The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights announced Dec. 28 that the US government has refused to provide legal cooperation to Polish prosecutors investigating whether Saudi terror suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was tortured in a secret CIA prison in Poland. According to the letter sent by Polish prosecutors to the Helsinki Foundation, the US government denied the March 2009 request on the basis of a bilateral agreement on the protection of state interests.

Detainees will continue to be held at the detention center at Guantánamo Bay for the foreseeable future, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs acknowledged Dec. 26 on CNN's "State of the Union." The statement comes almost one year after the Obama administration missed its self-imposed January 2010 deadline to close the facility. Gibbs also stated that in addition to the use of civilian courts and military commissions, some detainees would have to be indefinitely detained:

The UK government on Nov. 16 announced a settlement with 16 Guantánamo Bay detainees over allegations of torture. Details of the settlement agreement, which are legally bound to a confidentiality agreement, have not been released, although at least seven detainees are expected to receive compensation, with at least one receiving over one million pounds. In return, the 16 detainees—12 of whom had filed suit and four of whom were planning to—agreed to drop a lawsuit against MI5 and M16, Britain's domestic and overseas intelligence agencies, respectively. Although many of the detainees receiving settlement are British citizens, some are not and may be offered asylum as part of the settlement. At least one is still detained in Guantánamo Bay.

A Lebanese military court on Nov. 12 convicted cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed of terrorism and sentenced him to life in prison. Bakri was found guilty of belonging to an armed group that plotted to carry out terrorist acts against Lebanese soldiers and was sentenced along with 54 others who fought in clashes with the Lebanese army in 2007. Tried and convicted in absentia, Bakri was reportedly surprised when his lawyer informed him of the verdict. He claims to have never received a summons or an arrest warrant. As Bakri lives openly in Tripoli, a city in the north of Lebanon, and appears regularly on television, it is not immediately clear why he was not arrested. Bakri maintains that the charges are fabricated and has refused to turn himself in.

No criminal charges will be brought against Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials for destroying videotapes of controversial interrogations of terror suspects during the Bush administration, a federal prosecutor announced Nov. 9. US Department of Justice special prosecutor John Durham "has concluded that he will not pursue criminal charges for the destruction of the interrogation videotapes," said DoJ spokesperson Matthew Miller.

The Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed a lawsuit Nov. 4 challenging the constitutionality of State Question 755, which amends the state constitution to ban the use of Islamic or international law in state court decisions. The suit, filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, seeks to block the Oklahoma State Board of Elections from certifying this week's election results, in which voters approved the measure by a vote of 70 to 30%. CAIR argues that the law violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The law would prevent Oklahoma courts from "look[ing] to the legal precepts of other nations or cultures," requiring them only to look to legal precedents of other states for guidance, provided that state does not use Islamic law.

A three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Nov. 5 ordered further review of a lower court decision to release Guantánamo Bay detainee Mohamedou Olud Slahi, allegedly linked to the 9-11 terrorist attacks. The order vacated US District Court Judge James Robertson's decision to release Slahi and remanded the case, instructing the court to conduct further review to see if Slahi has abandoned ties to al-Qaeda, to which he swore an oath of allegiance in the early 1990s.

A panel of seven senior US military officers on Oct. 31 sentenced Canadian Guantánamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr to 40 years in prison, but Khadr will serve no more than eight years under the terms of a guilty plea agreement. Khadr pleaded guilty last week to all five charges against him, including murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism and espionage, agreeing to serve an eight-year sentence. He will serve only one year of his sentence at Guantánamo and will then be able to apply to be transferred to Canada and will be eligible for parole after serving one-third of his sentence. According to a diplomatic note agreement the US and Canada, Khadr's application will be "favorably" considered.