rssDefense Department Threatens Gitmo Lawyer With Jail for Writing to President Obama
Monday, April 06, 2009 at 2:33 pm
- 3 Comments
This story, which was reported in The Guardian and confirmed by publicly filed court documents, is one of the stranger means the Obama administration has used thus far to keep quiet the sins of its predecessor.
As I’ve written before, lawyers representing the ex-Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed have been complaining that the U.S. government is forbidding the release of evidence that the Ethiopian-born U.K. resident was tortured in U.S. custody.In February, Clive Stafford Smith, director of the nonprofit organization Reprieve, which represents many Guantanamo Bay detainees, sent President Obama a letter saying that the Defense Department was not letting Obama see the evidence. Smith suggested that, as the commander-in-chief, Obama may want to change that.
Well, officials from the Department of Defense who make up a “privilege review team,” which monitors and censors communication between Guantanamo prisoners and their lawyers, didn’t like that at all. So in March, they filed a report with a federal court in Washington, D.C., calling the Reprieve lawyers’ letter “unprofessional” and charging that they’d violated the court’s protective order, which protects classified evidence. The odd thing about it was the letter to President Obama contained no evidence, and the attached memo discussing the torture was entirely blacked out — illustrating what Smith called the “bizarre reality” of the court’s order, which forbids even the president from seeing the evidence.
So how his this violating a protective order? The Defense Department’s report isn’t clear, but Judge Thomas Hogan has ordered Smith and his colleague Ahmed Ghappour to appear in his court on May 11 and explain why they should not be held in contempt of court — and perhaps jailed for up to six months — for their alleged transgression.
“What is particularly irksome about this is the issue involved,” Smith wrote in an e-mail this morning. “The government is covering up evidence of torture against Binyam Mohamed, while accusing us of violating a rule in (bizarrely) NOT revealing that evidence.” He added: “What this is really all about is official embarrassment at looking bad.”
3 Comments
Pingback posted April 6, 2009 @ 3:34 pm
[...] in Daily life, Democrats, Government, Military, Obama administration at 12:34 pm by LeisureGuy Daphne Eviatar in the Washington Independent: This story, which was reported in The Guardian and confirmed by publicly filed court documents, is [...]
Comment posted April 7, 2009 @ 9:15 am
quote: “Judge Thomas Hogan has ordered Smith and his colleague Ahmed Ghappour to appear in his court on May 11 and explain why they should not be held in contempt of court. “
What is Judge Thomas Hogan's bias, if any? Is this a predictable ruling for him? Some pretty bizarre and unbelievable things are taking place in this country and, sometimes, as Obama has said (quoting Lincoln, perhaps), “there are things that only a union can do.” There are too many secrets in government, in my opinion. Should a “privilege review team” from DOD wield so much power that the end result is something like this? A small select group should not be controlling the flow of information and, in effect, preventing the president from having rightful access to it.
The president has a right to see the evidence, in my opinion. And it would seem, on the face of it, that Mr. Smith (and Ahmend Ghappour) did the right thing by bringing this information to the one person who might be in a position to actually do something with it. Oft repeated, but I'll say it again (quoting Judge Louis Brandeis): “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” Why is the free-flow of information so objectionable to some? And to what end?
Comment posted April 7, 2009 @ 4:15 pm
quote: “Judge Thomas Hogan has ordered Smith and his colleague Ahmed Ghappour to appear in his court on May 11 and explain why they should not be held in contempt of court. “
What is Judge Thomas Hogan's bias, if any? Is this a predictable ruling for him? Some pretty bizarre and unbelievable things are taking place in this country and, sometimes, as Obama has said (quoting Lincoln, perhaps), “there are things that only a union can do.” There are too many secrets in government, in my opinion. Should a “privilege review team” from DOD wield so much power that the end result is something like this? A small select group should not be controlling the flow of information and, in effect, preventing the president from having rightful access to it.
The president has a right to see the evidence, in my opinion. And it would seem, on the face of it, that Mr. Smith (and Ahmend Ghappour) did the right thing by bringing this information to the one person who might be in a position to actually do something with it. Oft repeated, but I'll say it again (quoting Judge Louis Brandeis): “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” Why is the free-flow of information so objectionable to some? And to what end?
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