Ret. Judge: Gitmo Like Serbian War Camps

The conditions under which prisoners are held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are reminiscent of prisons set up by nations and individuals accused of war crimes, a former federal appeals court judge said Thursday.

“I was struck by the similarity between the abuse they suffered and the abuse we found inflicted upon Bosnian Muslim prisoners in Serbian camps,” wrote Patricia M. Wald, a retired appointee to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals by President Jimmy Carter, about Guantanamo prisoners. Wald penned the foreword to a report on “Guantanamo and its Aftermath” published by the Human Rights Center at the University of California-Berkeley.

“The officials and guards in charge of those prison camps [in Serbia] and the civilian leaders who sanctioned their establishment were prosecuted…for war crimes, crimes against humanity and, in extreme cases, genocide,” Wald wrote.

A participant in previous matters in the War on Terror, Wald was a member of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction established by the Bush administration to investigate the intelligence failures in the run-up to the War in Iraq.

According to recent reports, President-elect Barack Obama is said to be exploring how to shut down the detention center for accused terrorists in Cuba.

–Michael O’Brien