Even though many details of his rendition remain secret, a hearing next week will finally decide whether Mamdouh Habib can bring a compensation case against the Commonwealth

Sometime in early November 2001, a terrified and confused Australian man named Mamdouh Habib was taken from a Pakistani prison cell trussed in chains. Someone within the US administration or intelligence system had decided he needed a tougher than usual interrogation and he was forced aboard a CIA-operated jet bound for Egypt.  

Egypt lived up to its reputation as home to one of the most brutal prison systems in the world.

Habib, a Bankstown-based father of four, says for the next five months he endured a myriad of horrors: suspended from the ceiling and beaten, shocked with electric prods (including on his genitals), forcibly injected with drugs, held in a flooded room with water up to his neck, deprived of sleep, and shackled in a cell so small he couldn't stand. The "intelligence" produced from these efforts has long since been discarded as worthless and Habib has never been charged.

Nearly eight years on and still no one has been held accountable for this barbaric episode. In fact, authorities in both the United States and Australia are doing their best to make sure the details stay a secret.

Habib has always maintained that Australian officials were complicit in both his transfer to Egypt and his subsequent torture there. Despite best efforts, the official Australian position - that we had nothing to do with it - is unravelling.

http://newmatilda.com/2009/09/09/did-australia-know-mamdouh-habib-was-being-tortured

G'day John,

The U.S. has long protected the Zionist Israelis by vetoing any U.N. criticism of the Jewish race. (Good heavens – how did the UN get away with that anti-Semitism?) If that unholy alliance is not only stopped, but reversed as well, then the contempt for them will increase to a point of no return and so will the effort to meet force with an equal and opposite force.  The American people have been fooled into believing that while their Military/Corporate is causing wars out of their area, that they are safer.  It is indeed a small world and he who lives by the sword will die by the sword.

The fact that the Jews of Israel demonstrate a form of fascism that is identical to the Nazi methods, for which they once had our sympathy, only tends to persuade an answer to the question as to WHY they have indeed been hated for many, many centuries. Do they deny sympathy to the Palestinians?

They recognise no laws which do not conform to their superiority complex.

If Jewish offenders are depending on owning the world’s most effective propaganda sources, then the lies will slowly but surely be understood by reasoning people. I have no doubt that the full story of the Jewish oppression of the Palestinian people is yet to be exposed and the hypocrisy of their claim to unwarranted persecution looks somewhat tattered – to say the least.

But they still do not recognise any laws other than their own. 

The politicians, Gypsies, homosexuals; criminals; Russians; cripples and all who were considered by the Zionist style Nazis as untermenschen, suffered equally with the Jews but – where is their sympathy?  The Zionists were brutally active in the USSR long before the Nazi era and their concentration in Poland was a problem for both Russia and Germany.

Because they recognise no laws which do not conform to their superiority complex.

The American Military/Corporate is the largest arms dealer in the world and as such, it matters little to them who win the isolated wars – it is all profit.  The Jewish propaganda industry is untouchable in the U.S. and is gaining power in the U.K. and elsewhere.

And still they recognise no laws which do not conform to their superiority complex.

The German people universally suffered after WW 1 and this had an enormous effect as a propaganda tool when arguing that it was not justified – and the Zionists are using the same methods.

The US/Jewish propaganda sources are making big deals about the abuse of Human Rights in various parts of the world, but even though they all seem to be illiterates engaging in tribal wars, there is profit in this for the arms dealers of which the U.S. is the largest offender.  This of course, does not include China or India who have increased their wealth which, in the case of China, was in spite of the propaganda of the American Military/Corporate.

The cruelty of both the Americans and the Zionists are so wide-spread that the Security Council of the U.N. has become a paper tiger.

Cheers John. God bless Australia. NE OUBLIE.

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib will use the money received from an out-of-court settlement with the federal government to start an international lawsuit against the US and Egyptian governments.

Mr Habib, who reached an agreement last month in which he received a secret sum in exchange for absolving the government of liability in his torture case, says he has fresh evidence, including film footage.

''I will take this money and use it to sue the Egyptian and the United States governments,'' Mr Habib said.

Mr Habib had sued the federal government over his alleged torture while he was held in Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

Mamdouh Habib | Lawsuit against the US and Egyptian governments

Perhaps, finally, Australians can realise that the former Howard government was more than happy for one of our citizens to be tortured in the name of pleasing the United States:

The Inspector-General of Intelligence & Security has ordered a fresh inquiry into the case of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib.

Julia Gillard requested the new probe amid dramatic claims of Australian government complicity in his 2001 CIA rendition to Egypt, where he was detained & tortured.

The investigation follows a secret compensation payout made by the federal government to Mr Habib in December, apparently triggered by untested witness statements implicating Australian officials in his detention & brutal maltreatment in a Cairo military prison.

The new evidence, not previously made public, includes a statement from a former Egyptian military intelligence officer that he was present when Mr Habib was transferred to Cairo in November 2001.

In the statement, tendered as part of Mr Habib's civil case against the commonwealth, the officer says Australian officials were present when Mr Habib arrived in Egypt, handcuffed, with his feet bound, naked & apparently drugged.

The statement says: "During Habib's presence some of the Australian officials attended many times. The same official who attended the first time used to come with them."

It continues: "Habib was tortured a lot & all the time, as the foreign intelligence wanted quick & fast information."

The statement is at odds with repeated assertions by the federal government & security agencies since Mr Habib's return to Australia in January 2005, that they had no knowledge of or involvement in his rendition or detention in Egypt.

As recently as November, in a letter to Mr Habib, the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade insisted it had never been able to confirm Mr Habib's presence in Egypt.

Antony Loewenstein

BY Blaise Malley

More than twenty years after the prison at Guantanamo Bay opened, the 30 remaining detainees are still subjected to “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” according to a new report from the United Nations special rapporteur (SR) on counterterrorism and human rights, Fionnuala Ni Aolain’s report.

The document, which was released to the public on Monday, was the result of a trip to the facility earlier this year — the first of its kind by a UN official since the facility opened in 2002. Its conclusion is clear: the U.S. government should “consider immediate paths to closure” of the detention center. 

Ni Aolain’s visit, which took place in February, included a series of meetings with prisoners’ lawyers and families, as well as former prisoners and some of the then-34 detainees. 

Ni Aolain also spoke with families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks. She “recognizes differing views within the victim community on the legitimacy of the military commissions, the use of the death penalty, and the operation of the Guantánamo detention facility.” But, in her view, the use of torture by the United States now represents the “single most significant barrier to fulfilling victims’ rights to justice and accountability.” 

“[A]ccountability for torture is also accountability to the human rights of victims and survivors,” she writes. 

In her report, Ni Aolain thanked the Biden administration for facilitating her visit but criticized the U.S. government for ongoing violations of international law. “[S]everal U.S. Government procedures establish a structural deprivation and non-fulfilment of rights necessary for a humane and dignified existence and constitute at a minimum, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment across all detention practices at Guantánamo Bay,” she wrote. 

The report focused on detainees’ right to health, access to family, access to justice and fair trial, and the long-term physical and psychological effects of torture. In each case, the special rapporteur found significant reason for concern. 

For example, the special rapporteur “concludes that the foregoing conditions constitute a violation of the right to available, adequate, and acceptable health care—as part of the State’s obligation to guarantee the rights to life, freedom from torture and ill-treatment humane treatment of prisoners, and effective remedy (…) the U.S. Government’s failure to provide torture rehabilitation squarely contravenes its obligations under the Convention against Torture.”

In terms of legal rights, the report found that “the United States has failed to promote and protect fundamental fair trial guarantees and severely impeded the detainees’ access to justice.” One detainee told Ni Aolain that, while some of the material conditions in the prison had improved over time, the legal conditions today are worse than ever. 

The report also looked at the repatriation and resettlement of those who had been released from Guantanamo and found that they had experienced mixed fortunes but that the “vast majority” continued to be victims of human rights abuses. “For many former detainees, their current experience in their home or third country merely becomes an extension of arbitrary detention in Guantánamo, with some even expressing that they wish to return,” wrote Ni Aolain. “The SR spoke with former detainees and families of detainees who upon transfer were forcibly disappeared and arbitrarily detained; enrolled in supposed rehabilitation and reintegration programs but in fact subject to incommunicado detention and torture and ill-treatment,” and more. 

Michèle Taylor, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council, issued a response to the report, thanking Ni Aolain but disagreeing with many of her report’s findings. “The United States disagrees in significant respects with many factual and legal assertions the SR has made,” Taylor wrote. “Detainees live communally and prepare meals together; receive specialized medical and psychiatric care; are given full access to legal counsel; and communicate regularly with family members.”

Under Biden, so far 10 of the 40 detainees that were there when he took office have left the prison, and 16 others have been cleared for release but remain in Guantanamo.

Advocates, rights groups, and former detainees welcomed the report and called on Biden to fulfill his stated goal of closing the prison, and for the government to provide reparations to prisoners. 

“I was a victim of US torture by the CIA. I survived and have forgiven my torturers, and I am moving on with my life in Belize. But I still wait for an apology, medical care, and other compensation,” said Majid Khan, a former detainee who was released in February 2023. “I appreciate all the support that Belize has provided me, but responsibility lies with the US.”

“It is time to close Guantanamo,” Khan added.

“The Biden administration needs to get out of its own way on Guantanamo closure,” argued Wells Dixon, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights who has served as counsel to several Guantanamo detainees. “It makes no legal or policy sense for the government to continue to fight in court, to detain men it no longer wants to detain, in a prison it has said should be closed, in a war that has ended.”

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/06/28/un-report-calls-on-u-s-government-to-close-guantanamo-bay/

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US envoy flags Assange deal

Matthew Knott
Foreign affairs correspondent

United States ambassador Caroline Kennedy has flagged a potential plea deal between Julian Assange and US authorities that could end America’s pursuit of the WikiLeaks founder and allow him to return to Australia.

As hopes fade among Assange’s supporters that the Biden administration will abandon its extradition request, a David Hicks-style plea bargain has emerged as the most likely way to avoid a drawn-out trial on espionage charges and a possible lengthy jail term in a maximum security US prison.

Assange’s legal options to avoid being extradited from the United Kingdom to the US could be exhausted within two months, coinciding with a visit by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to Washington in late October.

Asked whether she believed it was possible for the US and Australia to reach a diplomatic outcome, Kennedy said it was an ‘‘ongoing case’’ being handled by the Department of Justice. ‘‘So it’s not really a diplomatic issue, but I think that there absolutely could be a resolution,’’ she said.

Kennedy noted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent comments that the charges against Assange were serious and that he had allegedly endangered US national security by publishing leaked classified information.

‘‘But there is a way to resolve it,’’ she said, adding: ‘‘You can read the [newspapers] just like I can.’’

Pressed on whether US authorities could strike a deal with Assange to reduce the charges against him in exchange for a guilty plea, she said: ‘‘That’s up to the Justice Department.’’

Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, said: ‘‘Caroline Kennedy wouldn’t be saying these things if they didn’t want a way out. The Americans want this off their plate.’’

Kennedy met members of the Parliamentary Friends of Julian Assange Group in May, fuelling hopes of a breakthrough in his case.

The US is seeking to extradite Assange from London’s Belmarsh prison to face 17 counts of breaching the US Espionage Act plus a separate hacking-related charge.

Australian National University international law expert Don Rothwell said Kennedy’s comments reflected the fact the Biden administration was ‘‘very unlikely’’ to drop the charges outright.

Rothwell said the more realistic option was that US authorities could downgrade the charges against Assange in exchange for a guilty plea, taking into account the four years he has already spent in prison in the UK.

The remainder of any sentence could be served in Australia under a prisoner transfer agreement between the countries, he said. The complication was that Assange would be required to travel to the US and admit guilt.

‘‘Everything we know about Julian Assange suggests this would be a significant sticking point for him,’’ Rothwell said. ‘‘It’s not possible to strike a plea deal outside the relevant jurisdiction except in the most exceptional circumstances.’’

Shipton said the idea of his brother travelling to the US to strike a deal was a ‘‘non-starter’’ because it could lead him to attempt suicide.

‘‘Julian cannot go to the US under any circumstances,’’ he said.

Albanese alluded to a plea deal earlier this year when he that ‘‘a solution needs to be found that brings this matter to a conclusion’’, adding that ‘‘Mr Assange needs to be a part of that, of course’’.

Labor MP Julian Hill, a prominent Assange supporter, said: ‘‘I stand by my previous comments that no-one should judge Mr Assange if he cuts a deal to get the hell out of there.

‘‘I urge UK and US authorities to take concerns about Julian’s health more seriously and to move him out of maximum security prison as a sign of good faith.’’

Assange lost his latest appeal against the US extradition order in June, and his supporters say he may have exhausted all appeal options by the time Albanese visits the US in late October.

Human rights lawyer Greg Barns, an adviser to the Australian Assange campaign, said: ‘‘It is imperative that Anthony Albanese put Assange’s case on the official agenda for his meeting with Biden and to make clear that this matter goes to the heart of the USAustralia alliance.’’

During a trip to Australia last month, Blinken pushed back on Australian calls for the charges against Assange to be dropped.

‘‘Mr Assange was charged with very serious criminal conduct in the United States in connection with his alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of our country,’’ Blinken said.

‘‘The actions that he is alleged to have committed risked very serious harm to our national security, to the benefit of our adversaries, and put named human sources at grave risk of physical harm, grave risk of detention.’’

SMH 14/08/2023....

BLINKEN IS A RAVING LUNATIC....

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