Three of the most senior Court of Appeal judges in England and Wales on Wednesday authorized the public release of documents concerning the secret rendition and alleged torture of Binyam Mohamed. The ACLU has the details.

While in detention, Mohamed was subjected to physical and psychological abuse by his captors. Upon his release, Mohamed sought documents from the British government that would confirm that U.K. officials were aware of and complicit in his abuse by U.S. forces. Today's ruling orders the disclosure of seven previously suppressed paragraphs from an earlier court ruling that summarize British government documents related to Mohamed's detention and torture while under the control of U.S. authorities.

The CIA had provided the documents to MI5. Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for President Barack Obama, criticized the ruling, saying:

"We're deeply disappointed with the court's judgment because we shared this information in confidence and with certain expectations.

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Seton Hall Law School's Center for Policy and Research has issued a new report responding to the Defense Department's latest attempt to justify its investigation into the 2006 deaths of three detainees at Guantanamo. The full report, DOD Contradicts DOD, is available here.

The Center for Policy and Research Report shows that each of the cell block guards on duty that night gave two statements, and the first statement for each is missing. The only statements from the guards in the NCIS report were made only after those guards had been threatened with prosecution because of the contents of their previous—and now missing—statements.

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Switzerland has agreed to take two Uighur brothers from Guantanamo.

The Swiss said Wednesday that they will resettle the brothers, Arkin Mahmud and Bahtiyar Mahnut, probably within a month. They are among seven Chinese Muslims, or Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurs), who remain at Guantanamo.

Just in time to avoid another Supreme Court ruling?

The high court has scheduled argument for March 23 to consider whether a federal judge can order their release into the United States over the objection of Congress and the administration when no other nation will take them. The government acknowledges they pose no terror threat, and they can't return to China for fear of persecution or worse.

Maybe not. Five Uighurs in the lawsuit will remain at Gitmo after the brothers' transfer. The case is Kiyemba v. Obama. The Uighurs' opening brief is here. [More...]

Update: The ACLU today launched a new website, Indefinite Detention." No Charges, no Trial, No Justice."

A Department of Justice -led task force is recommending 50 Guantanamo detainees, mostly Afghan and Yemeni, be held indefinitely without charges under the laws of war.

The task force's findings represent the first time that the administration has clarified how many detainees it considers too dangerous to release but unprosecutable because officials fear trials could compromise intelligence-gathering and because detainees could challenge evidence obtained through coercion.

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Via the Associated Press, a new article by Scott Horton in Harper's Magazine reports new, and if true, explosive findings on the deaths of the three Guantanamo detainees who allegedly committed suicide in their cells in 2006. Horton alleges the deaths may have been homicides.

Three Guantanamo Bay detainees whose deaths were ruled a suicide in 2006 apparently had been transported from their cells hours before their deaths to a secret site on the island, an article in Harper's magazine asserts.

...Harper's reported that the deaths of the three detainees, or the events that led directly to their deaths, most likely occurred at a previously undisclosed facility a mile or so from the main Guantanamo Bay prison complex.

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Unnamed sources today say the Justice Department is considering trial in D.C. for Guantanamo Detainee Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali, believed to be responsible for the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing.

Hambali was interrogated and turned over to the CIA by Thai forces, and further interrogated. He confessed within a month. Time Magazine reported back in 2003, the CIA took him to the island of Diego Garcia for interrogation.

The BBC wrote this article last year about the prospect of Hambali being returned to Indonesia for trial. It also states Hambali recanted some of his confessions.

If they are going to try him in federal court, they likely believe they can convict him without his statements made during the early interrogations. He's been held for eight years, he deserves a trial.

Today is the 9th anniversary of the receipt of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Center for Constitutional Rights is holding events for "Obama's Guantanamo", beginning at 11:45 this morning with a Demonstration with street theater, signs, and speakers, and announcement of 12-day fast at White House Plaza, between Lafayette Park and “picture postcard” zone.

To mark the beginning of the ninth year of detention without charge or trial at Guantánamo on Monday, January 11, activists and lawyers of detained men will rally, march and hold a briefing to outline current issues related to President Obama’s Guantanamo, demand that the president make good on his pledge to close the prison, and declare their opposition to any plan for holding prisoners without charge or trial in the U.S.

...This is Obama’s Guantánamo now. He has failed in his pledge to close the island prison from a lack of leadership, bowing to the pressures of partisan grandstanding, and vigorous attempts to keep all cases out of the courts. The transparency we were promised has been discarded. This is an anniversary that should not have come.”

Details of today's events are below:

Dan Froomkin weighs in on the faulty claims perpetuated by the media that 1 in 7 released Guantanamo detainees have returned to the battlefield.

Here's the Pentagon's April 7 report entitled "Fact Sheet: Former Guantanamo Detainee Terrorism Trends" (which they uploaded as "return to the fight.") As we've reported before, the report has been debunked and criticized by a study directed by Seton Hall Law Professor Mark Denbeaux.

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals today affirmed the denial of a habeas petition by a Yemeni detainee, held since 2002. The case is Al-Bihani v. Obama (Circuit docket 09-5051). The opinion is here. Al-Bihani was a cook who went from Saudi Arabia, through Pakistan, to Afghanistan to help the Taliban fight the Northern Alliance. Along the way, he stayed at guest houses he says were Taliban-affiliated and the Government says were al-Qaeda affiliated

He accompanied and cooked for a paramilitary group allied with the Taliban, known as the 55th Arab Brigade, which the Court says included Al Qaeda members. After the U.S. entered the war in Afghanistan, the group was forced to retreat and surrendered to the Northern Alliance. The Northern Alliance held him until 2002 then turned him over to U.S. forces who sent him to Guantanamo.

ScotusBlog dissects the opinion and what it may mean for other detainees. Essentially, it holds that the President's power to detain non-U.S. citizens is not limited by international law, including the law of war. [More...]

And so it begins. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs today said they are halting the transfer of cleared detainees to Yemen:

"One of the very first things Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula used as a tool was Gitmo," Gibbs said. "We're not going to make transfers to a country like Yemen that they're not capable of handling (the detainees). While we remain committed to closing the detention facility, the determination has been made that right now any additional transfers to Yemen is not a good idea."

This is unacceptable. Many of these men have been held 9 years, without charges. Many should never have been arrested in the first place. Sending them to Illinois for more indefinite detention is not only unfair to them, it will engender further animosity towards the U.S. and further devalue our core values and principles. [More...]

Below is the CNN transcript (received from CNN by e-mail, no link yet) of National Security Adviser John Brennan on its program State of the Union as to whether the Administration will continue to send Guantanamo detainees back to Yemen.

It seems to me he's confirming we're going to be holding some in indefinite custody without charges, probably at Illinois if that goes through. More will be slated for military trials.

As to those it decides on a case-by-case basis to send back to Yemen, "at the right time and the right pace and in the right way," I'm wondering whether he's signaling that the only ones who will be sent back are those the Yemenis agree to put in custody through their repatriation program. (See this Human Rights Watch report, No Direction Home, on how that's worked so far.) The complete transcript is below: [More...]

Criminal defense attorney Gerry Shargel makes the argument today at Daily Beast that isolating Guantanamo detainees in a new Supermax facility may be a worse fate and unnecessary.

Do the untried and unconvicted Guantanamo inmates require this level of security? Absent a particularized showing of need, locking up a "detainee" in virtual isolation—unearned suffering—is abject cruelty.

He does a good job of summarizing the draconian conditions at a supermax facility: [more...]