Comments on: A new “do-over” detainee case reaches Court http://www.scotusblog.com/2007/07/a-new-do-over-detainee-case-reaches-court/ The Supreme Court of the United States blog Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:38:26 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Swillett http://www.scotusblog.com/2007/07/a-new-do-over-detainee-case-reaches-court/#comment-11738 Swillett Mon, 30 Jul 2007 13:28:11 +0000 http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/uncategorized/a-new-do-over-detainee-case-reaches-court/#comment-11738 Thus far neither the Courts, the Congress, nor the public have shown any interest in the conditions under which prisoners like Al-Ghizzawi are held. The regimen is one of almost complete isolation, with only two hours of the day (which may be after midnight), allocated to a 3 x 4 meter space in a two-storey chimney referred to without irony as "Rec Time." This period affords the prisoner his only contact with other human beings. This degree of isolation exceeds almost anything known in the incarceration regimes for criminals in the United States, and would be unthinkable under Geneva. The immense destruction that isolation works on the psyche was well documented in the early 1950s when North Korea imposed on downed U.S. airmen a regimen similar to that in use at Camps 5 and 6 in Guantanamo. This for a prisoner never charged with any crimnal or other wrongdoing, about whom a military panel unanimously concluded, almost three years ago, that there was "no credible evidence" to support a status determination of "enemy combatant." Sabin Willett, Bingham McCutchen, 150 Federal Street, Boston MA 02110 Thus far neither the Courts, the Congress, nor the public have shown any interest in the conditions under which prisoners like Al-Ghizzawi are held. The regimen is one of almost complete isolation, with only two hours of the day (which may be after midnight), allocated to a 3 x 4 meter space in a two-storey chimney referred to without irony as “Rec Time.” This period affords the prisoner his only contact with other human beings. This degree of isolation exceeds almost anything known in the incarceration regimes for criminals in the United States, and would be unthinkable under Geneva. The immense destruction that isolation works on the psyche was well documented in the early 1950s when North Korea imposed on downed U.S. airmen a regimen similar to that in use at Camps 5 and 6 in Guantanamo.

This for a prisoner never charged with any crimnal or other wrongdoing, about whom a military panel unanimously concluded, almost three years ago, that there was “no credible evidence” to support a status determination of “enemy combatant.”

Sabin Willett, Bingham McCutchen, 150 Federal Street, Boston MA 02110

]]>