01/07/2006
Canadian Press
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Lawyers for terror suspects at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said Friday the military has confiscated letters they have written to prisoners and other legal papers as part of an investigation into three apparent suicides earlier this month.
The military has not disclosed the reason for taking the papers but lawyers said at least one prisoner claimed it's because prison officials suspect the lawyers may have had advance knowledge of suicide attempts, or even encouraged them as a form of protest - an allegation they deny. A military legal official told defence lawyer Richard Wilson investigators had seized all personal papers from every detainee as part of the investigation into the suicides, said an affidavit filed this month. Wilson, who represents Canadian detainee Omar Khadr, said in his affidavit the military official told him he "did not believe that there is any investigation of attorneys themselves as to involvement or encouragement of the deaths." However, that contradicts what at least one detainee, Binyam Muhammad, an alleged al-Qaida member from Ethiopia, told his military-appointed counsel, U.S. air force Maj. Yvonne Bradley: that guards told him they seized all his legal materials as part of an investigation into "whether lawyers had actively encouraged detainees to commit suicide," Wilson wrote. "They think that they are going to find letters from us suggesting suicide. It's ludicrous," said Clive Stafford Smith, legal director for Reprieve, a British human rights group that has filed legal challenges on behalf of about 35 detainees. The U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights, which has filed legal challenges on behalf of about 200 detainees, plans to have one of its lawyers look into the seizure of the legal papers and press for their return during a visit to Guantanamo next week, said Bill Goodman, the group's legal director. "This is a huge breach of attorney-client privilege," Goodman said. The papers deal mostly with the legal challenges filed on behalf of the detainees in civilian courts in the United States. On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled these lawsuits could go forward, even though the U.S. Congress had stripped detainees of the right to file the petitions in December 2005. The court ruled the law couldn't apply to legal challenges begun before then. The court also ruled plans to hold military war crimes trials for detainees violate both U.S. and international law. The administration of President George W. Bush now is looking to Congress for authority to deal with suspected terrorists. The military confiscated the letters and other legal papers shortly after three detainees, two from Saudi Arabia and one from Yemen, hanged themselves inside their cells June 10 - the first deaths reported at the prison since it opened in January 2002. A Guantanamo Bay spokesman, navy Cmdr. Robert Durand, referred questions about the legal papers to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which is handling the investigation into the deaths. "The NCIS has the authority to collect whatever evidence it deems relevant," Durand said in an e-mail from Guantanamo. A spokesman for the navy's investigative service declined comment. The United States holds about 450 men at Guantanamo on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban. SOURCE: Canada.com |
