Sarah Stephen
The US administration suffered a significant defeat on June 28 when the US Supreme Court ruled that prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had the right to challenge their detention in the US courts.
The Australian government was dealt a blow on July 7 when SBS TV's Dateline aired a damning report that provided compelling evidence that Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib had been illegally transferred to Egypt, where he was severely tortured. Dateline confirmed that the Australian government was aware that Washington had ordered Habib's removal to Egypt, but did nothing to stop it.
Habib's lawyer Stephen Hopper told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly that the Supreme Court decision was very significant because it opened the way for Habib's and other detainees' cases to be heard in the US courts. Stephen Kenny, the lawyer who represents David Hicks, the other Australian detained at the US base in Cuba, arrived in Guantanamo Bay on July 14. Hopper also hopes to be there before the end of July to speak to his client for the first time in two years.
The Supreme Court decision was the culmination of a process that started almost two years ago. In October 2002, Hopper successfully sought a review of the merits of Habib's detention in the US District Court in Washington. The US government appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, arguing that the US courts did not have jurisdiction over what happened outside US borders.
Hopper thinks that the US government never envisaged for a moment that their court bid would fail. "The US government is in a panic over the decision", Hopper declared. "The decision confirms that the Bush regime can't do what it likes so long as it's not on US soil."
The announcement in early July by US President George Bush's administration that it would allow detainees to have their status as unlawful combatants reviewed by a military tribunal was "nothing more than a vulgar and cynical attempt to subvert our actions before the US district court", Hopper told GLW. "The tribunal process is designed to obtain convictions, and even allows confessions given under torture as admissible evidence."
According to Maha Habib, her husband was in Pakistan on a three-month visit to check out whether or not the family should move there. He rang Maha just days before his arrest, telling her that he was on his way home. Hopper believes that Habib was arrested in a general sweep of the area following 9/11.
Soon after his arrest, Habib was handed over to the custody of US officials and taken to Egypt for six months, where he was severely tortured. He was then taken to the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay. Dateline set out to answer two key questions: Who knew about Habib's illegal transfer to Egypt? Under whose authority was it done?
Reporter Bronwyn Adcock interviewed a number of people. Pakistan's interior minister Makhdoom Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat confirmed that Habib was picked up in a general sweep of Baluchistan province, where every foreigner was regarded with suspicion. Hayat also confirmed that Pakistan handed Habib over to US authorities at their request, and that they planned to send him to Egypt.
Dr Hajeeb al Naumi, a lawyer and former minister of justice in Qatar, explained that he had information from good sources that Habib was tortured almost to the point of death while in Egypt.
'Complicit in torture'
I asked Hopper if he felt that the Australian government's failure to speak out against Habib's treatment amounted to implicit support for the US to do whatever it wanted to him. "Yes, of course it is", he replied, adding: "We believe it goes further than that. I believe the Australian government had full knowledge he was being rendered to Egypt to be tortured. They don't want anyone to look too hard in case the Australian government's complicity is exposed."
The Australian government claims it knew nothing of Habib's transfer to Egypt, and insist that Australian officials were denied consular access to him in Pakistan. Hopper thinks it is highly unlikely that they were denied access, especially given that the two German nationals Habib was detained with were rapidly released into German custody after diplomatic pressure from their government.
Hopper explained that Habib wrote in a letter that an Australian consular official met him when he was first detained in Pakistan. The official asked him if he wanted to go to Australia or Egypt. When Habib said he wanted to go to Australia, the official mockingly said "too bad". This allegation was verified by a German man Habib was detained with in Pakistan.
"The government says it was a law enforcement official that was given access to Habib, but we think it was a consular official. We want to know what really happened", said Hopper.
Neither Hopper nor the Australian authorities have yet to get direct testimony from Habib. The only details of his torture come from the testimony of two British nationals held in Guantanamo Bay, and from the letters Habib has sent to his family.
According to his letter, Habib was blindfolded for eight months; he could not see or walk properly when he arrived in Guantanamo Bay. Tarek Dherghoul, who was held in Guantanamo Bay with Habib, told Dateline that he saw Habib being bashed and dragged around in chains. He said US interrogators told Habib his family was dead, and Habib believed it.
Hopper told a public meeting of 400 people in Melbourne on July 11: "He's talked about being short-shackled, where he's down in a kneeling position and with the chains on his arms pulled right down on his knees. And you're left there for about 10 hours at a time, you're not allowed to go to the toilet, you have to wet yourself." Hopper said Habib had suffered sleep deprivation in Guantanamo Bay and was beaten by the so-called Emergency Reaction Force.
"When Australia's attorney-general Philip Ruddock was first confronted with these claims of torture, he said the evidence was hearsay, but that's exactly what they'll be using in these military tribunals — hearsay!... What is he supposed to have before people will believe him? A hidden camera behind his eye socket or up his bum?", Hopper declared.
Lies
Hopper is disgusted with the lies the Australian government has told to try to absolve its responsibility for Habib's welfare. Government ministers have repeatedly referred to Habib being an Egyptian citizen or of dual nationality, as an attempt to explain why he might have been shanghaied to Egypt, and in an effort to deny Canberra's responsibility for what has happened to him.
Foreign minister Alexander Downer told ABC radio's The World Today on July 8: "Well, he's a dual national, so he is an Egyptian citizen as well as an Australian citizen so my understanding about this has always been that the Pakistanis passed him to the Egyptians on the basis that he was an Egyptian citizen. Now, whether the Americans asked them to do so or not, doesn't strike me as being a particularly important issue."
Speaking to The World Today, Hopper challenged Downer: "He doesn't think it's important because he doesn't want to be exposed as being a person who may be involved in crimes against humanity. I believe that there should be a full Senate inquiry into this and Mr Downer's handling of it. If he's going to mislead the public by continuing to pedal this garbage that Mr Habib was a dual citizen, he should be made to account for it."
Hopper pointed out that Habib renounced his Egyptian citizenship when he became an Australian citizen 20 years ago. Hopper told The World Today that the federal government knows this because its authorities seized his Australian passport, which contains two visas to enter Egypt, something an Egyptian citizen does not require.
Hopper told GLW that the treatment of his client, and the 593 other prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, rates as "one of the worst travesties of international justice since the Spanish Inquisition". Hopper sees parallels between the exaggerated fear of terrorism today and the climate of fear generated ahead of the rise of fascism in the 1930s.
"In 1933 there was a terrorist scare in Germany. The government of Adolf Hitler spread slander that the Communists were on the rise, and something had to be done about it to protect the citizens of Germany. The government won support to temporarily suspend the constitution. Then they began to pass racial laws against the Jews.
"A particular religious group is vilified and more security laws are passed to supposedly protect us. There is no evidence that there is a terrorist threat in Australia. There hasn't been a terrorist act since the 1978 Hilton Hotel bombing, which ASIO was implicated in. They say we need all these laws, but what's the threat that we're scared of? Conspiracy to kill is already a crime. Governments have more than ample powers to deal with [that]. It's a political exercise in the lead-up to the election.
"The Tampa incident tapped into the racism that exists in the dark xenophobic hearts of some Australians, and brought it to the surface. It's something that ebbs and flows. The current situation is something different. Everyone saw September 11 and they were horrified by it. People's fear is being crudely exploited for political gain, when the threat level of that happening here is very low."
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, July 21, 2004.
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