NATIONAL
December 30, 2009 | By David G. Savage
Yemen's emergence as a center for Al Qaeda activity has added another complication to the Obama administration's plan to close the U.S. military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yemenis make up the largest bloc of the remaining detainees. This month, six men from that country were sent home, and their lawyers expected that up to 40 more could soon be released from Guantanamo. Now that an Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen has claimed to be behind the attempted bombing of an airline flight bound for Detroit on Christmas Day, however, the lawyers fear the administration will block further releases.
NATIONAL
December 24, 2009 | By Katherine Skiba and Peter Nicholas
The Obama administration faces a number of hurdles in its effort to buy Illinois' Thomson prison and use it to house suspected terrorists now at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Among them: agreeing on a sale price, renovating the facility and getting Congress to change U.S. law so that some detainees can be held on American soil even though they won't face trial. Then there's the matter of paying for it. Last week, President Obama directed Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to act "as expeditiously as possible" to acquire the mostly vacant prison in northwestern Illinois.
NATIONAL
December 23, 2009 | By Oscar Avila and Kristen Schorsch
Facing anxious citizens afraid of becoming terrorist targets, federal officials confirmed Tuesday that some of the most notorious Guantanamo detainees could be sent to Illinois if the Obama administration buys a state prison. The proposed federal prison in Thomson would be the site for military tribunals for five alleged plotters in the 2000 bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole, said Alan Liotta, the Defense Department's principal director for detainee policy, at a public hearing on the plan.
NATIONAL
December 21, 2009 | By David G. Savage and Christi Parsons
President Obama began the year with a pledge to close the Guantanamo prison, and to restore due process and the core constitutional values that he said "made this country great." But his administration has set out a multi-pronged legal policy for the remaining Guantanamo prisoners that bears a striking similarity to that of the final year of George W. Bush's presidency. Some detainees could be held indefinitely without being charged, if they're deemed impossible to prosecute but too dangerous to release.
NATIONAL
December 16, 2009 | By Christi Parsons and James Oliphant
As the White House on Tuesday detailed its proposal to move terrorism suspects from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a prison in rural Illinois, some lawmakers made it clear that they would try to derail President Obama's plans to shutter the controversial detention center. In addition to buying the nearly empty state prison in Thomson, Ill., to house the Guantanamo detainees, the government said, it plans to set up a courtroom in the facility for defendants who will be tried before a military commission.
WORLD
October 17, 2009 | Henry Chu
An American document that allegedly describes the torture of a former Guantanamo Bay inmate should be made public, a British court ruled Friday, dismissing Britain's argument that it was suppressing the information to preserve its intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and to uphold national safety. The document contains a seven-paragraph summary of the treatment that Binyam Mohamed received in 2002 after being detained as a suspected terrorist. Mohamed, 31, a British resident, alleges that he was subjected to torture, including beatings and sexual mutilation, by interrogators in Pakistan and elsewhere with the full knowledge of American and British intelligence agents.