Jeffrey St. Clair, writing for Counterpunch, has a lot of new details on Torture Air, the Gulfstream jet that has flown detainees all over the world for interrogation. Canadian Mahar Arar was flown from New York to Jordan on the plane - before being handed over to Syria.

St. Clair charges that Vice President Dick Cheney not only knew about the secret CIA flights, he authorized the torturous interrogations.

Does an accused have a right to be present at their entire trial? They do in American courts. But maybe not at military tribunal trials at Guantanamo. The case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, allegedly a driver for Osama bin Laden, was heard today by the D.C. Court of Appeals.

The three-judge panel reacted strongly when a lawyer for Salim Ahmed Hamdan told them "it makes no sense to say that we adhere to international law and the first thing we do at the beginning of a trial is violate a canon of international law." Legal systems of other countries don't allow a defendant to be present for all parts of a trial, Appeals Judge A. Raymond Randolph replied. Judge John Roberts added that some countries don't allow cross-examination of witnesses.

"This is the law in Rwanda," but should not be in the United States, replied the detainee's lawyer, Charles Swift.

The military has announced it will free 38 detainees held at Guantanamo. Seems they weren't terrorists after all. So sorry, never mind.

A former lawyer for Guantanamo detainee David Hicks says there are 500 hours of videotape of Guantanamo detainees that evidence torture.

Mr [Stephen] Kenny said the full story of abuse at Guantanamo Bay would not be told until the tapes were released, but they could be as damaging as the images of Iraqi prisoners being abused by US soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison.

"I believe that these videos, if they are ever released, will be as explosive as anything from Abu Ghraib," Mr Kenny told the LawAsia Downunder conference.

These are the tapes of the Immediate Reaction Force (IRF) that we wrote about in May, 2004, here .

Out of fear for their safety, a federal judge Saturday issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Administration from transferring 13 Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo to other countries.

Human Rights Watch reports that abuse of Afghan prisoners dates back to at least December, 2002 when two detainees were killed by U.S. troops:

Unreleased U.S. Army reports detailing the deaths of two Afghan men who were beaten to death by American soldiers show that military prison abuses began in Afghanistan in 2002, and were part of a systematic pattern of mistreatment, a human rights representative said Saturday.

More than two dozen American soldiers face possible criminal prosecution - and one already is charged with manslaughter - in the deaths at the main U.S. detention facility in Bagram, just north of the Afghan capital of Kabul.

The Justice Department's Inspector General's office has completed a follow-up report finding abuse of Muslim prisoners at U.S. prisons. It also shows no one has been disciplined for the violations.

The treatment of Muslim prisoners was part of a semiannual report Fine produces about possible civil rights or civil liberties violations by the Justice Department.

One of the prisons is the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. We reported here on the abuse and recommendation of the Inspector General for disciplinary sanctions back in 2004. Videotapes confirmed the abuse. The Inspector General's earlier 2004 report that covered the period through the end of 2003 is available here. A September, 2004 update is here. The first report dated June, 2003 is available here. The latest report covers June 22 to the end of 2004 and should be available on the IG website soon. The pdf version is here.

Higher ups at Guantanamo are being investigated for sexual misconduct. If adultery between officers and other American personnel is all that's involved, what a waste of time and resources. Who cares? Why don't they investigate the prisoner complaints of torture and the reasons for the numerous suicide attempts instead?

Now that everyone knows about the CIA's rendition program that sends detainees to foreign countries for interrogation--including countries that are known to practice torture--the Administration decides not only to acknowledge it, but to announce it intends to conduct more such transfers.

The Pentagon is seeking to enlist help from the State Department and other agencies in a plan to cut by more than half the population at its detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in part by transferring hundreds of suspected terrorists to prisons in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Yemen, according to senior administration officials.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, staying true to his roots, defends the Administrations rendition program - flying detainees to countries that practice torture for interrogation by the C.I.A. TBogg writes:

If a detainee, being tortured to death after "extraordinary rendition" to a foreign country, screams, and Alberto Gonzales doesn't hear him, did he really die?

Gonzales doublespeak, from the news article:

A federal court today granted Jose Padilla's petition for writ of habeas corpus and ruled that the Bush Administration cannot continue to hold Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant unless it charges him with a crime. If it does not charge him, it must release him. The opinion is here.

The court finds that the president has no power, neither express nor implied, neither constitutional nor statutory, to hold petitioner as an enemy combatant," Floyd wrote in a 23-page opinion that was a stern rebuke to the government. He gave the administration 45 days to take action.

This is right out of the Twilight Zone--Newsweek reports on Air CIA which flew ghost detainees on a 737 to parts unknown, often and interrogating them for months.

We wrote about this here, the Washington Post covered it here, but Newsweek has a lot more detail - and proof: [link via Cursor.]

NEWSWEEK has obtained previously unpublished flight plans indicating the agency has been operating a Boeing 737 as part of a top-secret global charter servicing clandestine interrogation facilities used in the war on terror.

Read the story of Khaled el-Masri - he was gone for 5 months.