GENEVA: A Pakistani man held at the US Guantanamo Bay detention facility since 2006 should be released immediately and given a right to compensation, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said on Wednesday.
The detention of Ammar Al-Baluchi is arbitrary, breaches international human rights law and has no legal basis, said a written opinion by the group of five independent experts, who report to the UN Human Rights Council.
Al-Baluchi, a Kuwaiti-born Pakistani citizen also known as Abdul Aziz Ali, is the nephew and an alleged co-conspirator of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“Mr. Al-Baluchi has been subject to prolonged detention on discriminatory grounds and has not been afforded equality of arms in terms of having adequate facilities for the preparation of his defense under the same conditions as the prosecution,” the experts said.
The US judicial system normally affords detainees guarantees of due process and a fair trial, but he had been denied those rights, an act of discrimination based on his status as a foreign national and his religion, they said.
His detention contravened at least 13 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the group added.
The five members of the group are José Antonio Guevara Bermúdez from México, Elina Steinerte from Latvia, Leigh Toomey from Australia, Seong-Phil Hong from South Korea, and Sètondji Roland Adjovi from Benin.
In December, another expert mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, the UN special rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer, said he had information that Al-Baluchi was still being tortured, years after Washington banned “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
A Pentagon spokesman said at the time that the allegation was not true, and such claims had been investigated on several occasions, and no credible evidence had been found.
The prison, which was opened by President George W. Bush to hold terrorism suspects captured overseas after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, came to symbolize harsh detention practices that opened the United States to accusations of torture.
His successor Barack Obama reduced the inmate population to 41, but fell short of fulfilling his promise to close the jail.
President Donald Trump asked Congress last year for funds to upgrade the jail, having said during his electoral campaign that he wanted to “load it up with some bad dudes.”
The Working Group, which has previously expressed concerns about Guantanamo Bay to the US government, said its closure must remain a priority, adding that systematic imprisonment in violation of the rules of international law may constitute crimes against humanity. (Reporting by Tom Miles)
UN body says Guantanamo detention of Pakistani has no legal basis
UN body says Guantanamo detention of Pakistani has no legal basis
Eleven held in France over killing of far-right activist
- Far-right activist Quentin Deranque, 23, died on Saturday after being beaten by hard-left activists
- Videos of the confrontation were widely shared on social media
PARIS: Eleven people including an aide to a French far-left lawmaker were arrested in France overnight and early on Wednesday on suspicion of involvement in the killing of a far-right activist.
Shortly after the announcement, the Paris headquarters of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party received a bomb threat and had to be evacuated until the all-clear was given when police secured the scene.
Far-right activist Quentin Deranque, 23, died on Saturday after being beaten by hard-left activists outside a conference center in Lyon where Rima Hassan, an LFI member of the European Parliament, was speaking.
Videos of the confrontation were widely shared on social media. Hassan and other members of the LFI have condemned the killing.
The Lyon prosecutors’ office, which has opened a murder investigation, said 11 suspects have been detained so far. Among them is an aide to LFI lawmaker Raphael Arnault, who said on Tuesday that the aide had “stopped all parliamentary work.”
“It is now up to the investigation to determine responsibility,” Arnault said on X.
Both the hard left and hard right have been capitalizing on frustration with the minority centrist government ahead of local elections next month and a presidential vote next year, set to take place in a highly polarized environment.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the LFI’s national coordinator Manuel Bompard said his party was in no way responsible for Deranque’s death, and that it now felt threatened itself.
Jordan Bardella, party president of the far-right National Rally, has accused LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon of opening the “doors of the National Assembly to presumed murderers.”
