Naval Consolidated Brig, Charleston

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Naval Consolidated Brig
Aerial view, Navy Consolidated Brig.jpg
Aerial view of the Navy Consolidated Brig
Naval Consolidated Brig, Charleston
Coordinates 32°54′34.9″N79°58′35.4″W / 32.909694°N 79.976500°W / 32.909694; -79.976500
Security classmedium
Map of the Naval Weapons Station, indicating the location of Navconbrig Charleston CharlestonBaseMap.pdf
Map of the Naval Weapons Station, indicating the location of Navconbrig Charleston

The Naval Consolidated Brig (NAVCONBRIG CHASN), is a medium security U.S. military prison. The brig, Building #3107, is located in the south annex of Joint Base Charleston in the city of Hanahan, South Carolina. [1] [2] [3]

The Brig was commissioned on November 30, 1989 and accepted its first prisoners in January 1990. It has 400 cells and can hold 288 inmates. [4] It houses prisoners from all branches of the US Armed Services and conducts the Navy's Violent Offender Treatment Program. It has been accredited by the American Correctional Association eleven times: 1992, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2022, receiving 100% compliance on each correctional standard.

The brig recently housed several enemy combatants, including Yasser Hamdi, José Padilla and Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri. [5] Al-Marri was the last of the three to remain at the brig, being transferred to a civilian prison after he pleaded guilty in 2009.

In October 2008 91 pages of memos drafted in 2002 by an officer at the brig became public. [6] [7] The memos indicate that officers were concerned that the isolation and lack of stimuli were driving Hamdi, Padilla and Al-Marri insane.

On October 12, 2011, the Charleston Post and Courier reported on memos from E.P. Giambastiani to Charles Stimson Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, requesting that Hamdy, Padilla and al Marri be transferred to Guantanamo. [5] The memos were from 2005. Giambastiani's request was declined. The memos were released to the Post and Courier in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, filed eight years previously, for information about changes to the role of the prison triggered by al Qaeda's attacks on September 11, 2001. They wrote that when the DoD's response was finally received, "A Pentagon official apologized but gave no explanation for the long delay."

Related Research Articles

Hanahan is a city in Berkeley County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 12,937 at the 2000 census. The 2010 census puts the population at 17,997. Portions of the Naval Weapons Station Charleston, including the Naval Consolidated Brig Charleston, are located in Hanahan. As defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and used by the U.S. Census Bureau for statistical purposes only, Hanahan is included within the Charleston-North Charleston-Summerville metropolitan area and the Charleston-North Charleston Urbanized Area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">José Padilla (criminal)</span> American terrorist incarcerated in a US federal prison

José Padilla, also known as Abdullah al-Muhajir or Muhajir Abdullah, is a United States citizen who was convicted in a federal court of aiding terrorists.

Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court recognized the power of the U.S. government to detain enemy combatants, including U.S. citizens, but ruled that detainees who are U.S. citizens must have the rights of due process, and the ability to challenge their enemy combatant status before an impartial authority.

Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426 (2004), was a United States Supreme Court case, in which José Padilla, an American citizen, sought habeas corpus relief against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, as a result of his detention by the military as an "unlawful combatant."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yaser Esam Hamdi</span> Suspected Taliban member who got captured

Yaser Esam Hamdi is a former American citizen who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001. The United States government claims that he was fighting with the Taliban against U.S. and Afghan Northern Alliance forces. He was declared an "illegal enemy combatant" by the Bush administration and detained for almost three years without charge. On October 9, 2004, on the condition that he renounce his U.S. citizenship and commit to travel prohibitions and other conditions, the government released him and deported him to Saudi Arabia, where he had been raised.

A military prison is a prison operated by a military. Military prisons are used variously to house prisoners of war, unlawful combatants, those whose freedom is deemed a national security risk by the military or national authorities, and members of the military found guilty of a serious crime. There are two types: penal and confinement-oriented, where captured enemy combatants are confined for military reasons until hostilities cease. Most militaries have some sort of military police unit operating at the divisional level or below to perform many of the same functions as civilian police, from traffic-control to the arrest of violent offenders and the supervision of detainees and prisoners of war.

Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri is a citizen of Qatar who was sentenced to serve an 8-year sentence in a United States federal prison. He pleaded guilty to one count in a plea bargain after his case was transferred in 2009 to the federal court system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guantanamo Bay detention camp</span> United States military prison in southeastern Cuba

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Abdullah Mujahid is a citizen of Afghanistan who is still held in extrajudicial detention after being transferred from United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba — to an Afghan prison.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yussef al-Shihri</span> Saudi Arabian Guantanamo Bay detainee (1985–2009)

Yussef Mohammed Mubarak al-Shihri (1985–2009) was a citizen of Saudi Arabia who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. He was born on September 8, 1985, in Riyadh Saudi Arabia.

Abdul Baseer Nazim is a citizen of Afghanistan who is still held in extrajudicial detention after being transferred from United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba — to an Afghan prison.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naval Consolidated Brig, Miramar</span> US Navy military prison in San Diego, California

Naval Consolidated Brig, Miramar (NAVCONBRIG) is a military prison operated by the U.S. Navy at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in Miramar, San Diego, California, just under 10 miles (16 km) north of downtown San Diego. It is one of three Navy consolidated brigs and is the Pacific area regional confinement facility for the United States Department of Defense. It is also known as the Joint Regional Correctional Facility Southwest. The 208,000-square-foot (19,300 m2) facility has a capacity of up to 400 male and/or female prisoners and is staffed with 31 civilian and 173 military personnel. It is about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the MCAS Miramar East Gate Entrance.

al-Marri v. Spagone, 555 U.S. 1220 (2009), was a legal case in which the United States Supreme Court had to decide whether individuals can be imprisoned indefinitely for suspected wrongdoing without being charged with a crime and tried before a jury. The case was dismissed as moot on March 6, 2009, by the application of the Acting Solicitor General to transfer petitioner from military custody to the custody of the Attorney General.

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Dry-boarding is a torture method that induces the first stages of death by asphyxiation. Unlike waterboarding, where water is poured on a wet cloth placed over a supine subject's airways, so their breathing slowly fills their lungs with water, dryboarding induces asphyxiation through stuffing the subject's airways with rags, then taping shut their mouth and nose. It is among techniques used by the United States during its war on terror: CIA and military agents under the Bush administration described this as among enhanced interrogation techniques. It has since legally been defined by US courts as torture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joint Base Charleston</span>

Joint Base Charleston is a United States military facility located partly in the City of North Charleston, South Carolina and partly in the City of Goose Creek, South Carolina. The facility is under the jurisdiction of the United States Air Force 628th Air Base Wing, Air Mobility Command (AMC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naval Support Activity Charleston</span> Base of the United States Navy

Naval Support Activity Charleston, originally designated Naval Weapons Station Charleston, is a base of the United States Navy located on the west bank of the Cooper River, in the cities of Goose Creek and Hanahan South Carolina. The base encompasses more than 17,000 acres (69 km²) of land with 10,000 acres (40 km²) of forest and wetlands, 16-plus miles of waterfront, four deep-water piers, 38.2 miles (61.5 km) of railroad and 292 miles (470 km) of road. The current workforce numbers more than 11,000 with an additional 3,600 people in on-base family housing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naval Support Activity Hampton Roads</span> Military unit

Naval Support Activity Hampton Roads (NSA HR) is a United States Navy Echelon 4 regional support commander that is responsible to Navy Region Mid-Atlantic for the operation and maintenance of the installation of the same name that it is headquartered on. Adjacent to, but separate from Naval Station Norfolk, NSA Hampton Roads has the largest concentration of fleet headquarters administrative and communication facilities outside of Washington, D.C., including the headquarters for United States Fleet Forces Command, Naval Reserve Forces Command and United States Marine Corps Forces Command, along with components of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the home campus for the Joint Forces Staff College. NSA Hampton Roads is also home to NATO's Allied Command Transformation.

References

  1. "Visitor Information [ permanent dead link ]." Naval Consolidated Brig Charleston. Retrieved on May 30, 2010. The source says "The brig is located on the South Annex of the Naval Weapons Station located in North Charleston, SC." - While much of the base may lie in the city limits of North Charleston, the map of Hanahan and the base map show that the brig is located in Hanahan.
  2. "Hanahan city, South Carolina Archived 2011-06-06 at the Wayback Machine ." U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved on May 30, 2010.
  3. "Charleston Base Map [ permanent dead link ]." Naval Consolidated Brig, Charleston. Retrieved on May 30, 2010.
  4. History/Background, NAVCONBRIG CHASN Archived April 9, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  5. 1 2 Tony Bartelme (2011-10-12). "Memos detail Navy brig struggle: Military brass were denied OK to move terror suspects from Hanahan". Post and Courier. Archived from the original on 2011-10-16. Retrieved 2011-10-15. In early 2005, the Navy's brig in Hanahan had become a small but unique cog in the Bush administration's anti-terrorism apparatus -- the only prison on U.S. soil that housed people the president deemed "enemy combatants."
  6. Carol Cratty (2008-10-08). "Military concerned for detainees' sanity, records show". CNN. Archived from the original on 2008-10-14. Retrieved 2008-10-08.
  7. "2002 Navy Consolidated Brig emails about the captives' mental health" (PDF). Department of Defense. 2002. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2008-10-29. Retrieved 2008-10-09.