Guantanamo hunger strike lawyer dies in apparent suicide

[Disco_Destroyer]

Guantanamo attorney dead in apparent suicide
Get short URL Published time: May 02, 2013 03:37
Reuters / Deborah Gembara
http://rt.com/usa/guantanamo-attorney-dead-suicide-699/

Guantanamo, Law, USA
An American lawyer representing detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp has been found dead in an apparent suicide.

The body of Andy P. Hart, a 38-year-old US federal public defender, was found last week with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. According to Truthout, an investigative blog, news of the attorney’s death came only this Wednesday from an investigator working on Guantanamo detainees’ habeas corpus petitions. That investigator requested anonymity.

According to court documents, Hart had previously represented Kahlid Saad Mohammed, a 39-year-old Guantanamo detainee from Saudi Arabia who was transferred back to his home country in 2009 after being identified as having only “low-level” terrorist affiliation.

Perhaps most notably, Hart was assigned to defend Mohammed Rahim al-Afghani, one of 16 detainees at Guantanamo which the US government has designated as “high-value.” Al-Afghani, thought to be Osama bin Laden’s translator, was detained by the CIA and allegedly tortured prior to his arrival in Cuba in 2008.

Reuters / Deborah Gembara

The location of Hart’s death has not been made public, though he left behind a suicide note and a USB storage device, which Truthout believed to contain his case files. The FBI was made aware of his death as Hart worked with sensitive information, though Truthout had not confirmed whether the agency would be investigating further into the matter.

The public defender’s death comes at a highly tense time for the Guantanamo Bay detention center, as 40 US Navy medics arrived there a few days ago to cope with a worsening hunger strike which now includes at least 100 of the prison’s population of 160.

On Wednesday, the United Nations human rights office declared that the force-feeding of hunger strikers at Guantanamo amounted to torture and a breach of international law.

Andy Hart was one of several lawyers who signed a March letter addressed to Secretary of Defense Charles Hagel urging for immediate action to end the growing hunger strike. He is survived by an 11-year-old daughter.

[TonyGosling]

Ex-MI6 officer joins Guantánamo inmate in hunger strike
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/10/mi6-officer-guantanamo-hu nger-strike

Show of solidarity for camp's last UK resident, Shaker Aamer, will express officer's shame at service's 'support for torture'

Mark Townsend - The Observer, Saturday 10 August 2013 23.04 BST

Former MI6 officer Harry Ferguson. Photograph: Gerard Farrell

A former MI6 officer will begin a week-long hunger strike on Monday in solidarity with the Guantánamo Bay detention camp prisoner Shaker Aamer, a move he says is prompted by shame over the behaviour of the British intelligence service he once served.

Harry Ferguson, 52, will attempt to fast for a week to highlight the plight of Aamer, the last UK resident being held at the US military camp, who has been on hunger strike for more than 170 days. The former MI6 operative, who took part in the fight against terrorism, said he was motivated by a regret that the "organisation of which I was once proud to be a member now supports policies including assassination, rendition, torture and detention without trial".

He said that recent claims that British intelligence officers had been covertly campaigning against Aamer's repatriation had proved the final straw.

"In fact [the legal charity] Reprieve has recently uncovered evidence that MI6 is directly briefing against his return to this country because once he arrives here he will reveal that MI6 officers were present while he was being tortured," he added.

Ferguson said the shame he felt over such disclosures was heightened by recruitment work he had carried out for MI6 and lectures he had hosted defending the security services.

"Sadly, my advice today to any aspiring recruit who values the defence of human rights would be to stay away and do something better with their lives. The intelligence services are not what they were. Above all, they have forgotten the lessons that we learned during the struggle against Irish terrorism: that brutality and injustice are not the answer, they simply fuel the next generation of terrorists," he said.

Aamer has been on hunger strike since March to highlight his demands to be brought home to London. He is among a reported 60 Guantánamo detainees still refusing food, the majority of whom are being force-fed. The 47-year-old, whose wife and children still live in south-west London, has been detained in the military prison for 11 years without being charged or tried.

Clive Stafford-Smith, director of Reprieve and Aamer's lawyer, welcomed Ferguson's decision to draw attention to Aamer's plight. "It is a big deal that someone who is so linked in with MI6 is willing to make such a strong statement," he said.

Aamer has twice been cleared for release, once by President George W Bush in 2007, and once by Barack Obama in 2009. On the second occasion, six intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the FBI, agreed that he was no threat to the United States or its allies.

Shaker Aamer with two of his children, son Michael and daughter Johninh. Photograph: PA

The British government continues to insist that the decision regarding when Shaker is released is purely an American one. Yet Shaker remains a prime witness in a British police prosecution into torture and has already been interviewed by officers from Scotland Yard.

The UN convention against torture dictates that both Britain and the US co-operate fully in any such investigation, and suggests that the US would be in violation of international law if Aamer is not returned to London to be a witness. His supporters are baffled as to why the British government appears not to have sought to enforce the rule of law against the US.

Ferguson's hunger strike is part of a campaign by Reprieve, which is supporting the Guantánamo Bay hunger-strikers by encouraging supporters to give up food temporarily.

Stafford-Smith and celebrities, including actor Julie Christie and comedian Frankie Boyle, are among those so far to have completed a hunger strike in solidarity with Aamer.

Meanwhile Stafford-Smith has revealed that Aamer has recently shared some of the vivid dreams he has been experiencing during his hunger strike, one of which blends his prison experiences with Obama's efforts to reform America's healthcare system.Stafford-Smith said: "The dream is about Obamacare, the president is strapped tightly into a force-feeding chair. He is vomiting on himself because they are forcing the liquid nutrient into him at very high speed."

[outsider]

A Step Toward Justice in the Long "War on Terror": Uruguay Offers to Welcome Guantanamo Detainees:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38038.htm

'March 22, 2014 "Information Clearing House - Under the Presidency of José “Pepe” Mujica, Uruguay has made a number of international headlines in recent years for progressive moves such as legalizing same sex marriage, abortion and marijuana cultivation and trade, as well as withdrawing its troops from Haiti. This week, Mujica offered to welcome detainees from the US’s detention center at its base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The Uruguayan president accepted a proposal from the Obama administration to host the detainees. “They are coming as refugees and there will be a place for them in Uruguay if they want to bring their families,” Mujica explained. “If they want to make their nests and work in Uruguay, they can remain in the country.”

“I was imprisoned for many years and I know how it is,” he said. The left-leaning president is a former revolutionary guerilla who was jailed for 14 years before and during Uruguay’s 1973-1985 dictatorship. After his release, he ended his guerilla activities and entered politics, becoming the Minister of Agriculture in 2005 under the Tabaré Vázquez administration, and was elected to the presidency in 2010.

Mujica, who has been touted as the “world’s poorest president” due to his frugal lifestyle and the fact that he donates about 90% of his presidential salary to charities and social programs, still lives on a flower farm with his wife outside the capital, and drives a beat up Volkswagen Beetle to work. Earlier this year, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his progressive marijuana legalization program and views against excessive consumerism. His newest move against the human rights abuses of the "war on terror" has put him back in the global spotlight...'

What a difference from our bloated Corporatist, Bankster-loving 'snouts-in-the-trough' leaders!