My country's shameful and disgraceful treatment of Syed Talha Ahsan

Follow @JohnPlatinumG For seven long years Syed Talha Ahsan has had his freedom taken from him in one of the most diabolical miscarriages of justice ever. For more than six years he was held in custody in UK prisons without there ever having been a charge against him. As with Babar Ahmad, who has been imprisoned for even longer, such cases bring shame upon my country, and therefore upon me. This is not the way British justice used to be done. Over a month ago I raised a Freedom of Information request on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office seeking information connected with the extradition of Syed Talha Ahsan. By law they should have responded by 9 July 2013 but have not done, so I have asked for an internal review.

There are so many unanswered questions in this case. The most alarming is the fact that Talha Ahsan's case should have been heard in a US court in October this year, and if there was a clear-cut case against him there was no reason why it should not since there has been a decade in which to prepare a case, yet it has been put off until March 2014. All this time Talha Ahsan spends 23 hours a day, every day, in solitary confinement in a Supermax prison. My heart grieves for him and his family. Here is my request to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The questions are straightforward.

Extradition of Talha Ahsan

John Goss made this Freedom of Information request to Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Waiting for an internal review by Foreign and Commonwealth Office of their handling of this request.

From: John Goss

11 June 2013

Dear Foreign and Commonwealth Office,

This is a freedom of information request concerning the extradition
of Syed Talha Ahsan, a UK citizen, to the USA

Syed Talha Ahsan lost an appeal in the European Court of Human
Rights and was very quickly, the same day in fact, flown to the
United States of America.

1) Was any contact made with United States representatives of any
description to arrange the deportation of Syed Talha Ahsan before
the appeal verdict of the European Court of Human Rights had been
reached?

2) If the answer to question 1) is yes, which department of the FCO
and which personnel of that department had contact with which
personnel of which US department?

3) Can I have copies of any correspondence between the UK and USA
concerning the extradition of Syed Talha Ahsan please?

4) Was the FCO aware that two of the European judges, Lech Garlicki
and Nicolas Bratza, who sat in judgement on Syed Talha Ahsan, had
been at a 'closed-door' conference with US Supreme Court judges
Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Sonia Sotomayor
in a conference called: 'Judicial Process and the Protection of
Rights: the U.S. Supreme Court and the European Court of Human
Rights'?

5) Does the FCO have any documents relating to the revelation in
question 4) and can I have copies please?

6) Was the FCO aware that also at the conference mentioned in
question 4) were "Derek Walton, who was representing the UK in
Ahsan’s European Court case, and the vastly influential Harold Koh,
who was serving as Obama’s appointed Legal Advisor to the State
Department." (New Statesman 21 February 2013).

7) Does the FCO have any documents relating to the revelation in
question 6) and can I have copies please?

8) Presumably the FCO would have had to be absolutely certain that
the case against Syed Talha Ahsan was a cast-iron copper-bottomed
guilty case to send a UK citizen to a country which has a
'concentration camp' at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where only 13 people
(out of 779) have ever been charged with a crime, and where 9 men
have died while in captivity. Would you not agree that given these
appalling figures the FCO would have to be certain that Syed Talha
Ahsan was guilty before sending him to the United States?

9) Considering our special relationship with the United States of
America has the FCO seen all the evidence held by the US in the
case of Syed Talha Ahsan?

10) Can I have copies of any correspondence regarding evidence of
the guilt of Syed Talha Ahsan held by the FCO please?

11) Is from the evidence that the FCO has seen there even the
slightest chance that Syed Talha Ahsan might be innocent?

12) If the answer is yes, on what grounds was Syed Talha Ahsan
extradited considering the uneven extradition treaty we have with
the United States?

13) Syed Talha Ahsan, had before being extradited been held in UK
prisons for six years without charge. Was the FCO notified of this?

14) If yes, can I have copies of the notification(s) please?

15) Did the foreign office seek assurances in this clear-cut and
convincingly-guilty case that Syed Talha Ahsan would be quickly
brought to trial?

16) Can I have a copy of any document relating to an expeditious
trial or any other documents in which the FCO has attempted to
protect the human rights of Syed Talha Ahsan in this case please?

17) US legal prosecution teams in a clear-cut and convincingly
guilty case have deferred the trial-date from October 2013 to March
2014 increasing the suffering of Syed Talha Ahsan. Did they notify
the FCO of this?

18) Can I have a copy of any such notification please?

19) Why did the Foreign and Commonwealth Office extradite Syed
Talha Ahsan to be held in a maximum security prison 23 hours a day
in a case in which the prosecution has not been able to gather
enough evidence in over a decade to bring Syed Talha Ahsan swiftly
to justice when his prison record in the UK shows that an ordinary
prison would have been adequate and better for Syed Talha Ahsan’s
health and welfare?

20) Was the Foreign and Commonwealth Office aware that Talha Ahsan,
a prize-winning poet, suffers from Asberger Syndrome?

21) Have any special provisions been made to cater for his illness?

22) Can I see any correspondence relating to this pleas?

23) Was the Foreign and Commonwealth Office aware that Gary
McKinnon, another UK citizen, was spared extradition because he
suffers from Asperger Syndrome?

24) Does the FCO operate a policy of racism towards Muslims?

25) Can you let me have any figures that show how many people
extradited at US requests, including those rendered abroad during
the Iraq War, over the last thirteen years, were Muslims, and how
many were not?

26) Did the UK try to get Syed Talha Ahsan into a more humane
prison instead of prisons which have been described as torture
chambers where more than 90% plea bargain (even confessing to
crimes they did not commit to avoid further torture)?

27) Can I see what correspondence took place regarding the type of
penal institution Syed Talha Ahsan was to be held in?

Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

John Goss

Assange and the ambassador of torture

Follow @JohnPlatinumG Today I am going to London to hear the Christmas message from Julian Assange. Governments have a lot to answer for in their persecution of individuals.

Rafik Saley, Okoth Osewe (in Sweden) and myself put together this article on Sweden's ambassador to Australia. It needs spreading so the world knows who the real traitors to society are.

Two extradited poets - Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan

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The poet Babar Ahmad was extradited to New York following an appeal against extradition that had all the hallmarks of a prearranged deal. It takes time to arrange flights to the United States and seems extremely unlikely that the flights that took 5 Muslims to face US injustice were not already scheduled by Theresa May in her 'War on Islam'. On board these flights were the poet Talha Ahsan who I mentioned in a post a few days ago. I have already written about how Babar was beaten by police, awarded £60,000 damages by the Metropolitan Police, but when a criminal case was brought against these policemen, the judge, who was just about to retire, exonerated them. This poem was published on the internet last Friday, the holy day of Islam on which Babar lost his appeal.

One Day - a poem by Babar Ahmad

Friday

One day...

The sun will shine again.

The flowers will blossom again.

The birds will sing again.

One day...

The rain will fall again.

The rivers will flow again.

The gardens will be green again.

One day...

The lips will smile.

The tears will dry.

The prayers will be answered.

One day...

The shackles will break.

The darkness will end.

The doors...

This is powerful poetry. It is not Oscar Wilde, whose Ballad of Reading Gaol was beautifully read yesterday by Alex Jennings on Poetry Please! Wilde had a unique voice, and like Babar, experienced unjust penal incarceration. How fittingly the following lines can be applied to all whose liberty has been removed. 

I know not whether Laws be right,
Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in gaol
Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,
A year whose days are long.

Talha Ahsan is also a poet. He suffers from Asperger Syndrome, a form of autism. He has however written for Ceasefire Magazine and published a volume of his poetry entitled This Be The Answer. While Talha still had hope in July 2011 he wrote a great poem Extradition. He was realistic enough to know the nasty nature of Theresa May, 'a feeble servant' to her masters in the US.

Theresa May, a minister at home

though feeble servant to her masters there;

a solitary torture chamber cell,

To put me in, she’ll simply say, ‘Away!’

So let me while I can devote my time

to work for my own justice over here.

(C) Talha Ahsan, HMP Long Lartin, 19 July 2011

And so it proved, Theresa May was that 'feeble servant' of the United States of America. The time has come for righteous people to speak out and get our British citizens back on British soil. Writers, poets artists, these are our brothers. Speak out for them!

http://www.facebook.com/groups/371661099578187/

Please join this group and get your friends to join too.

Hang your heads in shame if you're British

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I wrote to Lambeth Palace, the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, this week. My email read:

"It is of real concern to have heard nothing from the A of C's office,

and no directives to the Anglican Church regarding the wrongful

imprisonment of Muslims, accused by the United States as having

infringed the same laws that saw almost 800 people imprisoned in

Guantanamo Bay.  Think of the wrongful imprisonment of St Paul and then

let me know that my church is destined to remain silent on such an abuse

of human rights.

http://johngossip.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/english-justice-reeks-like-cesspool-it.html

I await your response eagerly,

John Goss"

There was no response.

I have blogged, almost ad nauseum, to try and get justice for these men, who have been in prison for interminably long times without being charged, more than 8 years in the case of Babar Ahmad and 6 in the case of Talha Ahsan. Compare that with the short time it took to charge Mark Bridger of the murder of the little girl, April Jones, in Wales. These men are not suspected of murder but have been imprisoned on the say so of the United States. It is Friday and millions of Muslims have been praying in the mosques while Khateebs have been asked to remember them in Friday prayers.

As well as the corruption of the judiciary it is particularly disturbing and cynical that Theresa May and her friends the justices chose the Muslim holy day to deliver the verdict, which was not arrived at in court. Thank God Julian Assange is safe in the Ecuadorian Embassy, or he would be illegally sent with them. I am ashamed to be British. There is a law for some, and a law against Muslims. Shame on the law-courts. Shame on Theresa May. Shame on Dominic Grieve. It is not a war on terror. It is a war on Islam.

Why the UK has not extradited Julian Assange directly to the US

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In deference to its transatlantic master the UK government would dearly have loved to have banged Julian Assange on a plane to the United States where he would have been imprisoned and most likely, if not forgotten about, at least remembered less frequently, over time. Many commentators with an interest in the Assange story use this as an argument to justify his extradition to Sweden. The argument goes something like this. “If the UK wanted to extradite Julian Assange it would be easier to extradite him directly from the UK.” If this is true, why then was this option eschewed? There are several reasons.

First of all it is a myth to think it would be easier to extradite Assange from the UK. In the present climate Jack Straw and the UK security services are fighting behind the scenes to exonerate themselves from the extraditions authorised by them that enabled the rendition and torture of civilians emanating from Middle Eastern and North African countries. How many were sent back to their homelands where they were on the wanted list of the regime in power it is not yet possible to say. Rest assured, it is much higher than the one or two who are challenging Straw’s decision to have sent them back to be tortured. The fate of some may never even be known. It will be noted that Mr Belhadj and Mr al Saadi were living respectively in China and Hong Kong at the time of their renditions, and after their arrests and imprisonments they were tortured for years in Libya, before Blair’s love affair with Gadaffi came to an end; and NATO forces exploded a path to exploit the oilfields of Libya. This was the act which liberated Mr Belhadj and Mr al Saadi from prison.

Guantanamo Bay, a gulag or concentration camp by any other name, has left a legacy of mistrust towards the United States and the way the US administers justice.  Its injustice has also been costly to the UK taxpayer. British citizens like Moazzam Begg were extradited on the instructions of the United States. As with Mr Belhadj and Mr al Saadi the arrest was made abroad, this time in Islamabad. Moazzam Begg, who witnessed two inmates at Bagram being beaten to death, or nearly beaten to death, was himself tortured and abused before his imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay.

Another whistleblower, who like Assange is a thorn in the side of authority, is the messianic Jew, Mordechai Vanunu. In 1986 Vanunu revealed to the Sunday Times Israel’s nuclear weapons’ programme having worked at the nuclear plant in Israel where the manufacturing process was facilitated. The full facts as to how he was arrested are sketchy but there was no known extradition request from Israel to the UK. Instead Vanunu was enticed to Italy where MOSSAD agents were lying in wait for him. He was arrested and spent 18 years in an Israeli prison, subsequent years under virtual house arrest, and still does not have the freedom to go where he wishes.

Jewish banking families, the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, call the tune for UK and US governments, and they are the real decision-makers. It was one of the Rockefellers who informed the late Aaron Russo that there was going to be an event which would lead to a new world order in the Middle East. It was also known that seven countries were to be destabilised to achieve this aim. Of those seven only Syria and Iran have not been fully destabilised yet. People like Mordechai Vanunu and Julian Assange, being opposed to such actions, do not fit in with these bankers’ dreams, so are taken out of circulation to stop them spreading further truths enabling the banking giants to complete their evil intentions.

To do things properly long-winded procedures have to be followed in this country. Despite its abominable human rights record the US has requested the extradition of UK citizens, nearly always of Asian extraction, including Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan (a poet and sufferer from Asperger’s syndrome), who Theresa May has pledged to hand over to her US masters. The US made requests for extradition six years ago in the case of Ahsan and even longer ago in the case of Ahmad. Both men have been in prison without a single charge being brought against them. Ahmad was beaten by UK police and awarded damages. Although their cases have gone to the European Court of Human Rights, and extradition has shamefully been endorsed by that court, their appeals have yet to be heard.

This is why neither the UK nor the US want to extradite Assange directly from the UK. It is much easier to ship him to Sweden on trumped-up charges, where he would be picked up by CIA agents, whisked off to the United States, and put in prison for a very long time. It would happen, as it did with Vanunu, very quickly. William Hague has almost certainly clandestinely agreed to this. When Assange sought asylum not only did Hague behave like a baby who had dropped his dummy, but made vague threats to storm the Ecuadorian Embassy. Hague has been repeatedly asked to guarantee that Assange would not be extradited from Sweden but the only guarantee Hague would give is that Assange would not be executed. Assange could see this coming and he pre-empted them.

How much of a puppet of the United States has the UK become? The US, where human rights have reached an all-time low, have a one-sided extradition agreement which enables UK citizens to be extradited to the US, without having to make any case against those citizens. Conversely the US would never − never ever − allow the UK to have one of its citizens extradited here. The whole Cameron, Hague, May outfit is a Muppet Show and it is very clear to whose tune they are singing and dancing.

To sum up, the examples cited above show that it is much easier to arrest somebody outside of the UK for extradition purposes than it is here.  This answers all those who make the argument: “If the UK wanted to extradite Julian Assange it would be easier to extradite him directly from the UK.”