Three Guantanamo Detainees May Finally See Justice

The long held and cruelly treated prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba have once again viewed a floating spar on which they may place some hope. The American President Obama had sought to have them tried in civil court, in the United States, under strict laws, and disciplined order. The Congress has made that impossible. The Republicans know that Obama pledged to close the Cuban detention center, and they have successfully blocked the Presidents efforts to do so, at least for the time being.

Obama now has worked with Congress to create a parole board-review system, and the cases will soon be tried in military tribunals. This would at least bring the cases of nearly 50 detainees to trial, where otherwise the detainees would continue being indefinitely held. Under the new plan, charges will be brought within weeks. Military tribunals are less fair, less just, less transparent. They were designed for special circumstances wherein time was of the essence.

Three high-profile suspects will soon be tried. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri is a 46 year old Saudi Arabian citizen accused of planning the 2000 bombing of the American destroyer Cole in Yemen. He was captured in October of 2002, and has been held at Guantanamo for fifty two months. He is one of three al Qaeda prisoners who are confirmed by the CIA as having been subject while in confinement to waterboarding.

A second suspect, Ahmed al-Darbi, is charged with plotting to attack oil tankers on the Straits of Hormuz. He has written of his period of captivity, as of early 2010 he has been confined at the Guantanamo camp for almost seven years. During his first two weeks, he was kept in complete isolation. He recalls that he from the onset was forced to kneel through the night with his hands cuffed over his head, so he was not allowed to sleep. He was on some occasions forced to lean against a wall for hours, hands shackled behind his back, his feet positioned so that all his weight rested on his forehead. It was not possible to sleep in that position. They would ask him about Osama bin Laden, and bin Laden's whereabouts.

During those first two weeks he was hit when he started to fall asleep and he was not permitted he says, to pray. Al-Darbi mentions that since he was not permitted to use a normal rest-room, he restricted his intake of food. He was not given much food, and what he was given was inedible. He mentions a place outside the cage where he was kept which held waterboards, other boards, baseball bats, chains, cuffs, hoods, and other instruments. He was hooded or blindfolded (goggled) for much of this time. He wrote: "The military guards and interrogators would show me pictures of people, and told me I must identify them and confess things about them. After they tortured me, I would say what they wanted me to say. I was fed detailed statements and names of individuals to whom I was to attribute certain activities."

Also now scheduled for trial by military tribunal is a 30 or 31 year old citizen of Afghanistan, Obaidullah. Obaidullah's Guantanamo Internment Serial Number is 762. He has been held for eight years three months and charged with "war crimes". Obaidullah claimed abusive interrogation while in custody in Bagram, during a period of time when officers in charge have now acknowledged directing the use of the technique of chaining detainees' hands above their heads in order to impose sleep deprivation.

If when these cases see the light of day, hopefully there will be an end to the torture and inhumanity.