The U.S. has acknowledged that three teens, ages 13 to 15, are detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The Government says they did not know the youths were teens until after a medical examination.

Could the youths be the sons of Khalid Mohommad, who were seized in Pakistan following a raid? The ones the U.S. first denied, and then admitted, removing from Pakistan and flying to a secret location in the U.S. where they could be interrogated about their father? Reportedly, Mohammad's sons were only 7 and 9 just a few months ago--so we sure hope it's not them. This Guardian article, however, reports "Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, a US military spokesman... would not say how old the youngest prisoner is. Then again, today's Guardian article has Lt. Johnson saying they are 13 to 15. Sounds like some dissemination may be at hand.

Whoever the three teens are, officials confirm they are being interrogated. "There is no automatic assumption they will be released because of their age." Human Rights groups are outraged.

That the US sees nothing wrong with holding children at Guantanamo and interrogating them is a shocking indicator of how cavalier the Bush administration has become about respecting human rights," said an Amnesty International spokesman, Alistair Hodgett.

Amnesty International issued a press release Wednesday calling for the immediate release of the children.

"The detention of children in these circumstances is particularly repugnant and flouts basic principles for the protection of children under international law."

In other Camp X-Ray news, 20 detainees are being housed in a special unit due to repeated suicide attempts. The U.S. says many were mentally ill before being captured. The Guardian reports there have been 25 suicide attempts.

Mike Hawash has written a letter from his jail cell in Oregon.

Matt Yglesias reminds us not to forget there are Americans locked up without charges, and points us to this article in Sunday's New York Times about the more than two dozen American citizens arrested as material witnesses in terrorism cases since September 11, and in particular, Oregonian Mike Hawash.

Some Muslims say that since his arrest on March 20 they have remained silent rather than speak up at community meetings, fearful of government retaliation. Other Muslims who want to support Mr. Hawash have refrained from contributing to his legal defense fund, saying they are fearful that the donations might draw unwelcome attention.

"People are saying, if this could happen to him, this could happen to any of us," said Zaha Hassan, a Palestinian-American lawyer who knows Mr. Hawash. She and other Muslims argue that if the government believes Mr. Hawash has committed a crime, it should indict him so he can have an open and public hearing.

"Then we could defend him, or accept that he had done something," Ms. Hassan said. "All we can do now is support him and say the process is wrong and stand up against this kind of secret detention."

Go read the whole article. Here's more on how the Government is using and abusing the material witness statute, from Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin.

Our prior coverage of Hawash is here. For the most information on the case, check out FreeMikeHawash.Org.

"After nearly 18 months of deliberation, Pentagon officials are laying the final groundwork to hold military commissions for suspected al-Qaida members captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and elsewhere....behind the scenes, Department of Defense officials are mobilizing legal teams to prosecute and defend the cases. "

Reports are that "the Defense Department is strongly considering Army Col. Frederic Borch III for chief prosecutor and Air Force Col. Willie Gunn for chief defense counsel. Active duty and reserve judge advocates with all branches of the military have been identified to serve as assistant prosecutors and defense counsel."

A lot of questions remain unanswered, particularly concerning protections afforded to those on trial and their ability to have civilian defense counsel.

According to DOD regulations, defendants brought before military commissions are entitled to free military counsel and can request civilian defense counsel if it can be arranged at no expense to the government. Civilian lawyers must be U.S. citizens and obtain high-level security clearances.

Private defense lawyers say they are concerned that the Pentagon will bar them from contacting detainees or traveling to Guantanamo Bay. "The Pentagon has made it virtually impossible for any civilian attorney to take one of these cases," says Donald Rehkopf, co-chair of the military law committee of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

"Any of us would take a case. It's very important to the system," says George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley, who represented acquitted Navy officer Daniel King on espionage charges. "The problem is, the rules say defendants are entitled to civilian counsel, but the administration has barred attorneys' access to the detainees."

We're with Turley--let the private bar in.

Reuters reports major news in the case of "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla, detained more than a year without charges :

A federal appeals court will be asked to determine if President Bush can declare a U.S. citizen captured in this country an enemy combatant and jail him until the conflict with the al Qaeda network ends. U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey, who is presiding over a case involving "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla, decided on Wednesday to send the matter to the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals to speed resolution of the litigation.

At a hearing today in Portland, Oregon, U.S. Districrt Court Judge Robert Jones ordered that Mike Hawash will be detained until April 29 when he is scheduled to appear before a grand jury and answer questions.

The hearing was closed to the public. Lawyers were ordered gagged. In a written ruling after the hearing, the Judge said,""I conclude by clear and convincing evidence that the material witness must be detained, but not indefinitely."

Hawash, a software contractor for Intel Corp., is being held in relation to a case that the Federal Bureau of Investigation says it cannot discuss because of court rules, which it also cannot discuss. "We are just outraged. We cannot believe that the government can hold a guy with a wife, three kids, a house and a U.S. passport for another three weeks without charges," said Steve McGeady, Hawash's former boss at Intel who is arguing for his release.

About 150 of Hawash's supporters protested at the courthouse today. Update: Here is the text of the Judge's Order. We misread the Reuters article we cited above. It states:

West Bank-born Maher "Mike" Hawash, a U.S. citizen for 15 years, will be detained as a material witness for grand jury testimony until April 29, Judge Robert Jones, U.S. District Judge for the District of Oregon, said in an order after a hearing behind closed doors with a gag order slapped on lawyers for both sides.

The Judge's order makes it clear that Hawash is either to be deposed or appear before the grand juryto answer questions on April 25, and that another secret detention hearing will be held April 29.

I hereby direct the United States Attorney (1) to perpetuate the witness' testimony by deposition; or (2) present the witness before the grand jury for testimony with or without immunity not later than April 25, 2003. A closed detention hearing will be held April 29, 2003, at 9:00 a.m. in Courtroom 14B.

Thanks to the Portland Communique for setting us straight in the comments below. You can view pictures of the protest here .

Update: Here's more from Tuesday's Oregonian.

Another example of the end of due process as we know it. Bail was denied in a secret hearing for Mike Hawash who is being held as a material witness in Oregon.

Hawash, a software engineer and American citizen, has been held since March 20. Our prior coverage is here and here.

The records of the searches of his home and office are sealed. His name has been removed from the list of prisoners at FCI Sheridan, where he has been held. His lawyers are gagged.

Josh Kardon, chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has been attempting to obtain information about Hawash. Here's what he has been told: Hawash is not at Guantanamo, he has a lawyer who was allowed to appear at his bail hearing, his wife and kids have visited him. The Government will not confirm that Hawash is being held as a material witness.

Sources say Hawash's arrest is related to the pending case against the "Oregon Six." Prosecutors have said they will seek a superseding Indictment in the case--adding new charges and possibly new defendants. In responding to Senator Wyden's inquiry, the U.S. Attorney wrote:

There are several contingencies which may accelerate the rate at which additional information will be publicly available. My best estimate is that we will be able to comment further by early May, but please understand that is an estimate."

It sounds to us like Hawash is being told that if he tells the Government the truth--the truth according to the Government, of course--he may be allowed to avoid being charged in the new Oregon Indictment. If he doesn't, he will find himself as a defendant instead of a witness. Some choice. Particularly if, as was the case with Susan McDougal, his version of the truth is different than the one the Government wants to hear.

Within two weeks, news of the arrest and detention of American Maher (Mike) Hawash, despite the lack of criminal charges against him, has spread from a sympathetic website, " Free Mike Hawash" to the New York Times.

For the last two weeks, Maher Hawash, a 38-year-old software engineer and American citizen who was from the West Bank and grew up in Kuwait, has been held in a federal prison here, though he has not been charged with a crime or brought before a judge. Relatives and friends of Mr. Hawash, who works for the Intel Corporation and is married to a native Oregonian, say he has no idea why he was arrested by a federal terrorism task force when he arrived for work at the Intel parking lot in Hillsboro, a Portland suburb. The family home was raided at dawn on the same day..."

Hawash has not been interrogated and is being kept in solitary confinement. The FBI only will say that Hawash is being held as a "material witness" in an ongoing terrorism investigation.

As a material witness, he is being held to compel testimony. But supporters say he has not been told anything about what the government may want from him.

"Our friend has fallen into some kind of `Alice in Wonderland' meets Franz Kafka," said Steven McGeady, the former Intel executive, who started a legal defense fund and a Web site for Mr. Hawash.

"You hear about this happening in other countries and to immigrants and then to American citizens," Mr. McGeady went on. "And finally you hear about it happening to someone you know. It's scary."

As with Jose Padilla and Yser Hamdi, the Bush Administration and Attorney General Ashcroft in particular once again are abusing the legal system in the name of the war on terror. In Hawash's case, the government's action is more deplorable, because Hawash is not suspected of committing a crime--the government just wants his testimony. And they have yet to meet with him and tell him what they want to know from him.

"The government doesn't have and should not have the power to arrest and detain someone without charging them," said Lucas Guttentag, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants Rights Project. "If this kind of thing is permitted, then any United States citizen can be swept off the street and locked up without being charged."

Relatives of Hawash believe, as we speculated last week, that his arrest is connected to the case of the six people charged in Portland with providing aid to terrorists.

Hawash emigrated to America in 1984 and became a U.S. citizen in 1988. He graduated from the University of Texas. He has worked for Intel since 1992. He is being held at the federal prison in Sheridan, Oregon.

FCI Sheridan
P.O. Box 8000
Sheridan, Oregon 97378-9601
503-843-4442
Fax: 503-843-3408

Update: Yale Law Professor and Blogger Jack Balkan has more on the use and abuse of the material witness statute.

Update 2: Here's more from Wired News. And this from CNN.

Saudi-born Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, 27, is the newest target of the FBI. They are searching all over for him. He is wanted on an immigration violation, but the FBI believes he has ties to Al Qaeda and is linked to "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla.

The information about El Shukrijumah does not come from Padilla, who still is neither talking nor cooperating.

Update: El Shukrijumah's family defends him, saying the FBI is looking for the wrong guy.

The Chicago Tribune says the FBI believes El Shukrijumah and Jose Padilla were partners.

The Miami Herald says Khalid Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks who was captured in Pakistan March 1 and taken to Bakram Air Base for interrogation, provided the information about El Shukrijumah that led to the world wide alert for him. Mohammed picked El Shukrijumah out of a photo lineup.

Conservative columnist Stuart Taylor in today's Opening Argument : All "falsely accused" detainees should receive due process:

[Courts have held in dismissing lawsuits that ] Guantanamo was outside U.S. "sovereign territory" because Cuba technically retains sovereignty.

The legal black hole in which this leaves any and all innocent detainees held by U.S. forces abroad is both unjust and insulting to the international community. If this is the law, then the law needs amending.

Fundamental American values and international norms require some kind of due process for all prisoners, no matter where detained. Congress should now force the administration to do what it should have done long ago: assign military tribunals to interview every detainee and to provide all those who plausibly claim that they are not enemy combatants with a fair opportunity to prove it.

We welcome Mr. Taylor's position, howver, we'd extend it to all detainees, not just those a tribunal feels have a "plausible case" of innocence.

Two freed Afgan prisoners are claiming torture by U.S. interrogators at Bagram Air Base in Afganistan. This is the same base where two prisoners whose deaths were labeled homicides, were found to have been beaten before dying.

As he shivered, naked in his cell, two men threw a bucket of ice cold water on him. "I couldn't say anything," Saif-ur Rahman said two weeks after his release from U.S. detention in Afghanistan. "I was so frightened. I didn't know what they would do next."

Rahman's account and that of another recently freed Afghan gave a rare first-hand look into interrogation of prisoners held by the United States in the war against terrorism. Human rights groups have criticized U.S. interrogation methods as abusive. ...

In separate interviews, two prisoners, Rahman and Qayyum, offered similar accounts of their time at Bagram's detention centre. They complained of sleep-deprivation, of being forced to stand for long periods of time, of humiliating taunts from women soldiers, screaming abuses at them through closed doors.

Rahman spoke slowly, explaining with gestures. Sometimes he would stop, look away seemingly embarrassed to talk about his nakedness, about how he was forced to lie spread eagle on the dirt floor while his interrogators placed a chair on either hand and on his feet.

For 20 straight days Rahman was handcuffed. At meal time his hands were tied but the constraints more relaxed. Qayyum said he was held in a large hall with about 100 prisoners, 10 people to a cubicle cordoned off from other similar cubicles by sheets of mesh. He was held for two months and five days and throughout that time was forbidden to talk to his cellmates.

U.S. Military Spokesman Roger King acknowledged some and disputed other allegations by the two men.

Tim over at The Road To Surfdom refers to this article in which the U.S. denies it has the children of Khalid Mohommad or has interrogated them:

Khalid’s sons ‘not in US custody’ ISLAMABAD: A United States spokesperson on Monday denied media reports that two sons of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, aged nine and seven, were in United States, in the custody of US officials anywhere else or had been interrogated by US officials. Asked whether the US government was aware where the children were, the spokesperson, declined comment.

But last week, the CIA said differently according to the Telegraph:

Last night CIA interrogators confirmed that the boys were staying at a secret address where they were being encouraged to talk about their father's activities.

"We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children," said one official, "but we need to know as much about their father's recent activities as possible.

"His sons are important to him. The promise of their release and their return to Pakistan may be the psychological lever we need to break him."

Our earlier post on this is here. We think its time we got the straight story on this. Anyone from the CIA care to comment on their official web page? Thanks to Tim for the heads up. Update: Union Muse just sent us an email linking to this March 4, 2003 New York Times article stating: Besides eluding authorities in Quetta, Mr. Mohammed narrowly escaped capture last September, when Mr. bin al-Shibh was arrested after a shootout in Karachi. Mr. Mohammed had been in hiding with Mr. bin al-Shibh, and Mr. Mohammed's two young sons were taken into captivity after the shootout. Some officials said the fate of his sons might be used as leverage to try to pry information from him, although a senior American intelligence official said children would not be brought into the interrogation rocess. The New York Times link to the article didn't work for us but we found it on Lexis.Com By the way, if you don't have a Lexis or Nexis account, you can pay by the search with a credit card.