Put to the Test

A Washington, DC federal district court judge has refused to accept the U.S. government’s blanket assertion that Guantánamo prisoner Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed will not be tortured or persecuted if sent to Algeria.  

Last fall the same judge, Gladys Kessler, ordered the U.S. to immediately release Farhi after she decided that he was being illegally held at Guantánamo. In her unclassified opinion ordering Farhi’s release, Judge Kessler rejected the U.S. government’s evidence, which consisted almost entirely of statements tortured out of British resident Binyam Mohamed. This served as the first judicial finding in the U.S. that Binyam had indeed been tortured during his seven years in U.S. custody. 

Judge Kessler’s most recent order requires top diplomat Ambassador Daniel Fried, who is President Obama’s Special Envoy for the Closure of the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility, to face what the judge terms “interrogation by competent counsel” on the question of whether there is any substance behind his assertions that Algeria will not abuse Farhi if he is sent there. Such questioning is necessary, because:

Given the centrality of those representations and assurances to the future of Petitioner and possibly to his very life, this Court has an obligation to ensure that there is real substance behind the conclusory phrases contained in Special Envoy Fried’s declarations.

Reclaiming judicial rights thought lost by recent court of appeals decisions holding that such inquiries were not within the purview of the judiciary, the judge’s order serves as a glimmer of hope for Reprieve client and former UK resident Ahmed Belbacha. 

Ahmed, like Farhi, fears being sent back to Algeria against his will. Ahmed was run out of the country more than a decade ago by the Group Islamique Armé (GIA), a terrorist organization that threatened to kill him if he would not join their cause. Ahmed’s fear of return was made worse by a wholly unjustified 20-year absentia sentence that was handed down against him last November in a secret trial in Algeria where no attorney was permitted to represent Ahmed. Despite innumerable attempts to contact the Algerian court that handed down this sentence, Reprieve has yet to determine what Ahmed had been charged with and what so-called “evidence” could have plausibly formed the basis of a case against him.  

If Ahmed’s terrible plight can shine any light on the sincerity of the U.S. position that “it has received assurances from the Algerian Government that any Guantanamo Bay prisoner who is transferred to that country will receive humane treatment,” it proves that Judge Kessler is spot on in finding that such representations should not be blindly accepted without being put to the test.