As Donald Trump announces the reversal of an Obama-era executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, he can look back on a year that saw zero releases from the Cuba-based American military torture camp. Certainly in keeping with his pro-Guantanamo, pro-torture (‘and a hell of a lot worse’) election campaign promises, but lagging behind Obama and Bush, who released 200 and 500 inmates from the camp throughout their respective administrations.
Trump’s first year Guantanamo highlights include a prisoner celebrating his 70th birthday by spending his 12th year in Guantanamo without any charges filed against him, and a chief defense counsel for military commissions at Guantanamo receiving 21 days confinement in his own trailer. General John Baker was farcically incarcerated in the prison he administrates for allowing three attorneys to dismiss themselves from a case after they discovered they were being spied on, which was apparently beyond his own authority.