UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism Martin Scheinin on March 9 urged the Obama administration to hold civilian trials for accused 9-11 conspirators, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Scheinin called the military commissions system "fatally flawed" and said that reforming the system would not help. Meanwhile, UN Special Rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak also argued that the suspects should face a civilian trial.

White House advisers are considering recommending that accused 9-11 co-conspirator Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be tried in a military court rather than through the civilian criminal justice system, according to March 5 reports. The Washington Post reported that President Obama's legal advisers are finishing their review of the Mohammed file, and CNN confirmed that a military tribunal is still an option. Authorities have been unable to decide where to try Mohammed, with many Republicans and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg opposed to holding the trial in a civilian court in Manhattan.

The US Supreme Court on March 1 ordered a lower court to reconsider the case of five Chinese Muslim Uighurs detained at Guantánamo Bay. The court originally granted certiorari in Kiyemba v. Obama to determine whether it is within the power of the judicial branch to order the release of detainees into the US. The court ordered the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to reconsider the case in light of the fact that each of the remaining Uighurs has received an offer of resettlement by another country.

The Federal Court of Australia ruled Feb. 26 that former Guantánamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib can sue the Australian government for complicity in his ill-treatment while incarcerated in Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo. Habib claims he suffered sleep deprivation, electrocution, and drug injections during his detainment, some of which happened in collusion with or in the presence of Australian officials.

Authorities in Spain have launched proceedings to suspend the notorious investigating magistrate Baltasar Garzón. The ostensible reason for the move is his investigation into the fate of 114,000 people who disappeared during the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath. The public prosecutor's office says Garzón had no authority to conduct the investigation because of a 1977 amnesty law. But Garzón says the disappearances must be considered crimes against humanity, and therefore not covered by any amnesty.

Four Guantánamo Bay detainees have been transferred to Albania and Spain, the US Department of Justice announced Feb. 24. Three detainees, Tunisia native Aleh Bin Hadi Asasi, Egypt native Sharif Fati Ali al Mishad, and Libya native Abdul Rauf Omar Mohammad Abu al Qusin, were transferred to Albania; the fourth, an unidentified detainee from the Palestinian territories, was transferred to Spain. The transfers, approved with unanimous consent by the Guantanamo Bay Task Force, add to the more than 580 Guantánamo detainees transferred to other nations since 2002. There are still 188 remaining at the Guantánamo facility in Cuba.

A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled Feb. 24 that the government can continue to hold indefinitely two Yemeni Guantánamo Bay detainees, even though the men had been cleared for release by the Bush administration two years ago. Judge Gladys Kessler denied the petitions for habeas corpus filed by Fahmi Salem Al-Assani and Suleiman Awadh Bin Agil Al-Nahdi. The men had been notified of their release in 2008, but the decision was suspended when President Barack Obama took office. Full text of the opinions explaining Kessler's reasoning will be made public after passing a security clearance. Nearly half the 188 prisoners remaining at Guantánamo are from Yemen.

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Feb. 23 in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, on whether a federal law that prohibits providing material support to terrorism violates the First Amendment. The challenge was filed by the Humanitarian Law Project (HLP) on behalf on several groups that wanted to support Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), both of which have been designated as terrorist organizations by the US government.