Nationality USA | Name John Bogdan | |
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Occupation Military Police Officer Known for Testified he was unaware Guantanamo meeting rooms were equipped to monitor captives and their lawyers | ||
Colonel John Bogdan is an officer in the United States Army. In June 2012 he took over as commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo's Detention Group—a position sometimes called the camp's warden, from Colonel Donnie Thomas.
In February 2013 attorneys representing Guantanamo captives had confirmed one of their long-standing concerns—that the rooms where Guantanamo captives met with their clients were bugged. When Bogdan was called to testify about the rooms being bugged, he asserted that he had only recently been aware of the bugs—which had been hidden in innocuous looking smoke detectors. Bogdan said the bugs had been installed long before he assumed command. He denied any knowledge of the bugs being listened to recently, and implied that they may have been abandoned. Bogdan asserted that he had told guards "there was to be no audio monitoring of attorney-client meetings." When asked by the wiring to the bugs had recently been repaired he suggested that it may just have been for completeness, and did not confirm that the bugs were being recorded or listened to. Bogdan said he had recently locked up the power supplies for the bugs.
Colonel Donnie Thomas, Bogdan's predecessor, had been aware of the bugs.
In early 2013 news broke that the most serious hunger strike in five years had begun. Ben Fox, writing in Time magazine asserts an intensive search ordered by Bogdan was one of the triggers for the hunger strike.
On 5 August 2013, Jason Leopold, writing in Al Jazeera, reported that Bogdan's justification for intrusive genital searches was based on the idea that there was a risk that al Qaeda would launch a frontal attack on the prison. Leopold had filed several requests to remove the redaction from claims Bogdan had made. The documents were not classified. The redactions had been justified on operational security grounds—that the camp in Cuba was at risk of a frontal attack by al Qaeda fighters.
On December 18, 2013, Daphne Eviatar of Human Rights First reported that, during testimony at a Military Commission, Bogdan acknowledged that prior to serving as commander of Guantanamo's Joint Detention Group, Bogdan had commanded a clandestine prison in Somalia. Eviatar described the Defense attorney concerns over new restrictions Bogdan had placed on their access to their clients, which she described as "unprecedented". Eviatar compared Bogdan's rules on attorney's access to their clients to those at US Bureau of Prisons Supermax prisons. Bogdan required attorney to apply 14 days in advance for an appointment to see their clients, while at Supermax prisons attorneys did not have to book appointments in advance. Bogdan restricted visiting hours to prior to 4 pm—prior to when many flights arrived on the distant base, while Supermax prisons allowed attorneys access to their clients up until 7 pm. Bogdan restricted the number of people who could meet with a captive to five, insufficient when defense attorney teams needed the help of paralegals and translators. Finally, Bogdan would allow no more than six captives to meet with their clients per day.