Daily News Channel
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Monday his country will consider accepting an unspecified number of detainees from the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In an interview with CNN, Berlusconi said Italy is prepared to help the United States deal with terrorism by allowing Guantanamo detainees to be relocated there.
President Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney offered competing views on how to keep America safe in back-to-back speeches Thursday. Obama said his administration is trying to clean up “a mess” left behind by the Bush administration. He defended his plan to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, his ban on torture, the release of Bush-era interrogation memos and his objection to the release of prisoner photos.
A terror suspect detained at the U.S.
Senate Democrats will pull money to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison from a war funding bill instead of face an onslaught of criticism from Republicans, CNN has learned. Democratic leaders made the decision Tuesday morning, according to two Senate Democratic leadership sources. It is a blow to President Obama who announced, as one of his first official duties as president, that he would close the base by next January 22.
U.S. officials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have released a well-known Algerian detainee and flown him to France, where he will be allowed to join family members. French officials said they agreed to accept Lakhdar Boumediene, who is not a French citizen, because he has relatives in the country.
The accused terrorist who said he was tortured into making a false connection between al Qaeda and Iraq has died in a Libyan prison, human rights monitors said Tuesday. Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi’s allegation that Iraqi agents trained al Qaeda operatives in the use of chemical and biological weapons was “pivotal” to the Bush administration’s case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, said Stacy Sullivan, a counterterrorism adviser for the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch. “He’s a fairly significant figure in the counterterrorism world, and his testimony I would say provided the linchpin for the invasion of Iraq,” she said.
Attorney General Eric Holder, speaking in Berlin, Germany, on Wednesday night, appealed to European nations to accept some of the detainees held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to help the Obama administration close down the prison facility. “I know that Europe did not open Guantanamo, and that in fact, a great many on this continent opposed it,” Holder said in his address at the American Academy of Berlin
Senior Bush administration officials authorized aggressive interrogation techniques — including forced nudity and waterboarding — on suspected terrorists, despite concerns from military psychologists and attorneys, according to a Senate report released Tuesday. “The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees,” said the report, which reveals new details about prisoner treatment at U.S.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says he would be willing to accept prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention center, which U.S. President Barack Obama has said he will close, the Venezuelan government said Thursday. Chavez also said he hopes the United States will give Cuba back the land on which the naval base is located, the government said in a news release.
A senior Spanish judge has ordered prosecutors to investigate whether key Bush aides should be charged with crimes over the Guantanamo Bay detention center, a lawyer said Sunday. Investigating magistrate Baltasar Garzon has passed a 98-page complaint to prosecutors that accuses former Attorney General Alberto R.