Clive Stafford Smith: US Holding 27,000 in Secret Overseas Prisons

Transporting Prisoners to Iraqi Jails to Avoid Media & Legal Scrutiny

"There is a huge number of [secret prisoners] being held in Iraq, and one of the intriguing aspects of this that doesn't get much reporting is that the US is bringing people into Iraq from elsewhere to hold them there, simply because that keeps [the media and lawyers] away from the prisoners so they can't get any sort of legal rights," reports British attorney Clive Stafford Smith.

Guest: Clive Stafford Smith, British born lawyer for over fifty detainees in Guantanamo Bay. He is the legal director of the UK charity Reprieve and has defended prisoners on death row for over twenty years. He is the author of Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice in Guantanamo Bay.

AMY GOODMAN: A military judge has postponed the first war crimes tribunal at Guantanamo to allow a Supreme Court ruling to be made on the right of prisoners to challenge their detention in civil courts. The trial against Osama bin Laden's former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, was scheduled to start on June 2nd. Navy Captain Keith Allred ruled on Friday the trial should be delayed seven weeks, until July 21st, in case the Supreme Court ruling affects his case.

The court is considering a challenge to a provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that denies Guantanamo prisoners the right to file petition of habeas corpus. It marks the third time the Supreme Court has examined the rights of prisoners held at Guantanamo. A ruling is expected June 30th.

In a separate ruling, the judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation for Hamdan to determine if he is competent to stand trial. A psychiatrist hired by his lawyers found he suffers from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and can't participate in his defense. The military says he has no signs of any problems.

The US holds about 270 prisoners at Guantanamo now and has said it plans to bring about eighty before the tribunals, the first to be held by the United States since World War II.

Clive Stafford Smith is a British attorney who represents more than fifty of the prisoners at Guantanamo, legal director of the UK charity Reprieve and author of Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice in Guantanamo Bay. He is testifying on Tuesday before the House Committee on Foreign Relations about Guantanamo Bay. He joins from Washington, D.C.

Welcome to Democracy Now! again, Clive Stafford Smith.

CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH: Well, thank you very much for having me again.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the significance of the Hamdan case?

CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH: Well, of course, the Hamdan case has dragged on and on and on, and it's, I think, highlighted the mess that Guantanamo Bay is in down there. And really, the most eloquent spokesperson on that is not me; it's Colonel Morris Davis, who was the chief prosecutor of the process until he resigned recently, the chief military prosecutor in Guantanamo Bay.

And he had three criticisms, and he recently testified in Guantanamo about his criticisms. One is that the process is rigged. He said that he been told by a senior Bush administration official that there would be and there could be no acquittals in Guantanamo. In other words, everyone has to be convicted. He also said that there was intense politicization of the process. And indeed, Judge—the judge, Captain Allred, prohibited some of the senior offices, including Brigadier General Hartmann, from having any more role in the process, because they were basically telling everyone what to do. And I think the third one is the most important, which is that Colonel Davis said we really ought to ban the use of evidence that's been extracted through abuse and torture, such as waterboarding, from Guantanamo trials, because it's still being used down there. And then, indeed, one of my clients, Benyam Mohammed, it's all they have got on him, is evidence that they extracted from him after taking him to Morocco and torturing him with a razor blade to his genitals. So this is just a—it's a farce.

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