This is Not A Good Day for the World

Thank you Kaptain Kanada for sending this on.

Portugal was first... but now they are lining up (Updated)

Seems old Europe wants to help our new president close Guantanamo... Germany, Norway, Switzerland, and now Great Britain have agreed to take prisoners... Things are looking good for our clients in the New Year.
Australia too!

Judge Denies Habeas Petitions for Two (updated)

Unfortunately J. Leon (the same judge that exonerated the 6 Algerian/Bosnians) denied habeas petitions for two men yesterday. The Judge refused to take into account evidence that certain statements made by the men were made after being tortured. Tough day for those men.
The ruling against the Yemeni captive, Moath Hamza Ahmed Al Alwi, can be found here. The ruling against the Tunisian prisoner, Hisham Sliti, can be found here. (thanks to Scotus for the cites)

Petition for Special Prosecutor for War Crimes

Click on the title and sign the petition to Obama's new Attorney General asking for a special prosecutor to look into our war crimes... also read the entire article and see what else you can do to help.

No Shame

Just when you think you have heard it all... there is this.
(Click on the title)

Part 2 of the Stephen Abraham Interview

Hats off to Kaptain Kanada for sending this on. In this part of the interview by Andy Worthington Abraham talks about the only Tribunal Panel he sat on... that was for my client Mr. Al-Ghizzawi. The Panel found him not to be an enemy combatant but yet he still sits at Guantanamo.
Click on the title to read the interview.

Is Gates guilty of perjury?

Andy Worthington discusses the affidavit that was provided to habeas counsel from Gates (click on the title). Maybe this comes down to the word "encountered"? One thing that is sure is that we have not received exculpatory information for our clients (information that would tend to show they are not guilty). So far we have been left to our own investigations for proving our clients innocence but it is a legal obligation that the government give us the exculpatory information. Will the "justice departments" tactics change on January 20th? One can only hope.

Harold Pinter RIP

In his lecture after receiving the Noble Prize in Literature in 2005 he spoke these words:

"The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law."

"How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand?".

Happy Holidays?

Andy Worthington Interviews Stephen Abraham

This is an amazing interview and when you read part two (next week) you will find that Col. Abraham sat on my clients panel (Al-Ghizzawi) when Al-Ghizzawi was found NOT to be an enemy combatant. Click on the title for more.

Less than one month

click on the title....

THE CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS

As many of you know the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has been the umbrella organization for all of the volunteer attorneys (like me) in the Guantanamo litigation. They have helped us stay organized and working as a group. Unfortunately among many of Madoff's indirect victims is CCR. -- among CCR's significant donors are several foundations who were Madoff investors. Loss of their contributions is going to be material.
Please consider donating to CCR

medical records and independent medical exams

Well unfortunately the headline does not indicate any changes in Mr. Al-Ghizzawi's case but if you click on the title you can read how some of the Judges are starting to allow lawyers to obtain medical records and in one case the Judge is even allowing an independent medical review.

dream team

The Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece earlier this week suggesting that the Guantanamo habeas attorneys are in it for the glory and how nice it would be if big firm lawyers would volunteer to help out the poor department of justice lawyers. Well the Wall Street Journal did not see fit to print my letter in response so here it is (FYI, DOJ is the department of Justice... in name only of course) :

As one of the “dream teams” (my team is particularly small however because I am a sole practitioner) referenced in your opinion piece on December 16^th “Gitmo Lawyers are the latest in Radical Chic” I want to commend you for the excellent idea that the DOJ gets some assistance from competent lawyers from the outside. If the DOJ had competent lawyers on it’s side that would treat the courts as an independent branch of government rather than an irritant to be ignored… or worse yet to be lied to, perhaps we could get these cases resolved. Competent lawyers could start by giving refresher courses to the DOJ attorneys on both the court rules and the ethical rules for attorney conduct…. Including the most important rules “obey court orders” and “tell the truth.” A little friendly advice about the harm that comes to the judicial process when they deliberately insulate its lawyers from unfavorable facts would go a long way too.

I have been in private practice for more than twenty-five years and I can tell you that if I conducted litigation in the same manner that these attorneys from the DOJ have I would have been sanctioned by the Judges long ago. You are absolutely right that competent representation promotes justice and any involvement to raise the quality of the government's representation in these cases would be a welcome improvement.

The Worst Place in the World

Click on the title to read Andy Worthington's discussion about the men released to their homes in Bosnia two days ago.
I was particularly angered to hear that these men who were cleared by a federal judge of any wrongdoing were still treated like the "worst of the worst" on their trip home. They were diapered and chained for the ride home... not allowed to even use the god damned toilet on the plane. Shame on us.
So now we have three men who have been released pursuant to a court order. As my friend the talking dog pointed out one fewer than the number known to have died at Guantanamo. Oops...As my other friend Almerindo (from the Guantanamo testimonial project) pointed out, five men are known to have died at Guantanamo so the number released by court order is two fewer than the number known to have died at Gitmo.