brief, a written argument, laying out its position. There was little in what Mr Powell said to give much comfort to the government, which had been hoping to win concessions from the Bush administration during this month's presidential state visit. The secretary of state, who is due in Maastricht on Monday for a meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said Mr Bush had not yet decided whether to lift US tariffs on European steel."The president is waiting for some more information and reports," he said. As for the new international criminal court, the permanent war crimes tribunal supported by Britain and Europe but fiercely opposed by Washington, he said the US had not changed its policy of threatening signatories with economic reprisals if they did not pass laws excluding Americans from the court's jurisdiction. "We're not going to yield on our ICC policy," Mr Powell said. "We made it clear that we would not be any longer bound by any of the terms of the ICC, even though President [Bill] Clinton signed it just before he left office, knowing at the time he signed it it would never go to our Senate for ratification." In an unapologetic and at times heated performance, Mr Powell also defended his presentation to the UN on February 5, in which he laid out the evidence that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. None has been found. Asked if there were any claims in his speech that he now regretted, he mused for a few seconds before replying: "None." However, he put the responsibility for the speech squarely on the CIA. "What I presented on the 5th of February was not something that I made up here in the state department," he said. "And it was not something that was given to me by people who are not competent to provide such information. It represented the best work of our intelligence community, and I spent several days - I think from Thursday through Monday - with the director of central intelligence, with the deputy director of central intelligence, well into the night - almost midnight every night - and all of the analysts who have responsibility, the senior analysts, and we went over every single item." * * * The Hartford Courant: November 27, 2003 AMISTAD REVISITED AT GUANTANAMO? By Jeremy Brecher http://www.ctnow.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-amistad1127.artnov27,1,672831.story In the 1841 Amistad case - vividly portrayed in Stephen Spielberg's movie "Amistad" - the U.S. Supreme Court courageously held that human rights and the rule of law must apply to captives who had been seized in Africa and imprisoned in the United States. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear the eerily parallel case of those seized in Afghanistan and imprisoned at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It should reaffirm the Amistad precedent. The Guantanamo captives, who the Bush administration alleges were "unlawful combatants," are held prisoner without lawyers, without a day in court, without even hearing the charges against them. The administration claims the authority to deny the captives the right of habeas corpus - the right to appear before a judge, a right dating to the Magna Carta, enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and necessary for protecting all other human rights. The administration claims, paradoxically, that its agents can do whatever they want because the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay is in a foreign country and therefore not under the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. The Amistad captives were seized in Africa, shipped to Cuba and sold as slaves. They revolted, seized control of the Amistad and sailed to New England. They were captured by the U.S. Navy and imprisoned in Connecticut. The U.S. attorney general demanded that the courts turn them over for delivery to Spanish authorities - even planning to send them on a U.S. government ship so Connecticut courts could not intercede with a writ of habeas corpus. Both these cases raise the same two fundamental questions of human rights and the rule of law. Does the executive branch of government ever have the authority to seize people, imprison them and spirit them away to a foreign land with no appeal to a court? And does the executive ever have authority to act without any possibility of review by the judiciary? In the Amistad case, the Supreme Court answered no to both questions. The executive's position in the Amistad case met withering scorn from former President John Quincy Adams - inspiringly portrayed in Spielberg's movie by Anthony Hopkins - who defended the Amistad captives before the Supreme Court. Adams charged that the government was depriving the captives of the most fundamental rights. "Have the officers of the U.S. Navy a right to seize men by force, to fire at them, to overpower them, to disarm them, to put them on board of a vessel and carry them by force and against their will to another state, without warrant or form of law? ... Is there a right of habeas corpus in the land? ... Is it for this court to sanction such monstrous usurpation and executive tyranny?" Adams pointed out that sending people overseas for trial was "one of the most odious of those acts of tyranny which occasioned the American Revolution." Indeed, the Declaration of Independence specifically condemns King George III for "transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences." Adams also condemned the executive's attempt to usurp the authority of the courts. Perhaps, Adams conceded, it may be easy for the royal governor at Havana "to seize any man" and "send him beyond seas for any purpose." But "has the president of the United States any such powers? Can the American executive do such things?" The Spanish demand was no less than that "the executive of the United States, on his own authority, without evidence, without warrant of law, should seize, put on board a national armed ship and send beyond seas 40 men, to be tried for their lives." When Spain demanded that the president issue a proclamation overriding the jurisdiction of the courts, it was demanding "what the executive could not do, by the Constitution. It would be the assumption of a control over the judiciary by the president, which would overthrow the whole fabric of the Constitution; it would violate the principles of our government generally and in every particular." Yet that is in essence what the Bush administration is asking the Supreme Court to accept in the Guantanamo case. The Supreme Court ruled that U.S. courts were bound to protect the rights of the Amistad captives. The rights of the case "must be decided upon the eternal principles of justice and international law." To rule otherwise would "take away the equal rights of all foreigners, who should contest their claims before any of our courts, to equal justice," or "deprive such foreigners of the protection given them" by "the general law of nations." In 1841, the Supreme Court took a bold stand against executive tyranny and for human rights and the rule of law. Let us hope the United States will remain a government under law, not a presidential dictatorship. [ Jeremy Brecher of West Cornwall won the American Bar Association's 1997 Silver Gavel Award for the script of the video documentary "The Amistad Revolt." ] * * * Toronto Star: November 27, 2003 KHADR RELEASED AS EARLY AS JULY Pentagon official points to timeline Ottawa revises version of chronology By Tim Harper WASHINGTON - Ottawa has changed its version of events in the case of Abdul Rahman Khadr, raising new questions about how and when the government was informed the Canadian had been released from the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A Foreign Affairs spokesperson acknowledged the change last night, saying it was no longer accurate to say Ottawa had been informed "a few weeks ago" that Khadr, the 20-year-old from Scarborough, had been released from Guantanamo where he had been held without charge on suspicion of terrorism. There were strong hints in Washington yesterday that he could have been released as early as July 18, when 27 detainees were shipped out of Guantanamo by the Pentagon, after Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was satisfied they were no longer of any intelligence value and did not pose a security risk to the United States. The only other large-scale transfer occurred six days ago and the Khadr family lawyer, Rocco Galati, initially said the family believed the young man had been freed in late October. The family says he has been in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey and the former Yugoslavia since he was let go, and has complained he has had no help from Canadian missions abroad. "There is a timeline here and common sense should take over," said a Pentagon official who asked not to be named. "There is a key player here who has not been heard from -- Mr. Khadr. We know no one was released between July and last week and we have to ask about the credibility of the family and the lawyer who are talking in Canada," the official said. Canadian Foreign Affairs spokesperson Reynald Doiron said last night that "Canadian officials were made aware that Mr. Khadr would be released." He said he had been instructed to say nothing about the timing of the notification, raising the question as to whether the U.S. shipped Khadr back to Afghanistan first, then told Ottawa. Earlier in the day, Jim Munson, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, said the Prime Minister's Office was made aware "a few weeks ago" that he would be released. "Then we were informed that he would go to another country, and travel elsewhere." Munson said he didn't know when Khadr was released. A Pentagon spokesperson repeated yesterday Ottawa was notified, but, citing privacy concerns, would not say if the notification came before or after he left the prison camp. "Mr. Khadr may return to Canada as a matter of right," Doiron said. "There is no record of Mr. Khadr approaching any Canadian mission with a request for assistance. As with all Canadians, consular services will be provided to him on request." Galati said he was shocked Khadr could have been out that long. "This makes it much worse," he told Canadian Press from Toronto. "The Canadian government knew longer and sat on it. I think the government doesn't want him home because he's going to talk." Paul Martin, who becomes prime minister next month, has indicated Khadr, who holds a Canadian passport, can return here. Khadr's grandmother, a Scarborough resident, has said her grandson has been turned away from Canadian diplomatic missions in Pakistan and Turkey, but a spokesperson for the embassy in Istanbul said there is no record of him approaching the embassy. The Pentagon official also said because of security concerns, it is not unusual for the information on detainees who were released to be closely kept in a very tight circle of foreign officials. Officials at the Canadian embassy in Washington said yesterday they were unaware that Khadr had been released when they sent a diplomatic note two weeks ago to the U.S. state department demanding that Khadr, and his brother Omar, who remains at Guantanamo, be informed of their right to return to Canada upon release. The embassy said it still has not received a response from the State Department. A State Department official told the Star the notes, known as a diplomatic démarche, would have been passed to the Pentagon. "It is not terribly unusual for the Prime Minister's Office to be the main point of contact here," said an embassy official who asked not to be named. The Nov. 11 note backed up in writing what the embassy had already conveyed verbally to the U.S. State Department. "The note said any Canadian citizen detained at Guantanamo should be informed of their right to return to Canada if they wish to do so," the official said. "We wouldn't have delivered the note if we knew he had been released. Mentioning both brothers would have been redundant. At that point, we were aware of two Canadian detainees." Abdul Rahman Khadr is the son of Achmed Said Khadr, wanted internationally for suspected ties to Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization. Abdul Rahman Khadr was taken into American custody just two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when he was reportedly fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan. His brother Omar is one of a "very small number" of 17- and 18-year-olds held at Guantanamo. Omar Khadr is accused of killing an American in a grenade attack in Afghanistan last year. * * * Toronto Star: November 27, 2003 EDITORIAL: TROUBLING 'TERROR' FILE Is Canada committed to defending our 600,000-strong Muslim community, in a world made callous by 9/11 terror? Incoming prime minister Paul Martin wants to know. So do many Canadians. Muslims are being treated in ways that would stir fury if other religious groups were similarly targeted. The Americans shipped one Canadian, Maher Arar, off to Syria where he was held for nearly a year, and says he was beaten. Now they've just dumped another, Abdul Rahman Khadr, in Afghanistan after holding him for two years. Neither has been charged with a crime. And the Canadian government has sought to deport Hassan Almrei, a refugee from Syria, back home, unfazed that he might be harmed. He is deemed to be a threat to national security, and in Ottawa's eyes that allows him to be handed over to torturers after being detained for years. These murky cases differ markedly. Arar is believed innocent by Ottawa. Khadr reportedly had Al Qaeda training. Almrei is suspected of forging documents for Al Qaeda. Still, all three cases are troubling. They confirm the Americans have scant respect for Canadian passports, and they imply an unhealthy acquiescence by our own officials. In Arar's case Canadian police may have handed the Americans information that caused them to arrest and deport him rather than return him here. In Khadr's case, Jean Chrétien's office suppressed the news that he was being expelled to Afghanistan from the American jail in Cuba for alleged terrorists. And in Almrei's case, Ottawa is behaving exactly like Washington, seeking to deport him to Syria without regard to the consequences. Is no other country willing to take him? Martin has rightly condemned Washington's rough handling of Arar as "unacceptable," and has vowed to "get to the bottom" of the case. The best way is via a public inquiry. Martin also promises to ensure Khadr can return here if he chooses. And he wants to make sure "the Canadian passport will be respected and that fundamental rights will be respected" as we share information with our neighbours. Good. But Martin might want as well to tell federal officials to act more like Canadians, and less like Americans, as they deal with potential security threats. * * * The Guardian (UK): November 27, 2003 QUALITY OF JUDGMENT Leader The 650 suspected enemy combatants held by the United States on its Cuban naval base in Guantanamo Bay remained as far beyond the rule of law as ever yesterday; but at least the nation that placed them there finally received the searing indictment that it deserves. It came from Lord Steyn, one of the most senior judges on Britain's highest court, and in the most scathing language. The detentions were rightly described as "a monstrous failure of justice". The proposed prosecutions described as "kangaroo courts" under which the military act as interrogators, prosecutors, defence counsel, judges and, where death sentences were imposed, executioners too. Remember, this was a law lord speaking, steeped in the need to use words with care and precision. Accordingly he explained his use of the kangaroo epithet: "a pre-ordained arbitrary rush to judgment by an irregular tribunal which makes a mockery of justice." His indictment extended beyond the president, who had already described the prisoners as "killers", to the US courts which had refused to consider credible medical evidence that detainees had been or were being tortured. Red Cross officials, who have described the Cuban camp as a centre of interrogation rather than a centre of justice, were reported to believe that the techniques of interrogation were "not quite torture, but as close as you can get". The indictment, alas, came only in a lecture in London, not from the bench of an international court. But it placed the US firmly in the dock of international legal opinion. Each of the justifications which the US has employed for its Cuban camp was systematically taken apart by the law lord. The lecture won immediate applause from international lawyers. Moreover, it will no doubt be replayed at length in the US supreme court, which has finally declared itself ready to review the right of the president to imprison the suspects. Lord Steyn even pointed to an option, which it is still not too late for the US to adopt: an ad hoc international tribunal set up by the UN security council. The idea will not play in the White House but Americans should heed the judge's warning that the continuing denial of justice for the foreign suspects would lead to the gradual erosion of fundamental civil rights of US citizens. * * * November 26, 2003 PMO CITES 'NATIONAL SECURITY,' SAYS IT CAN'T DISCUSS KHADR CASE OTTAWA - The Prime Minister's Office is refusing to answer questions about the release of a Canadian from the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, citing national security as the reason for keeping quiet. The family of 21-year-old Abdu Rahman Khadr says Canadian officials refused to help him, after U.S. officials returned him to Afghanistan. That's where Khadr was arrested two years ago as a suspected terrorist. On Wednesday, as questions swirled about the case in Ottawa, government officials on both sides of the border offered few answers. Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs continues to say that it was surprised to learn Khadr had been released from Guantanamo Bay. A spokesman for the department says U.S. officials informed Canada several weeks ago Khadr's release was imminent. But, Reynald Doiron, says that information wasn't shared with Khadr's family in Canada because officials were waiting for a specific release date to avoid raising false hopes. Doiron says Washington never gave Foreign Affairs a date. Jim Munson, spokesman for the PMO refused to answer questions about the case. Munson says national security reasons prevent him from talking about Khadr or his family. One of Khadr's brothers remains in Guantanamo as an illegal combatant, another brother allegedly ran a terrorist training camp, and his father has been accused of being an al-Qaeda financier. "The government, in the last 48-hours, has a lot to answer for. And if the only answer they can give me about my client's release and whereabouts and what they know is that they can't tell me anything because of national security, that's more lies," said Khadr's lawyer Rocco Galati. No one in the federal government will even say whether they know when Khadr was released or under what circumstances. Although Galati says Khadr has been denied assistance at Canadian embassies in Pakistan and Turkey, federal officials deny he's sought any help. A U.S. State Department spokesman referred questions about Khadr to the Department of Defence, which is saying very little. Meanwhile, Justice Minister Martin Cauchon will not say what Ottawa's official position is on Maher Arar's plan to sue Syria. Arar's legal team says he was tortured and detained against his will in a Syrian jail after being deported from the United States. The Syrian-born Canadian says he doesn't want the federal government to stand in the way of his lawsuit. International agreements exempt countries from such lawsuits in all but exceptional cases. Cauchon says he can't say yet what Ottawa's position will be. Government lawyers are studying the matter. Written by CBC News Online staff * * * The Scotsman (UK): November 26, 2003 RED CROSS SLAMS US OVER GUANTANAMO PRISONERS "PA" A top official with the International Committee of the Red Cross said today it was "unacceptable" for the United States to hold terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay without charges or trial. Director-general Angelo Gnaedinger said in Copenhagen it was imperative that the detainees should be told "on what judicial ground" they are being held. About 660 prisoners, many captured after the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, are being held at the US Navy base in eastern Cuba, without charges or trial. US authorities claim the prisoners have provided valuable intelligence in the battle against terrorism. "We find it unacceptable that they are currently detained indefinitely," said Gnaedinger who was in Copenhagen to meet Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller and Danish lawmakers. Nine Britons are among the prisoners at the camp. On Tuesday, British judge Lord Steyn harshly criticised the detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay without charges or access to lawyers. "The purpose of holding the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay was and is to put them beyond the rule of law, beyond the protection of any courts and at the mercy of victors," Steyn said. He also called it "a monstrous failure of justice." US authorities say the prisoners are questioned for information on any future terrorist attacks. Releases are possible for those whom officials decide will not be prosecuted, those no longer considered a threat and those no longer useful for intelligence. * * * The Age (Melbourne): November 27, 2003 DOWNER BACKS US OVER DETENTION OF HICKS, HABIB By Mark Forbes, Foreign Affairs Correspondent http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/26/1069825839237.html CANBERRA - Australia is at war with the terrorist group al-Qaeda, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has said for the first time, justifying the detention and military trial of two Australian terror suspects. Mr Downer told the National Press Club that David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib were "combatants" in a war against Australia, so it would be unacceptable to bring them home from the United States and free them. "Our intelligence services have advised us that both these people... participated in training with al-Qaeda," he said. "We are at war with al-Qaeda and these people have been detained in the manner that you would detain combatants in a war." Despite viewing the pair - who were arrested in Pakistan and Afghanistan - as "illegal combatants", the Government had spoken to the US about their detention and proposals for post-war military commissions, Mr Downer said. "In the case of Hicks we hope the trial or military commission will proceed quickly, in the case of Habib there is still evaluation being done," he added. "The military commissions have many of the elements of our legal system." Their rules of evidence were "somewhat akin" to those used for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia, he said. "What are the choices?" he said. "We can go through this process with the Americans, which we think is a fair process, or we can have these people brought back to Australia and set free because we don't have a basis, given when they did their training with al-Qaeda, of charging them for that training. "I don't know how people in Australia would feel having people who trained with al-Qaeda going to the cinema and in the shopping centres... sitting next to them." The Government said on Tuesday that it had won concessions for the pair in negotiations with the US, including the right to speak to Australian lawyers face-to-face and telephone their families. Both would be exempted from the death penalty and be able to serve any sentence imposed in Australia. But David Hicks's father Terry said yesterday the Australian Government had misled his family. Mr Hicks said he had been told some time ago that a phone call before his son was charged had been ruled out for security reasons. "This is the frustrating side of it, that we've known that this charge business has always been there," Mr Hicks said. "They think he might say something that could undermine the intelligence- gathering of the US, although I can't see what difference it's going to make." In response yesterday, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock's office said it would try to speed up family access to Hicks. Amnesty International spokesman Gary Highland said yesterday that a military trial "reduces justice to the level of a poker game, with individual countries trying to cut the best deals for their citizens rather than having fair and transparent processes for all detainees". * Further terrorist attacks in Turkey are imminent and Australians should avoid the country, the Department of Foreign Affairs warned yesterday. It advised deferral of non-essential travel to Turkey until further notice. - with Penelope Debelle * * * Hartford Courant: November 26, 2003 U.S. MILITARY PLANS TO RELEASE CHILDREN HELD AT GUANTANAMO By Matthew Hay Brown, Courant Staff Writer http://www.ctnow.com/news/local/hc-gitmo1126.artnov26,1,5677586.story U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTNAMO BAY, Cuba -- The three children captured in Afghanistan and held for months at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay as enemy combatants will be released and sent home "very quickly," the commander of Joint Task Force-Guantanamo said Tuesday. Their detention in a special program, apart from some 660 older prisoners also held at the base, has drawn broad international criticism. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller described the youngsters, whose ages the military estimates at 13 to 15, as victims who were kidnapped into terrorism, had willingly shared valuable intelligence and had taken advantage of classes and counseling at Camp Iguana, the compound set up for them. He said they now pose no threat to the United States. "We feel this has been a success in both areas," the Joint Task Force commander said. "Not only have they helped us provide information that will help us win the global war on terror, but we also believe that we'll return to Afghanistani society three citizens who have a chance to make a difference." Miller said his recommendation to release the juveniles has been endorsed by the U.S. Southern Command and the Pentagon team that handles detainee policy, and now awaits final approval by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. The juveniles' detention, revealed in April, opened a new front for criticism of the controversial detention-and-interrogation operation here. Copyright © 2003 by The Hartford Courant * * * November 26, 2003 KHADR DOES NOT WANT TO COME BACK: OFFICIALS Canadian preferred to go to Afghanistan By Stewart Bell, National Post http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?id=84105AAE-86FD-480E-B482- B6145D58C78C TORONTO - A Toronto man released by the U.S. military after being detained at Guantanamo Bay has no desire to return to Canada and has not approached any Canadian embassies for help, government officials said yesterday. Canadian officials said there was no truth to claims made by the family of Abdulrahman Khadr that the 20-year-old was desperate to get back to Canada, but had been turned away by embassy staff in Pakistan and Turkey. "They kicked him out," his grandmother Fatmah Elsamnah of Scarborough said at a news conference at her lawyer's office in Toronto. She said embassy personnel told him he was not welcome in Canada. "This is what he told me." But Reynald Doiron, a Foreign Affairs spokesman, said Mr. Khadr could have returned to Canada upon his release from Guantanamo Bay if he had wanted to. Instead, Mr. Khadr chose to go to Afghanistan, Mr. Doiron said, adding the Canadian embassies in Islamabad and Ankara confirmed they had not heard from Mr. Khadr. Intelligence officials also claim to possess confidential evidence indicating that Mr. Khadr does not want to return to Canada. "They are lying if they say my client's grandson did not approach the embassy," countered Rocco Galati, the family's lawyer, adding it was "mind-boggling" to suggest Mr. Khadr would choose to go to Afghanistan instead of Canada. Mr. Galati accused the Canadian government of negligence, torture, crimes against humanity and racism, and said he would file a lawsuit unless Mr. Khadr gets a passport. "Canada does not recognize the citizenship of brown-skinned Muslims," he said. Mr. Khadr was born in Bahrain but is a Canadian citizen. He is the son of Egyptian-Canadian Ahmed Said Khadr, considered by Canada's intelligence service to be close to Osama bin Laden. He was raised in the Toronto area. "He spent most of his life here in Scarborough with me and he used to go back and forth to Afghanistan because his father was working for a humanitarian organization," Mrs. Elsamnah said. "He's Canadian since he was born." One of six children -- four boys and two girls -- he has been described as the black sheep of the Khadr family, who rejected the stern fundamentalist views of his father and wanted only to have a good time. He was last in Canada in early 2001. He got a job at a store and was planning to go to school, his grandmother said. But Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents questioned him and he decided to go back to Afghanistan, she said. According to a Canadian intelligence report released under the Access to Information Act, Mr. Khadr "is suspected of having undergone training at al- Qaeda facilities." He was arrested by the Northern Alliance rebels in Kabul in November, 2001. Mr. Khadr told an RCMP officer who visited him at his prison in Kabul in April, 2002, that he "was not anxious to return to Canada at that time," the report says. He was sent to Guantanamo Bay in January, joining his younger brother Omar. Aside from the allegations of al-Qaeda training, there is no evidence Mr. Khadr was directly involved in terrorism, but Omar allegedly killed a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, and his father is a wanted al-Qaeda figure. Mr. Khadr was flown to Afghanistan and released by the U.S. military in late October. Mrs. Elsamnah said he made his way to Islamabad and Turkey and was in the former Yugoslavia when he called last Sunday and told his grandmother that Canadian embassy staff had refused to give him a new passport. The Khadr family, particularly its patriarch, has been a longstanding concern for Canadian intelligence investigators. Ahmed Khadr moved to Canada from Egypt in the 1970s and later joined a Muslim charity helping Afghan refugees. He went to Pakistan as regional director of the Ottawa-based Human Concern International and opened refugee camps that CSIS now says were used to aid Islamic fighters waging holy war in Afghanistan. In 1995, he was arrested in Pakistan on accusations he financed the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad, but he was released without charges after Jean Chretien, the Prime Minister, raised the matter with Benazir Bhutto, then the Pakistani leader. The United Nations froze his assets in 2001 because of his alleged ties to bin Laden, and after the attacks of Sept. 11, Canada ordered banks to seize any accounts linked to him. The RCMP has opened an investigation into his activities but no charges have been announced. While Mr. Khadr remains on the loose, authorities have had better luck cornering his sons. Abdulrahman was the first to be captured, then Omar, and last month Pakistan said his youngest boy, Abdul Karim, 14, had been shot dead by Pakistani troops. "Everyone in Afghanistan have weapons and training," Mrs. Elsamnah said when asked about allegations Omar was undergoing weapons training when he was taken captive. Mrs. Elsamnah wants the Prime Minister to help Omar, the same way he helped his father in 1996. "Please Mr. Chretien, if you can help Omar, thank you very much," she said. "I beg him to look after Omar before he step down." KHADR FAMILY Father and sons: AHMED SAID aka Abu Abdulrahman Al Kanadi. Believed by CSIS to have close ties to Osama bin Laden. Born in Egypt and came to Canada in 1970s. Ran Canadian-funded refugee camps in Pakistan but allegedly became involved with armed Islamic groups. "The U.S. is very interested in finding Mr. Khadr," says a 2002 Secret Memo to the Prime Minister. ABDULLAH The eldest of four sons. A Canadian intelligence reports say he is alleged to have "commanded an extremist training camp in Lowgar Province in Afghanistan." His whereabouts are unknown. ABDULRAHMAN Suspected of "having undergone training at al-Qaeda facilities," according to a Canadian intelligence report. Captured when Northern Alliance rebels liberated Kabul in November, 2001. Sent to Guantanamo Bay in January, 2003, but released last month. OMAR Now 17, was captured in Afghanistan in July, 2002, following an intense firefight between U.S. and al-Qaeda forces. The U.S. military said he killed an American military medic. He is detained at Guantanamo Bay, where he confessed that his family was involved with bin Laden, says a Canadian intelligence report. ABDUL KARIM The youngest of the Khadr children, the 14-year-old was reported by a British- based Islamist association to have been shot dead last month by Pakistani soldiers, but Canada has been unable to confirm the killing and there are rumours he is recovering in a hospital. [ Ran with fact box "Khadr Family" which had been appended to the story.; sbell@nationalpost.com ] © Copyright 2003 National Post * * * Ottawa Citizen: November 26, 2003 MARTIN OPENS DOOR TO ARAR INQUIRY Next PM says foreign countries, including U.S., must respect Canadian passport By Anne Dawson, with files from Janice Tibbetts http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=3f626fd4- ee1a-44d0-bdd5-1a7eadf61837 Prime minister designate Paul Martin opened the door yesterday to a public inquiry into the deportation of Maher Arar to Syria, where he was tortured. Prime Minister Jean Chretien has refused to call an inquiry saying it is too expensive and that the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP is already investigating the matter. "No, I'm not closing the door" to a public inquiry on Mr. Arar, Mr. Martin told reporters yesterday. "I can assure you that once I become prime minister, it is my intention to get all the facts and then we will make whatever decisions are necessary." Mr. Martin also said he has already sent out the order that all consular services are to be made available to Abdulrahman Khadr, a Canadian who was recently released after being held captive by the U.S. government at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In commenting on Mr. Arar and Mr. Khadr, Mr. Martin said there must be "greater co-operation" between Canada and the U.S. on these files and that the passports of Canadian citizens must be better respected than they have in the past. Mr. Martin has made improving strained Canada-U.S. relations a top priority for his new government. "I believe that what happened was simply unacceptable and that if in fact we're going to have the kinds of exchanges of information which are so important in terms of the security of North America ... there is going to have to be an understanding that in fact the Canadian passport will be respected and that fundamental rights will be respected," said Mr. Martin. The Canadian Bar Association has also called for a public inquiry into the case of Mr. Arar, a 33-year-old Syrian-born Canadian who was arrested at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport in September 2002 on his return to Canada after a family visit in Tunisia. He was questioned and detained for almost two weeks and then deported by the U.S. to Syria, via Jordan, even though he was travelling on his Canadian passport. He says he was falsely imprisoned for almost a year and tortured and subjected to death threats. The Americans said he was an al-Qaeda terrorist suspect, although he has never been charged with a crime in any country. In a letter to the prime minister, Canada's lawyers said Canadians have a right to know about the "profound shift in our legal climate" after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S. "All Canadians deserve to know what happened and why and be assured that this couldn't happen to them," wrote William Johnson, president of the 38,000-member Canadian Bar Association. Mr. Arar wants the federal government to help him with a $31-million lawsuit he has launched against Syria and Jordan. His lawyers are also asking for Justice Minister Martin Cauchon's support to bring the foreign countries before Canadian courts because they say he will not be able to obtain justice in the Syrian and Jordanian legal systems. The Justice Department has said it will consider the request even though individuals are normally not allowed to sue foreign governments from abroad. Mr. Martin was less forthcoming about whether he will intervene in this court case. "That's something that obviously Foreign Affairs and Justice are looking at and I'll wait ... to get their advice," he said. © The Ottawa Citizen 2003 * * * Los Angeles Times: November 26, 2003 GUANTANAMO CAMP'S MUSLIM CHAPLAIN FACES NEW CHARGES * Army captain suspected of mishandling secret data is accused of porn possession and adultery. By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-yee26nov26,1,4110703.story WASHINGTON -- Army Capt. James Yee, the Muslim chaplain arrested for allegedly mishandling classified material at the terrorist detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was released from a military brig on Tuesday, but he faces new charges of adultery at the naval base and viewing pornography on his government computer there. The release of the sole Muslim religious leader ministering to the 660 detainees came one day after his Washington lawyers sent a letter to President Bush complaining about his confinement and urging that he be freed until his criminal case can be resolved. "We're not out of the woods yet, obviously," said defense lawyer Eugene R. Fidell. "But Chaplain Yee and his family are very, very grateful to the president and his advisors for this." However, military authorities said the release had nothing to do with the letter to the president. They said Yee was freed from a Navy brig in South Carolina as part of the routine process of the case. Authorities have yet to decide whether Yee will be court-martialed on any of the charges, including the initial offenses of mishandling classified material from the detainee prison. "We are very, very confident that there has been no outside pressure into this investigation" from the White House or any other source, said Raul Duany, a spokesman for the military's Southern Command, which runs the Guantanamo Bay prison. Yee was reassigned to Ft. Benning, Ga., where he will report to the chief chaplain and await any decision on a court-martial. He was arrested Sept. 10 after leaving the detention camp in Cuba and landing at the naval air station at Jacksonville, Fla. Later charged with two counts of mishandling classified material from the facility, he became one of three officials at the detainee prison who have been charged with taking secret information from there. On Tuesday he was charged with four more offenses. One charge said that Yee, a 35-year-old West Point graduate who is married, did "wrongfully have sexual intercourse with a woman not his wife" both in Guantanamo Bay and Orlando, Fla. Under the military code of justice, said Duany, adultery is considered conduct unbecoming an officer. There were two new charges that he did "wrongfully and dishonorably use a government-issued computer to view and store pornographic images" at Guantanamo Bay, and a fourth charge of making a false statement to authorities about whether certain material had been cleared for release to detainees. Duany said Army Col. Dan Trimble at Ft. Benning now will decide whether Yee will be sent to an Article 32 preliminary hearing to air the evidence against him and determine whether he should be court-martialed. But his defense attorney said the new charges appear to be just a "piling-on" against his client. "You see adultery charges being trotted out, and it just makes your heart sink," Fidell said. "What they're really trying to do is replace his leg irons with a scarlet letter." Fidell also suggested that the case may never get to a court-martial, and that instead there might be fruitful negotiations to settle the matter. "I'm hoping this case will go away," he said. * * * Charleston Post and Courier: November 26, 2003 MUSLIM CHAPLAIN RELEASED FROM BRIG Yee faces new charges, including adultery By Paisley Dodds, Associated Press SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO--The military has released from custody a Muslim chaplain accused of taking classified material from the U.S. prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and will allow him to return to duty at a base in Georgia. Army Capt. James Yee has been held at the Navy Consolidated Brig in Hanahan, S.C. Raul Duany, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, said Tuesday that the military has filed additional charges of adultery and storing pornography on a government computer against Yee. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, commander of the prison facility at Guantanamo, ordered Yee's release, after determining that he presented no flight risk. In an interview at the prison facility, Miller declined to discuss the specific charges against Yee and said an Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding, will begin Monday at Fort Benning, Ga. "Capt. Yee is innocent until provenguilty," Miller said. "He deserves his day in court." Miller said he chose Fort Benning for the hearing, which will be public, instead of Guantanamo because the fort has more legal resources. Authorities arrested Yee, 35, in September and charged him with disobeying an order for allegedly taking classified material from Guantanamo and improperly transporting it. He was one of three men who worked with prisoners at the base in Cuba to be accused of wrongdoing. The new charges include making a false statement, storing pornography on a government computer and having sexual relations outside marriage, which violates military law. The adultery allegedly occurred with an unspecified woman at Guantanamo and in Orlando, Fla., between July and September 2003, and the pornography was on his government-issued computer at the base in eastern Cuba, Duany said. Yee, who also uses the first name Yousef, will be assigned to the base chaplain at Fort Benning, but his exact duties have yet to be determined, said Capt. Tom Crosson, another spokesman at the U.S. Southern Command. Yee will be prohibited from having contact with prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Duany said. Yee's lawyer, Eugene Fidell, said he was pleased that his client was released but disappointed by the new charges. "We're thrilled that Chaplain Yee was released, but on the other hand, the additional charges are the kind of thing that can give military justice a bad name, especially the adultery charge," Fidell said. The Uniform Code of Military Justice classifies adultery as a punishable offense, the U.S. Southern Command said. No other information was provided on the pornography allegation. Yee, a Chinese-American who converted to Islam after graduating from West Point, was arrested Sept. 10 in Jacksonville, Fla. Federal agents said they found the native of Springfield, N.J., carrying sketches of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, where he counseled prisoners accused of links to Afghanistan's deposed Taliban regime or the al-Qaida terror network. Once a chaplain at Fort Lewis, Wash., Yee was charged by the military on Oct. 10 with disobeying a general order by taking classified material home and transporting it without proper security containers. Miller said the release had nothing to do with a letter Fidell wrote to President Bush asking him to immediately release his client from the brig, saying Yee has been held in "harsh and illegal conditions." In the letter, Fidell said that after authorities arrested Yee, his client was held for six weeks in a maximum security area of the brig and kept in isolation for 23 hours a day. Fidell said people accused of mishandling classified information normally aren't confined at all. He likened Yee's treatment to that of Dr. Wen Ho Lee, who was arrested in 1999 on charges that he passed nuclear secrets to China. Lee spent nine months in solitary confinement before the government dropped all serious charges. Lee pleaded guilty to a minor charge of mishandling secret information. Yee is one of four people being held in the brig on terrorism-related charges. The administration has designated the three others -- Jose Padilla, Yaser Hamdi and Ali Saleh al-Marri -- enemy combatants, arguing that they present a danger to national security. Under that label, the Bush administration says it can hold them incommunicado in a maximum-security section of the brig for as long as necessary. Fidell said Yee's incarceration at the brig with the designated enemy combatants has "prejudicially linked" his client with them, and that until recently Yee was being treated as if he were an enemy combatant. For six weeks, Fidell said, Yee was required to wear hand and leg irons when leaving his cell, and brig personnel refused to provide him with religious materials or tell him the time of day, an important requirement for practicing Muslims. He was also not allowed to send or receive mail, watch television, or have any reading materials other than the copy of the Koran and the brig's manual of standard operating procedures. Last month, officials placed Yee in medium-security status and allowed him to read a censored newspaper and make two 15-minute phone calls to family or his lawyers. [ Tony Bartleme of The Post and Courier staff contributed to this report. ] * * * Toronto Globe and Mail: November 26, 2003 PMO KNEW KHADR WAS FREED By Paul Koring And Jeff Sallot Washington and Ottawa -- The Prime Minister's office knew weeks ago that the United States was about to release Abdul Rahman Khadr, a young Canadian recently set free from the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a PMO spokesman said yesterday. But the PMO, along with a handful of senior Canadian security officials and at least one senior Foreign Affairs official kept the information hidden from Mr. Khadr's family, as well as the Washington embassy handling the case. As a result of being kept in the dark, the Canadian embassy in Washington delivered diplomatic demarches to the U.S. State Department demanding that Mr. Khadr be informed of his right to return to Canada, even after he had been sent to Afghanistan on a U.S. military flight. "We were made aware a few weeks ago that Mr. Khadr would be released," PMO spokesman Jim Munson said. He added that Mr. Khadr, 21, had chosen to go to Afghanistan, although his family in Canada said he has been trying frantically to get home. Those who knew about Mr. Khadr's release -- a forced expulsion by military flight to an undisclosed location in Afghanistan -- kept that information from Nancy Collins, the Foreign Affairs officer handling the case, and from the Canadian embassy in Washington. In a note to the U.S. State Department, dated Nov. 11, the embassy demanded that Mr. Khadr and his brother (being held behind barbed wire at the U.S. military prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo), "should be informed of their right to return to Canada," Terry Colli, senior spokesman for the Canadian embassy in Washington said. Mr. Colli said the note had been delivered after the debacle involving the secret deportation of another Canadian, Maher Arar, to Syria. In the Arar case, U.S. ambassador to Ottawa Paul Cellucci suggested that Canadian security officials were told in advance and gave the green light, although ministers flatly denied any advance knowledge. In Mr. Khadr's case, Foreign Affairs in Ottawa kept its Washington embassy in the dark. "In the embassy -- on both the political and military side -- they did not know that Khadr has been released," Mr. Colli said yesterday, adding that most of Foreign Affairs apparently was taken by surprise. U.S. security agencies handling releases from Guantanamo also hid that information from the U.S. State Department. "The State Department is not in the loop ..... they continue to tell us that they have no information about Khadr," Mr. Colli said yesterday. There appears to be confusion about when Mr. Khadr was released. Although his family said he was freed in late October, some government sources suggested he may not have been freed until as late as mid-November. A source said yesterday that information about Mr. Khadr's release was received by Canada three weeks ago and that the information was kept in "limited circulation" because Canadian officials here did not want to do anything that on the "off chance" coul