A Detainee's Diary By Joe Nocera

January 20, 2015

Last week, several Republican senators, including John McCain, called on President Obama to stop releasing detainees from the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Their argument was that after the terror attacks in Paris, the 122 prisoners still in Guantánamo should be made to stay right where they are, where they can do the West no harm.

On Tuesday, one of those detainees, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was sent to Guantánamo in 2002 and remains there to this day, is poised to offer a powerful rejoinder. Three years into his detention -- years during which he was isolated, tortured, beaten, sexually abused and humiliated -- Slahi wrote a 466-page, 122,000-word account of what had happened to him up to that point.

His manuscript was immediately classified, and it took years of litigation and negotiation by Slahi's pro bono lawyers to force the military to declassify a redacted version. Even with the redactions, ''Guantánamo Diary'' is an extraordinary document -- ''A vision of hell, beyond Orwell, beyond Kafka,'' as John le Carré aptly describes it in a back cover blurb -- that every American should read.

A native of Mauritania, Slahi, 44, is fluent in several languages -- he learned English while in Guantánamo -- and lived in Canada and Germany as well as the Muslim world. He came under suspicion because an Al Qaeda member, who had been based in Montreal -- where Slahi had also lived -- was arrested and charged with plotting to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport in 1999. Slahi was questioned about this plot several times, but he was always released. After 9/11, Slahi was detained again for questioning. That time, he was turned over to the American authorities, in whose captivity he has been ever since.

What was he accused of? Slahi asked this question of his captors often and was never given a straight answer. This, of course, is part of the problem with Guantánamo, a prison where being formally charged with a crime is a luxury, not a requirement. His efforts to tell the truth -- that he had no involvement in any acts of terrorism -- only angered his interrogators. ''Looks like a dog, walks like a dog, smells like a dog, barks like a dog, must be a dog,'' one interrogator used to say. That was the best his captors could do to explain why he was there. Yet the military was so sure he was a key Al Qaeda player that he was subjected to ''special interrogation'' techniques that had been signed off by the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, himself.

''Special interrogation techniques,'' of course, is a euphemism for torture. The sections of the book that describe his torture make for harrowing reading. Slahi was so sleep-deprived that he eventually started to hallucinate. Chained to the ground, he was forced to ''stand'' in positions that were extremely painful. Interrogators went at him in shifts -- 24 hours a day. Sometimes during interrogations, female interrogators rubbed their breasts over his body and fondled him.

It is hard to read about his torture without feeling a sense of shame.

Does Slahi crack? Of course: to get the torture to stop, he finally lied, telling his interrogators what he thought they wanted to hear, just as torture victims have done since the Inquisition. ''Torture doesn't guarantee that the detainee cooperates,'' writes Slahi. ''In order to stop torture, the detainee has to please his assailant, even with untruthful, and sometime misleading [intelligence].'' McCain, who was tortured in Vietnam, knows this; last month, he made a powerful speech in which he condemned America's use of torture, saying, ''the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies, our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights.'' That is also why it is so disheartening that McCain has allied himself with those who want to keep Guantánamo open.

In 2010, a federal district judge ruled in favor of Slahi's habeas corpus petition because the evidence against him was so thin. The government appealed, and the order remains in limbo.

I asked Nancy Hollander, one of Slahi's lawyers, to describe her client. ''He is funny, smart, compassionate and thoughtful,'' she said. All of these qualities come through in his memoir, which is surprisingly without rancor. ''I have only written what I experienced, what I saw, and what I learned firsthand,'' he writes toward the end of his book. ''I have tried not to exaggerate, nor to understate. I have tried to be as fair as possible, to the U.S. government, to my brothers, and to myself.'' One of the wonders of the book is that he does come across as fair to all, even his torturers.

But the quote that sticks with me most is something that one of his guards told him, something that could stand as a fitting epitaph for Guantánamo itself: ''I know I can go to hell for what I did to you.''

Survivors File U.N. Complaint Against Canada for Failing to Prosecute George W. Bush for Torture - CCR

Survivors File U.N. Complaint Against Canada for Failing to Prosecute George W. Bush for Torture

November 14, 2012, Vancouver and New York— Today, four torture survivors filed a complaint against Canada with the United Nations Committee against Torture for the country’s failure to investigate and prosecute former President George W. Bush during his visit to British Columbia last year.   As a signatory to the Convention against Torture, Canada has an obligation to investigate and prosecute a torture suspect on its soil. This is the first time a complaint concerning torture allegations against a high-level U.S. official has been filed with the U.N. Committee. The Canadian Centre for International Justice (CCIJ) and the U.S.-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed the complaint on the men’s behalf.

“Canada has the jurisdiction and the obligation to prosecute a torture suspect present in Canada, including a former head of state, and even one from a powerful country,” said Matt Eisenbrandt, CCIJ’s Legal Director. “Canada’s failure to conduct a criminal investigation and prosecution against Mr. Bush when there was overwhelming evidence against him constitutes a clear violation of its international obligations and its own policy not to be a safe haven for torturers.”

The four men – Hassan bin Attash, Sami el-Hajj, Muhammed Khan Tumani and Murat Kurnaz – found their long quest for justice stymied in October 2011. Canada’s Attorney General refused to conduct a criminal investigation against Mr. Bush, and the Attorney General of British Columbia swiftly intervened to shut down a private criminal prosecution submitted to a provincial court in her jurisdiction during Mr. Bush’s visit. This occurred despite the groups’ submission of a 69-page draft indictment and approximately 4000 pages of evidence against Bush consisting of extensive reports and investigations conducted by multiple U.S. agencies and the United Nations.

The Committee against Torture can require Canada to explain the actions that led to the case being closed without any investigation and can then issue a decision on whether Canada has breached its obligations under the convention.  If the committee finds Canada in violation, it can specify appropriate remedial measures. 

“Through this process, the world can learn whether Canada’s actions were grounded in law or in politics. Canada’s refusal to investigate and prosecute George W. Bush marked a low-point in the ongoing struggle to end impunity for torturers and denied these men the opportunity to achieve some measure of justice,” said Katherine Gallagher, Senior Staff Attorney at CCR and legal representative for the men. “They now call upon the Committee to send a clear message that states must uphold their obligations under the Convention against Torture and cannot allow other factors – including political considerations – to interfere with the commitment to end impunity for torturers.”

Ratified by 153 countries around the world, the U.N. Convention against Torture requires states to investigate alleged torturers present on their soil and submit them for prosecution—or extradite them to another country for prosecution. Canada implemented this provision of the Convention into its domestic criminal code and explicitly authorizes prosecution for torture occurring outside Canadian borders. Canada, along with 55 other countries, allows individuals to file petitions with the U.N. Committee for alleged breaches of the Convention; the United States has not signed on to this provision.

In both Afghanistan and Guantánamo, the four men who submitted the complaint survived inhumane treatment including beatings, being hung from walls or ceilings, sleep, food and water deprivation, and exposure to extreme temperatures. U.S. officials eventually released Kurnaz after five years, and both el-Hajj, a reporter with Al-Jazeera, and Khan Tumani, 17 at the time of his detention, after approximately seven years, without ever bringing charges against them. Bin Attash, only 16 when he was detained, remains at Guantánamo, though he has never been formally charged with any wrongdoing.

Earlier this year, CCIJ and CCR submitted a report about the Bush torture case to the Committee against Torture during an examination of Canada’s compliance with the Convention. The Committee, in its concluding observations, called on the Canadian government to “take all necessary measures with a view to ensuring the exercise of the universal jurisdiction over persons responsible for acts of torture, including foreign perpetrators who are temporarily present in Canada.”

In February 2011, the Center for Constitutional Rights, on behalf of two survivors and supported by CCIJ and other human rights organizations, attempted to initiate criminal proceedings against Bush ahead of a scheduled visit to Switzerland. Bush cancelled the trip after news of the prosecution, and the apparent unwillingness of Swiss authorities to stop it, became known.

Read the complaint at CCR’s case page.

Senegal Told to Prosecute Ex-President of Chad (ICJ Judgment)

Senegal Told to Prosecute Ex-President of Chad (ICJ Judgment)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/world/africa/senegal-to-prosecute-former-president-of-chad-hissene-habre.html?_r=2&pagewanted=print

July 20, 2012   By MARLISE SIMONS

PARIS — The International Court of Justice on Friday ordered Senegal to prosecute the former president of Chad, Hissène Habré, who has lived comfortably for two decades in Senegal despite indictments in connection with political killings, torture and a host of other brutalities.

The court decision, which could affect exiled leaders in other countries, found that Senegal had breached the 1984 Convention Against Torture by ignoring charges against Mr. Habré. The ruling ordered the Senegalese authorities either to prosecute him “without further delay” or to extradite him for trial elsewhere.

In Senegal, the government sent extra security to Mr. Habré’s luxury villa on the outskirts of Dakar, the capital, where he has lived undisturbed since he fled a rebellion at home in 1990.

His fearsome rule, from 1982 to 1990, has been largely forgotten in North Africa, overtaken by other strongmen and conflicts.

If a trial does go ahead in Senegal, it will be the first time the president of one country is tried before in another country’s (domestic) court on charges of crimes committed at home, officials said.  Other heads of state who have been prosecuted have appeared before international courts or tribunals.

Justice Minister Aminata Touré, reached by telephone in Dakar, said Senegal would abide by the court’s order.

He would be tried under Senegalese law by a panel of local and African judges set up in agreement with the African Union, an arrangement Ms. Touré called “a novelty in international law.”

Neither Mr. Habré nor his lawyer could be reached for comment, but his comfortable exile may be coming to an end. Although Chad is among the world’s poorest nations, Mr. Habre is said to have acquired a sizable fortune. The Chad Truth Commission said in 1992 that even during the final days of his rule, he stole more than $11 million from the country’s treasury and central bank.

Mr. Habré came to power reportedly backed by covert support from the United States, during the Reagan administration, and other Western countries that wanted a counterweight in Chad to its troublemaking neighbor, Libya, at the time under the leadership of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. The truth commission said Mr. Habré’s government had killed up to 40,000 opponents and tortured many others.

A court in Chad has sentenced him to death in absentia, and courts in Belgium and Senegal have sentenced him for crimes against humanity, including torture, but Senegalese politicians presented numerous obstacles to his prosecution. It was Belgium that filed the case against Senegal at the court in The Hague, arguing that he should either be tried in Senegal or extradited to Belgium. It denounced Senegal for turning down four Belgian extradition requests.

Antigone, jus cogens and the International Court of Justice   July 22, 2012

http://humanrightsdoctorate.blogspot.com/2012/07/antigone-jus-cogens-and-international.html

Friday’s judgment of the International Court of Justice says:

99. In the Court’s opinion, the prohibition of torture is part of customary international law and it has become a peremptory norm (jus cogens).

That prohibition is grounded in a widespread international practice and on the opinio juris of States. It appears in numerous international instruments of universal application (in particular the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the 1949 Geneva Conventions for the protection of war victims; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966; General Assembly resolution 3452/30 of 9 December 1975 on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment), and it has been introduced into the domestic law of almost all States; finally, acts of torture are regularly denounced within national and international fora.

The Abuse of Solitary Confinement

The Abuse of Solitary Confinement

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/opinion/the-abuse-of-solitary-confinement.html?_r=3&pagewanted=print

June 20, 2012

Solitary confinement in this country has devolved from a short-term punishment imposed infrequently for violating prison rules into a routine form of prison management. Today, tens of thousands of local, state and federal prisoners are held in prolonged abusive isolation — in tiny, windowless cells for up to 23 hours a day.

On Tuesday, a Senate judiciary subcommittee met to consider the many costs of this practice — the first time that Congress has even acknowledged the problem.

More than 80,000 of the nation’s 2.3 million prisoners are held in isolation, noted the subcommittee’s chairman, Senator Richard Durbin, a Democrat of Illinois. While defenders claim that solitary confinement is needed to control the most violent prisoners, prolonged isolation is known to induce suffering and mental illness. About half of prison suicides take place in isolation units.

A 2006 study of prison safety and abuse led by a former federal court of appeals judge, John Gibbons, and a former attorney general, the late Nicholas de B. Katzenbach, raised concerns about higher recidivism rates when prisoners are released directly from solitary to the community. High rates of security segregation can actually increase incidents of violence.

Some of the most moving testimony at the hearing came from Anthony Graves, who was wrongly convicted of murder and served a decade of his 18 years in incarceration in brutal solitary confinement in Texas before his exoneration and release from prison in 2010. He described the agony of living in the “worst conditions imaginable” and the continued psychological toll.

The committee also heard from Christopher Epps, who is the commissioner of the Department of Corrections in Mississippi, one of a growing number of states that have reduced prison violence and reaped millions in budgetary savings by steeply cutting back on solitary confinement. Discouragingly, the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Charles Samuels Jr., expressed scant interest in pursuing similar reforms even though 15,000 federal prisoners — 7 percent of the total population — are currently serving time in solitary. That compares with just 1.4 percent in Mississippi, a state hardly known for being soft on crime.

Senator Durbin says he is working on legislation that would require greater transparency about state and federal use of solitary confinement and looking at ways to remove barriers that make it nearly impossible for inmates held in solitary to protect their rights in court. The first step, though, should be clear standards minimizing the use of this form of punishment, including an immediate, strictly enforced bar on holding children and mentally ill inmates in severe conditions of isolation.

U.N. report finds torture by Afghan authorities - potential complicity of the US?

report

Treatment of Conflict­Related Detainees in Afghan Custody

http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/Documents/October10_%202011_UNAMA_Detention_Full-Report_ENG.pdf

The International Herald Tribune October 12, 2011 Wednesday  BY ALISSA J. RUBIN

U.N. report finds torture by Afghan authorities

A study released by the United Nations provides a devastating picture of abuses of detained militants by arms of the Afghanistan government.

Detainees are hung by their hands and beaten with cables, and in some cases their genitals are twisted until the prisoners lose consciousness at sites run by the Afghan intelligence service and the Afghan National Police, according to a report by the United Nations.

The report, based on interviews over the past year with more than 300 suspects linked to the insurgency, is the most comprehensive look at the Afghan detention system and an issue that has long concerned Western officials and human rights groups. It paints a devastating picture of abuse, citing evidence of ''systematic torture'' during interrogations by Afghan intelligence and police officials even as U.S. and other Western backers provide training and pay for nearly the entire budget of the Afghan ministries running the detention centers.

The report, released Monday, does not assess whether U.S. officials knew of the abuses. But such widespread use of torture in a detention system supported by U.S. mentors and money raises serious questions about the potential complicity of U.S. officials and whether they benefited from information obtained from suspects who had been tortured.

''I know of no one who knew about these alleged abuses as they were happening,'' said a U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issues involved. ''Thus, it's impossible to know if there was any information passed on that came in some form from these alleged incidents.''

At a minimum, there appears to have been little effort to scrutinize the practices of the Afghan security forces at the detention centers, as pressure has built to move as much responsibility as possible to the Afghans and to reduce U.S. involvement in the country.

As the United States looks to wind down a decade of war in Afghanistan, the report threatens to complicate efforts to transfer more detention responsibilities to the Afghans. It could also set in motion provisions of U.S. law that would require the United States to cut off money to any Afghan unit involved in abuses.

The Afghan government denied the worst of the allegations in the report, while allowing that there were ''deficiencies'' in a war-torn country that routinely faced suicide bombings and other forms of terrorism.

Early word of the findings provoked immediate action. After seeing a draft of the report in September, Gen. John R. Allen, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, halted transfers of those suspected of being insurgents to 16 of the facilities identified as sites where torture or abuse routinely took place. He has since initiated a plan to investigate the sites, provide training in modern interrogation techniques and monitor the Afghan government's practices. The U.S. Embassy is now heavily involved in devising a long-term monitoring program for Afghan detention sites, U.S. officials said.

In a statement, NATO officials said they were working with the United Nations and the Afghan government to ''improve detention operations'' and ''establish safeguards.''

Nearly half of the detainees interviewed by U.N. researchers who were in detention sites run by the Afghan intelligence service, known as the National Directorate of Security, told of torture. The national police treatment of detainees was somewhat less severe and widespread, the report found. Its research covered 47 facilities in 22 provinces. Most of those interviewed were suspected of involvement in the insurgency.

Of the 324 security-related detainees interviewed, 89 had been handed over to the Afghan intelligence service or the police by international military forces, and in 19 cases, the men were tortured once they were in Afghan custody. The U.N. Convention Against Torture prohibits the transfer of a detained person to the custody of another state where there are substantial grounds for believing that the detainee is at risk of torture.

''Use of interrogation methods, including suspension, beatings, electric shock, stress positions and threatened sexual assault is unacceptable by any standard of international human rights law,'' the report said.

One detainee described being taken in for interrogation in Kandahar and having the interrogator ask whether he knew the name of the official's office. The detainee said that after he answered, the interrogator said, ''You should confess what you have done in the past as Taliban - even stones confess here.''

The man was beaten over several days for hours at a time with electrical wire and then signed a confession, the report said.

The report pointed out that even though the abusive practices were pervasive, the Afghan government did not condone torture and had explicitly said the abuses found by the United Nations were not government policy. Several longtime aid workers said that as disturbing as the allegations were, there had been improvements in detainee treatment, particularly since the Soviet occupation, when many people were detained and never heard from again.

''Reform is both possible and desired,'' said Staffan de Mistura, the U.N. special representative for Afghanistan, noting that the government had cooperated with the report's researchers and had begun to take remedial action.

''We take this report very seriously,'' said Shaida M. Abdali, the Afghan deputy national security adviser.

''Our government, especially the president, has taken a very strong stand on the protection of everyone's human rights, their humanity, everywhere and especially in prisons and in detention,'' he said.

The government said that it had set up a group to look into the problem and that it had dismissed several employees at a unit known as Department 124, where the United Nations said the torture appeared to have been the most entrenched. The intelligence service is now admonishing newly assigned interrogators to observe human rights, the government said in its response.

Still, a senior diplomat in Afghanistan said, the report had the potential ''to undermine the strategic partnership'' with both the European Union and the United States, referring to the agreement for future relations that the Americans and Afghans had hoped to complete by December.  It could also jeopardize U.S. financing. Under a law written by Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, neither the State Department nor the Defense Department can provide assistance or training to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if there is credible evidence of gross human rights abuses. However, financing can go forward to other units not involved and even to the offending units if serious remedial actions are taken.

''This would clearly constitute credible evidence,'' said Tom Malinowski, the director of the Washington bureau of Human Rights Watch, who has tracked the Leahy law.

Recently, the United States pulled financing for some units of the Pakistani military that were involved in extrajudicial killings in the tribal areas.  Money for the Afghan intelligence agency may not be not covered by the law, but it was unlikely that the Obama administration would use a legal technicality to continue financing the agency if torture allegations persisted, Mr. Malinowski said.

Ultimately the prosecution of the torturers is required, said Georgette Gagnon, the director of human rights for the United Nations in Afghanistan, in order to ''prevent and end such acts in the future.''

A number of instances have raised similar questions in other places, including Uzbekistan, Pakistan and El Salvador, according to a RAND Corp. report in 2006. Aid to Colombia in fighting its drug cartels and insurgents has also raised some of these issues and has periodically been halted to some military units as a result of gross violations of human rights, Mr. Malinowski said.

Bush Admits Authorizing Waterboarding

http://opiniojuris.org/2010/11/04/bush-admits-authorizing-waterboarding/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+opiniojurisfeed+(Opinio+Juris)

by Kevin Jon Heller

A couple of weeks ago, New Stream Dream accused me of never believing individuals who — like Khadr and Lynne Stewart — confess to committing crimes. Well, I believe this confession:

In his book, titled “Decision Points,” Bush recounts being asked by the CIA whether it could proceed with waterboarding Mohammed, who Bush said was suspected of knowing about still-pending terrorist plots against the United States. Bush writes that his reply was “Damn right” and states that he would make the same decision again to save lives, according to a someone close to Bush who has read the book.

Sadly, because we are supposed to look forward and not backward — unlike other states, as Glenn Greenwald constantly reminds us — Bush will never be held accountable for admitting that he committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. But he certainly should be.

Taylor Jr. Conviction Affirmed (11th Cir.)

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 01:44 AM PDT

We've blogged before on the criminal proceedings against Roy Belfast Jr (a.k.a. Charles MacArthur Emmanuel ) the son of Charles Taylor Sr., former President of Liberia. (See here, here, here, & here) (photo, below right).
Yesterday, the 11th Circuit (Judges Birch, Marcus & Baldock (10th Cir. sitting by designation)) affirmed Taylor Jr.'s conviction and 97-year sentence for torture and other atrocities committed in Liberia in 1999-2003 when Taylor Jr. was the head of the Anti-Terrorism Unit, an elite guard charged with protecting Taylor Sr. and with torturing prisoners. The facts presented at trial were horrific: execution-style killings, prison pits filled with corpses and stagnant water, beheadings, & burnings with hot wax or plastic.
Taylor had appealed his conviction on a number of grounds, including that

• The definition of torture in 18 U.S.C. §2340 (the federal torture statute, see our prior coverage here) exceeded the definition of the crime in the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT). Specifically, in what amounted to a facial challenge, he argued that

1. The CAT requires proof that the defendant was acting in order to extract information or other such purposes whereas the statute is silent as to motive (or specific intent if it maybe called that).
2. The CAT requires that the torture must actually result in severe pain or suffering, whereas the statute requries that the defendant act with the specific intent to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering.
3. The CAT reaches torture committed by public officials or persons acting in an official capacity, where as the statute reaches torture committed "under color of law."

• The Statute could not apply to conduct committed prior to when Liberia had ratified the treaty or to extraterritorial conduct.
• Congress had no authority to penalize conspiracy to commit torture in §2340A(c) absent a basis to do so in the treaty;
• The conviction under 18 U.S.C. §924, a weapons enhancement charge, was improper because that statute does not apply extraterritorially; and
• There were procedural and evidentiary errors that rendered the trial and outcome fundamentally unfair.

The appeals court rejected each of these arguments in turn.
► With respect to the definition variations, the court ruled that §2340 is a valid exercise of congressional power under the Necessary and Proper Clause, which grants Congress the power to:

make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 18.

So long as the enactment bears a rational relationship to the treaty, it will be valid. Slight variances between the treaty language and the implementing statute do not make the enactment invalid, so long as the latter tracks the language of the treaty in all material respects. In particular, the court ruled that the CAT created a floor and not a ceiling and that the treaty specifically provides that it is

without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application.

The fact that the statute penalizes acts taken with the specific intent to commit torture (even if severe pain or suffering is not in fact inflicted) is analogous to attempts to commit torture, which are equally forbidden by the treaty.
► With respect to the question of jurisdiction rationae temporis and loci, the court held that Taylor was bound by territorial and extraterritorial legislation applying to him as a U.S. citizen. In any case, CAT requires penalization for all acts of torture, regardless of where they are committed. Congress is empowered to regulate the conduct of citizens abroad, and any baseline presumption against extraterritoriality is easiy overcome by an express or inferrable contrary intent in the language or nature of the statute.
► With respect to the conspiracy question, the court noted that the CAT requires penalization of complicity and participation in torture, which would include conduct like conspiracy that encourages and furthers the commission of torture by others. That the Hamdan plurality rejected the notion of a conspiracy to commit war crimes as a customary international law offense punishable by military commission was of no moment, because the Taylor indictment did not implicate the law of war and the conspiracy charge had a treaty basis. In addition, the court noted that

extraterritorial jurisdiction over a conspiracy charge exists whenever the underlying substantive crime applies to extraterritorial conduct.

► With respect to §924, about which we've blogged before (see here), the court ruled that it applies extraterritorially so long as the predicate crime applies extraterritorially. In particular, it may be charged in connection with any crime of violence that “may be prosecuted in a court of the United States,” including those crimes with an extraterritorial reach.
► None of the alleged procedural or evidentiary errors had merit. In particular, the court rejected Taylor's claim that he should have been able to obtain copies of classified memoranda on "enhanced interrogation techniques" approved by the U.S. government. The court ruled that those documents had no bearing on the definition of torture contained in the torture statute. Indeed,

The Torture Act contains a specific and unambiguous definition of torture that is derived from the definition provided in the CAT. The language of that statute -- not an executive branch memorandum -- is what controls the definition of the crime.

====

(I would say "come clean hands")

====

► Finally, the court confirmed that the 1,164-month sentence is not invalid under the federal sentencing guidelines given the nature of the charges and the underlying events.