The investigation is about a 12yearold boy The molestation angle was confirmed by one of Mr Jackson's lawyers."The investigation is about a 12-year-old boy. The child molestation accusations that almost ended Michael Jackson's career a decade ago returned with a vengeance yesterday when swarms of police searched his Neverland ranch in central California after a 12-year-old boy made a new allegation.
The Santa Barbara county sheriff's department confirmed its officers had executed a search warrant as part of a criminal investigation. If the Supreme Court places Guantanamo Bay within US legal jurisdiction there is likely to be a flood of lawsuits demanding the US to charge the prisoners or release them. Ms Patten said: "The question is can the government carve out a place in the world beyond the law, beyond the reach of the courts that review the legality of such actions.". Wendy Patten, US advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, said it was essential that the US observed the Geneva Conventions, which would give the prisoners free and unfettered access to lawyers."Here are a set of rules that governments abide by during times of war," she said. This, for the ICRC, is unacceptable."Despite such criticism, the attitude of the US appears clear. While it has not yet charged a single prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay, there are no plans to release the majority of them soon. Although a handful of the oldest and most sick have been repatriated the US authorities are putting up long-term buildings at the base and replacing the razor wire and fencing with solid walls.Campaigners say that rather than building permanent prison facilities, the US should grant the prisoners legal access and allow them "due process". "After more than 18 months of captivity, the internees have no idea about their fate, no means of recourse through any legal mechanism They have been placed in a legal vacuum, a legal black hole. "The main concern for us is that the US authorities have effectively placed them beyond the law," said Amanda Williamson, an ICRC spokes-woman. There are regular reports of suicide attempts among the prisoners and recently Commander Louis Louk, the officer in charge of the prison's hospital, revealed that one in five of the prisoners received medication for what he termed "clinical depression".Against this backdrop the Bush administration received unprecedented criticism last month from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the only non-state organisation permitted to visit the camp, which said its refusal to inform prisoners about their future was causing an intolerable situation.
But I am concerned that a confession has obtained under conditions that amount to coercion. They have been interrogated for nearly two years without a lawyer being present."Few critics claim that prisoners at Camp Delta, as the incarceration unit is known, suffer physical torture, though in the first six months of its operation interrogators used techniques known as "stress and duress" to intimidate and soften up their subjects. Such techniques include sleep deprivation, exposing prisoners to hot or cold conditions and making them sit or stand in uncomfortable positions.But lawyers and activists say the prisoners - to whom the Bush administration refuses to grant the protection of the Geneva Conventions - face a form of psychological torture by being refused information about their future or access to legal advice. Critics claim the prison, which operates with hardly any independent scrutiny, has become a live experiment in long-term interrogation where experts constantly seek to hone and improve their techniques."It's like it has become a cold storage facility," said Richard Bourke, a lawyer in Louisiana representing two Australian citizens who are among the prisoners. "You hear comments from the camp commander about how they are constantly improving their interrogation techniques. |
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