American Civil Liberties Union

Last weekend , NOW on PBS explored indefinite detention in its latest episode, "After Guantánamo." In it, host David Brancaccio interviewed Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Couch, who was tasked with prosecuting Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Guantánamo detainee accused of 9/11-related crimes. In 2004, Couch became the first of six military lawyers to resign from prosecuting the military commissions cases assigned to them because they disagreed with the commissions' flawed system of "justice," which includes using evidence gained through torture and rigging the trials in favor of a conviction.

After nearly seven years in U.S. custody, Mohammed Jawad was released and flown home to Afghanistan over the weekend. One of his defense attorneys, Marine Maj. Eric Montalvo, accompanied Jawad as a private citizen on this trip home.

The ACLU represented Jawad in his habeas corpus case in federal court, which challenged his illegal detention and prosecution before the military commissions at Guantánamo. Of the 200-plus Gitmo detainees who still remain, two facts stood out with Jawad's case. First, his age: he was a teenager, possibly as young as 12, when he was captured. And second, Jawad's former lead military prosecutor, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, left the military commission in September 2008 because he did not believe he could ethically proceed with Jawad's case.

Yesterday, White House Homeland Security Chief John Brennan indicated the Obama administration might not meet President Obama’s January 22, 2010, deadline to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay. When asked about the president’s executive order to close the prison within a year, Brennan stated, "I don’t have a crystal ball. At this point it is unknowable exactly how many people will be transferred next week, month, several months and what the conditions on the ground will be on 1 January and 21 January…Everybody is doing everything possible in the administration to realize the President's goal.”

Despite its recent concession that the bulk of its case against Guantánamo Bay detainee Mohammed Jawad consists of evidence illegally obtained through torture, the Obama administration announced on Friday that it may attempt to bring criminal charges against Jawad in U.S. federal court. This sudden change of course represents the latest in a series of desperate attempts by the government to detain Jawad, who was captured during his early teenage years, without credible evidence and without cause. And even though it now concedes that Jawad's seven-year detention and torture at the hands of the U.S. was illegal, the government still thinks it can circumvent the opinions of a U.S. District Court judge, the Afghan Attorney General, Jawad's former military prosecutor, and countless others, by continuing to hold him illegally and on unsubstantiated grounds.