President Joe Biden’s file of dealing with the U.S. army jail at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is decidedly combined. He succeeded in decreasing the detainee inhabitants he inherited through greater than part, however he compounded issues within the army commissions that the Bush management had invented within the wake of the 9/11 assaults to check out other people captured within the “war on terror.” Now all of the issues at Guantánamo are once more President Donald Trump’s.
When Biden took place of business in 2021, there have been 40 prisoners. Nowadays there are 15, the bottom quantity for the reason that first 20 Muslim males and boys captured in Afghanistan have been airlifted to the bottom on Jan. 11, 2002.
Biden left Trump 4 other people the U.S. won’t unencumber but additionally can’t placed on trial – the so-called “forever prisoners.” He additionally left intact the stricken army commissions device, with 3 pending prison circumstances in opposition to a complete of six detainees.
In December 2021, former leader army protection legal professional Brig. Gen. John Baker testified prior to the Senate Judiciary Committee: “It is too late in the process for the current military commissions to do justice for anyone. The best that can be hoped for at this point … is to bring this sordid chapter of American history to an end.” Baker made transparent that the one viable possibility is to unravel the circumstances with plea bargains for the defendants.
Marine Brig. Gen. John Baker tells U.S. senators that there’s no alternative for justice to be finished at Guantánamo.
A possibility to make growth
There are 3 circumstances that experience now not but long past to trial – the 9/11 case with 4 defendants dealing with fees for his or her connections with the assaults, the united statesCole bombing in October 2000 with one defendant and the Bali bombing in October 2002 with one defendant.
The 9/11 and USS Cole circumstances were caught within the pretrial segment since Biden was once Barack Obama’s vice chairman. In the summertime of 2024, a step forward within the 9/11 case seemed impending: Prosecutors and protection attorneys for 3 of the 4 defendants reportedly reached plea-bargain agreements. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad – the alleged “mastermind” of the assaults – Walid bin Attash and Mustafa Hawsawi agreed to plead in charge and settle for lifestyles sentences in alternate for the federal government taking the loss of life penalty off the desk. There was once no deal for the fourth 9/11 defendant, Ammar al-Baluchi.
The offers have been licensed on July 31 through the highest army officer overseeing the Guantánamo commissions, retired Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier. However two days later, Biden’s protection secretary, Lloyd Austin, stepped into the method and overrode Escallier – whom he had appointed. Austin introduced that the plea offers have been revoked.
The pass judgement on, Air Pressure Col. Matthew McCall, determined to time table plea hearings for early January. However after some criminal back-and-forth that compelled a keep, he needed to cancel them. Biden left the case in opposition to 3 9/11 defendants in limbo.
The basement of this executive construction in Bucharest, Romania, held a secret CIA jail, one of the internationally.
AP Picture
Witness to the transition
In mid-January 2025, I made my 16th reporting travel to Guantánamo. I got here for last arguments on a movement within the 9/11 case that seeks to suppress statements that Ammar al-Baluchi made to the FBI in January 2007. That was once 4 months after he and 13 others have been transferred to Guantánamo from CIA black websites the place they have been held for years. The litigation to suppress the ones statements began in 2019.
In Bankruptcy 10 of my ebook, “The War in Court: Inside the Long Fight against Torture,” I element how the litigation in this suppression movement made public up to now unknown main points and under-acknowledged horrors of the CIA’s rendition, detention and interrogation program.
Those last arguments have been the fruits of six years of litigation at the key query within the 9/11 case: Does torture subject within the pursuit of justice within the army commissions?
A drawing through Guantánamo detainee Abu Zubaydah depicts an individual being waterboarded.
Copyright Abu Zubaydah 2019. Authorized through Professor Mark Denbeaux, Seton Corridor Regulation Faculty
Can Guantánamo be closed?
Of the 780 other people ever detained at Guantánamo, 540 have been launched all through the presidency of George W. Bush, who established the detention facility. Obama, who signed an government order on his 2nd day in place of business pledging to near Guantánamo inside a 12 months, launched 200.
In his first time period, Trump pledged to stay the ability open. The one guy to go away Guantánamo all through Trump’s first time period was once Ahmed al-Darbi, who was once repatriated to Saudi Arabia in 2018 to serve out the rest of his sentence from a 2014 plea good buy settlement.
When Biden took place of business, he stated that he supported shutting down the army jail at Guantánamo. Within the early years of his presidency, there was once a gradual move of transfers, most commonly individuals who were cleared for unencumber way back and have been freed.
In Biden’s closing months, the tempo of transfers quickened. In December 2024, a Kenyan detainee, two Malaysian contributors of al-Qaida who had pled in charge the former January, and a Tunisian guy who were in Guantánamo for the reason that day the ability was once opened have been all repatriated to their nations of starting place and freed. In January 2024, 11 Yemenis have been transported from the jail to Oman to be resettled.
15 males left at the back of
The Biden management had additionally deliberate to repatriate a seriously disabled Iraqi detainee, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, to serve out his plea-bargained sentence in a Baghdad jail. However a federal pass judgement on blocked that switch, ruling that al-Iraqi would now not get essential scientific remedy in Iraq and could be topic to abuse there.
Al-Iraqi is among the 15 that Biden left at the back of. 3 of them – a Libyan, a Somali and a stateless Rohingya – have lengthy been cleared for unencumber. Their proceeding detention with out fees highlights a key component of the Guantánamo drawback: Nobody may also be launched until the U.S. executive unearths some other nation keen to simply accept them.
One of the most ultimate detainees, Ali Bahlul, is serving a lifestyles sentence for conspiracy to devote struggle crimes. Six others, together with the 4 9/11 defendants, are looking forward to their trials.
There also are 4 detainees whom the federal government refuses to switch however can’t placed on trial for loss of proof.
The U.S. goverment says it can’t unencumber Abu Zubaydah from Guantánamo as a result of he would reveal categorized interrogation tactics critics have categorized torture.
U.S. Central Command by the use of AP
Those so-called “forever prisoners” come with Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi-born guy of Palestinian descent who was once taken into CIA custody in 2002 and was once used because the guinea pig for the CIA torture program. The federal government way back conceded that Abu Zubaydah was once now not a most sensible chief of al-Qaida – in reality he was once now not even a member. However he is probably not launched as a result of he is aware of how he was once handled through the CIA, and that remedy stays extremely categorized.
The most recent ceaselessly prisoner is among the unique 9/11 defendants, Ramzi bin al-Shibh; in September 2023, he was once declared mentally incompetent to face trial. Now he’s uncharged, unreleased and untreated for his mental maladies that have been led to through the torture he persevered in CIA black websites.
The ‘War on Terror’ isn’t over
When Biden pulled U.S. troops out of Afghanistan in August 2021, he claimed to have ended The us’s longest struggle – and repeated this declare in a January 2025 speech. However the Guantánamo jail stays open, and so long as it’s, the “war on terror,” which first put U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2001, isn’t over.
How Trump will handle Guantánamo is an open query. If he makes a speciality of the loss of life penalty, he’ll press forward with army fee trials like his predecessors, hoping for unanimous in charge verdicts and loss of life sentences. If he prioritizes chopping wasteful executive spending, he’ll unencumber further detainees and make allowance the 3 plea good buy agreements to enter impact.
Nobody I spoke to all through my closing travel was once keen to are expecting what a 2nd Trump time period may bode for Guantánamo – except for that it received’t be closed.
