Five years ago we were told the Justice Department had a "short list" of suspects in the 2001 anthrax attacks, with indications of a sinister intersection of high-level military research and the neo-Nazi ultra-right. Now we learn the name of the man the government was apparently ready to indict—when it it is too late to learn anything more useful from him. From AP via the New York Times, Aug. 1:

On July 14 former US Congress member James "Jim" Courter (R-NJ, 1979-1991) resigned from the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), in which he was one of 20 national finance co-chairpeople. The resignation followed a July 9 decision by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to fine IDT—the New Jersey telecommunications company of which Courter is CEO—$1.3 million for failing to file a contract for telephone service to Haiti in 2004, during the administration of President Jean Bertrand Aristide.

The 4th Circuit US Court of Appeals in Richmond, VA, issued a 5-4 ruling July 15 finding that if the government's allegations against Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri are true, the president is empowered by Congress to hold al-Marri in a military prison without charge as an enemy combatant, under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). The ruling overturned the 4th Circuit's prior decision holding that the military cannot seize and imprison as "enemy combatants" civilians lawfully residing in the US. (Jurist, July 16)

New York's Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) protests that detainees are being deported to countries that practice torture. On July 2, two Algerians were transferred from Guantánamo to the custody of the Algerian government—the first Algerians transferred from Guantánamo to Algeria. Since then, the men have effectively "disappeared," CCR says.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who has admitted to being Osama bin Laden's chauffeur in Afghanistan, went on trial at Guantánamo Bay July 21, in the first US war crimes trial since World War II. Hamdan pleaded not guilty to the charges before the military tribunal which could send him to life in prison. (Reuters, July 22) But in a surprise move, the presiding judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, excluded as inadmissible all statements obtained from Hamdan's interrogations in Afghanistan, except his first videotaped battlefield interrogation—in which he disclosed no links to bin Laden. "The interests of justice are not served by admitting these statements because of the highly coercive environment and conditions under which they were made," Allred wrote in a 16-page ruling. (McClatchy, July 22)

Panama's Supreme Court has overturned a 2004 pardon of anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles and three other right-wing Cubans—Pedro Crispin Remon Hernandez, Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, and Guillermo Novo Sampoll—charged with plotting to kill Fidel Castro at the 2000 Ibero-American summit. The militants were accused of attempting to bomb a University of Panama auditorium where the Cuban leader was due to speak. Panamanian courts ruled there was too little evidence to try them for attempted murder but convicted them on charges of conspiracy, possessing explosives and endangering public safety. US-friendly President Mireya Moscoso issued the pardons in 2004—sparking a diplomatic spat with Cuba and Venezuela.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has released declassified portions of a June 20 decision that a Combatant Status Review Tribunal had improperly designated a Chinese Uighur detained at Guantanamo Bay as an "enemy combatant." In the opinion, Judge Merrick Garland dismissed government arguments that classified documents established Huzaifa Parhat's terror connections, finding: "Parhat has made a credible argument that—at least for some of the assertions—the common source is the Chinese government, which may be less than objective with respect to the Uighurs."

On June 23 the Mexican daily La Jornada reported that according to "judicial sources" the Mexican Attorney General's Office (PGR) has information that the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) has maintained ties for at least three years with the "Gulf Cartel" drug trafficking operation and "Los Zetas"—a gang of hired assassins working for the cartels—to help in the smuggling of Cuban and Central American immigrants through Mexican territory to the US. CANF, an influential organization of rightwing Cuban Americans in Florida, has friendly relations with US politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties.