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In the Courts

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  • This 2002 photo provided by the Khadr family shows Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen now held as an "enemy combatant" at the U.S. Navy base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Human rights groups have long called on Canada to pressure the United States to release Khadr who was captured in Afghanistan in 2002.

    Court: Canada PM must press for Khadr's return

    A Canadian Federal Court judge ruled Thursday that Prime Minister Stephen Harper must press the United States to return a Canadian citizen who is the last Western detainee at Guantánamo Bay. Photo Gallery Available

  • In this file photo, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, center, and Uruguayan senator Rafael Michelini, left, visit the Navy's Mechanic School - the main clandestine torture centre during the Argentine military dictatorship of 1976-1983.

    Spain asks U.S. about location of 9/11 suspect

    A Spanish judge has asked the United States, Britain and three other countries about the whereabouts of an alleged senior al Qaeda member who was captured in Pakistan in 2005, a court official said Tuesday. Photo Gallery Available

  • In this image reviewed by the U.S. military, a building that houses Uighur detainees is seen in Camp Iguana detention facility on the U.S. Navy Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008.

    U.S. court says Uighurs will not get 30-day notice

    A federal appeals court overturned on Tuesday a judge's decision to give 17 Chinese citizens, now detained at Guantánamo Bay, 30 days notice of where the U.S. government will send them when they are released. Photo Gallery Available

  • Rebiya Kadeer, an ethnic Uyghur from China's predominately Muslim far west, arrived in exile in the United States in 2005, and has campaigned vigorously for greater freedom for her ethnic brethren.

    Uighurs ask U.S. Supreme Court for their freedom

    Muslims from China now held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, asked the Supreme Court on Monday to order their release into the United States. Photo Gallery Available

  • The U.S. Navy released this view of damage sustained on the port side of the Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer USS Cole after a suspected terrorist bomb exploded during a refueling operation in the port of Aden, Yemen, Thursday, Oct. 12, 2000.

    Standoff averted: Defense official dismisses charges

    The Obama administration moved Thursday to confront growing controversy over its efforts to alter Bush-era terror policies, inviting victims of al Qaeda attacks to meet with the president at the White House on Friday even as it withdrew charges against an alleged al Qaeda plotter held at Guantánamo.

  • U.S. Army military judge Col. James L. Pohl arrives for a pretrial hearing for U.S. Army Pfc. Lynndie England at Fort Hood, Texas, Thursday, July 7, 2005.

    War court judge: Prison camp conditions my domain

    An Army judge who is defying a White House request to freeze the Pentagon's war court ruled Thursday that he would decide at next week's hearing at Guantánamo whether the military's security measures impaired a captive's ability to defend himself.

  • GUANTANAMO BAY

    Guantánamo judge defies Obama's order for freeze

    An Army judge at Guantánamo has ignored a White House request for a 120-day war court freeze and ordered a Feb. 9 arraignment of an al Qaeda suspect.

  • Ex-U.S. attorney joins terror prosecution team

    A former U.S. attorney who was among nine fired by the Bush administration in 2006 has been working as a prosecutor of suspected terrorists at Guantánamo.

  • GUANTANAMO BAY

    Captives brag of 9/11 roles

    The last war-crimes session of the Bush administration was marked by antics from 9/11 defendants and pleas by relatives of 9/11 victims for swifter justice.

  • In this courtroom sketch by pool artist Janet Hamlin, approved for release by the U.S. military, the five Sept. 11, 2001 attack co-defendants sit during a hearing at the U.S. Military Commissions at the U.S. Navy Base, in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Monday, Jan. 19, 2009. From top to bottom, they are Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Waleed Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, Ammar al Baluchi, also known as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmad al Hawsawi.

    9/11 terror suspects defiant at hearing

    Guards shackled 9/11 terror suspect Ramzi bin al Shibh to the courtroom floor and suspect Khalid Sheik Mohammed again said he welcomed death Monday as the U.S. government sought to press ahead with its showcase war crimes trial on the eve of Barack Obama's inauguration. Photo Gallery Available

  • Army Col. Lawrence J. Morris, chief prosecutor for military commission war crimes trials, briefing reporters on July 17, 2008 at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

    Prosecutor loses bid to delay terror hearings

    Both the chief prosecutor and his defense counterpart sought delays in next week's war court sessions straddling the inauguration but two Army colonels denied the request Photo Gallery Available

  • U.S. judge orders release of young Gitmo detainee

    A federal judge in Washington who earlier ordered the release of some Algerians at Guantánamo to Bosnia on Wednesday further ordered the military to free a Gitmo captive from Chad who was captured at age 14.

  • War court reopens with new charges

    The Pentagon turned the lights back on its special 9/11 war court Wednesday and arraigned a Sudanese captive accused of helping run a jihadist training camp in 1990s Afghanistan.

  • New York City attorney Jeh C. Johnson, a Democratic activist and former Air Force general counsel, is Barack Obama's choice to be Defense Department General Counsel, the Pentagon's top lawyer. Johnson is a former federal prosecutor and trial attorney with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.

    Fact finder to be Obama's top Pentagon lawyer

    Guantánamo fact finder to be Obama's top Pentagon lawyer President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday chose as his Pentagon general counsel a New York attorney who led the transition team's fact-finding mission on what to do about the war court at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

  • A detainee sits alone inside a fenced area during his daily recreation period at the U.S. Navy base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in this December 2006 file photo. By Guantánamo ground rules, a Defense Department employee reviewed this image in advance of release.

    Judge mandates medical exam for hunger striker

    A judge has ordered an independent medical exam for a Saudi prisoner at Guantánamo who has been on hunger strike for more than three years.

  • The Military Commissions building at the U.S. Navy Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

    Saudi at Gitmo war court to Obama: Close the camps

    A Saudi captive accused of plotting an ill-fated al Qaeda terror attack waved a picture of Barack Obama at the war court Monday and urged the president-elect to make good on his promise to close the prison camps here.

  • These pictures provided by the Center for Constitutional Rights show Rhuhel Ahmed, left, and Shafiq Rasul, both former detainees at Guantánamo Bay. Ahmed and Rasul were captured by Afghan General Rashid Dostam in Sherbegan, Afghanistan and handed over to the U.S. forces and brought to Kandahar. They were moved from Kandahar to the prison camps in southeast Cuba and detained there for two and a half years.

    Supreme Court revives former Guantánamo detainees' lawsuit

    In the dwindling days of the Bush administration, the U.S. Supreme Court takes yet another detainee rights case brought by captives and former captives in the war on terror. Photo Gallery Available

  • Reputed al Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheik Mohammed as portrayed in the sketch on the left from his military commissions apperance June 5, 2008, at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, shows a much changed man from the image taken by Pakistani security forces at the time of his March 4, 2003 capture.

    Five offer guilty pleas in 9/11 plot

    A chaotic day at the Guantánamo war court featured an effort by five 9/11 attack suspects to enter guilty pleas in the death-penalty case. Photo Gallery Available

  • In this image taken from a 2003 U.S. Department of Defense surveillance video and released Tuesday July 15, 2008 by Omar Khadr's defense lawyers, Omar Khadr is shown in an interrogation room at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, while being questioned by members of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

    Witness pulled in Guantánamo case against Canadian

    With military commissions teetering on the edge of extinction, prosecutors pulled a witness in the case of a Canadian child soldier.

  • In this Dec. 1, 2004, sketch from Fort Bragg, N.C., Army Pfc Lynndie England, left, and military Judge Stephen R. Henley at a pretrial hearing.

    With war court in doubt, 9/11 case gets new judge

    The military has assigned an Army colonel to take over the upcoming war crimes trial of alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a sign that the Pentagon is plunging ahead with plans for military commissions of alleged 9/11 co-conspirators.

  • Attorney for Gitmo inmate works to drum up support

    A Canadian lawyer is seeking support in San Francisco for a Toronto-born terror suspect slated to face a war crimes trial at Guantánamo in November.

  • It's general vs. general at Guantánamo war court

    An Army general testified against an Air Force general in a military lawyer's bid to get charges dismissed against a Guantánamo captive.

  • 9/11 victim can't speak at sentencing hearing

    A military judge Wednesday spurned a Pentagon plan to have an FBI agent who was in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, testify as a victim at the sentencing hearing of Osama bin Laden's driver.

  • A first, court says Pentagon erred in a combatant case

    A federal appeals court announced Monday that it has overturned the Pentagon's classification of a Guantánamo Bay detainee as an enemy combatant. The judges ruled in favor of Huzaifa Parhat, 37, an ethnic Muslim Uighur, who is a Chinese citizen.

  • Afghan tells of sleep deprivation

    An Afghan captive sprang from his seat and asked a war-court judge to `give me time to talk about my sleeplessness.'

  • GUANTANAMO BAY |SUPREME COURT RULING

    Court rules for prisoners

    Repudiating the Bush administration, the Supreme Court ruled that Guantánamo detainees can challenge their extended imprisonment in federal court.

  • Alleged 9/11 architect: Martyr me

    A group of alleged senior al Qaeda leaders -- held secretly by the United States and interrogated since 2003 -- appeared Thursday before a war court judge.

  • Terror suspect censors his courtroom sketch

    GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed was granted -- and wielded -- the right to censor his own courtroom sketch Thursday.

  • Alleged terrorist trainer charged

    Military prosecutors filed war crimes charges Friday against a Sudanese man at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for allegedly running a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, where some of the 9/11 hijackers also allegedly trained.

  • Terror suspect asks to hire own lawyer

    A detainee who had vowed a boycott turned up at his war court hearing Thursday and asked to call his family in his native Sudan to help him hire a lawyer, with his own money.

  • War court judge bars general from trial of bin Laden's driver

    In a rebuke, a military judge has disqualified a key Pentagon general from any role overseeing the war crimes trial of Osama bin Laden's driver.

  • Sudanese terror suspect boycotts war court

    In an emerging trend, a defiant Sudanese terror suspect on Thursday became the third war court defendant in a row to fire his lawyer and boycott his military trial.

  • Saudi terror suspect: Military trials a `sham'

    A Saudi Arabian captive accused of plotting terror attacks at sea in the Middle East called the war court here a sham on Wednesday, fired his Pentagon lawyer and was sent back to his cell with a promise from his judge that his military trial would go on without him.

  • Smoke rises from the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in this frame grab from television, after a suicide car bomb exploded outside it Friday Aug. 7 1998.

    Embassy bombings widow advocates civilian trials

    An American college professor whose Kenyan husband was killed in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania says a Guantánamo detainee accused in the attack should be tried in a civilian federal court, not by a military commission. Photo Gallery Available

  • Gitmo detainee charged in embassy bombings

    A military prosecutor swore out new death-penalty charges against a Guantánamo captive for war court trial in a U.S. Embassy bombing in East Africa.

  • Military judge rules for driver's defense

    For a third time, a military judge has authorized lawyers for Osama bin Laden's driver to send questions to alleged al Qaeda kingpins in segregation at Guantánamo.

  • Abuse claims cloud war court

    Allegations of military abuse increasingly took center stage as the Guantánamo military commissions edged toward full-blown trials.

  • This sign marks the Pentagon's new pre-fabricated high-tech court complex at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, called Camp Justice comprised of temporary structures.

    Defiance, shackles in Afghan's first war court appearance

    In a military commissions first, a Marine judge ordered a Guantánamo detainee to be shackled at the ankles at a chaotic hearing.

  • ACLU suit seeks to un-censor torture claims

    Accusing the Pentagon of a cover-up, human rights lawyers Thursday filed suit seeking the full transcripts of military hearings for the alleged senior leadership of the al Qaeda terror network.

  • REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK

    Some detainees turn in their Korans

    Seventy percent of the 320 or so captives currently keep Korans -- 30 percent, or nearly 100, of the men do not.

  • Air Force Col. Morris Davis as Pentagon prosecutor at Guantanamo in 2006.

    War court prosecutor quits

    In a surprise development for the on-again, off-again military commissions at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the Pentagon's chief war crimes prosecutor has abruptly resigned in a dispute over his independence. Photo Gallery Available

  • Senate rejects giving terror suspects access to federal courts

    The Senate on Wednesday rejected legislation that would have allowed terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to petition federal courts claiming that they're being held in error.

  • Lakhdar Boumediene, a 41-year-old Algerian former relief worker for the Islamic counterpart of the Red Cross, the Red Crescent, in Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina, is the named plaintiff in the latest Guantanamo case to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. Detainees have won in the earlier two cases.

    SUPREME COURT

    Diverse litigants side with Gitmo captives

    With the Supreme Court poised to decide another Guantánamo case, foreign and domestic lawyers, lawmakers, diplomats and others are filing briefs defending the rights of the captives.

  • The Pentagon is building a $10-$12 million tent city at the site of a once proposed $100 million or more military compound for staging war crimes trials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The new plan follows instructions from Defense Secretary Robert Gates to develop an "expeditionary" approach soon after he replaced former Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

    Big Savings: Trials in tents

    With plans scrapped for a massive war-crimes legal compound that might have cost $125 million, the Pentagon is now building a more modest tent city.

  • Officer calls Guantanamo reviews a sham

    First military insider urges Congress to scrap the military-run reviews conducted at the U.S. Navy base detention center in southeast Cuba.

  • MILITARY COMMISSIONS

    Judges toss 2 war crimes cases

    Guantánamo military judges dismissed war crimes charges against two detainees, citing the Pentagon's failure to comply with an act of Congress.

  • Navy officer sentenced for leak of Gitmo names

    A Navy officer facing up to 13 years was sentenced to six months and will be dishonorably discharged for giving names of Guantánamo captives to a rights group in 2005.

  • Pentagon re-charges bin Laden's driver

    The Pentagon renewed a terrorism case against Osama bin Laden's driver, resurrecting the conspiracy charge that he challenged all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

  • Camp boss: Don't limit lawyer visits

    Guantánamo's prison camps chief backed away from a proposed three-meeting limit between attorneys and detainees, saying the restrictions are no longer needed.

  • Staff changes hit war court

    The Pentagon is undergoing some senior supervisory management changes in its units that run the war court.

  • Full scope of tribunals taking shape

    Just as Guantánamo visitors never saw the entire story, the full picture of the first U.S. war-crimes tribunal since World War II emerged slowly.

  • MILITARY COMMISSION

    Hicks pleads guilty; sentence reduced to 9 months

    In a surprise deal, an al Qaeda foot soldier from Australia trades silence on any possible Guantánamo abuse for a nine-month prison sentence in his homeland.

  • Pentagon official quits over lawyer remarks

    A Pentagon official quit to end a brouhaha over the service of pro-bono detainee defense attorneys.

  • Pentagon unveils war-court manual

    Pressing forward with plans to try some Guantánamo captives, the Pentagon sent to Congress a manual for a war-crimes court that would permit hearsay evidence, coerced testimony and the execution of terrorists by order of the president.

  • Lawyers condemn Pentagon official

    A ruckus is brewing in legal circles over a Pentagon lawyer's targeting of law firms for providing free work to alleged terrorists.

  • Navy lawyer's promotion rejected

    The Navy lawyer who took the Guantánamo case of Osama bin Laden's driver to the U.S. Supreme Court - and won - has been passed over for promotion by the Pentagon and must soon leave the military.

  • Administration: Detainees get Geneva Conventions

    In a major reversal of a keystone policy, the Bush administration declares all detainees in U.S. military custody are entitled to Geneva Convention protections that prohibit humiliating treatment and torture.

  • Detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who worked in Afghanistan as a driver for Osama bin Laden, is seen in this undated file photo. (AP Photo/photo courtesy of Prof. Neal Katyal)

    IN THE PRISON CAMPS

    Prisoner grateful to Allah and U.S. courts

    Osama bin Laden's driver praised Allah upon learning that the Supreme Court had sided with him against President Bush over military trials at U.S. prisons at Guantánamo.

  • SUPREME COURT

    Military tribunals ruled illegal

    The Supreme Court dealt the Bush administration a devastating legal loss in the war on terrorism, ruling that the president overstepped his constitutional authority by creating ad hoc military tribunals for prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

  • REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK

    War-crimes proceedings open with lawyer's `sorry'

    A prosecutor apologized to a Supreme Court justice, military judges differed on culturally appropriate attire and artists' sketches had a few surprises.

  • Ethiopian terror suspect proclaims innocence

    ''I'm innocent and I'm not supposed to be here,'' said 27-year-old Binyam Ahmed Muhammad, who challenged virtually every portion of the Military Commissions proceedings.

  • Terror suspect tells court he was tortured

    A defense lawyer pleaded the Fifth Amendment and a captive who claims he was tortured dominated the most chaotic war-court session yet at Guantánamo.

  • SUPREME COURT

    Justices hear tribunal challenge

    The Supreme Court heard the case of Osama bin Laden's former driver who is challenging President Bush's right to try him before a military commission.

  • SUPREME COURT

    Driver for bin Laden tests war tribunal

    Osama bin Laden's driver is about to challenge President Bush's Military Commissions at the Supreme Court. At issue: Is the anti-terrorism court at odds with the U.S. Constitution?

  • U.S. bars any evidence resulting from torture

    The Pentagon will prohibit military commissions trying Guantánamo captives from including evidence gained through torture.

  • Is alleged architect of 9/11 at Guantánamo?

    A captive facing conspiracy charges before a Military Commission raised the possibility during pre-trial hearings when, during questioning of a judge's competence to serve, the captive asked to be moved to a cell alongside the man known by his acronym ``KSM.''

  • U.S. defends commissions to try terrorism suspects

    Bush administration tells a federal appeals court commissions should be allowed to run their course before letting defendants appeal to U.S. courts.

  • Historic ruling puts Guantanamo trials on hold

    Detainee tells Navy lawyer: "I don't want to make history. I just want to go home."

  • Judge halts the trial of Bin Laden's chauffeur

    The decision by U.S. District Judge James Robertson, sitting 1,300 miles away in Washington, D.C., brought pretrial motions here to a skidding halt in the case of Yemeni captive Salim Hamdan, 34.

  • Lawyer seeks testimony of ex-presidents

    A lawyer for a suspected Sudanese terrorist wants to question former presidents Bush and Clinton and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

  • Bin Laden's driver charged at first tribunal

    Opening the United States' first war crimes trial since World War II, the government charged a wiry Yemeni who worked as Osama bin Laden's chauffeur with conspiracy as a member of the al Qaeda network.

  • Driver for Bin Laden in Guantánamo cell

    Navy lawyer got special clearance to speak to a Herald reporter about his client -- Osama bin Laden's ex-driver.


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