Blog of Rights
Jennifer
Turner
08/17/2010
Guantánamo

Gitmo Justice

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 1:19pm

Friday morning, the first trial at Gitmo under President Obama was suspended because the defendant's lawyer, Lt. Col. Jon Jackson, collapsed and had to be medevacked off the base for medical treatment. He's been given 30 days' convalescence leave. In a closed-door meeting in his chambers Friday, the military judge declared Omar Khadr's trial on hold for at least 30 days. The scheduled hearing was cancelled and the jury was never brought back into court.

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08/13/2010
Guantánamo

Reasonable Doubt

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 3:21pm

Opening statements began in the first trial under Obama's military commisions yesterday, and the prosecution called their first two witnesses against Canadian Omar Khadr. The youngest of Guantanamo's remaining 176 detainees, Khadr was captured in Afghanistan eight years ago, when he was 15 years old.

Khadr is accused of throwing the grenade that killed Delta Force Sgt. Christopher Speer. Sgt. Speer's widow, Tabitha Speer, observed the trial today, dabbing her eyes with a tissue when witnesses described her husband's mortal injury in the firefight that preceded Khadr's capture.

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08/13/2010
Guantánamo

A Beacon for Liberty and Justice

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 11:23am

Tuesday was the conclusion of jury selection for the trial of Canadian Omar Khadr, as 15 jury pool members were whittled down to seven selected jurors, all officers in the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marines.

Jury selection offered a glimpse into the opinions of high-ranking military officers about Guantánamo and the military commissions. Two of the prospective jury members said they believed Guantánamo should be closed, but only one of the two was selected for the jury.

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08/11/2010
Guantánamo

Making History

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 11:02am

Yesterday, I witnessed history being made here in Guantánamo, as jury selection began today in the first war crimes prosecution of a child soldier since World War II, and the first ever in U.S. history.

Accused of throwing a grenade that killed Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer and participating in a terrorist conspiracy beginning when he was only 10 years old, Khadr literally has grown up at Guantánamo. Now 23, the full beard Khadr has grown since his imprisonment in 2002 obscures the fact that he was only 15 at the time he was shot and captured by U.S. forces.

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08/10/2010
Guantánamo

What We Stand For

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 11:43am

Yesterday was a stark reminder that instead of closing the book on the Bush-era military commissions, President Obama is adding another sad chapter to that history. Although President Obama promised transparency and sharp limits on the use of tortured and coerced statements against the accused, at Guantánamo today one military judge ordered that a sentence be kept secret from the public and another military judge allowed statements obtained by abuse and coercion of a 15-year-old to be used at trial.

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07/13/2010
Guantánamo Dispatch

A System Designed to Produce Convictions, Not Justice

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 4:40pm

On Monday pretrial hearings resumed in the case of Canadian Omar Khadr, captured at age 15 by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Accused of throwing a grenade that killed an American soldier and participating in a terrorist conspiracy beginning when he was only 10 years old, Khadr has spent a third of his life at Guantánamo. Unless a plea bargain is reached, Khadr's August military commission trial will be the first under President Obama.

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05/12/2010
Guantánamo

Pentagon Should Reverse Gitmo Reporter Ban

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 3:04pm

In a group letter sent today, the ACLU, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the National Institute for Military Justice called for the Department of Defense to reverse its decision banning four reporters from covering future military commissions proceedings at Guantánamo. All five groups monitor the military commissions on a regular basis.

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05/08/2010
Guantánamo

Interrogator One

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 12:08am

(Originally posted on Daily Kos.)

Bombshell Testimony from Bagram Interrogator Convicted of Abuse, Reporters Banned from Gitmo for Reporting his Name

On Thursday, pretrial hearings continued in the case of Canadian Omar Khadr, who has spent a third of his life in U.S. detention since he was captured at age 15. Though the Obama administration has claimed it intends to erase the taint of torture and abuse from the Bush-era Guantánamo military commissions, the government is trying to use evidence coerced out of the teenage boy in an illegitimate trial eight years later.

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05/07/2010
Guantánamo

The Monster of Bagram

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 1:40pm

(Originally posted on Daily Kos.)

On Wednesday pretrial hearings continued in the case of Canadian Omar Khadr. Captured at age 15 in Afghanistan and now held for fully a third of his life in U.S. detention, Khadr is currently scheduled for trial by military commission in July. Unless a plea bargain is reached, Khadr's case will be the first prosecution in U.S. history of a person for war crimes allegedly committed as a child.

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05/05/2010
Guantánamo

Taxi to the Dark Side

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 12:40pm

Hearings continued Monday and Tuesday in the case of Canadian Omar Khadr, the last Western national still being held at Guantánamo. Now 23, Khadr was 15 when he was captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. medic. Unless a plea bargain is reached, Khadr will be the first person prosecuted in a military commission under President Obama.

We have long known, since the creation of the military commissions, that the question of torture is at the heart of these proceedings. Since Omar Khadr first announced he had been abused while detained at Bagram and Guantánamo, we've faced the shameful possibility that he could be convicted using confessions extracted through torture and abuse. This week the commission is examining whether self-incriminating statements Khadr made to interrogators should be excluded from trial because of torture and other abuse.

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