News & Additions - The War Profiteers

2010/03/05 - Kidnapping of Binyam Mohamed/Chief Justice of England vs. U.K. Secretary of State: Legal Update

Fri, 5 Mar 2010 18:17:49 +0100

Binyam Mohamed vs. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
(Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales vs. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs)

Court of Appeal (Civil Division)/Royal Courts of Justice
Case No.: T1/2009/2331

February 26th, 2010 - Judgment of the Court

"[...] In these circumstances, the final version of paragraphs 168 to 170 in my judgment of 10th February 2010 is as follows:

"‘168. Fourthly, it is also germane that the Security Services had made it clear in March 2005, through a report from the Intelligence and Security Committee, that ‘they operated a culture that respected human rights and that coercive interrogation techniques were alien to the Services’ general ethics, methodology and training’ (paragraph 9 of the first judgment), indeed they ‘denied that [they] knew of any ill-treatment of detainees interviewed by them whilst detained by or on behalf of the [US] Government’ (paragraph 44(ii) of the fourth judgment). Yet, in this case, that does not seem to have been true: as the evidence showed, some Security Services officials appear to have a dubious record relating to actual involvement, and frankness about any such involvement, with the mistreatment of Mr Mohamed when he was held at the behest of US officials. I have in mind in particular witness B, but the evidence in this case suggests that it is likely that there were others.

"The good faith of the Foreign Secretary is not in question, but he prepared the certificates partly, possibly largely, on the basis of information and advice provided by Security Services personnel. Regrettably, but inevitably, this must raise the question whether any statement in the certificates on an issue concerning the mistreatment of Mr Mohamed can be relied on, especially when the issue is whether contemporaneous communications to the Security Services about such mistreatment should be revealed publicly. Not only is there some reason for distrusting such a statement, given that it is based on Security Services’ advice and information, because of previous, albeit general, assurances in 2005, but also the Security Services have an interest in the suppression of such information. [...]’"

2010/03/05 - Judges Release Criticism of MI5 Agents in Binyam Mohamed Case

Fri, 5 Mar 2010 17:44:38 +0100

By Frances Gibb & Sean O’Neill
The Times
February 27, 2010

Binyam Mohamed: said he was tortured in Pakistan while being held by the CIA, with the knowledge of British intelligence agents

Damning criticism that one and probably several British intelligence agents knew of the torture of a former Guantánamo detainee was released by senior judges yesterday.

Some security service officials had a dubious record of involvement over the mistreatment of Binyam Mohamed when he was held on behalf of the Government, one senior appeal judge said. Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, Master of the Rolls, also questioned MI5 officials’ frankness about this involvement, and the reliability of their evidence to the courts.

The judge’s criticism prompted calls for the security services to be brought under increased scrutiny. Sir Ken Macdonald, former Director of Public Prosecutions, writes in The Times today that the present level of parliamentary scrutiny was "unfit for a modern democracy".

Lord Neuberger’s comments had originally been diluted, after they were circulated in draft form, prompting protests from counsel for David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary. The disclosure of that intervention, and the judge’s changes, brought accusations that Lord Neuberger had watered down his comments after interference by ministers.

Yesterday Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, insisted: "This did not happen, and it is critical to the integrity of the administration of justice that if any such misconception may be taking root, it should be eradicated."

Lord Neuberger decided to restore the essence of his criticisms after representations from the media and lawyers for Mr Mohamed.

Lord Judge said that there had been no political interference in the decision, and insisted that judges were entitled to change their drafts.

A letter to the court by Jonathan Sumption, QC, Mr Miliband’s counsel, was not secret or private, he said. But it was an "elementary rule" that such communications could not be made without alerting other parties.

Only after Lord Neuberger had amended his draft judgment did it become apparent that "something may have gone awry with the arrangements for the delivery of Mr Sumption’s letter", said Lord Judge.

The appeal judges agreed that the robust criticism in the original draft paragraph should now be published "in the interests of open justice".

Mr Mohamed has said that he was tortured in Pakistan while being held by the CIA, with the knowledge of British intelligence agents.

Lord Neuberger and two of the country’s other top judges - Lord Judge, and Sir Anthony May, President of the Queen’s Bench Division - unanimously agreed that the intelligence material should be published.

Security service sources denied yesterday that the intelligence agencies tried to cover up the material, but they conceded that there had been issues connected with locating and disclosing documents relevant to Mr Mohamed’s case.

There remains a strong sense of anger and disappointment with the judge’s criticisms. Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, said recently that the organisation had fought against the release of the seven paragraphs because disclosure would damage intelligence-sharing with America. It was not, he said, to "cover up supposed British collusion in mistreatment".

Whitehall sources said security service personnel were dedicated to protecting Britain, and in the years after 9/11 had to function in difficult and dangerous conditions to gather "lifesaving intelligence" about the alQaeda threat to Britain and the West.

The Court of Appeal ruling this month led to the release of a seven-paragraph summary of 42 classified CIA documents that were handed to MI5. They show that MI5 was aware that Mr Mohamed was being continuously deprived of sleep, threatened with rendition and subjected to "significant mental stress and suffering".

Cori Crider, the legal director at Reprieve, which supports prisoner rights, said: "The sun shone on open justice today. Throughout this process the judges have shown the utmost integrity and concern for the public interest. One hopes the UK justices’ brethren across the sea are taking notes. Now that the paragraph has been largely restored, questions linger ... What policies allowed such complicity in torture? How many cases like Binyam’s were there? ... Only a full public inquiry will answer the public’s concerns about what has been done."

Timeline

February 5: Court of Appeal circulates draft judgments in Binyam Mohamed ruling in which judges order that seven paragraphs indicating what MI5 knew of Mr Mohamed's torture be disclosed.

February 8: E-mail arrives at judges’ offices at 19.03 from Jonathan Sumption, QC, counsel for the Foreign Secretary, expressing concerns about paragraph 168.

February 9: Lord Neuberger decides substantially to amend draft paragraph. Circulated to all parties about lunchtime. Some lawyers learn for the first time of the Sumption letter and judge’s amendment, and lodge objections.

February 10: Appeal judges decide to go ahead with judgment to release seven paragraphs at heart of ruling. Lord Neuberger includes amended 168 but agrees to hear representations from other parties.

February 12: Deadline for final representations on 168.

February 16: Judgment on 168.

External link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7043298.ece

2010/03/04 - The Mahmudiya Massacre/U.S. vs. Steven Dale Green: Legal Update

Thu, 4 Mar 2010 18:31:08 +0100

U.S. vs. Steven D. Green
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Case No.: 09-6123 (09-6108)

Recent Proceedings & Filings

February 25th, 2010 - Brief for the United States

"[...] In this appeal, Green does not dispute that he devised a plot to murder an innocent family of Iraqi civilians or that he carried out his senseless murderous plot in cold blood. Nor does he raise a single assignment of error regarding the fairness of the ensuing criminal trial that sought to hold him criminally accountable for those acts. Instead, Green launches an array of legal challenges to the very legitimacy of the federal government’s effort to hold him accountable, assailing the constitutional validity of the MEJA statute itself - a law that Green does not seem to appreciate was specifically enacted to prevent the absurdity of allowing people like him to escape any prosecution solely because they happened to have been discharged from the service before their criminal conduct was uncovered - as well as the prosecution’s exercise of its discretion to charge him under that law.

"Green’s arguments do not withstand scrutiny, and they provide no basis for disturbing his convictions or his resulting life sentences. Indeed, as we will demonstrate, Green’s arguments evince a deep-seated and fundamentally flawed view of the source, nature and breadth of the prosecutorial discretion constitutionally entrusted to the Executive Branch. [...]"

2010/03/03 - Prosecutors: Law Used in Ex-Soldier’s Trial Valid

Thu, 4 Mar 2010 00:09:50 +0100

By Brett Barrouquere
Associated Press
February 25, 2010

Louisville, Ky. - Federal prosecutors argue a law used to convict a former U.S. Army soldier on civilian charges of murder and rape in Iraq is constitutional and allows the government to pursue former soldiers who otherwise would escape prosecution.

The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act is being challenged by 24-year-old Steven Dale Green of Midland, Texas, who was convicted of raping and murdering 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and killing three of her family members in March 2006 while deployed to Iraq.

The former 101st Airborne Division soldier was the first soldier charged under the little-used MEJA. He was convicted by a civilian jury in Kentucky and got five life sentences.

Green argues the law allowing his prosecution is unconstitutional because it gives the executive branch of government too much leeway over who to prosecute.

Federal prosecutors disagreed in an 86-page brief filed Thursday.

"The MEJA does not empower the government to choose between a military or civilian courtroom; instead, it simply permits the government to choose a civilian courtroom over no courtroom at all," U.S. Department of Justice attorney Michael Rotker wrote.

Rotker's brief paints Green as the instigator of the rape and slayings, differing from the testimony of his co-conspirators at trial which put another soldier at the center of the plot. One of Green's attorneys, Darren Wolff of Louisville, said efforts to put his client at the center of the conspiracy are irrelevant to the appeal.

"What we're arguing about is the constitutionality of the law," Wolff said. "The law they prosecuted him under is unconstitutional."

Green is also contesting whether the military validly discharged him before he was charged in civilian court. Rotker wrote that any minor problem with Green's discharge wasn't enough to invalidate his dismissal from the Army for a personality disorder.

Green and four other soldiers based at Fort Campbell, Ky., were investigated after Abeer was raped and her body set afire.

Green had been honorably discharged with a personality disorder and returned to the U.S. by the time the Army charged him in June 2006. The military refused to allow him to re-enlist, and Green was indicted as a civilian.

The four other soldiers received sentences ranging from five years to 110 years based on their acknowledged roles in the attack. One soldier has been released from military prison after serving 27 months. The others are eligible for parole in 2016.

Though Green was the first soldier charged under MEJA, a former Marine who was charged after Green was acquitted of murder in Iraq. In recent months, former private contractors have been prosecuted under MEJA, with two having pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to shooting deaths in Afghanistan.

© 2010 The Associated Press

External link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6885667.html

2010/03/03 - Before Blackwater Case Failed, Legal Debate at DOJ

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 23:25:11 +0100

By Matt Apuzzo
Associated Press
March 2, 2010

Washington - As the U.S. investigated Blackwater Worldwide contractors for a deadly 2007 shooting in Baghdad, a legal debate was playing out behind the scenes at the Justice Department between two veteran prosecutors. One urged caution. The other aggressively pushed the case forward.

The disagreement foreshadowed problems that in December led a judge to dismiss manslaughter charges against five contractors who fired machine guns and grenades into a busy intersection. The dismissal outraged Iraqis and sent the Obama administration scrambling to repair a case that is all but in ruins.

In dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina said prosecutors ignored the advice of senior Justice Department officials and built their case on sworn statements that had been given under a promise of immunity. Documents unsealed Tuesday in response to a request by The Associated Press and The Washington Post paint the clearest picture yet of how the case prosecution went awry.

Immediately after the Sept. 16, 2007, shooting, Blackwater contractors told State Department investigators what happened. Two days later, the security gave written statements under a promise that nothing they said could be used against them in a criminal case.

Because of that deal, prosecutors had to make sure they didn't use the written statements to build their case. It was unclear, however whether prosecutors could use the Sept. 16 interviews.

Ken Kohl, the lead prosecutor, believed he could. And he thought Raymond Hulser agreed.

Hulser is among the Justice Department's experts on Garrity V. New Jersey, the Supreme Court case that spells out how to deal with these kinds of immunity deals. Hulser did not agree with Kohl.

"I think that we agreed that there was an issue regarding the Sept. 16, the earlier statements," Hulser testified in one of several closed-door hearing last year that ultimately persuaded Urbina to dismiss the case. "My view was that the risk was such that they shouldn't take it. His view was that they had a good chance of arguing the other way."

Hulser repeatedly tried to warn Kohl that building the investigation on those interviews could jeopardize the case.

"We've got an uphill battle on this Garrity issue, and the burden of proof is ours, so we need to be particularly cautious," Hulser wrote in an e-mail to Michael Mullaney, who served as the middle man between Hulser and Kohl.

The Justice Department installed Mullaney as a middle man as a safeguard to protect tainted evidence from sinking the case. But that structure just made things more confusing, attorneys said in testimony unsealed Friday.

When Mullaney relayed Hulser's warnings, Kohl said he either didn't read them or didn't interpret them the way they were intended. Kohl's team did use the Sept. 16 statements, a strategy that ultimately helped unravel the prosecution.

Kohl acknowledged that at times his investigation went "close to the line" but said he always thought he had the approval of his supervisors.

In his ruling, Urbina said Kohl simply ignored the warnings. The Justice Departments internal affairs division, the Office of Professional Responsibility, is investigating the Blackwater prosecutors for their handling of the case.

The Justice Department now faces an uphill battle resurrecting the case. Traveling in Iraq earlier this year, Vice President Joe Biden told Iraqi leaders that the U.S. would not give up.

The five guards are Donald Ball, a former Marine from West Valley City, Utah; Dustin Heard, a former Marine from Knoxville, Tenn.; Evan Liberty, a former Marine from Rochester, N.H.; Nick Slatten, a former Army sergeant from Sparta, Tenn., and Paul Slough, an Army veteran from Keller, Texas.

Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gew3dv19JkSK3-DtzwDvCn-5g8TAD9E6QEC01
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Interference Seen in Blackwater Inquiry

By James Risen
New York Times
March 2, 2010

Washington - An official at the United States Embassy in Iraq has told federal prosecutors that he believes that State Department officials sought to block any serious investigation of the 2007 shooting episode in which Blackwater Worldwide security guards were accused of murdering 17 Iraqi civilians, according to court testimony made public on Tuesday.

David Farrington, a State Department security agent in the American Embassy at the time of the shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, told prosecutors that some of his colleagues were handling evidence in a way they hoped would help the Blackwater guards avoid punishment for a crime that drew headlines and raised tensions between American and Iraqi officials.

The description of Mr. Farrington’s account came in closed-door testimony last October from Kenneth Kohl, the lead prosecutor in the case against the Blackwater guards.

"I talked to David Farrington, who was concerned, who expressed concern about the integrity of the work being done by his fellow officers," Mr. Kohl recalled. He said that Mr. Farrington had said he was in meetings where diplomatic security agents said that after they had gone to the scene and picked up casings and other evidence, "They said we’ve got enough to get these guys off now."

Mr. Farrington, who also testified in a closed-door pretrial hearing in the Nisour Square shooting case, declined to comment. His own testimony has not yet been unsealed by the court.

Blackwater became a multimillion-dollar contractor as the United States escalated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, providing protection for State Department officials and covert work for the Central Intelligence Agency.

The company, dominated by former American officials, has been described by critics as being too close to the intelligence and diplomatic agencies for which it worked.

The New York Times has reported that the Justice Department was investigating allegations that Blackwater had tried to bribe Iraqi government officials in hopes of retaining their security business after the deadly shooting.

In December, a federal judge dismissed the criminal charges against five former Blackwater guards in the Nisour Square shooting, and criticized the Justice Department’s handling of the case, chiding prosecutors for trying to use statements from defendants who had been offered immunity and testimony from witnesses tainted by news media leaks.

The documents made public on Tuesday show that before the December dismissal, prosecutors and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents working on the Nisour Square case took the stand in October to argue that they had plenty of untainted evidence. In a closed-door hearing, they also contended that they had evidence that, in the immediate aftermath of the shootings, there had been a concerted effort to make the case go away, both by Blackwater and by at least some embassy officials.

In fact, prosecutors were told that the embassy had never conducted any significant investigation of any of the numerous shooting episodes in Iraq involving Blackwater before the Nisour Square case, according to the documents.

In his October testimony, Mr. Kohl described how the Justice Department had "serious concerns" about obstruction of justice in the case. He also said prosecutors briefed Kenneth Wainstein, then an assistant attorney general, on evidence of obstruction by Blackwater management.

Mr. Kohl disclosed that prosecutors had discovered that five Blackwater guards who were on the convoy involved in the Nisour Square shootings reported to Blackwater management what they had seen. One guard, he said, described it as "murder in cold blood." Mr. Kohl said that Blackwater management never reported these statements by the guards to the State Department.

He said that prosecutors informed senior Justice Department officials as early as 2007 that they were investigating whether Blackwater managers "manipulated" the official statements made by the guards to the State Department.

But he testified that prosecutors also had evidence of embassy officials thwarting the inquiry. In addition to the testimony of Mr. Farrington, Mr. Kohl said that United States military officials had told prosecutors that they witnessed State Department investigators "badgering" Iraqi witnesses.

He also testified that diplomatic security agents, who conducted the embassy’s initial investigation before the F.B.I. and Justice Department began a criminal inquiry, left out important facts from their report relating to a witness’s account.

Philip J. Crowley, assistant secretary of state for public affairs, defended the department’s handling of the Nisour Square case. He said: "Seventeen people died in broad daylight. We took the case seriously from the outset. We invited the F.B.I. to join the investigation, and more than two years later, we continue to pursue the case and seek justice."

Officials from Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Kohl described what he believed was "an undercurrent of obstruction in this case."

He said that a Blackwater official had told him that the whole criminal investigation could have been avoided if the State Department had given Blackwater officials more time to prepare the official statements by the guards involved in the shooting.

"He said, do you know why this all happened, why we’re here?" Mr. Kohl recalled. "Because the State Department didn’t give us enough time to work on these statements with these guys. We only had a couple hours, and we needed to get these over to the embassy."

The dismissal of the criminal case against the guards for Blackwater in the Nisour Square shooting prompted bitter protests by Iraqis against the United States, and it led the Iraqi government to threaten to bring a lawsuit of its own in the case.

The Justice Department has now appealed the dismissal. Blackwater has settled one series of civil lawsuits brought by victims of the Nisour Square shooting, but another lawsuit brought by another group of victims is still pending.

External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/world/middleeast/03blackwater.html

2010/03/01 - Jalal Antranick vs. Research Triangle Institute & Unity Resources Group: Legal Update

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 18:19:45 +0100

Jalal Askander Antranick vs. Research Triangle Institute (RTI) & Unity Resources Group (URG), LLC
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
Case-No.: 1:08-cv-00505-PLF
Filed on April 8th, 2008

February 26th, 2010 - Memorandum Opinion & Order

"Regarding Plaintiff Jalal Askander Antranick’s case [...], for the foregoing reasons, it is hereby ordered that,

"1. Defendant Unity’s Motion to Dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction is reserved pending additional jurisdictional discovery. Specifically,

"(a) The Parties shall have until March 26, 2010 to complete limited jurisdictional discovery as to Defendant Unity’s financial and business activities solely within the District. The Parties shall then submit simultaneous additional briefing regarding Defendant Unity’s Motion to Dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction by April 16, 2010.

"2. Defendant RTI’s Motion to Dismiss Complaint, Motion to Transfer Any Remaining Claims is granted in part and denied in part.

"Specifically, (a) Defendant RTI’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff Antranick’s Complaint for failure to name an authorized representative is denied;

"(b) Defendant RTI’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff Antranick’s First Cause of Action relating to the Alien Tort Statute is granted;

"(c) Defendant RTI’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff Antranick’s Second Cause of Action relating to the Torture Victim Protection Act is granted;

"(d) Defendant RTI’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff Antranick’s claims that it should not be liable for Defendant Unity’s actions is denied;

"(e) Defendant RTI’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff Antranick’s Seventh Cause of Action relating to his Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress is granted;

"(f) Defendant RTI’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff Antranick’s request of declaratory and injunctive relief is granted;

"(g) Defendant RTI’s Motion for Transfer of Venue to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina is granted.

"3. All remaining claims contained in Defendants RTI and Unity’s Motions that are not discussed herein are denied.

"4. The Clerk of Court is directed to transfer this case to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. [...]"

2010/03/01 - Estate of Marani Manook vs. Unity Resources Group & RTI: Legal Update

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 18:15:36 +0100

Estate of Marani Awanis Manook vs. Unity Resources Group & RTI International
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
Case-No.: 1:08-cv-00096-PLF
Filed on January 17th, 2008

February 26th, 2010 - Memorandum Opinion & Order

"[...] Regarding Plaintiff Marani Manook’s case [...], for the foregoing reasons, it is hereby ordered that,

"1. Defendant Unity’s Motion to Dismiss the First Amended Complaint is denied in part and reserved in part.

"Specifically, (a) Defendant Unity’s Motion to Dismiss for improper service of process is denied;

"(b) Defendant Unity’s Motion to Dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction is reserved pending additional jurisdictional discovery;

"(c) The Parties shall have until March 26, 2010 to complete limited jurisdictional discovery as to Defendant Unity’s financial and business activities solely within the District. The Parties shall then submit simultaneous additional briefing regarding Defendant Unity’s Motion to Dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction by April 16, 2010.

"2. Defendant RTI’s Motion to Dismiss Amended Complaint, or Alternatively, Motion for Definite Statement and to Transfer Any Remaining Claims is granted in part and denied in part. Specifically,

"(a) Defendant RTI’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff Manook’s First Amended Complaint for failure to name an authorized representative is denied;

"(b) Defendant RTI’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff Manook’s Counts I, II and III relating to the Alien Tort Statute is granted;

"(c) Defendant RTI’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff Manook’s claims that it should not be liable for Defendant Unity’s actions is denied;

"(d) Defendant RTI’s Motion for a More Definite Statement on Counts IV-XVI of Plaintiff Manook’s First Amended Complaint is denied without prejudice;

"(e) Defendant RTI’s Motion for Transfer of Venue to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina is granted.

"3. All remaining claims contained in Defendants RTI and Unity’s Motions that are not discussed herein are denied.

"4. The Clerk of Court is directed to transfer this case to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. [...]"

2010/02/24 - US Army’s Lax Supervision Cited in Blackwater Case

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:01:30 +0100

From Agence France Presse
February 24, 2010

Washington - The US Army's lax supervision was cited in a Senate investigation of controversial private security firm Blackwater, which allowed employees to use weapons without authorization in Afghanistan.

At the outset of a months-long probe, the Senate Armed Service Committee found several cases of "reckless" use of weapons by personnel from Paravant, a subsidiary of Blackwater, itself now renamed Xe Services.

The panel pointed to an hiring process lacking rigor, with some employees having criminal records.

It also found that several rules on the acquisition and use of arms in Afghanistan were violated, while US military officials turned a blind eye.

"Why is the issue of armed contractors in Afghanistan so important?" asked Democratic Senator Carl Levin, who chairs the committee.

"I guess the bottom line is that in the fight against the Taliban, the perception that the Afghans have of us is critical."

He was speaking on the eve of a hearing before the panel on the case about the military contractor. US Army contracting officials and representatives of the company are expected to testify.

In fall 2008, Paravant became a subcontractor of defense contractor Raytheon to fulfill a mission to train Afghan security forces.

On May 5, 2009, two Paravant employees in Afghanistan - Justin Cannon and Christopher Drotleff - opened fire during a traffic incident in Kabul, killing two unarmed Afghan civilians and wounding three others. The pair have since been arraigned on murder and weapons violations charges.

The Justice Department said the incident created diplomatic problems for the United States in Afghanistan, with consequences for US security interests, according to the panel.

In December 2008, Paravant employees were seen perusing a street sitting atop a rolling vehicle, with AK-47 assault rifles in hand. A bump in the road made one of the arms unload a volley of bullets, seriously wounding one employee in the head.

According to the committee, it was not until the May 2009 incident that military officials began looking into Paravant.

"Hopefully, the army is going to be much more ... careful (about) who we contract with," Levin told reporters.

The panel noted that Paravant instructors were not authorized to bear arms. Investigators found that Blackwater-Paravant obtained weapons from a warehouse reserved for Afghan security forces.

The facility, known as Bunker 22, was under US military control.

According to Levin, only several of the "hundreds" of weapons unlawfully held by the subsidiary have been returned so far.

Meanwhile, two Democratic lawmakers proposed a bill to ban the federal government and the US military from using subcontractors in combat zones, namely in Iraq and Afghanistan, where tens of thousands of troops are deployed.

The secretive Blackwater was thrown into the spotlight after five of its guards were accused of killing 14 unarmed Iraqis in a gun and grenade attack, and wounding 18 others during a September 2007 incident at the busy Nisur Square in Baghdad.

Earlier this month, Iraq expelled 250 former employees of the security firm. The North Carolina-based firm lost its contract to provide security for US embassy diplomats in Baghdad in May 2009 after Iraqis and critics repeatedly accused it of adopting a cowboy mentality to duties in the country.

Copyright © 2010 AFP.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5giehAd4hKVtMNeoYmW2-0czmkWhg

2009/07/29 - Investigation into the Office of Legal Counsel’s Memoranda Concerning "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:27:17 +0100

Report by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility

"[...] In June 2004, an August 1, 2002 memorandum from then Assistant Attorney General (AG) Jay S. Bybee of the Department of Justice's office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to Alberto R. Gonzales, then White House Counsel, was leaked to
the press. The memorandum was captioned 'Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340-2340A (the Bybee Memo), and had been drafted primarily by OLC's then Deputy Assistant Attorney General, John Yoo. The memorandum examined a criminal statute prohibiting torture, 18 U.S.C. 85 2340-2340A (the torture statute), in the context of interrogations conducted outside the United States. [...]

"[...] Based on the results of our investigation, we concluded that former Deputy AAG John Yoo committed intentional professional misconduct when he violated his duty to exercise independent legal judgment and render thorough, objective, and candid legal advice.

"We concluded that former AAG Jay Bybee committed professional misconduct when he acted in reckless disregard of his duty to exercise independent legal judgment and render thorough, objective, and candid legal
advice.

"We did not find that the other Department officials involved in this matter committed professional misconduct. In addition to these findings, we recommend that, for the reasons discussed in this report, the Department review certain declinations of prosecution regarding incidents of detainee abuse referred to the Department by the CIA OIG. [...]"

2010/02/20 - Haditha’s Last Defendant

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:04:08 +0100

By Mark Walker
North County Times
February 20, 2010

It was a signature event of the Iraq war: A squad of Camp Pendleton troops hit by a roadside bomb kills two dozen civilians, including several women and children, as they hunt for their attackers.

Initially dismissed as an unfortunate result of combat, the attack in the city of Haditha in late 2005 that left one Marine and two others injured was later branded a massacre after a congressman alleged the troops had "killed in cold blood."

It changed the way U.S. troops conducted themselves on the battlefield.

Eight Marines were charged with criminal wrongdoing. But years later and after a series of exonerations, only one defendant remains: Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich.

Wuterich is due in a base courtroom next month where his attorneys will argue that the nine counts of voluntary manslaughter and related charges against him should be dismissed.

"We are alleging unlawful command influence," said Neal Puckett, Wuterich's lead attorney, a retired U.S. Marine lieutenant colonel who spent five years as a military judge.

The argument set for hearing on March 22 contends that a legal adviser overseeing the case tainted it because he also took part in the initial investigation and is a prosecution witness.

Those factors, and the adviser's participation in discussions about the cases with prosecutors and a general overseeing the case, already have been ruled unlawful by one military judge.

That ruling came in 2008 in the case against the battalion commander at Haditha, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, who was accused of failing to conduct a full-scale investigation into the killings. His conduct was deemed "substandard," but he was allowed to retire at his current rank.

Wuterich's attorneys are essentially saying that the same finding of unfairness that tainted the Chessani prosecution applies to their client.

Prosecutors say Wuterich deliberately ignored the rules of engagement and laws of war when he took part in the shooting deaths of four men who drove up in a car immediately after the bombing. He's also charged in the shootings of five civilians inside a home near the bomb site.

Wuterich, who was 25 and on his first combat deployment at Haditha, has pleaded not guilty to the charges - manslaughter, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, obstruction of justice and dereliction of duty. If all those stand and he is convicted of each, Wuterich could face a sentence as stiff as 160 years in prison.

'Inaccurate theory'

The killings occurred at the height of the war, when Marines were dying daily in what was then considered the unwinnable Anbar province west of Baghdad.

The disclosure that a large number of unarmed civilians were slain inside their homes added an incendiary element into the bitter national debate over what the U.S. was doing in Iraq.

Wuterich and three other Marines originally were charged with premeditated murder, an accusation that suggested the squad from Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment had wantonly killed the civilians in a vengeful rage.

Chessani and three of his officers were accused of dereliction and similar offenses for allegedly trying to sweep away the incident as mere battlefield carnage that occurred in a city that at the time was rife with insurgents.

In the years since prosecutors announced the charges in December 2006, dozens of court hearings and one trial have resulted in seven of the eight accused Marines being cleared through acquittal, dismissal or withdrawal of charges.

Puckett said those results underscore his belief that national politics colored people's perceptions of what happened at Haditha on the morning of Nov. 19, 2005.

The flames were fanned when Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who died earlier this month, announced on CNN that he had received a briefing that led him to believe the Marines were under severe stress and had "killed in cold blood."

Murtha's comments set off a firestorm of criticism of the Marines - and an opposing chorus that said they were being prejudged without a full airing of the evidence.

The comments by Murtha, a former Marine considered a friend to the military, shaped the way the Pentagon would treat the case, Puckett said.

"Murtha said his briefing came out of the office of the (Marine Corps) commandant, and that he had heard that these guys committed a war crime. And that became a constant whenever Haditha was mentioned," the attorney said.

Evidence and rulings in the earlier cases, however, present a mixed portrait. The men who drove up after the bombing were unarmed, and investigators have testified they believe the men had nothing to do with the bombing.

Most of the civilians killed inside three homes were unarmed, the evidence has shown.

Three men inside one bedroom, however, did have AK-47 assault rifles. That resulted in the withdrawal of murder charges against Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt after a judge concluded the Iraqis represented a threat.

The Sharratt case and similar rulings show the prosecution has been misguided, Puckett said.

"The lesson of Haditha is that inaccurate theories of guilt led investigators down the wrong paths, to wrong conclusions and wrong theories of liability," he said. "It resulted in one bad decision after another."

Prosecutors are forbidden by Marine Corps policy from commenting on pending cases and they refuse to comment on cases that have been resolved.

Wuterich remains on duty at Camp Pendleton. If a judge sides with his attorneys, the Marine Corps can appeal, drop the case or move to initiate a new investigation.

The right tack

Two experts in military law say the Marine Corps had to fully investigate and ultimately file charges for what happened.

"The Marine Corps felt a crime had been committed, and it has not backed off from that belief," said Gary Solis, a former Marine Corps judge who teaches the law of war at Washington's Georgetown University. "It believed the evidence that was produced early in the case and has pursued the cases unwaveringly."

But even if Wuterich is convicted of some or all of the charges, Solis said he doubts that a military jury would put him behind bars.

"I would not expect any kind of heavy sentence," Solis said.

That would fit a pattern in cases involving other Camp Pendleton troops convicted of killing Iraqi civilians in cases other than Haditha.

Duke University's Scott Silliman said a renewed militarywide emphasis in deliberate and ethical battlefield conduct to minimize civilian killings is one of the hallmarks of Haditha. So, too, is a requirement that mandates all such deaths receive at least a cursory investigation.

"It had a clarifying effect, and today we see a much greater sensitivity to innocents and civilians being harmed or killed," said Silliman, who heads Duke's Center on Law, Ethics and National Security.

Silliman said the prosecutions have been proper.

"The incident itself had to be aired in a legal setting to have some kind of finality to what happened," he said. "To do nothing in the face of the accusations would be saying there are two different standards - one during wartime and one during peace - and that simply cannot be."

External link: http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/military/article_60253373-7741-5b9d-8a66-91e832851030.html

2010/02/22 - Data Show Rendition Planes Landed in Poland

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:34:13 +0100

By Nicholas Kulish & Scott Shane
New York Times
February 22, 2010

Berlin - Two human rights groups released government flight logs Monday that showed aircraft linked to the Central Intelligence Agency’s program for secretly detaining, moving and housing terrorism suspects had landed in Poland.

Polish authorities have long denied that the country hosted one of the "black sites," part of a network of clandestine overseas prisons where suspected prisoners from Al Qaeda were subjected to brutal interrogation methods under the C.I.A.’s so-called rendition program. Prosecutors in Poland are investigating the country’s possible participation in the program.

The Polish Air Navigation Services Agency confirmed that it provided the flight logs to the two rights groups, the Open Society Justice Initiative and the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. The logs showed six flights in 2003 by two aircraft, a Gulfstream V and a Boeing 737, five of which originated in Kabul, Afghanistan, and one in Rabat, Morocco, before landing at Szymany airport.

Former American intelligence officials have said that the chief plotter of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was interrogated at the secret base near Szymany airport after his capture in 2003, but the agency has refused confirm that. "The agency does not discuss publicly where facilities related to its past detention program may, or may not, have been located," said a C.I.A. spokesman, Paul Gimigliano.

Adam Bodnar, head of the legal division at the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, based in Warsaw, said that after years of anonymous reports, the flight records were the first official confirmation of the C.I.A. flights to Poland. "We are getting closer to the truth," he said.

"Of course Polish authorities may help the C.I.A. in the fight against terrorism, but they are bound by the Polish Constitution, which prohibits torture," Mr. Bodnar said.

The Polish government declined to comment on the contents of the rights groups’ report. "The prosecutor’s office is investigating the reports about the alleged use of the Szymany airport," said Piotr Paszkowski, a Foreign Ministry spokesman.

Robert Majewski, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation, told the Polish news agency PAP on Monday that he did not expect the investigation "to end soon."

C.I.A. officials have said that fewer than 100 prisoners were kept in the secret prisons between the creation of the program in 2002 and the transfer of the remaining 14 prisoners to Guantánamo Bay in Cuba in 2006.

Maciej Rodak, vice president of the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency, confirmed that the agency had sent the records to the human rights groups. He said that the agency could not provide passenger lists, which the groups had also requested.

"The thing that is quite shocking is that the European investigations requested these specific flight records some four years ago," said Darian Pavli, a lawyer with the Open Society Justice Initiative, a human rights group in New York. "The Poles all these years said they could not locate them, the flights didn’t exist."

Nicholas Kulish reported from Berlin, and Scott Shane from Washington.

© 2010 The New York Times Company

External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/world/europe/23poland.html

2010/02/23 - The Blackwater Killings/Daniel Brady et al vs. Xe Services: Legal Update

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:05:46 +0100

Daniel Brady et al vs. Xe Services LLC, Blackwater Security Consulting LLC et al
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina
Case No.: 5:09-cv-00449-BO (5:09-cv-00450-BO)
Filed on October 15th, 2009

Recent Filings:

February 17th, 2010 - Defendant Ridgeway’s Opposition to Conduct Jurisdictional Discovery

"[...] Comes now Defendant Jeremy P. Ridgeway (‘Mr. Ridgeway’), by counsel, pursuant to Local Rule 7.1, and hereby submits this Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Separated Motion for Leave to Conduct Jurisdictional Discovery (the ‘Opposition’). Plaintiffs’ Separated Motion for Leave to Conduct Jurisdictional Discovery (the ‘Motion’) should be denied because Plaintiffs have not established the requisite prima facie evidence of personal jurisdiction that is needed for the Court to grant Plaintiffs leave to conduct the discovery in question. The grounds for this Opposition are set forth more fully in the accompanying Memorandum in Support.

"Wherefore, Mr. Ridgeway requests respectfully that the Court deny Plaintiffs’ Motion. [...]"

February 16th, 2010 - Defendants Ball, [...] Reply to Opposition to Motion to Dismiss

"[...] Defendants Donald Wayne Ball, Dustin L. Heard, Evan Shawn Liberty, Nicholas Abrarn Slatten and Paul Alvin Slough hereby adopt, and refer the Court to the Corporate Defendants’ Reply Memorandum in Support of their Motion to Dismiss the Complaint or, in the Alternative, to Strike Exhibits, which is being filed today. [...]"

February 16th, 2010 - Corporate Defendants’ Memorandum in Support to Dismiss Complaint

"[...] Plaintiffs’ opposition to the Corporate Defendants’ motion to dismiss [...] describes an event that was undeniably tragic. Every tragic event that occurs throughout the world is not redressable through a lawsuit in the courts of the United States, however. The issue presented by this motion is whether the Complaint states a valid claim for relief against the Corporate Defendants. For all of the reasons stated herein and in the opening brief [...], it does not.

"[...] Plaintiffs are Iraqi citizens seeking compensation under Iraqi law for injuries allegedly sustained in the Iraq war zone at the hands of U.S. State Department contractors providing security services to U.S. diplomats. Such injuries are not redressable in this Court. [...]

"[...] Even if they were actionable here, Plaintiffs’ claims are deficient under Iraqi law. [...]"

January 25th, 2010 - Plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave to Conduct Jurisdictional Discovery

"[...] Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 7(b)(l), Local Civil Rule 7.1, EDNC, through undersigned counsel and upon the grounds set forth in the accompanying Memorandum of Law, Plaintiffs respectfully move the Court for an order allowing them a 90-day period to conduct limited discovery on the personal jurisdictional issue raised by Defendant Jeremy Ridgeway’s Motion to Dismiss and an additional twenty (20) days from the close of such discovery period to file a brief in opposition to said motion. In the alternative, if this Court does not grant Plaintiffs leave to conduct the requested limited discovery, Plaintiffs respectfully request that the Court allow them twenty (20) days from the date of such ruling to respond to Defendant Ridgeway’s Motion to Dismiss. While Defendant Ridgeway’s counsel does not consent to Plaintiffs’ request for leave to conduct limited jurisdictional discovery, counsel does consent to Plaintiffs’ request for an additional twenty (20) days, from the date the Court rules on this Motion, to respond to Defendant Ridgeway’s Motion to Dismiss. [...]"

January 25th, 2010 - Plaintiffs’ Memorandum in Opposition to Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss

"[...] Plaintiffs, through counsel, respectfully submit this Memorandum of Law opposing defendants’ Motion to Dismiss and/or to Strike (‘Motion’). For the reasons that follow, defendants’ Motion should be overruled. Plaintiffs submit that this case should first be remanded to the state court from which defendants improperly removed it. Should the Court remand, the need to decide this Motion will be mooted. In any event, defendants’ Motion is meritless and should be rejected.

"Nature of the case

"This case is not about the United States military or the conduct of the war against terrorism in Iraq. This case is not about national security, nor is it about politics, and it does not implicate the separation of powers amongst co-equal branches of our government. Although the location of events is a public traffic circle known as Nisur Square in Baghdad, Iraq, none of the relevant events has any military or national security component whatsoever. There are no federal claims or causes of action raised in the Complaint.

"The defendants consist of a private company and its employees that were hired, as independent contractors, by the United States Department of State (‘DOS’) to provide bodyguard services to diplomats and related personnel. Defendants’ employees, per Blackwater’s contract with the DOS, were expressly prohibited from using deadly force except for purely defensive purposes. [...] Defendants, including the instant guard-defendants, also agreed to ‘comply with the laws of the United States and the host countries in which they are required to provide services under th[e] [WPPS II] contract.’ [...]"

2010/02/23 - The Blackwater Killings/U.S. vs. Slough, Slatten, Liberty, Heard & Ball: Legal Update

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:06:07 +0100

U.S. vs. Slough, Slatten, Liberty, Heard & Ball
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Case No.: 10-3006
Filed on January 29th, 2010

U.S. vs. Slough, Slatten, Liberty, Heard & Ball
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
Case No.: CR-08-360
Filed on December 4th, 2008

Recent Filings:

February 12th, 2010 - Order

"[...] Upon consideration of appellant’s unopposed motion for extension of time to file brief, it is ordered that the motion be granted.

"The following revised briefing schedule will now apply in this case:

"Appellant’s Brief: April 30, 2010

"Appendix: April 30, 2010

"Appellees’ Brief: July 30, 2010

"Appellant’s Reply Brief: August 20, 2010 [...]"

January 29th, 2010 - Notice of Appeal

"[...] By an Order and Memorandum Opinion dated December 31, 2009, the district court dismissed the indictment.

"[...] I, the above-named appellant, hereby appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from the above-stated judgment.

"[...] United States of America, Appellant [...]"

2010/02/18 - Iraq War to Be Rebranded 'Operation New Dawn'

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:55:00 +0100

From Agence France Presse
February 18, 2010

Washington - President Barack Obama's administration plans to rebrand its military operation in Iraq "Operation New Dawn," beginning September 1, a Pentagon memorandum shows.

The memo, signed by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, shows the Pentagon approving a request to switch the name of the US military effort in Iraq from its current designation - "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

"The request … is approved to take effect 1 September 2010, coinciding with the change of mission for US forces in Iraq.

"Aligning the name change with the change of mission sends a strong signal that Operation Iraqi Freedom has ended and our forces are operating under a new mission," Gates wrote in the memo, first reported by ABC News.

The document, which is addressed to General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, adds the rebranding "presents opportunities to synchronize strategic communication initiatives ... and recognize our evolving relationship with the government of Iraq."

The move quickly drew criticism from Military Families United, a national security pressure group.

"You cannot end a war simply by changing its name," Brian Wise, the group's executive director, said in a statement.

"Despite the administration's efforts to spin realities on the ground, their efforts do not change the situation at hand in Iraq.

"Operational military decisions should not be made for purposes of public relations but should be made in the best interests of our nation, the troops on the ground and their families back home."

Obama ran for office in 2008 on a platform that emphasized a pledge to withdraw US troops from Iraq and focus on the war in Afghanistan.

There are now some 97,000 US troops stationed in Iraq, the first time the number has fallen below 100,000 since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, according to the Pentagon.

That figure is scheduled to fall to around 50,000 by the end of August, with those troops left behind functioning in advisory and training roles solely.

All US troops are scheduled to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.

Copyright © 2010 AFP.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g1Bg95t6yV42auorK9zui8XPe6Pg

2010/02/20 - DOJ Review Finds No Misconduct by Memo Authors

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:35:39 +0100

From the Associated Press
February 20, 2010

Washington - The Justice Department is closing the books on its probe of the Bush administration lawyers whose legal memorandums authorized the CIA to waterboard terrorism suspects, but the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee says he remains offended by the memos and will hold hearings

An internal review said the department lawyers showed ''poor judgment'' but did not commit professional misconduct in giving CIA interrogators the go-ahead at the height of the U.S. war on terrorism to use harsh interrogation tactics.

President Barack Obama campaigned on abolishing waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique, and other tactics that he called torture. He left open the question of whether anyone would be punished for authorizing such methods.

Liberal Democrats had pressed for action against the authors of the so-called torture memos, and they indicated they aren't finished discussing the matter.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he was ''deeply offended'' by the legal memos and planned to hold a hearing Feb. 26.

''I have serious concerns about the role each of these government lawyers played in the development of these policies,'' Leahy said in a statement posted on his Web site.

An initial review by the Justice Department's internal affairs unit found that former government lawyers Jay Bybee and John Yoo had committed professional misconduct, a conclusion that could have cost them their law licenses. But, underscoring just how controversial and legally thorny the memos have become, the Justice Department's top career lawyer reviewed the matter and disagreed.

''This decision should not be viewed as an endorsement of the legal work that underlies those memoranda,'' Assistant Deputy Attorney General David Margolis wrote in a memo released Friday.

Margolis, the top nonpolitical Justice Department lawyer and a veteran of several administrations, called the legal memos ''flawed'' and said that, at every opportunity, they gave interrogators as much leeway as possible under U.S. torture laws. But he said Yoo and Bybee were not reckless and did not knowingly give incorrect advice, the standard for misconduct.

The Office of Professional Responsibility, led by another veteran career prosecutor, Mary Patrice Brown, disagreed.

''Situations of great stress, danger and fear do not relieve department attorneys of their duty to provide thorough, objective and candid legal advice, even if that advice is not what the client wants to hear,'' her team wrote in a report that criticized the memos for a ''lack of thoroughness, objectivity and candor.''

The internal report also faulted then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and then-Criminal Division chief Michael Chertoff for not scrutinizing the memos and recognizing their flaws, but the report did not cite them for misconduct.

Yoo is now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Bybee is a federal judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco. The decision spares them any immediate sanctions, though state bar associations could independently take up the matter.

The memos authorized CIA interrogators to use waterboarding, keep detainees naked, hold them in painful standing positions and keep them in the cold for long periods of time. Other techniques included depriving them of solid food and slapping them. Sleep deprivation, prolonged shackling and threats to a detainee's family were also used.

The memos have been embroiled in national security politics for years. The memos laid out a broad interpretation of executive power, one the previous administration also used to authorize warrantless wiretapping and secret prisons. Democrats say the Bush administration used shoddy lawyering to legitimize such policies.

Republicans said the memos, authored by two well-respected attorneys, gave the CIA the authority it needed to keep America safe in the panic-filled months after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The memos were hurriedly put together in days, and supporters of Yoo and Bybee note that investigators have had years to dissect them.

Many have criticized the Obama administration for trying to politicize legal advice.

''We can only hope that the department's decision will establish once and for all that dedicated public officials may have honest disagreements on difficult matters of legal judgment without violating ethical standards,'' Bybee's lawyer, Maureen Mahoney, said Friday.

Yoo's lawyer, Miguel Estrada, was more pointed. During the lengthy investigation, Estrada accused internal investigators of trying to be ''Junior Varsity CIA'' that second-guessed intelligence decisions. Friday, he said the two lawyers never deserved to be investigated in the first place.

Obama has said CIA interrogators who relied on the memos will not face charges for their behavior. A separate criminal inquiry is under way into whether a handful of CIA operatives crossed the line, leading to the death of detainees.

Associated Press writers Devlin Barrett and Pete Yost contributed to this report.

© 2010 The Associated Press.

External link: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/20/us/politics/AP-US-Interrogation-Memos.html

2010/02/20 - Tell Us the Truth About Torture, Watchdog Insists

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:16:00 +0100

By Frances Gibb
The Times
February 20, 2010

Pressure is mounting on ministers to disclose what the Security Service knew about the alleged torture of Britons abroad.

Last week the Court of Appeal ordered the disclosure of seven paragraphs of evidence showing that MI5 was aware that Binyam Mohamed, a former Guantánamo Bay detainee, was being mistreated by the CIA.

Now Jack Straw faces calls for an investigation, this time from the Government’s own human rights watchdog. The Equality and Human Rights Commission wants an independent inquiry into more than 20 cases alleging that the Government was complicit in the torture of Britons abroad.

The ECHR is concerned about reported cases of 25 people who have complained of ill treatment, illegal detention and torture that they allege were condoned by British agencies. The commission says that the dossier shows that the case of Mr Mohamed, who is bringing legal proceedings against the Government over his alleged torture, is not an isolated instance. Last week’s evidence disclosed that he had suffered sleep deprivation, threat of rendition and shackled interrogation. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, had fought against publication of the material, arguing that it was given in confidence by the US authorities and was not its to disclose.

Court of Appeal judges are considering whether to release a paragraph containing the most damning criticism of the Security Service, which they removed from the final version of their judgment after representations from Mr Miliband’s lawyers.

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the commission, told The Times that the Government must hold an open review into the latest allegations. "Torture contravenes UK and international law and the values that Britain upholds," he said. "The Government must take the opportunity of an independent review to be as transparent with the public as possible."

Mr Phillips said: "Ministers and government agencies are facing very serious allegations of knowing that UK citizens were being tortured, failing to take action to stop that torture and supplying questions to be used in the interrogation of men who were subjected to a high level of ill treatment.

"Given the UK’s role as a world leader on human rights, it would be inexplicable for the Government not to urgently put in place an independent review process to assess the truth, or otherwise, of these allegations."

The dossier is drawn up from reports by the UN, Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights and international human rights organisations, including a UN Human Rights Council report last month that alleged that the UK was complicit in the use of torture in interrogations.

Two cases of alleged complicity are being investigated by the police and although no charges have been brought, the commission has concerns that any corroborative evidence lies in the hands of the Government’s own agencies and in particular the security and intelligence services. It details allegations that British officials were involved in interrogation of detained suspects in breach of human rights provisions. It also alleges mistreatment, in some cases of a level that may amount to torture, by other non-British agents but claims that UK officials were aware of that treatment at the time.

The Government has stated unequivocally that the allegations are unsubstantiated and that it does not condone or support torture by foreign agencies. But in its letter to Mr Straw the commission says that it "does not believe that the Government’s response to these allegations is sufficient" and states that "not enough has been done to reassure the commission and the public that these allegations are unfounded".

It calls for an urgent review to assess the truth of the allegations. It must be completely independent, transparent and must hold public hearings and put material in the public domain as far as is possible, the commission says.

Mr Phillips points out that the commission is expected to participate at UN level about the UK’s compliance with its international legal obligations. It would be "inexplicable", he says, for the commission to ignore the human rights reports, particularly in the context of the Binyan Mohamed ruling.

Jonathan Evans, Director-General of MI5, has said that the criticisms said to have been made by the judges are "the precise opposite of the truth". Such accusations over alleged human rights abuses would be used by "our enemies" as "propaganda to undermine our will and ability to confront them", he said.

Some of the allegations in the dossier have been covered by parliamentary reports. But none of the processes has established whether the allegations are true, the commission says.

External link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7034418.ece

2010/02/15 - How MI5 Kept Watchdog in the Dark over Detainees’ Claims of Torture

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:50:47 +0100

By David Leigh & Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian
February 15, 2010

It was in the middle of 2008 that Jonathan Evans, director general of MI5, delivered a bombshell confession to the previously compliant parliamentarians of the intelligence and security committee.

He told them, in strict secrecy as usual, that assurances of MI5 innocence previously accepted without demur by the politicians had in fact been false.

The committee, which was supposed to supervise MI5's policies, had already published a reassuring report on the basis of what it had been told. That report, based on testimony from Eliza Manningham-Buller, Evans's predecessor, informed the world that MI5 had been unaware of any ill-treatment dished out by its US allies to Binyam Mohamed.

The opposite was true. As the appeal court has now finally revealed, detailed briefings had been supplied at the time by Washington on the CIA's "new strategy" for softening up Mohamed and others, for which it demanded British help. This new American "war on terror" involved the use of prolonged sleep deprivation, shackling and threats that Mohamed would be "disappeared", applied to the point where his mental stability corroded and he apparently became suicidal.

These interrogation tactics, of systematic ill-treatment which might amount to torture, had supposedly been banned by Britain since 1972, when it came to light that the British army was using them on IRA suspects.

But far from denouncing or even criticising US behaviour, MI5 officers co-operated with it. The secret files, when they eventually emerged, revealed that an MI5 officer had travelled to Karachi to help with the interrogation of Mohammed. Other MI5 desk officers and "more senior" figures also knew the contents of the CIA files, according to judgments of the British high court. That these facts had been kept from the ISC was a demonstration of the committee's impotence. Critics say the ISC is a useless government poodle, and the Binyam Mohamed affair appears to strengthen their case.

Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie said yesterday: "The ISC is not … able to get to the truth. The chairman is a prime ministerial appointee. This has allowed a revolving door between chairmanship of the ISC and the government front bench. That door should be closed."

The MI5 head finally felt obliged to confess to the ISC in 2008 and hand over the documents, because disclosure orders obtained by Mohamed's lawyers and enforced by the courts had led to the discovery of 42 incriminating files.

All had originally been kept from the ISC, which, despite its supposed special access within Whitehall's "ring of secrecy", is powerless to compel disclosure of documents, even if its under-resourced members had any idea of what to ask for.

Public protests from the ISC about such impotence have been ignored by No 10 in the past. In this case, the ISC was forced to admit in 2009 that the "new information [which] had come to light about the Binyam Mohamed case ... had been overlooked during the committee's original rendition inquiry".

No public explanation has been offered of why the files were originally suppressed. Nor has the public been told how and by whom they were eventually unearthed within the bowels of Thames House. These may be matters for any future judicial inquiry into a cover-up.

The anonymous MI5 officer who went to Karachi and subsequently gave evidence to the high court that nothing was known of US malpractice has been targeted as a potential criminal suspect. It has been announced that a police inquiry is being held into his behaviour. This has been used as a justification by ministers, MI5 and ISC itself to remain silent. But the investigation has produced no tangible results, more than 18 months later.

The ISC claimed in March 2009 to have conducted its own "detailed investigation" into the scandal, having been confronted with it, and to have sent a private letter to the prime minister as a result.

It managed to do this without interviewing any witness who alleged direct knowledge of British complicity in torture - neither campaigners such as Human Rights Watch, nor media investigators, nor any of the alleged victims themselves.

The ISC only saw witnesses in secret once again, from MI5, MI6 and the Foreign Office, and has failed to publish any of its purported findings.

Had it not been for the judges defying repeated heavy pressure from the executive and going public, British voters would have learnt little from the ISC's activities. The ISC has so far only provided them with false information in its 2007 report, followed by a lack of information in subsequent reports.

This is nothing new, critics say. Its heavily censored reports have long been derided as establishment whitewash.

Not appointed by parliament, gagged by the Official Secrets Act, and even forced to meet outside Westminster, the ISC's members are more emasculated even than conventional select committees. The chairmanship is usually awarded as a sop to a former government minister, currently Kim Howells. Downing St has enforced a 'convention' under which only its chair is allowed to give interviews.

The committee has had only had a tiny secretariat of half a dozen clerks, and no investigative capacity of its own.

In March last year Gordon Brown promised reform. He said: "We will ... enshrine an enhanced scrutiny and public role for the ISC. This will lead to more parliamentary debate on security matters, public hearings ... and ... greater transparency over appointments to the committee."

But nothing was done. Brown also promised to publish fresh guidance to bar MI5 from colluding in torture. Last autumn, the ISC protested that no guidance had materialised. A draft was then sent to the committee, but nothing has yet been published. Similarly, the ISC's latest annual report is still sitting in Downing St, awaiting censorship.

Another parliamentary committee has been tougher. Last august, the joint committee on human rights concluded the UK government was "determined to avoid parliamentary scrutiny" and said an independent inquiry was the only way to restore public confidence.

How the ISC was misled

There was a secret session of the ISC on 23 November 2006 at the Cabinet Office. The then head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, pictured, testified about MI5's role in the US interrogation of Binyam Mohammed that took place under her predecessor, Stephen Lander.

A heavily censored ISC report published in July 2007 showed Manningham-Buller and her team had claimed to lack knowledge that Mohamed was being ill-treated. The ISC - chaired by former Northern Ireland secretary Paul Murphy - was told: "A member of the security service did interview [Mohamed] once for a period of approximately three hours while he was detained in Karachi in 2002." The interrogator, later known as Witness B, was "an experienced officer" who conducted the interview "in line with the services' guidance to staff on contact with detainees".

The ISC recorded: "The security service denies that the officer told [Mohamed] he would be tortured as he alleges ... He did not observe any abuse and ... no instances of abuse were mentioned by [Mohamed]."

Murphy's committee reported that MI5 had "lack of knowledge at the time of any possible consequences of US custody of detainees." That statement now appears to have been untrue.

The six key questions posed by Human Rights Watch to the government

1. What steps as a matter of policy does the UK government, including all intelligence and security agencies, take to ensure that torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment are not used in any cases in which it has asked the Pakistani authorities for assistance or co-operation?

2. What does the UK government do when it learns that torture or illtreatment has occurred in a particular case?

3. What conditions has the UK government put on continuing co-operation and assistance with Pakistan in counter-terror and law enforcement activities?

4. Has the UK government ever conditioned continuing co-operation or assistance with Pakistan on an end to torture and other ill-treatment?

5. Has the UK government ever withdrawn cooperation in a particular case or cases because of torture or ill-treatment?

6. What is the policy and legal advice in force to ensure that UK officials and agents do not participate or acquiesce in, or are complicit in torture or ill-treatment?

External link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/15/how-mu5-kept-watchdog-in-the-dark

2010/02/12 - Former Blackwater Employees Accuse Security Contractor of Defrauding Government

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:47:46 +0100

By Carol D. Leonnig & Nick Schwellenbach
Washington Post
February 12, 2010

This report is a collaboration between the Center for Public Integrity and The Washington Post.

Two former employees of Blackwater Worldwide have accused the private security contractor of defrauding the government for years through phony billing, including charging taxpayers for alcohol-filled parties, spa trips and a prostitute.

In court records unsealed this week, a husband and wife who worked for Blackwater said they have firsthand knowledge of the company falsifying invoices, double-billing federal agencies and improperly charging the government for personal expenses. They said they witnessed "systematic" fraud in the company's security contracts with the State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.

Blackwater is the State Department's largest security contractor, and a State Department spokesman said Thursday that his agency and the Justice Department reviewed the allegations in 2008, when the lawsuit was filed under seal in federal court in Virginia. The spokesman, P.J. Crowley, could not determine what came of the review.

Brad Davis, a former Marine, served as a Blackwater team leader and security guard, including in Iraq. His wife, Melan Davis, worked as a finance and payroll employee, starting in Louisiana. Their lawsuit was filed under the False Claims Act, which allows whistle-blowers to win a portion of any money the government recovers as a result of the information. However, the Justice Department has chosen not to join them in pursuing their lawsuit, a decision that led to the suit being unsealed this week.

The company changed its name to Xe Services LLC last year. Xe spokeswoman Stacy DeLuke said Thursday that the Davises' allegations are false. "The allegations are without merit and the company will vigorously defend against this lawsuit," she said. "It is noteworthy that the government has declined to intervene in this action."

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Blackwater became the largest of the State Department's private security contractors. It has since been paid billions of dollars to protect diplomatic employees in Iraq and Afghanistan and for other agencies' security missions. The company also became a major source of anti-American sentiment in Iraq because of repeated deadly shootings involving its guards.

Iraq moved to expel Blackwater after a September 2007 incident in which witnesses told the FBI that the company's security guards fired guns without provocation into a busy intersection, killing at least 14 Iraqis. The Justice Department charged six Blackwater guards in that incident. One pleaded guilty, and a judge dismissed the charges against the five others in December.

In their suit, the Davises assert that Blackwater officials kept a Filipino prostitute on the company payroll for a State Department contract in Afghanistan, and billed the government for her time working for male Blackwater employees in Kabul. The prostitute's salary was categorized as part of the company's "Morale Welfare Recreation" expenses, they alleged.

Melan Davis said in court papers that while working in Blackwater's finance department, she questioned how the company could bill the government for its workers' travel expenses to and from Iraq when it lacked the documentation for those trips. She said she later traveled to a hotel in Amman, Jordan, where Blackwater personnel often stopped en route to Iraq. While there, she said, corporate officers directed her and two co-workers to generate reams of false invoices for plane travel at inflated rates, so her Blackwater bosses could overcharge the government.

In one instance, the Davises allege, the company was paying inflated prices to a vendor whose work was billed to the Department of Homeland Security for services related to security after Hurricane Katrina. They said the overpayments allowed the vendor to provide a barbecue pit for Blackwater staff parties.

Melan Davis argues that Blackwater terminated her in February 2008 because she questioned fraudulent billing. Brad Davis resigned.

Schwellenbach works for the Center for Public Integrity. Staff writer Jerry Markon contributed to this report.

© 2010 The Washington Post Company

External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/11/AR2010021100232.html

2010/02/11 - Missteps, Errors and Miscommunication Doomed Blackwater Case

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:16:35 +0100

By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post
February 11, 2010

When its investigation into a deadly and politically sensitive Baghdad shooting involving U.S. security contractors ran into major trouble, the Justice Department quickly handed it over to Kenneth Kohl, a seasoned and well-respected prosecutor.

Kohl, after all, had successfully prosecuted Colombian narco-terrorists, overseen the investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks and won scores of hard-fought homicide trials. He seemed to be the perfect prosecutor to lead a complex and thorny investigation into the controversial actions of U.S. private contractors in a faraway war zone.

So, how then, with all the forewarning of the case's pitfalls and Kohl's experience and dedication, does the Justice Department now find itself defending the prosecutor's conduct? How could such a high-profile case, one that generated international headlines and roiled U.S.-Iraq relations, implode so badly? On Dec. 31, a federal judge threw out the charges against the five Blackwater security guards.

The questions come as the Justice Department last month launched its appeal of a scathing opinion by the well-respected judge, who ruled that the conduct of Kohl and other prosecutors was so egregious that it "requires dismissal of the indictment against all the defendants." The guards had been accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians and wounding 20 others in an eruption of gunfire and grenade explosions in a busy Baghdad square on a sunny afternoon in 2007.

The stakes are high. It was the most serious incident involving security contractors in Iraq or Afghanistan and raised profound questions about the oversight of private U.S. guards in war zones. Fallout from the incident was so intense that it forced Blackwater to rename itself; it now goes by Xe Services. In a sign of the case's continuing significance in U.S.-Iraq relations, Vice President Biden took the unusual step of announcing the appeal of the case's dismissal while on a trip to Baghdad.

Legal experts have said the Justice Department faces a difficult task in winning a reversal, pointing to what they consider a detailed and well-reasoned opinion by U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina, and could risk further embarrassment if another set of judges comes to similar conclusions. The Justice Department's reputation has already been marred by prosecutorial misconduct in the trial of then-Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) on corruption charges. A federal judge threw out Stevens's conviction, and a lawyer appointed by that judge is investigating Justice Department prosecutors over potential criminal contempt violations.

A review of Urbina's decision, recently unsealed court papers and interviews with dozens of prosecutors, investigators and defense lawyers paint a less-than-flattering picture. They reveal a passionate prosecutor who risked his life in Iraq to seek justice while pushing legal boundaries and an investigation plagued by missteps, miscommunication and bungling.

Even when Kohl's team took steps to protect the integrity of the investigation, the procedures proved inadequate to withstand three weeks of intense closed-door hearings.

Tough case to prosecute

Kohl declined to comment. But in an e-mailed statement, he wrote: "All of us who were involved in this case felt an obligation to the 34 victims who were killed or wounded at Nisoor Square to do everything we could, within the bounds of the law, to bring this case to trial in an American courtroom.

"We don't want federal prosecutors to flinch at taking on tough cases involving complex legal issues, and I worry that some of the reaction to the court's ruling will have that effect." He declined to elaborate.

Kohl, 50, grew up in the Chicago area and joined the Justice Department in 1985, straight out of the Northern Illinois University College of Law. He lives with his wife and two children in the D.C. suburbs.

The prosecutor quickly rose through the ranks of the U.S. attorney's office in the District. Several colleagues say Kohl never lost a homicide trial. They described him as an aggressive and zealous advocate for victims.

In more recent years, he was assigned national security cases, including the years-long investigation into the anthrax attacks. In 2007, Kohl won a conviction against a Colombian rebel leader who took three Americans hostage. The man was sentenced to 60 years in prison.

Alex Barbeito, an FBI agent who worked on that case, said Kohl was meticulous and brave. "He came down to Bogota several times, despite death threats to U.S. prosecutors," Barbeito said. "To me, he's exactly the type of prosecutor an agent wants to handle complex international criminal cases."

Colleagues say Kohl was fearless in his pursuit of the Blackwater guards, visiting Baghdad three times. On one visit, while staying in a trailer in the Green Zone, the compound was hit by rockets and mortar shells, forcing Kohl to dive under his bunk for shelter.

"And yet he still went back," a fellow prosecutor wrote in an e-mail. "It would take a lot for me to go back there" after that.

The shooting that led to the criminal charges occurred Sept. 16, 2007, when 19 Blackwater Worldwide security guards were part of a heavily armed convoy code-named Raven 23. At the time, Blackwater had a contract to provide security for State Department officials in Iraq.

Just after noon that day, Raven 23 arrived in Nisoor Square, which is near the Green Zone, to support other Blackwater teams in response to a bombing.

Soon, one Raven 23 guard was shooting at a white car. Five others fired machine guns and grenade launchers. By the time the explosions stopped, at least 14 Iraqis were dead and 20 were wounded, authorities have said.

Within hours, State Department investigators were questioning the Blackwater guards. Four of the five guards later indicted in U.S. District Court in Washington - Paul Slough, Nicholas Slatten, Donald Ball and Dustin Heard - told investigators that they opened fire in the square in self-defense. The fifth, Evan Liberty, did not say whether he fired a shot but said the others responded to an attack by insurgents.

Over the next few days, the guards gave written statements, and some were re-interviewed by State Department agents.

Guards’ tainted accounts

The shooting caused an uproar. The Iraqi government insisted that its citizens had been slain in an unprovoked attack. Meanwhile, the State Department and Blackwater said the guards had been responding to an ambush.

Caught in the middle was the Justice Department.

Ten days after the incident, State Department officials gave federal prosecutors and FBI agents copies of their initial reports, which included information from the guards' statements.

That caused an immediate problem. The guards had given written and follow-up interviews. The statements had been given under assurances that they would not be used in court and under warnings that the guards could be fired if they didn't cooperate.

Because of the assurances, prosecutors and FBI agents should never have been exposed to those accounts, so those agents and lawyers were reassigned. The Justice Department then turned the case over to Kohl.

Kohl and another prosecutor, Stephen Ponticello, examined the evidence and decided to treat the written statements as if they were out of bounds, court records indicate.

But Kohl did not think that the initial oral interviews deserved the same protection. To help Kohl navigate immunity questions, the Justice Department assigned Raymond Hulser, an expert on such issues, to act as a "taint" attorney. His job would be to screen material before it got into the hands of prosecutors and agents and to provide legal advice.

Within weeks, according to court records, Hulser was warning prosecutors and investigators to avoid the oral interviews because he thought a judge might rule that they were also protected.

In November, Hulser wrote an e-mail detailing his concerns to a Justice Department supervisor, Michael Mullaney, who forwarded the comments to Kohl. "Got it," Kohl responded. "Thanks Mike."

Hulser made a string of similar warnings over the next few months. Kohl says he never received the advice, and he denied having read the e-mail to which he had responded.

By January and February 2008, Kohl and FBI agents were interviewing the State Department investigators who had taken the guards' first oral statements - something that Hulser thought should have been avoided.

Kohl eventually obtained reports of the oral statements and used those accounts in search warrants to obtain drafts of the guards' written statements. Hulser was never told of the search-warrant effort.

A grand jury indicted the five guards in December 2008 on manslaughter and weapons charges. A sixth guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges.

By October, Urbina was holding closed-door hearings to determine whether the guards' statements had improperly influenced the investigation.

Kohl testified at the hearings, while other Justice Department lawyers defended the government's case. They argued that the oral statements were fair game and that any taint from the written accounts was harmless.

The guards' attorneys, who were paid by Blackwater, argued that prosecutors should have avoided the statements and that the case was too damaged to continue.

Urbina ruled in favor of the guards, writing that it was "objectively reasonable" for the contractors to believe that their first interviews were protected because they had given such statements in past shootings. But he didn't stop there.

The judge chastised prosecutors for not heeding the advice of Hulser and other experts. He also said that he did not believe Kohl's assertion that he had not received the expert's advice until it was too late.

The protected statements infected the entire case, Urbina wrote, and prosecutors even exploited them to decide whether to charge two of the guards. He was particularly perplexed that Kohl had thought it proper to use the oral accounts in search warrants for written statements, Urbina added.

The judge also accused prosecutors of not giving grand jurors evidence that was helpful to the guards. He found that Kohl and other prosecutors did not take steps to shield grand jurors from tainted testimony, particularly from three Blackwater guards who read the defendants' written statements or news stories describing them.

More subtle actions also irked the judge.

Kohl, for example, went out of his way to tell the grand jury that the five guards had given immunized statements to investigators, the judge wrote. Urbina felt that Kohl was playing dirty, "to color the grand jury's thinking," by alluding to the guards' statements without further elaboration.

"The explanations offered by the prosecutors and investigators in an attempt to justify their actions and persuade the court that they did not use the defendants' compelled testimony were all too often contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility," wrote Urbina, voicing astonishment that such a "seasoned and accomplished" lawyer could make so many blunders.

© 2010 The Washington Post Company

External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/10/AR2010021004029.html

2010/02/13 - Lawyers Urge Court of Appeal to Publish Key Part of Binyam Mohamed Draft Ruling

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 22:33:48 +0100

By Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian
February 13, 2010

Lawyers representing Binyam Mohamed, the civil rights groups Liberty, Justice, and Index on Censorship, and media organisations including the Guardian, the Times and the BBC, urged the court of appeal today to publish a key passage in its draft ruling that evidence of MI5 complicity in the mistreatment of the British resident must be released.

A paragraph drawn up Lord Neuberger, master of the rolls, was suppressed following the intervention of the government's lawyer, Jonathan Sumption QC.

In a letter sent to Neuberger without the knowledge of defence lawyers, Sumption said the paragraph suggested that MI5 officers "deliberately misled" parliament's intelligence and security committee, shared a "culture of suppression" and "does not in fact operate a culture that respects human rights".

In what Neuberger admits was an "over-hasty" response he excised the offending paragraph without giving lawyers representing other parties in the case the opportunity to respond to Sumption's objections.

The submissions sent to the appeal court today are confidential but human rights and media groups say the evidence reflects the criticisms Sumption complains about.

There is a compelling public interest in the full judgment observations being restored, they have argued, and the government has no right to suppress judicial criticism of MI5 officers.

If ministers were allowed to do so, the reputation of the judiciary would be harmed.

Richard Stein of the law firm Leigh Day, which represents Mohamed, said: "The whole case has been about who writes the judgments - judges or the government.The government seeking to influence a draft judgment is a very worrying development." Reprieve, the legal charity which represented Mohamed in the US courts while he was detained in Guantanamo, said: "If the government really wants to clear up the confusion over MI5's conduct in this case, they must release the policy that was in place at the time. Releasing a new, cleaned-up version will not reassure anyone about these persistent and damaging allegations."

Its executive director, Clare Agar, said: "It is offensive to suggest that by fighting torture through the British legal system, Reprieve and others are giving succour to our enemies."

Media groups, including the Guardian, were today given leave to appeal against a high court ruling obtained by the government, that evidence in a civil suit for compensation brought by British citizens and residents must not be revealed to them or their lawyers.

External link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/13/binyam-mohamed-appeal-court-judgment

2010/02/11 - Prosecutors Consider Charges Against Officers from MI5 and MI6

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:23:13 +0100

By Gordon Rayner & Duncan Gardham
Daily Telegraph
February 11, 2010

An MI5 officer who interviewed the former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed and an MI6 officer involved in an unrelated case are waiting to find out if they will be prosecuted following an 11-month Scotland Yard investigation.

The inquiry into the MI5 officer, known as Witness B, is believed to be at an advanced stage, with police seeking advice from the Crown Prosecution Service on whether charges could be brought either under the Criminal Justice Act or the Human Rights Act.

Both cases were referred to police by the intelligence services, following internal reviews of the role of officers in interrogating terrorism suspects.

Details about Witness B’s alleged complicity in the torture of Mr Mohamed emerged on Wednesday when the Court of Appeal ordered the publication of previously censored information about MI5’s knowledge of his treatment.

The court said that Mr Mohamed had been deprived of sleep, shackled and threatened with the suggestion that he would "disappear" and that MI5 were fully aware of this.

Mr Mohamed has also claimed that Witness B fed questions to his CIA interrogators in the knowledge that he was being tortured.

The Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, said in a draft judgment that MI5 did not "respect human rights or abjure participation in coercive interrogation techniques" and that "this was particularly true of Witness B".

His comments were deleted from the final version of the judgment after an intervention from a barrister representing the Foreign Secretary, but were referred to in a copy of a letter which was leaked to the media.

Witness B admitted in 2008, during High Court hearings into Mr Mohamed’s treatment that he questioned Mr Mohamed after his arrest in Pakistan, but he stopped giving evidence in case he incriminated himself.

It is alleged that he knew Mr Mohamed was about to be "rendered" to Morocco and told him when he offered him a cup of tea: "Where you are going you need a lot of sugar."

Wednesday’s Appeal Court judgment revealed that Witness B "saw himself as having a role to play in conjunction with the US authorities in inducing [Mr Mohamed] to co-operate by making it clear that the United Kingdom would not help unless [Mr Mohamed] co-operated."

Detectives have declined to release any details about the case involving the MI6 officer, though concerns have previously been reported about a Secret Intelligence Service officer who attended an interrogation by the US military in Afghanistan of a man who had previously had a nervous breakdown.

The Human Rights Act 2000 prohibits torture, inhumane or degrading treatment and the Criminal Justice Act prohibits violence against prisoners.

If either officer was charged, they would face an unprecedented criminal trial to determine whether work they carried out on behalf of the state was legitimate.

In March last year Baroness Scotland, the Attorney General, asked police to investigate Mr Mohamed’s claims that he was tortured, and in July the Met announced that a team of detectives led by deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers, of its specialist crime directorate, had begun a formal investigation.

Ethiopian-born Mr Mohamed, 31, who was granted refugee status when he came to Britain in 1994, spent seven years in custody after he was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 as he tried to leave the country using a false passport.

He told investigators he had travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan in an attempt to kick a drug addiction, but was accused of links to Al-Qaeda and charged with plotting to blow up a radioactive “dirty bomb” in the US. The charges were later dropped when the US admitted its case was based on confessions obtained using torture.

External link: http://tinyurl.com/yhmcfpt
________________________________________

Binyam Mohamed: How MI5 misled parliament’s intelligence and security committee
Evidence over “paragraph 168” shows that security services did know of deliberate US strategy of sleep deprivation, rendition threats and shackling

By David Leigh & Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian
February 11, 2010

One of the gravest revelations so far made about the missing "paragraph 168" of this week's appeal court judgment in the Binyam Mohamed case is that parliament's intelligence and security committee (ISC) was misled by MI5.

Government lawyer Jonathan Sumption QC, in a letter demanding the deletion of paragraph 168, confirmed this, pointing out that the judgment stated: "Officials of the service deliberately misled the ISC." He was referring to evidence given to a secret session of the ISC on 23 November 2006 by the then head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller. She was testifying about events in May 2002 that took place under her predecessor, Stephen Lander.

According to the ISC's later heavily redacted report, Manningham-Buller and her team denied all knowledge of Mohamed's ill-treatment. The committee - chaired by the former Northern Ireland secretary Paul Murphy - was told: "A member of the security service did interview [Mohamed] once for a period of approximately three hours while he was detained in Karachi in 2002." The interrogator, later known as Witness B, was "an experienced officer" who conducted the interview "in line with the services' guidance to staff on contact with detainees".

The ISC recorded: "The security service denies that the officer told [Mohamed] he would be tortured as he alleges [...] He did not observe any abuse and [...] no instances of abuse were mentioned by [Mohamed]."

Murphy's committee duly reassured the public that although MI5 conceded they had not demanded specific assurances from the US that Mohamed was being properly treated: "This is understandable given the lack of knowledge at the time of any possible consequences of US custody of detainees."

That part of the published ISC report now appears to have been untrue. The judges found that MI5 had 42 documents, detailing how both Witness B and "persons senior to Witness B" had been briefed in detail at the time about how the US was deliberately ill-treating Mohamed as part of a "new strategy", systematically depriving him of sleep, terrifying him with threats of rendition and shackling him in interrogations.

But the courts did not accuse Manningham-Buller personally of deceit, ruling earlier that although the existence of the 42 files had been withheld from the ISC: "The evidence was that earlier searches made had not discovered them."

Witness B is being investigated by the Metropolitan police for "possible criminal wrongdoing", the government says.

External link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/11/binyam-mohamed-mi5-misled-intelligence-committee
_______________________________________________________________________________________________

British spy chief slams torture claims

From Agence France Presse
February 11, 2010

London - The head of Britain's domestic spy service Friday defended his organisation's work amid an escalating row over claims it tried to cover up its involvement in torture.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, MI5 director-general Jonathan Evans hit out at the allegation from one of Britain's most senior judges that the agency had a "culture of suppression."

In rare public comments, he said the accusation - which came in a draft court ruling relating to the case of a Guantanamo Bay inmate - was the "precise opposite of the truth."

He admitted that British intelligence was "slow to detect" US mistreatment of detainees after the September 11 attacks in the United States.

But he added: "We in the (British) agencies did not practise mistreatment or torture then and do not do so now, nor do we collude or encourage others to torture on our behalf."

In his harsh critcism of MI5, which was removed from the final published court judgement but leaked out, Judge Lord Neuberger also accused the service of failing to respect human rights and misleading parliament.

Judges handed down the ruling Wednesday as they ordered the release of once-secret information about the case of former detainee Binyam Mohamed, which showed he had been subject to abuse at the hands of US authorities.

The CIA had passed the information to British intelligence, and judges released it after Foreign Secretary David Miliband lost an appeal court bid.

The publication of the seven-paragraph summary showing Britain was aware of the US authorities' abuse, combined with the judge's criticism, has intensified a row here about MI5's alleged attempts to conceal its collusion in torture.

Evans also warned that Britain's enemies could use the escalating row as "propaganda to undermine our will and ability to confront them."

Ethiopian-born Mohamed - who came to Britain in 1994 seeking asylum - claims that in Morocco in 2002 he was questioned by people using information that could only have come from the British intelligence service.

Miliband disclosed Wednesday that police were investigating allegations of criminal actions by a British official linked to the case.

Mohamed was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 while trying to return to Britain and spent nearly seven years in US custody or in countries taking part in the US-run rendition programme of terror suspects.

After a lengthy campaign by his supporters, he became the first prisoner to be released from Guantanamo under the Obama presidency and returned to Britain in February last year.

Copyright © 2010 AFP.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5glNgT2BPY87EoB2bLFGNeq3rcpzw

2010/02/10 - Binyam Mohamed vs. UK Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs: Approved Judgment

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:37:55 +0100

Court of Appeal (Civil Division)/Royal Courts of Justice
Case No.: T1/2009/2331

February 10th, 2010 - Approved Judgment

"[...] 48. In agreement with the Master of the Rolls and the President of the Queen’s Bench Division, in my judgment, this appeal should be dismissed. By way of emphasis, and so as to disclose my own approach to the problem, I shall briefly highlight what seem to me to be the most important considerations. [...]

"[...] 55. There is no secret about the treatment to which Mr Mohamed was subjected while in the control of the US authorities. We are no longer dealing with the allegations of torture and ill-treatment: they have been established in the judgment of the court, publicly revealed by the judicial processes within the USA itself. And this serves to highlight that the redacted paragraphs represent part of the Divisional Court’s reasoning, directed not to wrongdoing by the USA authorities but involvement in that wrongdoing by our own intelligence services, and the successful argument by Mr Mohamed that he was entitled to the relief he had sought against the Foreign Secretary. In the context of intelligence sharing arrangements, the decision to disclose evidence critical of the USA authorities by a court in the USA does not reflect identical considerations to its possible disclosure by a court in the UK. Nevertheless, there is at least one common theme. The former represents the proper working of the judicial processes in the USA, and although the latter would constitute a breach of the confidentiality arrangements, the breach would be consequent on the proper working of the judicial processes in this country.

"56. There is an attractive argument that Mr Mohamed has nothing further to gain from publication of the redacted paragraphs. That, however, is a consequence of his vindication through the operation of the litigation process and the prolonged delay consequent on the apparently endless arguments about the possible publication of the redacted paragraphs. The successful party is no less entitled to know the reasons for the court’s judgment than the unsuccessful parties. I have already noted the strange consequence that if the redaction is maintained, Mr Mohamed will know less about the reasons for the court’s decision than the intelligence services which, even if innocently, were involved in or facilitated the wrongdoing of which he was the victim. There is a clear interest in Mr Mohamed knowing, and the community at large also knowing, not only that his allegations were vindicated, but also the full reasons (even if not the entirety of the evidence) which led the court to its conclusion. The redacted paragraphs are integral to the reasoning that Mr Mohamed’s entitlement to relief fell within the ambit of executive involvement in wrongdoing. [...]"

2010/02/10 - Top Judge: Binyam Mohamed Case Shows MI5 to be Devious, Dishonest and Complicit in Torture

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:01:26 +0100

By Richard Norton-Taylor & Ian Cobain
The Guardian
February 10, 2010

MI5 faced an unprecedented and damaging crisis tonight after one of the country's most senior judges found that the Security Service had failed to respect human rights, deliberately misled parliament, and had a "culture of suppression" that undermined government assurances about its conduct.

The condemnation, by Lord Neuberger, the master of the rolls, was drafted shortly before the foreign secretary, David Miliband, lost his long legal battle to suppress a seven-paragraph court document showing that MI5 officers were involved in the ill-treatment of a British resident, Binyam Mohamed.

Amid mounting calls for an independent inquiry into the affair, three of the country's most senior judges - Lord Judge, the lord chief justice, Sir Anthony May, president of the Queen's Bench Division, and Lord Neuberger - disclosed evidence of MI5's complicity in Mohamed's torture and unlawful interrogation by the US.

So severe were Neuberger's criticisms of MI5 that the government's leading lawyer in the case, Jonathan Sumption QC, privately wrote to the court asking him to reconsider his draft judgment before it was handed down.

The judges agreed but Sumption's letter, which refers to Neuberger's original comments, was made public after lawyers for Mohamed and media organisations, including the Guardian, intervened.

They argued that Neuberger had privately agreed with Sumption to remove his fierce criticisms without giving then the chance to contest the move.

In his letter, Sumption warned the judges that the criticism of MI5 would be seen by the public as statements by the court that the agency:

- Did not respect human rights.

- Had not renounced participation in "coercive interrogation" techniques.

- Deliberately misled MPs and peers on the intelligence and security committee, who are supposed to scrutinise its work.

- Had a "culture of suppression" in its dealings with Miliband and the court.

Sumption described Neuberger's observations in his draft judgment as "an exceptionally damaging criticism of the good faith of the Security Service as a whole".

His letter also refers to the MI5 officer known as Witness B, who is understood to have interrogated Binyam Mohamed in Pakistan in 2002. Witness B gave evidence in the hearings and is now at the centre of a Scotland Yard investigation. Sumption's letter implies that Neuberger did not believe that Witness B was acting alone and that the judge believed that Witness B's conduct was "characteristic of the service as a whole".

The court's final ruling forced the Foreign Office to publish a seven-paragraph summary of 42 classified CIA documents that were handed to MI5 before Witness B travelled to Pakistan to interrogate Mohamed. These show that MI5 was aware that Mohamed was being continuously deprived of sleep, threatened with rendition and subjected to previous interrogations that were causing him "significant mental stress and suffering". If administered in the UK, the summary says, it would clearly be in breach of undertakings about interrogation techniques made by the British government in 1972.

The three judges referred to a recent case in a US court where the judge found Mohamed's claims about how he was tortured to be truthful. This vindicated his assertion that "UK authorities had been involved in and facilitated the ill-treatment and torture to which he was subjected while under the control of the USA authorities".

There were renewed calls tonightfor an inquiry into MI5's involvement in torture overseas and into government policies after the 9/11 attacks.

Miliband told MPs that the ruling was leading to a "great deal of concern" in the US. In a statement to the Commons he said he had fought to prevent the release of the information to defend the "fundamental" principle that intelligence shared with the UK would be protected.

The Foreign Office claimed tonight that the criticisms in the draft judgment had been "unsubstantiated", and denied that Sumption's approach to the court had been intended to suppress criticism of MI5. Nevertheless, the court is to convene tomorrow to reconsider whether to publish all or parts of the 21-line paragraph from the draft judgment in which the criticisms appear.

The editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, wrote to the court after the Sumption letter came to light on Monday night. He said today: "It is good news that - after a challenge from the Guardian and other news organisations - the courts have finally ordered the government to reveal evidence of MI5 complicity in torture. This is a watershed in open justice in an area in which it is notoriously difficult to shine a light. But it was extremely disturbing that the government's lawyers made a successful last-ditch attempt to get the master of the rolls to rewrite his judgment."

External link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/10/binyam-mohamed-torture-mi5

2010/02/10 - Iraq Orders Former Blackwater Security Guards Out

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:01:48 +0100

By Qassim Abdul-Zahra
Associated Press
February 10, 2010

Baghdad - Iraq has ordered hundreds of private security guards linked to Blackwater Worldwide to leave the country within seven days or face possible arrest on visa violations, the interior minister said Wednesday.

The order comes in the wake of a U.S. judge's dismissal of criminal charges against five Blackwater guards who were accused in the September 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad.

It applies to about 250 security contractors who worked for Blackwater in Iraq at the time of the incident, Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told The Associated Press.

Some of the guards now work for other security firms in Iraq, while others work for a Blackwater subsidiary, al-Bolani said. He said all "concerned parties" were notified of the order three days ago and now have four days left before they must leave. He did not name the companies.

Blackwater security contractors were protecting U.S. diplomats when the guards opened fire in Nisoor Square, a busy Baghdad intersection, on Sept. 16, 2007. Seventeen people were killed, including women and children, in a shooting that inflamed anti-American sentiment in Iraq.

"We want to turn the page," al-Bolani said. "It was a painful experience, and we would like to go forward."

Backlash from the Blackwater shooting has been felt hardest by private security contractors, who typically provide protection for diplomats, journalists and aid workers. Iraqi security forces have routinely stopped security details at checkpoints to conduct searches and question guards.

Security guards will be required within the next 10 days to register their weapons with the Ministry of Interior, al-Bolani said. Failure to do so could result in arrest, he added.

Based in Moyock, North Carolina, Blackwater is now known as Xe Services, a name change that happened after six of the security firm's guards were charged in the Nisoor Square shooting. At the time, Blackwater was the largest of the State Department's three security contractors working in Iraq.

Xe Services said the company had no employees currently in Iraq, including with its subsidiary, Presidential Airways.

"Xe does not have one, single person in Iraq," said Xe spokeswoman Stacy DeLuke.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad declined comment. The State Department in Washington did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.

The Blackwater guards involved in the incident said they were ambushed, but U.S. prosecutors and many Iraqis said they let loose an unprovoked attack on civilians using machine guns and grenades.

One of the accused guards pleaded guilty in the case, but a federal judge in Washington threw out charges against the other five in December, ruling that the Justice Department for mishandling the evidence.

The legal ruling infuriated Iraqis and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki vowed to seek punishment for the guards.

Last month, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden flew to Baghdad to assure Iraqis the Obama administration to appeal the case and bring the guards back to trial.

The shooting further strained relations between the United States and Iraq, leading the parliament in Baghdad to seek new laws that would clear the way for foreign contractors to be prosecuted in Iraqi courts. The U.S. government rejected those demands in the Blackwater case.

In January 2009, the State Department informed Blackwater that it would not renew its contracts to provide security for U.S. diplomats in Iraq because of the Iraqi government's refusal to grant it an operating license.

But last September, the State Department said it temporarily extended a contract with Blackwater subsidiary Presidential Airways to provide air support for U.S. diplomats. The State Department has since ended its contracts with Xe, and DynCorp International has taken over air support.

The Justice Department now is investigating whether Blackwater tried to bribe Iraqi officials with $1 million to allow the company to keep working there after the Baghdad shooting, according to U.S. officials close to the probe.

Elsewhere in Iraq, attackers bombed an oil pipeline north of Baghdad, cutting production in half at a refinery in the capital, the Oil Ministry said Wednesday.

There were no injuries in Tuesday night's bombing in Rashidiya, just north of Baghdad.

Production at the Baghdad refinery was cut from 140,000 barrels per day to 70,000, said Oil Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad.

The pipeline runs from oil fields in northern Kirkuk province to Baghdad. It has been the target of attacks for years, and has been bombed multiple times since 2004.

Associated Press Writers Lara Jakes, Mazin Yahya and Chelsea J. Carter in Baghdad; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina; and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/10/AR2010021001262.html

2010/02/09 - The Blackwater Killings/U.S. vs. Houston & Henson: Legal Update

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:12:26 +0100

U.S. vs. John A. Houston & Michael Henson
U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland
Case No.: 1:09-cr-00232-AW-1
Filed on September 4th, 2008

Recent Filings:

February 4th, 2010 - U.S.A.’s Memorandum to Admit Evidence Rel. to Def. Michael Henson

"[...] Facts giving rise to the charges:

"From approximately April 2007 until at least early 2008, the defendant was employed by SOS International [hereinafter SOSI], a company contracted by the United States Department of Defense, to provide services in Iraq. The defendant worked with the U.S. military and had access to firearms while in Iraq. During part of his employment, the defendant was supervised by codefendant John Houston, and both defendants Houston and Henson were otherwise personal friends.

"In early 2008, defendant Houston contacted Henson while the latter was on leave in the United States, specifically at his home in North Carolina, near Fort Bragg. Houston informed Henson that he was smuggling weapons from Iraq to Fort Bragg. Houston also asked Henson if he wanted to secrete any materials in the smuggled shipment and to retrieve the smuggled firearms upon their illicit arrival at Fort Bragg. Henson responded, via e-mail, that he concurred with the arrangements and that he would retrieve the shipment of smuggled weapons upon their arrival at Fort Bragg.

"Prior to his indictment and pursuant to their investigation of co-defendant John Houston, law enforcement officials contacted the defendant. The defendant agreed to speak with law enforcement officials on several occasions in late 2008 and early 2009. The defendant, however, made multiple false statements during the course of said interviews and meetings, including misrepresenting the fact that he had ever seen a particular weapon in co-defendant John Houston’s possession. The defendant, however, subsequently admitted that the weapon belonged to him [i.e., Henson] and that he previously observed said weapon under Houston’s bed in Iraq a short time before that weapon was one of eight others smuggled into the United States by both Houston and Henson. [...]"

February 1st, 2010 - Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Venue

"[...] Defendant John A. Houston, through his attorneys, James Wyda, Federal Public Defender for the District of Maryland, and Michael T. Citara Manis, Assistant Federal Public Defender, hereby requests this Honorable Court to dismiss the indictment herein for lack of venue in Maryland, or in the alternative, to order that this case be transferred to another, more appropriate district. [...]"

January 28th, 2010 - U.S.A.’s Memorandum to Admit Evidence Rel. to Def. John Houston

"[...] Facts giving rise to the charges:

"From approximately April 2007 to August 2008, the defendant worked in Iraq for two companies contracted by the United States Department of Defense. From approximately April 2007 to May 2008, the defendant was employed by SOS International [hereinafter SOSI]. He thereafter obtained employment with MPRI until August 2008. At various times during his employment in Iraq, the defendant worked as a military analyst and in a supervisory capacity. While in Iraq, the defendant worked with the U.S. military and had access to firearms.

"From approximately mid-2007, the defendant approached U.S. military soldiers and asked the soldiers to unlawfully smuggle weapons from Iraq into the U.S. on his behalf. A U.S. soldier reported the matter to his superiors. Subsequently, in a series of e-mails in early 2008, the defendant arranged with the U.S. soldier and co-defendant Michael Henson to unlawfully smuggle firearms from Iraq to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in a manner that would evade U.S. military and civilian customs regulations and inspections. The defendant then transported a bag of weapons via two SOSI employees under his supervision to the U.S. soldier, who ostensibly had agreed to secrete the weapons to Fort Bragg on behalf of the defendant. Co-defendant Michael Henson agreed to collect the weapons once they arrived at Fort Bragg. Military investigators, however, seized the weapons before they departed Iraq. The weapons seized included eight machine guns and one semi-automatic pistol. [...]"

2010/02/05 - Mortar Bomb Kills 27, Wounds 56 in Iraq’s Karbala

Sat, 6 Feb 2010 23:53:30 +0100

From Agence France Presse
February 5, 2010

Karbala, Iraq - A mortar bomb killed at least 27 people and wounded dozens on Friday three kilometres (two miles) east of the central Iraqi shrine city of Karbala, governor Amalheddin al-Hir told AFP.

"A mortar round was launched from fields northeast of the city," he said.

"Twenty-seven people were killed and 56 wounded. I accuse Al-Qaeda who are being supported by the Baath party," Hir added, referring to the outlawed political movement of executed dictator Saddam Hussein.

Police Major Alaa Abbas earlier told AFP that the mortar round struck Shiite pilgrims leaving the city after attending a major mourning ceremony.

More than one million pilgrims thronged Karbala, 110 kilometres south of Baghdad, for the climax of Arbaeen, with thousands of security forces on high alert for suicide attacks.

Arbaeen marks 40 days after the Ashura anniversary commemorating the slaying of Imam Hussein, one of Shiite Islam's most revered figures, by the armies of the Sunni caliph Yazid in 680 AD.

Dozens of pilgrims have been killed in recent days as they made their way to Karbala on foot to make the rituals.

Copyright © 2010 AFP.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i7EUVwFAf8ilUBrPV8GOLB46Zruw
__________________________________________________________________________________________

27 killed in Iraq suicide attack

From the Press Association
February 5, 2010

A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb alongside a crowd of Shia pilgrims, killing at least 27 people and wounding more than 70, Iraqi police officials said.

It was the third deadly bombing this week in the ceremony in which hundreds of thousands of Shia Muslims have been converging on Karbala, a holy city south of Baghdad.

This week's violence took place as Iraqi politicians argued over an effort to bar hundreds of candidates from running in the March 7 parliamentary elections because of suspected ties to Saddam Hussein's regime.

Two mortar rounds hit the same area after the car bomb exploded, an official said, adding that the death toll was likely to rise.

The attack came at the height of the pilgrimage when roads around Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, were clogged with people trying to reach the city, another police official said.

The crowds made it difficult for ambulances to get to the wounded, he said.

The attack in Karbala was just a short distance from where a motorcycle bomb exploded two days earlier, killing dozens. On Monday, a female suicide bomber killed at least 54 pilgrims in an attack just north of Baghdad.

Iraqi security forces have increased protection for pilgrims but face huge challenges trying to find a single attacker in the crowds.

Copyright © 2010 The Press Association.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5j7p7golDp5Ox6088-8K6W9xH9TLQ

2010/02/03 - Iraq Bombing Kills at least 20 as Pilgrims Converge on Karbala

Fri, 5 Feb 2010 23:59:43 +0100

By Leila Fadel & Qais Mizher
Washington Post
February 3, 2010

Baghdad - At least 20 people were killed and 117 were wounded Wednesday in an explosion just outside the southern Iraqi city of Karbala, despite increased security measures put in place during religious ceremonies this week.

The bombing was the second deadly attack on Shiite pilgrims in three days. On Monday, at least 41 people were killed in northeast Baghdad when a female suicide bomber detonated her explosives in a crowd of devout, Karbala-bound Shiites.

They were among hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who were walking to Karbala this week to commemorate the 7th-century slaying of the grandson of the prophet Muhammad. The pilgrims converge on the city, where Shiites believe the prophet's grandson is buried, to mark the 40th day of mourning after the anniversary of his death.

At 11 a.m. Wednesday, a parked motorcycle loaded with explosives detonated, ripping through a crowd of walking pilgrims on the city's northeast perimeter, a source from the Ministry of the Interior in Baghdad said. At least 20 people were killed and 117 were wounded.

The scene of the carnage, near the Technical Institute, remained blocked off Wednesday afternoon. Vehicles were stopped on the outskirts of the city and pilgrims walked the rest of the way.

Shiite religious ceremonies have long been the target of attacks by militants whose intent seems to be to widen the sectarian rift in Iraq. But the city of Karbala has largely been unscathed in the past few years.

Wednesday's bombings follow a rare attack in the holy city of Najaf last month, and a small recent bombing in a restaurant near a holy Shiite shrine in Samarra. If the resurgence of bloody attacks on Shiite targets continue, the schism between sects could widen, opening the door for Shiite militants to strike back.

Special correspondent Saad Sarhan contributed to this report from Karbala.

© 2010 The Washington Post Company

External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020300415.html

2010/02/01 - AP Source: DOJ Probing Alleged Blackwater Payments

Wed, 3 Feb 2010 00:04:06 +0100

By Matt Apuzzo
Associated Press Writer
February 1, 2010

Washington - The Justice Department is investigating whether security contractor Blackwater Worldwide tried to bribe Iraqi officials to allow the company to keep working there after a fatal shooting involving Blackwater guards, according to a person close to the investigation.

The investigation in Raleigh, N.C., follows a November report by The New York Times that said executives at the North Carolina-based company authorized about $1 million in payments to Iraqi officials in 2007. Blackwater had been the source of tremendous anti-American sentiment in Iraq following the deadly shooting of 17 Iraqis in a crowded intersection.

A person close to the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case, said the Justice Department's Fraud Section is working with federal prosecutors in North Carolina to investigate whether Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, violated U.S. laws prohibiting bribery of foreign officials.

The Times first reported the existence of the investigation Monday.

Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney declined to comment. There was no immediate comment from the company.

In November, the newspaper cited unnamed sources saying Blackwater's then-president, Gary Jackson, approved the payments. The Times' sources said Blackwater vice chairman Cofer Black, a former top CIA and State Department official, learned of the plan while in Baghdad discussing compensation with U.S. Embassy officials and confronted company CEO Erik Prince.

But Black himself has denied the account. He told The Associated Press that Blackwater was directed to provide "to provide some financial compensation to relatives of those Iraqi victims." He said he never confronted Prince or anyone else at Blackwater and was unaware of any plot to bribe Iraqi officials.

Similarly, Iraqi lawyer Jaafar al-Mousawi told the Times that he worked with top Blackwater officials to spend up to $1 million to compensate the families of victims. He said that he was unaware of any bribery efforts and believed that news reports misinterpreted the victim compensation as bribes.

The Times said Monday that present and former officials agreed to talk to the paper only on grounds their identities not be publicly divulged. The activities of the company then known as Blackwater have remained under scrutiny in the years since the shootings in Baghdad's Nisour Square.

Last week, Vice President Joe Biden, during a visit to Iraq, announced that the Obama administration will appeal a federal court decision in the United States that dismissed manslaughter charges against five guards who worked for Blackwater Worldwide.

His announcement came after a meeting in Baghdad with President Jalal Talabani.

The U.S. government initially turned aside Iraqi demands that the American contract employees face trial in the Iraqi court system. But after a lengthy investigation in this country, U.S. prosecutors did decide to charge five of the contractors with manslaughter, and they accepted a guilty plea from a sixth defendant.

But the case collapsed on Dec. 31 when U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina in Washington dismissed the case, ruling that the Justice Department had mishandled evidence and violated the guards' constitutional rights.

Eds: Associated Press Writer Mike Baker in Raleigh contributed to this story.

© 2010 The Associated Press.

External link: http://tinyurl.com/ygzg9h4

2010/02/01 - Italy’s Secret Service Knew of CIA Rendition: Judge

Tue, 2 Feb 2010 23:30:45 +0100

By Daniel Flynn
Reuters
February 1, 2010

Milan - An Italian judge said on Monday that Italy's secret services knew about the CIA's kidnapping of a terrorism suspect in Milan seven years ago, despite Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's denial of any Italian involvement.

Judge Oscar Magi, who in November sentenced 23 Americans in absentia to up to eight years in prison for the 2003 kidnapping, said in an explanation of his landmark ruling that Italian spy chiefs were informed of, and possibly complicit in, the abduction of Egyptian-born cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr.

His verdict last year was the first of its kind against the "rendition" flights practiced by the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush, which have been condemned by civil society groups as a violation of basic human rights.

Nasr, known as "Abu Omar," was flown to Egypt for interrogation, where he said he was tortured and held until 2007 without charge.

"The authorization to act on national territory by the highest level of U.S. intelligence leads one to presume this was carried out with the knowledge (and perhaps the complicity) of their Italian equivalents," Magi said in his ruling, which was only released on Monday under Italian legal practices.

The judge, who was forced to drop charges against five former Italian spies under state secrecy rules, said secret services should not be shielded from responsibility for crimes simply because of the involvement of foreign governments.

Black Veil

"This means, in simple terms, that they can enjoy an absolute immunity in both real and judicial terms," Magi said.

The judge said that the Constitutional Court's decision to impose state secrecy rules in the case had drawn a "black veil" over the activities of the Italian secret service.

In response to the ruling, Public Prosecutor Armando Spataro said he was considering whether to appeal against the dismissal of the case against the five Italians and three American defendants, who enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

Abu Omar, talking to Italian news agency Ansa in Cairo, said he would write to Berlusconi and U.S. President Barack Obama to notify them he was willing to drop a civil case in Italy seeking damages of $10 million. He also thanked Magi for his ruling.

"This could reopen the case ... It could force the arrest of important people whose names have been protected by state secret," he said.

The toughest sentence of eight years in prison was given to the former head of the CIA's Milan station, Robert Seldon Lady, while 21 ex-CIA agents got five years each, as did a U.S. air force lieutenant colonel.

With Washington refusing to extradite any of the Americans, the ruling was a symbolic condemnation, but was welcomed by rights groups.

The U.S. State Department expressed its disappointment at November's verdict while Berlusconi, who was in power at the time of the kidnapping, said it could tarnish Italy's international reputation.

Writing by Daniel Flynn; editing by Ralph Boulton.

External link: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6102ZQ20100201
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Judge Ties Italy Secret Service to Cleric’s Abduction

By Rachel Donadio
New York Times
February 1, 2010

Rome - The Italian secret service was most likely aware of, "and perhaps complicit in," the abduction of an Egyptian cleric from the streets of Milan in 2003, a judge in Milan said Monday. But, he added, state secrecy prevented the court from proving this.

The statement by the judge, Oscar Magi, was part of a 200-page document explaining his reasoning behind the landmark November ruling that convicted 23 Americans, most of them Central Intelligence Agency operatives, of kidnapping the cleric. It was the first case to yield convictions in the practice of "extraordinary rendition," in which terrorism suspects are captured in one country and taken to another, where they may be subjected to coercive interrogation techniques.

Judge Magi convicted a former C.I.A. base chief and 22 other Americans of kidnapping in the abduction of an Egyptian cleric, Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, on Feb. 17, 2003. Prosecutors said the cleric was taken from Milan in broad daylight and flown from an American air base in Italy to a base in Germany and then on to Egypt, where Mr. Nasr asserts he was tortured.

Judge Magi wrote that the fact that the C.I.A. had conducted the operation on Italian soil with such impunity "leads to the presumption that such activity was carried out at least with the knowledge (or maybe with the complicity)" of the Italian secret service.

But he added that it was "not possible" to prove those ties because of a decision last March by Italy’s Constitutional Court, which ruled that any evidence of contact between the Italian secret service and the C.I.A. was covered by state secrecy and therefore inadmissible in the trial.

In his reasoning, Judge Magi said this had created a kind of "black curtain" over crucial parts of the trial. He criticized the Constitutional Court ruling as having created "a logical and juridical paradox."

Judge Magi acquitted three Americans, citing diplomatic immunity, and two Italians, citing state secrecy. Tried in absentia, the other 23 Americans are considered fugitives and are sought under a European Union arrest warrant. Through their lawyers, they pleaded not guilty.

The Italian government is not expected to request extradition of the Americans, who are not expected to serve jail time. Still, the case marked the first time a judge in an allied country had placed C.I.A. agents on trial.

The trial shed some light on the darker recesses of American counterintelligence operations. At the time of his abduction Mr. Nasr was under surveillance by the Italian authorities, who suspected him of recruiting militants from his Milan mosque.

He was missing for a year, until he resurfaced in Egypt and called his wife in Italy to say he had been tortured. The call activated Italian prosecutors, who are required to investigate if there is the possibility of a crime.

Prosecutors reconstructed Mr. Nasr’s disappearance using cellphone records traced to the American agents. In what was widely seen as a bungled and sloppy operation, the operatives used false names but left a paper trail of unencrypted phone records and credit card bills at luxury hotels in Milan.

That the trial reached a ruling even after the Constitutional Court verdict radically narrowed its scope was a testament to the persistence of the judge and the veteran counterterrorism prosecutor Armando Spataro, who brought the case.

Judge Magi wrote that in 30 years as a penal judge, he had "very rarely" heard testimony "so precise, attentive and correct regarding such difficult and serious investigations," adding that he had never seen a penal trial in which events had been reconstructed with such "certainty" and "such a degree of authority."

Both sides have 45 days from Monday to decide whether to appeal.

Mr. Spataro said it was "very probable" that he would appeal. Arianna Barbazza, a court-appointed lawyer for 13 of the convicted Americans, who has never met her clients, said she would "absolutely" appeal the ruling.

Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/world/europe/02italy.html