A Washington, DC judge has rejected a petition for writ of habeas corpus filed by seven Guantanamo detainees. According to the New York Times, the judge ruled that while the detainees had the right to request the petition for the writ, they did not have the right to obtain one.

He also ruled that the Geneva Convention protections did not apply to the Guantanamo detainees. Another judge in D.C. has a similar case pending, and may or may not rule differently.

Where is Ahmed Abu 'Ali, a 23 year old American citizen, and why hasn't he called home since November? Amnesty International alleges the U.S. was complicit in his capture by the Saudis, and that he has been tortured, possibly by F.B.I. agents, while in Saudi custoday:

Amnesty International is calling on US and Saudi Arabian authorities to ensure the safety of a US national held in Saudi Arabia who has allegedly been tortured by US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents.

The man, Ahmed Abu 'Ali, aged 23, a US national, is believed to be held in secret detention at al-Ha’ir prison in the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh. He has had no access to lawyers and his telephone calls to relatives in the USA ended abruptly in November.

The U.S. released the last four British citizens being held at Guantanamo today, and one Australian, Mamdouh Habib. No charges were ever filed against them. They were held for three years.

The Pentagon is refusing to release Australian David Hicks, who is set to face a military tribunal trial in March. His military lawyer claims a double standard is being used. Hicks' Australian lawyer says his trial might not begin for another three years.

Amnesty International is calling upon the Government to reveal the terms of the deals made with Britain and Australia to secure the prisoners' release. It also wants an investigation into their claims of torture. Last August, David Hicks has filed an affidavit alleging abuse and mistreatment at Guantanamo, you can read it here.

The Seattle Times is running a series by reporter Ray Rivera, beginning today, of the failed case against Guantanamo Army Chaplin Captain James Yee. Background is here.

Yee was granted an honorable discharge Friday. We suggested he receive one last March. All of our coverage of the Yee case is accessible here. [link via How Appealing.]

The Seattle Times blasts the newly reported plan to hold Guantanamo detainees indefinitely in secret locations, perhaps for life. It calls the plan "a horrifying development."

Torturing prisoners, denying them legal safeguards and essentially refuting their existence is what rogue regimes and lawless nations do. Reading about it in China's Xinhua News Agency is especially disconcerting. The Bush administration is not only doing all this now, but making systematic plans to create an American gulag of prisons and prisoners without names and cells without numbers. From the old Soviet Union to Communist China to the banana republics of Latin America and Castro's Cuba, that's what others do.

Mamdouh Habib is a detainee at Guantanamo. He came here from Egypt in 2001 where he alleges he was The tortured for six months.

The court petition said that while in prison in Egypt Mr. Habib was subjected to regular beatings, electric shocks and attacks by dogs. During his imprisonment, he confessed to several crimes, and his lawyer said that those coerced confessions had been used by American military authorities at Guantánamo to deem Mr. Habib properly detained there as an unlawful enemy combatant.

Habib filed suit in November in federal court in Washington to block his transfer back to Egypt. The case was unsealed yesterday. The Times reports it is not known if the U.S. plans to send him to Egypt.

Many of the detainees at Guantanamo have not been charged with a crime due to lack of evidence against them. One would think they would be released. But the U.S. has no plans to let them go. Instead, the military is working with the State Department, to come up with a plan to keep the men imprisoned indefinitely, perhaps for life.

One plan under disussion is to build prisons abroad where the men could be housed. The military says the U.S. would monitor the prisons to make sure the men were treated humanely. Another is to ask Congress for $25 million to build a 200-bed prison elsewhere.

What's astounding is that this article is talking about possible lifetime detention for those who will never be charged with a crime--those the U.S. cannot prove are terrorists. Those that have no access to courts to request an order of release.

We wrote the other day questioning how the British controlled U.S. Navy base of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean escaped damage by the Tsunami. There were so many comments, we closed the thread. Readers continue to contribute to the discussion:

The official US Navy website for Diego Garcia says the avg height above sea level is 4' and that the wave surged to a 6' height but operations were not affected. Really? Gonna be a lot of drowned detainees if they were housed in the same conditions as Gitmo. Sure hope the nuclear weapons bunker entrances were higher than 6'. We'll never know. We'll just trust the Navy to be truthful. LOL.

Another reader who served at Diego Garcia writes:

What did the interrogators at Guantanamo do when they thought they had "a live one"--someone with information about al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks?: According to new details published today in the New York Times, this is what happened to Mohamed al-Kahtani, who was imprisoned at Guantánamo early in 2003 and suspected of being a future hijacker:

...his interrogation was not yielding much, so they decided in the middle of 2003 to try a new tactic. Mr. Kahtani, a Saudi, was given a tranquilizer, put in sensory deprivation garb with blackened goggles, and hustled aboard a plane that was supposedly taking him to the Middle East.

The American navy base Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean was unaffected by the Asian Tsunami.

Officials said the Diego Garcia Navy Support Facility, which houses about 1,700 military personnel and 1,500 civilian contractors, suffered no damage related to Sunday’s earthquake and ensuing tsunamis. Diego Garcia, the southernmost island in the Chagos Archipelago, sits about 1,000 miles south of India and roughly 2,000 miles from the earthquake’s epicenter.

Navy and Air Force personnel are on the island. According to the Red Cross, so are some of the hidden detainees. The Washington Post also refers to Diego Garcia as containing a CIA secret interrogation site.

Human Rights groups have complained for months about the U.S. secreting terror prisoners and detainees in foreign countries. The Guardian has reported on the disappearing detainees. Human Rights Watch issued this report on the "hidden detainees." Also more than a year ago, Human Rights Watch Attorney and Findlaw columnist Joanne Mariner wrote about them.

The Washington Post catches up with this new article on ConAir for Detainees--a Gulfstream V turbojet:

Bump and Update: The Washington Post reports on further allegations of abuse by ten detainees.

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Original Post

Guantanamo detainee David Hicks alleged that he was subjected to experimental torture techniques, including the administration of unknown drugs, while detained at the camp. [Link via Raw Story]

[Hicks]recently disclosed in a sworn affidavit, made public in his country, that he was forcibly injected with drugs. In an affidavit provided by his defense attorneys in Australia, Hicks details the torture he suffered at the hands of his U.S. interrogators, explaining how they banged his head on the asphalt, with his eyes blindfolded, during interrogations that lasted for hours.

Now, French lawyers for two other detainees, Nizar Sassi and Mourad Benchellali, make similar allegations: