So some of you might have already heard about Mohamed Jawad, a kid who was accused of tossing a grenade at a military convoy, but the only evidence that was used against him was his own confession, which was extracted via torture, both by Afghanistan authorities and the US government. I don't know just how much outrage there has to be for there to be prosecutions. But let me reiterate, they held a 12 year old for six years in prison with no trial whatsoever, and they tortured him. Morals where?
Here are two news sources and i quoted the parts i thought most important:
Court Orders Release of Juvenile Prisoner at Gitmo—By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine)
When historians search through the materials relating to Guantánamo for a handful of cases that give a good sense of what was done there in the nation’s name, they’d be well advised to pause over the file of Mohammed Jawad. On December 17, 2002, a grenade was hurled at Americans traveling in a Soviet military vehicle, resulting in injury to several soldiers. Jawad was arrested and accused of the act. He may have been 12 years old at the time, and certainly was no older than 14. American officials consistently misrepresented him as older. Jawad states that he was near the passing convoy because he had been hired to clear landmines; he says he did not throw the grenade. The Government has never produced any meaningful evidence that he did.Instead, the Bush Administration attempted to push Jawad’s case through on the basis of a confession extracted through torture. A military judge reviewing the case, Colonel Stephen Henley, concluded that Jawad was turned over to Afghan authorities who threatened to kill Jawad or his family if he did not confess; he refused to allow the case to proceed on this basis.
Jawad also sought habeas corpus review of his case before Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle in Washington. In the last week, the Justice Department admitted to the court that its defense of Jawad’s detention in Guantánamo was no longer tenable–a fact that had been plain to all outside observers following Judge Henley’s ruling. The Justice Department’s case rested entirely on confessions secured by torture; moreover, the Justice Department had consistently misled the court about the circumstances in which the confessions were obtained and insisted that no torture was involved—apparently relying to the bitter end upon the celebrated John Yoo understanding of the word “torture.” Yesterday, Judge Huvelle ordered Jawad’s release and return to Afghanistan. “Enough has been imposed on this young man to date,” she said. The judge gave the government until August 21 to arrange his return home to Afghanistan.
U.S. Relies on Tortured Evidence in Habeas Case | The Washington Independent
Mohammed Jawad may have been as young as 12 years old when he was seized by Afghan police and turned over to U.S. authorities in December 2002, according to a recent letter from the Afghan attorney general, who is requesting his return. Jawad is accused of throwing a hand grenade into a U.S. military vehicle and injuring two servicemen and their translator. But the primary evidence against him — his own confessions — were obtained by torture. Although the U.S. military commission created by President George W. Bush eventually charged him with war crimes for the attack in October 2007 — almost six years after the crime — a judge ruled in October 2008 that because they were tortured, his confessions were unreliable and inadmissible.By all accounts, Jawad’s military commission case has been a fiasco. In September 2008, military prosecutor Lt. Col. Darryl Vandeveld resigned from the case and from the military commissions altogether, saying he could not in good conscience prosecute someone for an act allegedly committed as a child and where virtually the only evidence against him is his tortured confessions. (Vandeveld was unable to convince the commission to drop the charges or let Jawad enter a plea agreement with a sentence to time served.) In October, a U.S. military judge at Guantanamo Bay agreed that Jawad had only confessed after armed Afghan police threatened to kill him and his entire family if he didn’t. Statements made to U.S. authorities just hours later, the judge subsequently ruled in November, were still tainted by the Afghan authorities’ torture, because U.S. authorities “used techniques to maintain the shock and fearful state associated with the Accused’s initial apprehension by the Afghan police.” Both confessions therefore were inadmissible(My addition: one confession made via torture in Afghanistan and another confession made via torture by the US).
In addition to his torture by the Afghans, military records indicate that at Bagram and later at Guantanamo, Jawad faced more abuse. Jawad arrived at Bagram just days after two prisoners there were murdered during interrogations. Jawad says he was hooded, strip-searched, shackled and shoved down stairs, slapped and screamed at. Guards there later admitted to abusing prisoners in exactly those ways. And at Guantanamo, Jawad was subjected to the sleep deprivation technique known as the “frequent flyer” program — he was moved from cell to cell 112 times in 14 days to keep him from sleeping. He was also kicked, beaten, pepper-sprayed and at one point suffered a broken nose. In December 2003, Jawad tried to kill himself by banging his head repeatedly against one of his cell walls.
So they tortured a kid to the point where he tried to kill himself, and the Obama administration is still trying to keep him jailed up? What the fuck.“The Independent Commission for Human Rights has expressed its serious concern over the non-observance of national and international laws in regard to the detention of children, particularly the investigation and fair trial of Jawad.”
The United States’ treatment of Jawad would seem to violate a United Nations Protocol that the U.S. signed and ratified in January 2003. According ot the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, children who were recruited or used in armed conflicts should be considered primarily as victims and provided with rehabilitation services. Jawad’s lawyers say he’s never received any such services.
The U.S. government is scheduled to appear before Judge Huvelle to defend its continued imprisonment of Jawad at Guantanamo and its reliance on tortured evidence on August 5.
Here are some excerpts from the court case.