ABC News Interview with Lakhdar Boumediene

While traveling with President Obama to Paris this week, ABC News' Jake Tapper took the opportunity to interview ex-Gitmo detainee Lakhdar Boumediene. (A post on a previous interview with Boumediene, who was the plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case, Boumediene v. Bush, that gave detainees the right to seek judicial review of their imprisonment is here.) Blogger Glenn Greenwald makes some important points about what this case illustrates and the issues it raises.

Samantha Orobator Sentenced to Life in Laotian Prison

Samantha Orobator, a pregnant British woman, plead guilty to drug smuggling in Laos. Previous post here.) While Laotian law would have mandated the death penalty in her case, it also prohibits the execution of pregnant women.

How Orobator became pregnant remains a mystery, although it appears she may have been able to obtain sperm and impregnate herself to avoid the death penalty.

The case appears to be an embarrassment to the Laotian authorities, which also obtained from Orobator a statement that she was not raped and that the father of the child is not a Laotian citizen. “This case is not about babies, it is a case about heroin,” Kenthong Nuanthasing, the country’s chief government spokesman, told the South China Morning Post last month.

“We don’t want the outside world to blame us [for the pregnancy]. That is why we asked her to write a letter to certify that she was not raped and the baby inside her is not a Lao baby . . . She did not have intercourse with any man in prison. There is no male close to her during her time in prison. All the prisoners are women and all the guards are female. Maybe it is a baby from the sky like [the Virgin] Maria.”

If both Laos and Britain agree, she may be transfered to Britain to serve her sentence. The prisoners' rights group Reprieve is campaigning for her transfer.

(Image from the Times Online story.)

Ex-Detainee on Guantanamo

Lakhdar Boumediene, an Algerian who spent 7 years in Guantanamo Bay, talks about his detention and returning to a normal life. He was the plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case, Boumediene v. Bush, that gave detainees the right to seek judicial review of their imprisonment and he was released to France earlier this month.

On Christmas in 2006, Boumediene recalled, he started a hunger strike in an effort to get someone to listen to his pleas of innocence. Twice a day, about 6 a.m. and 1 p.m., he was strapped to an iron chair and force-fed through a tube in his nose that reached into his stomach.

Until a meal with his lawyers as he was about to leave Guantanamo, Boumediene said, he broke his fast only twice, once when he learned of President Obama's election and again when the judge ordered his release.

"I have no idea why this happened to me," he said. "I'm a Muslim like any other. I pray and I observe Ramadan. But I don't have any hatred against anybody."

Grateful to be settling in France with government help, his first goal is to draw close to his family again, Boumediene said. But down the road, he added, he wants to sue the U.S. government or its senior officials to hold them accountable.

"I don't know whether it will be possible," he said. "But even if it takes 100 years, I am determined to bring suit."

Pregnant UK Woman May Face Death Penalty in Laos

A lawyer from Reprieve, a UK legal organization that work on the human rights of prisoners, has been given permission to meet with Samantha Orobator, a woman from the UK who is imprisoned in Laos. Orobator is accused or drug smuggling and her trial in Laos is to begin on Monday. She was allegedly in possession of 1.5 lbs of heroin when she was arrested at Wattay airport in Laos last August. In Laos, anyone caught with more than 1lb of heroin faces a mandatory death sentence.

British authories did not learn of her detention until she had already been in jail for months. She became pregnant last December, while imprisoned.

Reprieve director Clive Stafford Smith said: "This whole process is a farce. The trial is just being put on as a show. They wanted to get it all over with before she was able to see a British lawyer."

Mexican Nationals Detained in China

James Fallows has a first-hand account.

You can understand why China is nervous, given its dense urban populations and its experience with SARS. You can understand quarantines based on recent presence in a diseased area or possible exposure to diseased people. You can comprehend why direct flights between Mexico and China have for now been called off.

But there is no decent reason for quarantine and detention based solely on nationality. To the best of my information, this blanket quarantine of Mexican citizens is not being applied anyplace else on earth. Let's hope this is a panicky mistake by Chinese and Beijing-area officials and will soon be reversed. It is also worth recognizing the overall aplomb and openness that the Mexican government has been showing in handling the flu outbreak.

Mexico has responded:

Mexico says its citizens in different parts of China have faced discrimination after being suspected of carrying the flu.

"These are discriminatory measures, without foundation ... The Foreign Ministry recommends avoiding traveling to China until these measures are corrected," [Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia] Espinosa said.

She also condemned China as well as Argentina, Peru, Ecuador and Cuba for suspending flights from Mexico due to the flu outbreak. Mexico traditionally has had good ties with all of those nations.