The former head of interrogations at Guantanamo Bay found that records of an al-Qaeda suspect allegedly tortured at the prison camp were mysteriously lost by the US military, according to a new book by one of Britain’s top human rights lawyers.
Retired General Michael Dunlavey, who supervised Guantanamo for eight months in 2002, tried to locate records on Mohammed al-Qahtani, accused by the US of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks, but found they had disappeared.
The records on al-Qahtani, who was interrogated for 48 days — “were backed up ... after I left, there was a snafu and all was lost,” Dunlavey told Philippe Sands QC, who reports the conversation in his book Torture Team.
Saudi-born al-Qahtani was sexually taunted, forced to perform dog tricks and given enemas at Guantanamo.
The CIA admitted last year that it destroyed videotapes of al-Qaeda suspects being interrogated at a secret “black site” in Thailand. No proof has so far emerged that tapes of interrogations at Guantanamo were destroyed, but Sands’ report suggests the US may have also buried politically sensitive proof relating to abuse by interrogators at the prison camp.
Other new evidence has also emerged in the last month that raises questions about destroyed tapes at Guantanamo.
Cameras that run 24 hours a day at the prison were set to automatically record over their contents, the US military said in court papers. It is unclear how much, if any, prisoner mistreatment was on the taped-over video, but the military admitted that the automatic erasure “likely destroyed” potential evidence in at least one prisoner’s case.
The erased tapes may have violated a 2005 court order to preserve “all evidence [of] the torture, mistreatment and abuse of detainees” at Guantanamo.
The order was retroactive, so it also applies to the 2003 loss of al-Qahtani’s records. Lawyers representing other detainees are asking whether tapes of their clients’ treatment may also be erased.
David Remes, a lawyer for 16 Guantanamo prisoners, said the CIA’s destruction of interrogation videos shows the US is capable of getting rid of potentially incriminating evidence.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
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