Repatriate 'Child Soldiers' At Guantanamo Bay, U.K. Groups Urge

17 May 2009

Washington -- The continued imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay of former child soldiers - including Canadian Omar Khadr - flouts international law, fives British legal associations said yesterday in a joint letter urging the new U.S. administration to move quickly to deal with their cases.

"The lengthy detention, and putting on trial for war crimes, of someone who appears to be a 'child soldier' is contrary to the
special protection to which Khadr and [Afghan Mohammed] Jawad are entitled by virtue of the Optional Protocol of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the groups said in calling for them to be sent home.

"In practical terms, this means prompt repatriation to their respective home countries to receive the opportunities for rehabilitation and reintegration into society," said the Bar Council, the Law Society, the Criminal Bar Association, the Commonwealth Lawyers' Association and the Bar Human Rights Committee.

Attorneys Release Detailed Report; Closing Guantanamo Easy as 1-2-3 Analysis on 7th Guantanamo Anniversary Shows Status of Detainees Largely Based on Nationality

Today, attorneys for Guantanamo detainees held a conference call to discuss their report on closing Guantanamo, including the newest and most comprehensive numbers and lists of detainee status by nationality. The three simple steps are: 1) send those can go home home, 2) secure safe haven for those who cannot, and 3) charge those who can be charged and try them in ordinary federal criminal court.
Said Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, "On the seventh anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees it turns out the single most important factor in determining who still remains at Guantanamo is nationality — whether we're talking about the approximately 60 men who cannot be returned home and need other countries to take them in or about which countries have had the clout to get their people home. Closing the place down is not the great challenge it's being made out to be. Let us close Guantánamo without delay and close this shameful chapter in our nation's history. Let's do it and be done with it."

Yesterday on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos, " President-elect Obama called closing the infamous prison camp "more difficult than a lot of people realize," yet the attorneys who filed the first cases on behalf of the detainees and are more knowledgeable about the issue than most disagree.

"One of the most important things President Obama can do is shut down the fatally flawed military commissions on Day 1," said Lieutenant Commander William Kuebler, U.S. military defense counsel for Canadian juvenile Omar Khadr. "If he does not act in the first six days of his administration, he will be the first president in U.S. history to preside over the trial of a child soldier for war crimes."

Discussed during the call were three simple steps to closing the prison camp and an overview of the landscape the next president will inherit next Tuesday. Attorneys described the ways President Obama will need to resolve issues related to:

* The approximately 200 men who are in indefinite detention due to stalled negotiations with their home countries and the government's refusal to embrace a charge or release policy;

* The 17 Uighurs ordered by a federal judge to be released into the US;

* The more than 40 other men who cannot be released to their home countries for fear of torture or persecution;

* The pending military commission processes, such as the imminent military commission trial of an alleged child soldier;

* The status of the habeas and appeals court litigation;

* The debilitating conditions for the hundreds of men still detained at Guantanamo.

For a copy of the report, go to:

http://www.ccrjusti ce.org/learn- more/reports/ report%3A- closing-guant% C3%A1namo- and-restoring- rule-law

CCR has led the legal battle over Guantanamo for the last six years - sending the first ever habeas attorney to the base and sending the first attorney to meet with a former CIA "ghost detainee." CCR has been responsible for organizing and coordinating more than 500 pro bono lawyers across the country in order to represent the men at Guantanamo, ensuring that nearly all have the option of legal representation. CCR represented the detainees with co-counsel in the most recent argument before the Supreme Court in 2007.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.

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