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00:00Just 15 detainees remain on the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, six of whom
00:06have never been charged with a crime.
00:08There's been a recent push by the Biden administration to clear the facility, which has seen over
00:12two dozen men transferred out of it in recent weeks.
00:15Men who had been held for decades without any charges being filed against them either.
00:19At its peak, Guantanamo held some 800 people.
00:22Let's speak now to Professor of Law, Conflict and Global Development at Reading University,
00:28Rosa Friedman.
00:29Thanks for your time.
00:30We're looking at this, it's nearly but not fully cleared, the Biden administration making
00:34moves late in the game.
00:36And of course, Guantanamo has been open for years.
00:38Why do you think, firstly, it's taking so long?
00:41Well, we know that under the Bush administration, more than 500 prisoners were released.
00:49Obama signed an executive order in his first year to close Guantanamo and transferred 197
00:54of those detainees.
00:56But when Trump came in on his first term, he made a pledge to keep Gitmo open, as he
01:02called it.
01:03And there's clearly a concern that he will make good on that promise.
01:07He's already reversed Obama's order to close it.
01:11And it looks like President Biden is trying to close down Guantanamo before the end of
01:16his term.
01:18But even when you look back, Obama had eight years in office.
01:21Was that not enough to move things forward and get it done?
01:24Absolutely.
01:27It's clear that Guantanamo Bay has been a legal black hole and a site for grave human
01:31rights abuses for very many years.
01:34There was a drive to transfer these prisoners, the ones that had not been charged, some of
01:40them for almost decades.
01:42There was a drive to then take those who could be charged in the U.S. and bring them to courts
01:47there, those who could be convicted of terrorist activities.
01:51But the question then was what to do with this last group.
01:55Many of whom came from countries like Yemen, where there was war ongoing and they couldn't
01:58be transferred to a country where there was war.
02:01In fact, these prisoners that were released yesterday, two days ago, were set to be released
02:07on the 7th of October 2023.
02:09And Biden changed his mind because of the optics, the political optics of releasing
02:14people from Guantanamo Bay on the day that Hamas committed such terrorist atrocities
02:18in Israel.
02:20They've been released to Oman, which is an ally of the U.S. and has previously taken
02:25in former detainees.
02:27But it's unclear then what will happen to them afterwards and whether in fact they will
02:30be released to go back to Yemen if they so choose.
02:33Indeed.
02:34You know, over the years we've seen a number of transfers and the question would be what
02:38happens to these men?
02:39Do they remain in detention?
02:40Do they get to reintegrate back into society?
02:43Does it lead to radicalization?
02:46What we've seen very much is that it depends on the country that the detainees or the former
02:51detainees are released to.
02:53There was one detainee who complained that in Serbia he was tracked and followed and
02:56had his human rights continued to be abused in that country.
03:00Certainly, many of them have never received the medical treatment, the psychological,
03:04social and physical medical treatment that they need to rehabilitate.
03:09Lots were transferred under the Bush administration to Afghanistan and we have no way of knowing
03:13whether they were radicalized or radicalized others having been released.
03:18And the US has not provided restitution or remedies or in fact done an independent or
03:23thorough investigation.
03:25And it's clear that the US needs to take responsibility for these men and their well-being after they're
03:31released, which so far it's failed to do.
03:34Because as you say, these men, a lot of them, a big number, were never ever charged and
03:39yet they've been held prisoners for decades on end.
03:43Have they no comeback against that?
03:46Absolutely.
03:47The United States didn't want to charge them as criminals in the US because then they would
03:52have access to justice and access to evidence being brought against them.
03:56They didn't want to hold them as prisoners of war in Guantanamo Bay because if they were
04:01held as prisoners of war they would have certain rights under the Geneva Convention.
04:04So the US created this legal fiction calling them unlawful enemy combatants and then held
04:09them without charge and interrogated them.
04:12In this site that's outside of the US territory, but under US control, the US has failed to
04:19allow courts to review the cases of former detainees.
04:24It has allowed some UN independent human rights investigations to take place, but it has not
04:29upheld any of the recommendations from those UN human rights experts who have demanded
04:33access to justice, particularly for the torture and unsafe and unsanitary living conditions
04:41and the detention without charge, which violates fundamental human rights principles.
04:47What we need is an independent human rights investigation and what we need is access to
04:51justice, but it's unclear whether that will ever happen.
04:54And who might bring it?
04:56I start to wonder, can you remind us where all these detainees came from?
05:02Where did the US, when did they make those arrests and under what conditions?
05:07After the 9-11 terrorist atrocities against the United States, there were large cash payments
05:13being offered by people that were linked to the United States.
05:17The US might claim that they weren't their state agents.
05:20Large cash payments being offered for any information about terrorism.
05:24And of course, where there is great poverty, where there is conflict, where there are unstable
05:29regions, people are tempted by large cash payments.
05:33And many of the detainees were informed against for that reward.
05:41That included a number of Uyghur men who there was no evidence against that has come to light
05:47and they have subsequently been transferred.
05:51Many of the people who were informed against were criminals on some level, but were not
05:57terrorist masterminds.
05:58There's very much a bell curve here.
05:59And at one extreme end, there were people that had no criminal background whatsoever.
06:04And at the other extreme end, we know that there were people who are very closely linked
06:07to Osama bin Laden and who may well have masterminded the 9-11 attacks.
06:12But the vast majority of the detainees were people perhaps with criminal backgrounds,
06:16perhaps with some links to some radical organizations, but who have been transferred,
06:22never having been charged under these sort of oblique military courts that were set up
06:27in Guantanamo Bay and have been transferred back often to far-flung places around the
06:31world without ever knowing why it was that they were being held for so long.
06:37And what do you think might happen to the 15 that are left?
06:41Like, do we know more about who they are and what might happen to them now?
06:44Well, we know that six have never been charged.
06:46We know that three have been cleared for release and three others are awaiting clearance.
06:52Two of them have been sentenced.
06:53So some of them may well be sentenced or even brought to the United States for court
07:00cases against them, for charges to be brought.
07:02But we imagine that the others will be transferred at some point.
07:08Whether that happens before Trump comes into power remains to be seen.
07:13Do you think Trump will see any interest in keeping Guantanamo open?
07:17Well, as I said, in 2017, he talked very strongly about this line about keeping Gitmo
07:23open. And there are concerns that he might then use it for other purposes, potentially
07:30for those that masterminded the Hamas terrorist atrocities in Israel on the 7th of
07:35October or for Houthis or for other sort of terrorists backed by Iran who have been
07:41perpetrating atrocities over the last two years.
07:45That is the deep concern.
07:46At the same time, the time is running out for Biden to transfer out all of the last
07:5215 and to close Guantanamo.
07:55So, as I say, it remains to be seen what will happen.
07:58Rosa Friedman, professor at the University of Reading, thanks very much for your time.