Jack Idema - Blogburst

Two weeks ago, and one week after the news that Afghanistan had finally released Jack Idema, we re-named this blogburst Justice For Jack Idema. On the strength of today’s revelations, perhaps that move was premature:

Is Jack Idema still at Pulacharke? Yes. Is he being held there by the Afghans? No. Is he being held by the American government against his will? Yes. And that’s why the habeas corpus petition was filed to begin with; to find out why he is being held there. In response, the American government provides Soviet-style smoke and mirrors.

Why would the US Government act this way? Why not simply allow Jack Idema to walk out of Pulacharke? The answer can only be that, if Jack managed to return to the US, he would be able to testify against the people who have put him through hell for the past three years. Easier, for the State Department, to keep Jack bottled-up in his cell.

Here, as stated today in Jack’s submission to the US District Court of Columbia, is the current situation this soldier finds himself in:

1. Jack Idema has been without power for five weeks now living in the dark.
2. Jack Idema has been without power or lights for more than 170 days in the past two and a half years.
3. Jack Idema has been without running water for just under 3 years. (Water is carried daily by pail from stream water which goes through a storage drum.) He has not had hot water in almost three years, or medical care of any kind in almost three years.
4. Jack Idema, under constant threat of forced transfer to Saderat Interrogation Facility and renewed torture, has been not left his barricade position for 7 months, (with the exceptions in his affidavit).
5. Jack Idema has been without mail for two and half years. An embargo imposed solely by the US Embassy (but just days after this Court’s March ______ Order, the US Embassy delivered to Jack Idema personal mail for the first time in years. The letter, and care package of food from a Marine in the Midwest — Exhibit _____). We estimate, that more than 4000 letters and care packages have been returned to their senders at taxpayer expense, solely for retaliatory and vicious purposes to impose a brutal existence on these men.
6. Jack Idema has been without a single foreign visitor allowed in since the attack on Bennett, because the Pulacharke Gate, outside the prison, at the town, is controlled by forces under the US Embassy’s control. Afghan visitors get in by saying they are visiting their relatives or an officer; then tell the inside prison gates they are visiting Jack, and get right in. Obviously it is NOT the prison or the Ministry of Justice stopping his visitors.
7. Jack Idema lives under daily threat, a very real threat, of being attacked with violent force, by not only the terrorists surrounding him, but by the US Embassy and Karzai controlled factions which answer to the Embassy, and then taken to the NDS Saderat Interrogation facility where neither this Court nor counsel will hear from him again for a very long time, if ever.
8. Jack Idema and Brent Bennett are being forced through a wide variety of methods, to forfeit all of their property; property which he has defended with his life. He is being forced, through the withholding of his passport and continued incarceration, to allow its search and seizure by US officials. Although this might change the dynamics and ADD claims to the habeas corpus claim of wrongful property it CERTAINLY does not defeat the habeas corpus or render it moot, if anything, it makes it clear that the government Respondents must be forced to answer and forced quickly.
9. The Petitioners’ exculpatory evidence is not just being held anymore, now it is to be permanently forfeited, most likely destroyed or placed in black hole at the FBI, and forever lost (just like Idema’s passport, which the US government has claimed was lost for 3 years, yet Jack Idema located it within a few days by phone.) Without their exculpatory evidence Jack Idema and Brent Bennett face a long list of possible crimes, all of which would be swiftly defeated with the evidence, and this is not speculation, these are criminal charges which are a real and present threat, as proven by a Grand Jury investigation started
   just days after

   this Court issued it’s opinion. Therefore, not only is the habeas corpus far from moot, because it seeks the return of exculpatory evidence it is even more important now, and more time sensitive. Idema and Bennett are being prevented from retaining evidence that will clear them of all allegations, past, present, and future. Jack Idema has repeatedly offered to testify at a Grand Jury, and just weeks ago, we presented a letter to the Grand Jury foreman in North Carolina demanding to testify and present evidence, evidence which Respondents NEVER want to see the light of day.

10. The government motion and supporting affidavit is just smoke and mirrors to redirect this Honorable Court’s attention and make it appear as though Idema is free to go as he pleases. This is simply not the case.

And in a final, sickening, twist of the knife, the State Department have informed Jack Idema of the following:

Idema had been repeatedly warned that any attempt to cross borders would be a violation of the Patriot Act, even if it was just to come home to the United States.

Think about that. Here is a Green Beret, illegally-imprisoned for three years, tortured, subjected to a show-trial, forced to fend-off more than a dozen assassination attempts — Here is a man who, having endured all of this, is now being told that if he somehow manages to reach the border of his homeland, he will be arrested under the very laws which were put in place to apprehend the terrorists he left America’s shores to do battle against.

How on earth did we come to this?

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