I recently posted After 11 years, still no justice for this Kuwaiti Gitmo prisoner. #FreeFayiz about Lt. Col. Barry Wingard’s client, Fayiz Al-Kandari. I’ve been writing about Fayiz’s story for years. Barry is convinced beyond a doubt that Fayiz is innocent, and yet he’s been imprisoned all this time without so much as a trial.

The latest development in this endless saga is another disturbing one. You can read it here on the Free Fayiz and Fawzi Facebook page. In case you can’t access it, here you go:

Fayiz has lost more than twenty pounds and lacks the ability to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time due to a camp wide hunger strike. Apparently there is a dispute over searches and the confiscations. We believe there is a desperation setting amongst the prisoners whereby GTMO is forgotten and its condemned men will never get an opportunity to prove their innocence or be free. We have more meetings scheduled over the next two weeks.

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All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only *Fayiz al-Kandari’s story here.

Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If you’d like to see ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer’s book The Dark Side. You’ll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I’m all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz’s story here, at Answers.com.

I’ve been teaming up with military defense attorney Lt. Col. Barry Wingard for at least four years to get his story about his client out. His client just happens to be a Guantanamo Bay detainee named Fayiz Al-Kandari. Barry is convinced beyond a doubt that Fayiz is innocent, and you can read his story if you follow the above link.

I have now been asked to cross post this update, which of course, I am more than happy to do:

US President Barack Obama begins his second term having failed to honor a promise from his first to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, to the bitter regret of prisoner 552, Fayez Al-Kandari. The 34-year-old Kuwaiti, accused by US authorities of being an advisor to slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was one of the first captives to be flown to the US naval base in Cuba and has languished there for 11 years. It took six years for the US military to charge Kandari with giving “material support to terrorism” and five more to abandon the case. Now he is deemed too dangerous to release but no longer faces prosecution.

Kandari agreed to talk to AFP via email, the mails passed to our reporter by the military lawyer assigned to represent him, Colonel Barry Wingard, in the first interview of its kind at Guantanamo. “Each time Colonel Wingard travels to Gitmo to visit me,” Kandari said, “my first question to him is ‘Have you found justice for me today?’ And sadly he has answered every time: ‘Unfortunately, Fayez, I have no justice today’.” Kandari was seized in Afghanistan in Dec 2001, three months after the Sept 11 attacks by hijackers who flew airliners into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, killing 2,977 people.

The Pentagon says Kandari “was an Al-Qaeda propagandist who produced and distributed multimedia recruitment material and wrote newspaper articles paying tribute to the September 11, 2001 hijackers”. The military has thus deemed him “high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.” For his part Kandari insists he was in Afghanistan for charity work and is innocent of all allegations. Since the US has failed to bring him to trial and Kuwait has not pushed for his release, the matter is unresolved.

In the meantime, he describes his indefinite detention as an “agony” that began with rough treatment in transit, harsh interrogations and abuse – even if the regime has mellowed slightly in recent years. “In May 2002, I was drugged, my ears were plugged, I was diapered and a sandbag was shoved over my head. I was hustled into a military aircraft, where I was short-shackled to the deck before a rough takeoff,” he told AFP. “After what it seemed to be an eternity, I landed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, my agony to this day,” he added. “In the early days, I was interrogated over 300 times,” he said. “I was shackled to the floor of the interrogation room, sometimes for as long as 36 hours. Ice cold water was thrown on my naked body, and barking dogs were brought into the room,” he said.

In an account that matches those of several other detainees now released, he alleged that during the years of his detention, he has been dragged roughly from his cell and subjected to racial and religious abuse. Over time, he admits, physical mistreatment has waned, and now: “There is a relative peace in the prison, which is based on mutual respect.” But he is still angry with US authorities and in particular with Obama over his failure to close the Guantanamo jail, a controversial military detention center on Cuban soil beyond the reach of US justice.

“I feel extremely let down by President Obama,” he said. “To add insult to injury, for the second straight year, Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act that allows for the indefinite military detention of any individual,” he said. Of the 779 inmates only nine were ever convicted or brought to trial, and of the 166 who remain, 55 are considered safe to be released by the US military, but have nowhere to go. But Kandari has not given up hope. “I am happy for all the former prisoners who were released,” he told AFP.  “It gives me hope that my turn will be next. I am optimistic that I will soon be released. My faith in God has never been so unshakable.” – AFP

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All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only *Fayiz al-Kandari’s story here.

Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If you’d like to see ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer’s book The Dark Side. You’ll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I’m all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz’s story here, at Answers.com.