REPRIEVE uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. Working on the frontline, they provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. They promote the rule of law around the world, and secure each person’s right to a fair trial. REPRIEVE’s lawyers are currently representing over 30 prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. They also assist British nationals facing the death penalty around the world, and are conducting investigations into ‘extraordinary renditions’ and secret prisons in the so-called ‘War on Terror.’ For more information regarding REPRIEVE please visit: www.reprieve.org.uk

Humanade is funding REPRIEVE’s ‘Next Friend’ Investigator to work to reunite ‘Ghost Prisoners’ being held in US Sponsored Secret Prisons around the world with the rule of law.

When a prisoner is held by the US, or one of its proxy states, a habeas corpus challenge to the prisoner’s illegal detention can only be brought with permission from the prisoner or someone close to him. Since the prisoner is held incommunicado, this means inevitably that the person giving authorisation must be a family member or other ‘next friend’ (the legal term). None of the prisoners in Guantánamo Bay could secure legal representation were it not for the ‘next friend authorisations’ that have been secured from their family members all around the world.

With Humanade’s support, REPRIEVE has been able to gain authorisations from family members and to build ground-breaking cases – in jurisdictions around the world – that directly challenge the US-led policies of torture and disappearance.

Thanks to Humanade, REPRIEVE represents five new prisoners tortured in CIA prisons and the Next Friend investigator has directly assisted well over 100 people held in secret US prisons in the Horn of Africa, North Africa and Pakistan.  With the assistance of Humanade, Reprieve is building strong and strategically key cases that directly challenge the US practise of “disappearance”, and is able to engage in cutting-edge, cross-jurisdictional litigation with partners across three continents – in Europe, the US and Africa.

The 280 prisoners in Guantánamo Bay are only a small minority of the total number of prisoners held out of reach of the rule of law in the name of the US “War on Terror.” We believe there are at least 17,000 “ghost prisoners” in US custody, so the Guantánamo prisoners comprise a small minority of the total.  The other unfortunate ghost prisoners are in secret prisons scattered from Asia to Africa and the Middle East.  None has been allowed access to lawyers or courts.  This is the focus of the REPRIEVE ‘Next Friend’ Investigator position, funded by Humanade.

Thanks to Humanade’s support the outcome for this quarter is as follows:

Horn of Africa
Reprieve visited a Tanzanian torture victim client with a team of medical doctors to develop a programme of medical and psychological support. We have now succeeded in putting in place a comprehensive programme of medical and psychiatric support for this client, and are working with our partners in the US and East Africa on a pilot project providing similar support to other such victims in the region.

Reprieve is working with partners to develop a regional accountability programme involving litigation at the East African Court of Justice, and a series of thematic hearings at the African Commission.

The imminent UK torture inquiry has put our UK litigation strategy on hold, however we are still actively gathering facts in relation to current illegal detention practices in the region that involve the UK, and will be feeding this into the inquiry.

Afghanistan/Pakistan
Alongside colleagues in Reprieve and partner organisations, Reprieve has worked on filing suit in the US, the UK and Pakistan, for six Bagram prisoners, and obtained authorisations for four more since last quarter.

Europe
Reprieve now has authorisation to represent two prisoners who were tortured in European CIA prisons – Abu Zubaydah and Abu Faraj al-Libbi. Reprieve arranged a meeting of key partners working on accountability in Poland and Lithuania, and we now have strong international teams working on cases in both jurisdictions. Reprieve is working on submissions that we hope to file in the next quarter in both cases.

UK
Reprieve has also commenced litigation to force the British government to disclose the identities of two men it admits to having captured in Iraq and transferred to US custody for rendition to Bagram Airforce Base in Afghanistan, where they remain. Reprieve had obtained a significant amount of worrying information about the plight of the two men, and during the previous quarter, we commenced litigation for the two men, which attracted a great deal of media attention. During this recent quarter, Reprieve met with the family and obtained authorisation to represent the second “unknown prisoner”. We have now filed suit in the UK for this man.

Reprieve had investigated and provided a witness statement to show that the prisoner on board one of the conceded rendition flights through Diego Garcia was a Pakistani national called Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni, and that he was en-route to Egypt where he endured months of torture before being taken to Afghanistan and then Guantanamo Bay. In the past month, we have received new – and currently confidential – new information in relation to detentions on Diego Garcia.

Since the new government came to power, Reprieve has been working hard to compel a comprehensive inquiry into UK involvement in torture. That inquiry was announced today, and Reprieve will continue to work to broaden the terms of the inquiry and bring to light important facts. You can read more here.

Tags: ghost prisoner, guantanamo bay, human rights, reprieve