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