twenty years and still counting....

 

On June 18^th, 2002, my client left for Guantanamo Bay from Bagram airbase. He had been picked up at a guesthouse in Lahore, Pakistan 3 months earlier and spent the three months being tortured at various military sites in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The flight to Guantanamo took 24 hours with a stop somewhere in between where he switched planes. On the plane he was strapped to the floor of in a semi-prone position with no ability to move. He was hooded and bound the entire time. No food, no water, no bathroom. On June 19, 2002 he landed at Guantanamo.

According to my client, “When I arrived at Guantanamo I was sent to a room where a person looked over my body. The person asked what caused the incisions on my back but I told him I was hooded and could not see what was used on me. The person also asked about what had caused my feet to be black and I told him about the socks. I also showed him the other scars on my body. I was not provided any medical attention for my wounds.” The medical records also showed numerous cigarette burns on his body but Mr. Bakhouch was not asked about those. Presumably, the medical staff knew those were caused by cigarettes being snubbed out on his body.

 Mr. Bakhouch has now been at Guantanamo for over 20 years. He has never been charged with anything. He is cleared for release, but who knows when or if that release will actually happen.

 The military does not have an accurate photo of my client. The official photo is of a man who I believe (but I am not 100% sure) was released from Guantanamo very early on. That man was from Saudi Arabia. According to my records, that man was at Bagram at the same time as my client. The information that was gathered by the military about my client was based on interviews with other detainees who were showed the photo of this other man.

I put together all of this information and much much more at my clients “habeas hearing.” I put that in quotation marks because this was not a hearing in the normal legal sense. My client was not allowed to attend and much of the information I learned about his plight was gathered from classified information which I was not allowed to share with my client. I was not allowed to show him the photo of the man the government claimed was my client. I was the only person at the “hearing” that had ever seen or met with my client.

 I do not usually talk publicly about my personal feelings about judges; however, I will break with that tradition in this case. Let me start out by saying that I have great respect for the judiciary, and I know most judges work extremely hard and care a great deal about the independence of their office. Win or lose I respect every judge I have ever been in front of, except for this particular judge. Judge Leon is a sorry excuse for a judge. He made it clear from day one that he was not going to rule for my client no matter what the evidence. He even said at the beginning of the hearing (and I am paraphrasing although the transcript is cleared, and I could look up his actual quote- if he did not change that too) I could just rule now against your client now just because of the guesthouse he was arrested at. I was tempted to let him make that ruling but I wanted to make my record. And when he ruled against my client his ruling was replete with false facts. I filed at least three, maybe four,  motions to reconsider to force him to get the facts right. And when the facts were all (or mostly) corrected the judge was forced to rule consistent with his threat at the beginning of the hearing. Mr. Bakhouch has been held these 20 years because of the guesthouse he was arrested at. That was the only evidence against Mr. Bakhouch and there were many other people staying at that same guesthouse who, like Mr. Bakhouch, had no connection to terrorism.

 And so, Mr. Bakhouch has wasted over 20 years of his life sitting at Guantanamo without any charges ever filed against him, because he was staying at a guesthouse in Lahore Pakistan where another man was arrested that my government wrongly thought was a terrorist.

 If my client should ever be released I will have much more to say about this disgrace but for now this will suffice.