Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), the most vocal congressional champion of closing Guantánamo, chaired a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on December 7. Colleen Kelly a co-founder of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, one of the founding organizations of UFPJ, testified and also submitted a longer written statement to the committee.
You can watch a video recording of Colleen Kelly’s testimony and that of the other witnesses at the hearing, “Closing Guantánamo: Ending 20 Years of Injustice.” Colleen emphasized the lack of truth, justice and accountability for the crimes of 9/11. “The rule of law is a bedrock principle of our nation, and after 9/11 we expected our government to uphold the rule of law in seeking accountability for our relatives’ deaths. It failed to do so and as a result we still are awaiting justice twenty years later.”
Colleen’s testimony went on to describe a way forward in the 9/11 case that would clear a path for the closure of Guantánamo: pre-trial agreements. “We understand that in exchange for guilty pleas the government would in all likelihood no longer seek the death penalty; this would be in part in recognition of the torture each of the defendants experienced. What we would hope to finally get, however, is answers to our questions about 9/11 from the defendants—answers and information that we have been denied for two decades.”
Currently, 39 men remain at Guantánamo. In addition to the five men accused of planning and supporting the 9/11 attacks, seven other men have been charged in the military commissions. While two men have been convicted, trials of the other ten have not even begun. Pre-trial agreements could end that legal limbo. Another 14 men are being held in indefinite detention as “law-of-war detainees,” and the remaining 13 men have been cleared for transfer to another country (many of them cleared during the Obama Administration and have therefore been awaiting transfer for many years).
September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows believes the Biden Administration needs to transfer those cleared for transfer with all due speed; next either charge or clear for transfer the 14 “indefinitely” held men, and also negotiate pre-trial agreements with all those charged. This is the only option as the military commissions have demonstrated, after more than a decade, that they are fundamentally broken.
In addition to Colleen Kelly, the Democrats called three other witnesses:
Brigadier General John Baker, Chief Defense Counsel for the Military Commissions
Major General Michael Lehnert (ret.), Who supervised the construction and served as the first commandant of the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp
Ms. Katya Jestin, One of the defense attorneys for Majid Khan, Guantánamo detainee who pled guilty, negotiated a plea agreement and then made a public statement about his torture by the CIA
General Baker stated that it was clear to him that the military commissions were today further away from convening trials than they were two years ago. He firmly supported pre-trial agreements as the only way to end the paralysis caused by the death penalty, illegal intrusion into the defense process, and the legal stalemate over discovery of evidence of the torture that all the accused experienced. Katya Jestin concurred with Baker’s support for pre-trial agreements. Major General Lehnert stated bluntly that the Biden Administration needed a detailed plan to finally shutter Guantánamo. Recalling that he has been given 96 hours to set up the detention facility in 2002, he suggested 96 days would be a reasonable timeframe for closing them today. Lehnert stressed how leaving the facility open posed an ongoing risk to U.S. security as Guantánamo remains a recruiting tool for anti-American organizations worldwide.
Republicans and Democrats found little to agree on, other than their shared frustration that the Biden Administration sent no one from the National Security Council, the Department of Justice, or the Department of Defense to the hearings to present the Administration’s plan for closure. Indeed, the Administration’s record, after 11 months, in meeting its avowed goal of closing Guantánamo – one detainee transferred (whose terms of transfer were negotiated by the Obama Administration) and one additional detainee cleared for transfer – suggest that it may have no plan.
The Republicans called two witnesses:
Mr. Jamil N. Jaffer, Founder and Executive Director, National Security Law and Policy Program, George Mason University
Mr. Charles “Cully” Stimson, Manager, National Security Law Program, The Heritage Foundation
They used most of their time to argue about the failed exit strategy from Afghanistan and the likelihood of released detainees “returning to the battlefield” and rarely focused on the issues that Guantánamo’s continuation presents.
Despite the partisan gulf, it does seem that at long last the failure of the military commissions at Guantánamo to deliver justice is getting recognition. Pre-trial agreements are being openly promoted, which was not common a year ago. As the 20th anniversary of Guantánamo, January 11, 2022, follows the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks it is time to shutter the detention facilities at last. Can we heed the words of former detainees who wrote to President Biden urging action:
“Many of us were abducted from our homes, in front of our families, and sold for bounties to the US by nations that cared little for the rule of law. We were rendered to countries where we were physically and psychologically tortured in addition to suffering racial and religious discrimination in US custody—even before we arrived at Guantánamo….
“Most of the prisoners currently or presently detained at Guantánamo have never been to the United States. This means that our image of your country has been shaped by our experiences at Guantánamo—in other words, we have only been witnesses to its dark side.
“Considering the violence that has happened at Guantánamo, we are sure that after more than nineteen years, you agree that imprisoning people indefinitely without trial while subjecting them to torture, cruelty and degrading treatment, with no meaningful access to families or proper legal systems, is the height of injustice. That is why imprisonment at Guantánamo must end.”
September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows agrees. CLOSE GUANTÁNAMO NOW, IT CAN BE DONE!
ADDITIONAL LINKS:
Senator Durbin denounced Guantánamo during Senate debate on the NDAA.
Senator Durbin wrote the Department of Justice criticizing positions it had taken in federal courts that undermined the Biden Administration’s stated goal to close Guantánamo.
Senators Durbin, Leahy and other Democrats wrote Biden to close Guantánamo.
