NORTH CAROLINA
STOP TORTURE
NOW

PO Box 50345
Raleigh, NC 27650
e-mail via:
contact AT ncstoptorturenow.net

(919) 834-4478
(evenings, or messages during business hours)

RECENT NEWS & HEADLINES

Saifullah Paracha speaks to family via video phone

Sharifullah released – Whether to freedom or safety, is unknown

Community pledges welcome for cleared detainees

CIA report implicates Smithfield company

***

International Red Cross facilitates virtual reunion

FreeDetainess.org reported December 21, that – thanks to the auspices of the International Commmittee of the Red Cross – the 63-year-old prisoner was able to see and talk with his family in Pakistan.

Family members were beside themselves with happiness when they got a chance to interact with him for an hour via video teleconferencing for the first time in the past six-and-a-half years he has been detained at the infamous Guantánamo Bay prison.

Paracha, a textile exporter was arrested from Bangkok in June 2003 rendered to Bagram Prison in Afhganistion aboard aircraft operated by Aero Contrators, and has been held since on charges the family vehiently denies of having terrorist connections and of generously funding extremist organizations.

***

Sharifullah among detainees repatriated

December 20 – The Associated Press reported that the the US sent 12 Guantánamo detainees to their home nations.

The dozen Guantánamo detainees were transferred to Afghanistan, Yemen and the Somaliland region as the Obama administration continues to move captives out of the facility in Cuba in preparation for its closure.

The Justice Department said Sunday that a government task force had reviewed each case. Officials considered the potential threat and the government's likelihood of success in court challenges to the detentions.

Over the weekend, four Afghan detainees were transferred to their home country, including Sharifullah, a detainee represented on a pro bono basis by North Carolina attorneys.

According to Sharifullah's attorney, however, there has been no report that Sharifullah was freed upon return to Afghanistan, and his whereabouts, safety and condition are unknown.

***

Community pledges to receive cleared detainees

Amherst, Massachusetts became the first community in the U.S. to offer resettlement to Guantánamo Bay detainees cleared for release.

Town meeting member, Ruth Hooke told WBUR radio:

“I’ve wanted them to close (Guantánamo) ... I demonstrated in front of the Supreme Court a year ago January with my orange jumpsuit about closing Guantánamo.”

Hooke sponsored the resolution on behalf of Pioneer Valley No More Guantánamos, a coalition partner in the No More Guantánamos campaign.

Larry Kelley, slenderized "Amherst Town Conservative," supported the non-binding town resolution to welcome Guantanamo detainees once he was assured that no town services would go to support the detainees.

***

CIA report implicates Smithfield company in torture cases

A Smithfield-based contractor for the CIA is implicated in the al-Nashiri torture case described in the long-anticipated CIA Inspector General’s report (courtesy, ACLU) released August 24.

According to the report, the CIA used mock executions to terrorize detainees and threatened detainees with pistols and electric drills.

Newsweek reported: Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was threatened with a gun and a power drill during the course of CIA interrogation. According to the sources, who like others quoted in this article asked not to be named while discussing sensitive information, Nashiri’s interrogators brandished the gun in an effort to convince him that he was going to be shot. Interrogators also turned on a power drill and held it near him. “The purpose was to scare him into giving [information] up,” said one of the sources.

“The role of Aero Contractors in providing planes, pilots, maintenance, and crews for torture missions must be investigated,” said Josh McIntyre, spokesperson for NC Stop Torture Now. “Whether detainees are guilty or innocent, threatening them with power drills is appalling and illegal. By ‘driving the getaway car,’ Aero has been a co-conspirator in horrendous abuses of human rights.”

A federal law banning the use of torture expressly forbids threatening a detainee with “imminent death.” North Carolina Stop Torture Now believes that Aero Contractors’ conduct may be part of a criminal conspiracy partially planned and acted upon within the State of North Carolina, and should be subject to prosecution by the State for criminal conspiracy.

Later the same day, Attorney General Eric Holder appointed federal prosecutor John Durham (BBC report) as a special prosecutor to investigate claims of detainee abuse. However, analysts expect (Washington Post) the attorney general to reject or stifle a broad inquiry that could result in possible prosecutions of Justice Department lawyers in the Bush years as well as cabinet officers who developed counter-terrorism policy, and instead to focus on what CIA Director Leon Panetta characterized as "behavior, however rare, that went beyond the formal guidelines ... "

Holder noted in a statement explaining his decision that: " ... the information known to me warrants opening a preliminary review into whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations," (emphasis added).

According to U.K.-based journalist Stephen Grey, author of the book Ghost Plane, an Aero Contractors plane was involved in the extraordinary rendition of al-Nashiri. This plane was the Gulfstream jet N379P, the notorious “Guantanamo Express,” which was based at Aero’s headquarters in Smithfield at that time.

Read NCSTN's entire media advisory on the release of the Inspector General's Report.

***

FIND OUT WHERE WE'VE BEEN SO FAR:
AN INCOMPLETE CHRONOLOGY OF NCSTN EFFORTS

###

Please report broken links or other concerns.
updated 3 January 2010, JMcI

TAKE ACTION / AERO FLEW THEM / JOIN / 
HEADLINES / RESOURCES / CALENDAR / 
PLANESPOTTING / CONTACT