Guantanamo, where the ‘war on terror’ drags on in mly court

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASER, Cuba, Twenty years after the September 11 attacks, the US "war on terror" is still being fought on a piece of hilly scrubland in southeast Cuba known as Guantanamo Bay. Within months of the attacks, the United States rounded up hundreds of people with suspected ties to Al-Qaeda and dropped them in the US naval base.

They were labelled "enemy combatants" without rights; the only timeframe for their release, if ever, said then-vice president Dick Cheney, was "the end of the war on terror" -- which, officially, is still ongoing.

Now, most of the 780 suspects who were locked in cages and bare cells have been freed, often after more than a decade without being charged. Today, 39 remain, some promised a release that never materialised, some hoping for it, and 12 whom Washington regards as dangerous Al-Qaeda figures, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 plot.

Under President Joe Biden, their trials have resumed after a delay caused mainly by the Covid-19 pandemic. On September 7, after a 17-month pause, the pre-trial hearings for Mohammed and four others are set to resume, just days ahead of the anniversary of the attack. But there is no certainty that a verdict will be handed down for the five by the attack’s 21st anniversary next year, or the following year.

The military commissions system overseeing the 12 accused al-Qaeda figures has proven chaotic, unwieldy and often contrary to US law, to the point that in 20 years, only two have been convicted.

Benjamin Farley, a Defence Department lawyer representing one of the five in the 9/11 trial, called the commissions "an expensive and failed experiment in ad hoc justice." Marred by accusations the government has withheld and falsified evidence, and wiretapped defence attorneys, the biggest cloud hanging over the cases is that defendants say they were brutally tortured by their captors, tainting the prosecution.

"I think everyone on all sides knows the commissions are a failure," said Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights. The problems are such that the 10 could spend the rest of their lives in Guantanamo, she told AFP. Guantanamo has proven both a headache and an embarrassment for the US government, drawing charges of sweeping human rights abuses from around the world.