The BBC is reporting that Michael Demetris, who is accused of being part of a £53m raid on a Securitas depot in Tonbridge UK in 2006, is claiming that he thought a disguise he provided for the mastermind of the robbery was actually for a role in a Playstation game. Demetris is being accused of recruiting a make-up artist to work on a disguise for the mastermind of the robbery Lee Murray. Mr Demetris claimed in the witness box today that "Mr Murray told him he had passed an audition for a part in a Playstation computer game video and asked him to do his hair and make-up." Mr Demetris then said he offered a make-up artist the job having "no idea Mr Murray had anything to do with the robbery."

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/40836?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+A+toxic+legacych=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Guantanamo+Bay+%28News%29%2CObama+White+House+%28News%29%2CBarack+Obama+%28News%29%2CUS+foreign+policy%2CUS+news%2CHuman+rights+%28News%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CUS+Electionsc6=Julian+Borgerc7=2008_12_04c8=1128354c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Guant%C3%A1namo+Bayc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FGuant%C3%A1namo+Bay" width="1" height="1" //divpEver since January 11 2002, when the first 20 prisoners were flown in from Afghanistan in orange jumpsuits and shackles, the Guantaacute;namo Bay detention camp has been a hefty burden around the Bush administration's neck. /ppThe defence secretary at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, picked the Cuban enclave as the "least worst place" to hold captives accused of terrorism. But the effort to run a camp outside the reach of US or international law, so that "enemy combatants" could be held indefinitely without charge, steadily corroded America's standing in the world. The images of the inmates languishing in small metal cages in Camp X-Ray, the rudimentary first phase of the complex, and the steady stream of reports of human rights abuses, have taken a daily toll. The camp's existence has angered and embarrassed Washington's closest allies, and become a recruitment tool for its enemies. /ppNearly six years on, there is no debate over whether "Gitmo" should be closed - only how. As it approaches the end of its term, the Bush administration is anxiously attempting to dispose of its own toxic legacy. John Bellinger, the state department's top lawyer, has been trying to persuade other governments to accept detainees cleared for release. More than 500 have already been sent back to their homelands or to third countries, but there are still 250 prisoners left who cannot go home for fear of persecution and who no one else will accept. They are now Barack Obama's problem./ppThe president-elect has frequently stated his intention to close Guantaacute;namo. In an interview since the election, he repeated that pledge, saying it was "part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world". But the question of what to do with the remaining inmates still divides his ideologically diverse national security and justice teams./ppObama's inaugural speech on January 20 will be closely scrutinised around the world for signs of how bold or cautious he decides to be. His policy on Guantaacute;namo will be widely seen as a benchmark for his intentions as president. /ppA report by a non-partisan panel of US security and human rights experts, entitled Closing Guantaacute;namo: From Bumper Sticker to Blueprint, estimates that the camp could be emptied within a year if the Obama administration decided on a clean break from Bush policies and devoted enough resources to the job. The report advocates the establishment of an independent commission to review the cases of all the detainees, to assess the evidence against them and order the immediate release of the innocent./ppThe first task will be to complete the Bush administration's effort to find homes for the 150-200 prisoners who, according to lawyers familiar with their stories, have no case to answer but who cannot be sent back to their native countries for fear they would be victimised, tortured or killed. /ppThe clearest example of inmates stuck in this limbo are the 17 Uighurs, separatists from a Muslim minority in China who were seized in Pakistan during the Afghan war. They have all been cleared for release by the US authorities, most as long ago as 2003, but have so far not been accepted by any third countries. Albania agreed to take in five other Uighur detainees in 2006, but has refused to take any more. /ppBellinger's efforts to find any other government to receive the Uighurs have been undermined by the adamant refusal of the US authorities to allow them to live in America because of the presumed threat they pose to the US, in part because of presumed animosity caused by six years of detention without charge. Obama's envoys may find they have better luck than Bellinger./pp"I don't think anyone is inclined to do this administration any favours, but Obama will find he has a lot of goodwill to draw on," a European diplomat says. But that goodwill will be greatly enhanced if the new administration stops fighting the resettlement of inmates in the US./ppA second category of prisoners will be referred for prosecution outside Guantaacute;namo, but that raises the question of whether that prosecution should be conducted by military courts martial in the US or the civilian legal system. That will be a decision that goes to the philosophical heart of the issue - should the US approach terrorism as a military threat or as a criminal enterprise, or some hybrid of the two? Obama has refrained from using the phrase "war on terror", but he is said to be under pressure from the more conservative national security experts on his team to leave his options open and not bind himself with the procedural constraints of the civilian judiciary./ppOn the other side of the debate is a "rule of law" camp within the embryonic administration which argues that anything short of a complete return to constitutional normality would rob Obama of the international goodwill he might otherwise gain by scrapping Guantaacute;namo./ppThat debate underlies the toughest dilemma the new administration is likely to face on closing the offshore camp: whether there should be a third category of prisoners, deemed too dangerous to release but too difficult to prosecute. The evidence against them may be in the form of intelligence material that cannot be disclosed in court, or that falls short of legal proof. Confessions would also be ineligible if they were obtained under torture, as in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks who was "waterboarded" (subjected to simulated drowning) by the CIA. And few if any of the inmates of Guantaacute;namo were reminded of their right not to incriminate themselves, which is standard police practice./ppThe Bush administration has been seeking international agreement for a new form of preventative detention that would allow inmates in this third category to be held in the US and abroad. "The problem is you've got 200-plus very dangerous people, and the question is what do you do with them. And these are people who say regularly: 'If I'm let out of here, I will go immediately and start killing Americans again,'" Condoleezza Rice, the outgoing secretary of state, said during a visit to London this week. She argued that "even though you know that this person is a future threat, we don't really have a legal framework for that, which is why it's been done within a war framework. But if you don't hold a person who you know is a future threat, then you risk the deaths of thousands of innocents. So I do think that this is something for the international community to take up."/ppThere is little sign, however, that the international community has any appetite for such a departure from established human rights law. The decision on preventative detention will be Obama's alone. Several of his advisers and allies, liberals included, think that terrorism is such a pernicious threat, and the security risks of releasing suspects are so great, that new legislation allowing for preventative detention is unavoidable. The political risk of a released inmate carrying out an attack are also enormous. Such an event could prove crippling to a new administration. /ppOn the other hand, any new system of preventative detention would be seen around the world as Guantaacute;namo redux, human rights lawyers say. It would be every bit as effective as an al-Qaida recruiting tool, and would perpetuate the extremists' self-image as warriors rather than mere criminals. Within the internal debate under way in the transition team, liberal activists want foreign governments to lobby Obama against creating a new legal limbo. /ppIt is one of the toughest decisions the new president has in his in-tray. What Obama decides will say a lot about his presidency. Sarah Mendelson, a senior fellow of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and author of the Closing Guantaacute;namo report, says it is uncertain which way Obama would lean. But she adds: "My sense is the president-elect has taught courses in the constitution in one of the most reputable law schools in country. He ran on opting back into the international system. The idea of going for a new legal regime that will result in more years in litigation is not going to appeal. It will not be the clean break he needs to make."/ph2A history of the prison camp/h2p· January 11 2002: First prisoners arrive/pp· February 27 2002: First hunger strike begins/pp· April 29 2002: The first prison, Camp X-Ray, closes, replaced by a more solid concrete construction, Camp Delta/pp· November 10 2003: US Supreme Court agrees to hear appeals from inmates that they are being held illegally/pp· February 13 2004: Bush administration agrees to establish review panels to establish whether inmates still pose a threat/pp· March 19 2004: Five British detainees freed/pp· February 16 2006: The UN calls for the closing of Camp Delta, arguing that the treatment of some inmates amounts to torture/pp· June 10 2006: Three inmates hang themselves/pp· June 21 2006: President Bush first expresses the wish to close the camp/pp· September 6 2006: Fourteen "high-value" detainees are transferred from secret CIA prisons around the world to Guantaacute;namo, including Khaled Sheikh Mohamed, Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi Binalshibh, three alleged planners of the 9/11 attacks/pp· June 12 2008: US Supreme Court rules that inmates have the right to challenge their incarceration in the US courts/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/guantanamo"Guantánamo Bay/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/obama-white-house"Obama White House/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/barackobama"Barack Obama/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usforeignpolicy"US foreign policy/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/humanrights"Human rights/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/DnF9th1tAua-YMzXf_qz88giof4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/DnF9th1tAua-YMzXf_qz88giof4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Editor's Note: We welcome a new regular feature and contributor here today. The MediaShift Innovation Spotlight will look in-depth at one great mash-up, database, mapping project or multimedia story that combines technology and journalism in useful ways. These projects can be at major newspaper or broadcast sites, or independent news sites or blogs. Web journalist extraordinaire Megan Taylor will be your guide to these regular bi-weekly spotlights.

What It Is

St. Petersburg Times' Neighborhood Watch is a database application that tracks weekly house sales in Pinellas and Pasco counties, Florida. Readers can search for home sales by county, ZIP code or neighborhood. Median price and sale count trends are tracked and graphed at one year, six month, three month, and one month intervals. On a neighborhood level, the site plots geographical data on Google Maps and suggests listings to prospective buyers by ZIP code. The application also generates neighborhood-by-neighborhood trend stories by querying the database. The Times plans to expand Neighborhood Watch to cover more counties in the future.

Why It's Innovative

Every paper has to do these kinds of real estate stories once or twice a year: The housing market has gone up, it's gone down, it stayed the same, etc. It's not big journalism, but it is important to the community and it takes a lot of time and resources to put together individual stories for different neighborhoods.

Neighborhood Watch not only provides weekly data on the housing market, but includes an instant story for each neighborhood -- a computer program analyzes sale trends to generate a short synopsis of a neighborhood's market.

This frees up real estate reporters to focus on bigger stories with context and depth. Given the current state of the market, freeing up a reporter's time to work on big stories is becoming more and more important.

The data is even appearing in the print St. Petersburg Times neighborhood sections; the paper has begun to reverse publish information that originally appeared on the web.

Who's Behind It

Matt Waite, the St. Petersburg Times News Technologist, is the brains behind Neighborhood Watch.

A Django evangelist and data hound, Waite worked as a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times for almost eight years. He is also the mastermind behind PolitiFact, a popular site where statements from U.S. presidential candidates were fact-checked and rated (including the "Pants on Fire" logo for worst offenders).

In 2004, Waite created maps to compare prices while he was house-hunting; those maps eventually became the seed for Neighborhood Watch.

Waite explained that even though newspapers only have the time and resources to cover broad, flashy stories, it was really the small, local details that interested readers. The same is true in regards to real estate stories:

I give this speech at various journalism conferences about crime. There are two crimes I care about: There's the crazy dude with the machete who hacks his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend's head off and mounts it to his car and waits for the police to show up; and my neighbor's lawn mower getting stolen out of his garage.One of those you'll find in the pages of the newspaper, guaranteed, the other is the opposite: you'll never, ever, in a million years read about my neighbor's lawn mower getting stolen out of his garage in the pages of the St. Petersburg Times. But I and my other neighbors were very interested when that happened. So the trick is to find a way to deliver that kind of information to people in a compelling fashion that doesn't involve having to pay a massive army of reporters to cover every single thing that moves. And the beauty of apps like this is that you might not care, but the guy in the apartment next to yours may REALLY care. But it didn't cost anything to provide that information to whoever might want it, at whatever scale you want it at.

Listen to Waite talk about the origins of Neighborhood Watch:

Specs

Neighborhood Watch is built on GeoDjango, a former branch of Django that has been merged with the framework in the 1.0 release.

The site uses a spatially enabled database back end called PostgreSQL, with an added SQL library called PostGIS.

For the most part, the city's neighborhood associated boundary files provided good neighborhood maps. But in the suburbs, there are developer boundaries, or common knowledge boundaries. In some places, boundaries and names were invented by the St. Petersburg Times.

The data comes from an FTP fetch through the property appraisers.

Challenges

Waite started building Neighborhood Watch using the same technology he used for PolitiFact -- Django .96 and MySQL. But there was a problem: MySQL didn't support the kind of location relationships he needed.

"I had to establish a relationship between a neighborhood and a parcel," he said, "There's no real good way to do that in MySQL, so I resorted to how I did it originally: in a desktop GIS program."

This had its own problems: Updating.

"Every time I wanted to update the parcel layer, I'd have to recreate that relationship between parcel and neighborhood -- it's called a spatial join," he said. "If you're going to be updating something every week, that's bad."

So Waite started playing with GeoDjango, "which brings the functionality of a world class GIS system into the Django web framework. With GeoDjango, data models can contain geographic data, i.e. data becomes aware of space."

3 Questions

Have you received any complaints about the way you drew up neighborhoods?

Matt Waite: Funny thing, no, we haven't in the areas where we made them up. I've received two complaints about the maps. One was that we left out a neighborhood in an area -- and they were right, I'm adding it in -- and one was that the city neighborhood association map was just one parcel too far over the line in one small neighborhood. So it wasn't even my doing.

What was your favorite part of Neighborhood Watch to build?

Waite: The geographic components, without a doubt. Location and geography -- where you are, where you live -- is such a powerful prism for people to look at something through. It makes the data you have so much more visceral to someone when you can show them a map of their neighborhood or their house and how it relates to what you're showing them. Being able to do that efficiently and powerfully now on the server side is something very cool that I haven't even gotten my head all the way around yet.

So what has the response been like from people in the newsroom and people in the community?

Waite: Very positive on both accounts. I've mostly paid attention to the public's reaction to it and it's been very interesting. The bulk of the email I get about it is, 'We want more, more stats, more measures, more this, more that.' I've gotten a handful of emails from realtors who were mad that I included this sale and not that one, or one of their competitor's sales but not theirs. Every time, it's been because I screen out all but the most basic single-family house sales and toss all the rest. I learned with PolitiFact that the best marketing you can do is to answer your email, good or bad, and I've tried to do that.

Far and away, the most common comment I get is 'Where are the condos?' And the answer is 'We're working on it.' This version only deals with single family houses. The condo market and the house market are two very different things, and we're going to treat them that way.

Screencast

Call for More Spotlights

The MediaShift Innovation Spotlight will run every other week. Please let me know of any innovative projects you are working on or have seen lately. It doesn't have to be from a major newspaper, it just has to be an innovative blend of journalism and technology. Please e-mail me at mtaylor[at]megantaylor[dot]org to submit a Spotlight recommendation.

Megan Taylor is a web journalist whose work focuses on combining traditional and computer-assisted information-gathering with multimedia production to create news packages online. Megan tells stories in English, HTML/CSS/, ActionScript, PHP, photos, video and audio, and blogs at her personal site.

MediaShift Spotlight Innovation illustration by Omar Lee for MediaShift.

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