Guantánamo news: The most important news from Guantánamo this month, relating to the United Kingdom, concerns the practice of extraordinary rendition. Extraordinary rendition is the illegal CIA practice by which individuals are usually “kidnapped” (detained illegally) and transferred to third countries where they are tortured, as these countries are known to use such practices regularly to extract confessions (such as Morocco, Syria, Jordan, etc.). Many Guantánamo detainees have ended up there through this practice; often by having been “detained” in Pakistan, transferred to the hands of the US military and then taken to Bagram and other illegal jails in Afghanistan before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay. British nationals and residents who have been victims of extraordinary rendition from countries other than Pakistan include Martin Mubanga (kidnapped in Zambia), Bisher El-Rawi and Jamil El-Banna (both kidnapped in Gambia). Most of the British nationals and residents claim to have been visited by British intelligence officers before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay and hence the British government has long been aware of and complicit in this practice. Almost all European Union countries, including the UK, have also been complicit in allowing US military flights carrying detainees to Guantánamo Bay and other illegal US-run jails in the war on terror to use their airspace and airport facilities to refuel and thus have colluded in this torture which is banned outright under international law. Such flights are alleged to have refuelled at Prestwick Airport, outside Glasgow, and Luton and Gatwick Airports in London, among others in the UK. Questions about this practice and Britain’s knowledge and wilful involvement in it were first put to the UK government in 2005 by Sir Menzies Campbell MP, the former leader of the Liberal Democrat Party, but were consistently denied by Tony Blair’s government. Reports by Amnesty International, other human rights NGOs and the Council of Europe, the European body on human rights, were also denied by the British government and other European governments. An investigation by Liberty, the civil rights organisation, drew a blank when in 2007 police denied any evidence of British airspace being used in the practice, following an investigation. However, on 21 February, the current Foreign Secretary, David Miliband MP, admitted to Parliament that the US had informed the British government, only recently, that two flights carrying detainees to Guantánamo Bay had stopped and refuelled in 2002 at a UK overseas territory, the island of Diego Garcia in the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, which is currently leased by the British government to the US military and is used by the Americans to launch attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. (For the history of Diego Garcia and its indigenous people, please see: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/pilger.php?articleid=3702). One of the detainees rendered through Diego Garcia has been released and the other remains in Guantánamo Bay. Mr Miliband did not release any more details but said that his department would be investigating whether or not other flights had passed through UK or UK overseas territories. Furthermore, an American general has commented twice that the US is running an off-shore detention facility near the island. A full transcript of Mr Miliband’s “admission” to Parliament can be read at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080221/debtext/80221-0008.htm#08022198000351 It can also be watched at the BBC website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7256587.stm (click on the link under the picture) While the national media reported that Mr Miliband “apologised” for the practice and he did indeed use the word “sorry, this was no “apology”: not to the British public, who have been misled too, or the victims of this illegal practice. Several NGOs, including Reprieve and Amnesty International, have called on the British government for a full investigation into what has happened and whether or not other such flights have passed through and stopped on British soil. This is merely the tip of the iceberg and there is no doubt that more details of “terror flights” passing through and stopping on UK soil will emerge in due time. A Council of Europe report published in June 2006 singled out Prestwick Airport as a “stop-off point” in the practice of rendition. This same report claimed that over 1200 “terror flights” have stopped in European countries, dozens of which were in the UK. Many actions have been held by protesters at Prestwick Airport since 2005 and Scotland Against Criminalising Communities (SACC), part of the National Guantánamo Coalition, has been working on this issue for the past few years. If Mr Miliband found this episode embarrassing, then no doubt there are more to follow unless he and the British government learn to answer the questions they are actually asked and admit to the full extent of the UK’s involvement and collaboration in illegal practices under the pretext of the war on terror. The following day, on Friday 22 February, the European Commission, rebuked Poland and Romania for their involvement in running secret CIA jails on their territories and their failure to respond to request for clarifications on these claims. On Thursday 28 February, at the Stop The War Coalition’s World Against War conference at Friend’s House in Euston, former SAS soldier Ben Griffin spoke about the extent of the UK’s government involvement in extraordinary rendition and torture. Mr Griffin was a soldier in Iraq before he left the army in 2006 after refusing to be a part of the war there anymore. You can watch the video of his speech at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb50-ouA-IA&feature=email The following is a statement by Mr Griffin: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=533&Itemid=27 On Friday 29 February, the British government had an injunction placed on Mr Griffin (a gagging order) preventing him from speaking further on this subject. Mr Griffin has been working with lawyers and NGOs on this issue. Still with the issue of rendition, on 13 February, a judge in San Jose, California, threw out the civil case brought by the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) on behalf of five Guantánamo detainees who were rendered using flight plans drawn up by Jeppesen Dataplan, a subsidiary of Boeing. The case was brought in May 2007 seeking unspecified damages against the company for having knowingly provided flight services for the CIA’s extraordinary rendition programme. The American government intervened in the case to use the “state secrets” doctrine, which was used to have the case thrown out, as any information linked to national security could not be divulged in a court in this way. A former Jeppesen employee has given evidence against the company. Bisher El-Rawi and Binyam Mohamed are two of the plaintiffs in this case, on whose behalf the case was brought. The ACLU is appealing. Military officials are still working towards holding “trials” at Guantánamo Bay, despite the resignation of various personnel working on these cases. The American government claims that it wants to hold trials for up to 80 detainees. A case is currently being prepared against Binyam Mohamed, although he faces no new charges. The trials have already been condemned as being mere show trials and have been compared to the Nuremberg trials which took place after WWII. The American administration has furthermore called for the death penalty for six detainees, alleged to have links to the 9/11 attacks. Many detainees at Guantánamo Bay are unlikely to be fit to stand trial in any kind of court given the six years of torture and abuse they have faced. It is likely that these trials will take years to be concluded. At the 2008 Academy Awardsin the US, Taxi to the Dark Sidehttp://www.taxitothedarkside.com, won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Directed by Alex Gibney, this documentary is about the murder of an innocent Afghan taxi driver at Bagram in 2002 and takes an in-depth look into the American use of torture and is worth a watch. A trailer can be seen at: http://www.whydemocracy.net/film/4 Last month, the LGC reported that a Guantánamo detainee had been infected with HIV and now has AIDS. Please take action for him, either by writing the following letters or signing the online petition: http://www.cageprisoners.com/campaigns.php?id=675 The US has denied that he has AIDS or HIV. LGC ACTIVITIES: The London Guantánamo Campaign held a lunchtime demonstration, with the Muslim Prisoner Support Group, on 12 February outside the Spanish Embassy in Knightsbridge to protest against Spain’s request for the extradition of Jamil El-Banna and Omar Deghayes. This was followed up by a Hearts and Flowers demonstration outside Horseferry Road Magistrates’ Court, held with the Save Omar Campaign, on 14 February before the hearing in this case. The Spanish government has been given until 13 April to respond to medical evidence presented by Omar and Jamil’s lawyers. If they choose to go ahead with the extradition request, there will be a full hearing on 15 May. For more details on these actions: https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/391774.html The Save Omar Campaign is calling on concerned individuals to write to the Spanish judge who asked for Omar and Jamil’s extradition. The address is: Juez Baltazar Garzon Real, c/o Audiencia Nacional de Espana, Calle Garcia Gutierrez 1, Planta Baja 28004, Madrid, Spain. If you write, emphasise the fact that Omar and Jamil have already been tortured and suffered greatly for nearly six years, and that both have health issues related to their torture and imprisonment. Watch this space for other upcoming actions pending the Spanish’s response. The London Guantánamo Campaign is also continuing its weekly vigils outside the US Embassy on Friday evenings but will be changing the format of these weekly actions from April; we will be taking the demonstrations all over London on a Friday, selecting different sites each week, with the US Embassy being targeted on the second and fourth week of each month (i.e. no change to the current vigils on those weeks). We will be targeting companies, embassies, etc. and generally places that have links to Guantánamo Bay to inform the public of these links. If anyone has any suggestions of particular places you think we should target, please do get in touch. The London Guantánamo Campaign is also stepping up its campaign for Binyam Mohamed – please write to the Foreign Secretary if you haven’t already http://www.guantanamo.org.uk/content/view/124/40/ If you have ideas on specifics actions we should take over the coming months, please let us know. Binyam is the last Londoner in Guantánamo Bay and is suicidal after 5 years of abuse; let’s not give up on him now. London Guantánamo Campaign www.guantanamo.org.uk
London Campaign 
