Guantanamo Lawyer Facing Jail Over Letter to Obama?
April 6th, 2009UPDATE: The Daily Mail Story Was Correct
See: Salon Radio: Binyam Mohamed lawyer Clive Stafford Smith
—End Update—
Several sites are bending over backwards in trying not to link to the source of this story, The Daily Mail. Some blog wrote about the Daily Mail piece and that has transformed into the source of this story, rather than the original article on Daily Mail.
Daily Mail is not reliable, unless you’re looking for late breaking information on Britney’s latest wardrobe malfunction, etc.
So, while the information below has a Kafkaesque ring of truth to it, I have asked the Reprieve organization to verify that it is accurate.
So far, they have not responded. If they do, I’ll post an update.
Via: Daily Mail:
Binyam Mohamed’s British lawyer faces a possible jail sentence in America because of a letter he wrote to President Obama about Mohamed’s treatment.
Clive Stafford Smith, legal director of UK charity Reprieve, and colleague Ahmed Gappour have been summonsed to appear before a Washington court on May 11.
If they fail to get the case thrown out, there would be a full-blown trial, at which they could be jailed for six months.
The hearing follows a complaint by the ‘Privilege Review Team’ – Pentagon officials who censor communications between Guantanamo prisoners and lawyers and say what aspects of cases can be made public.
Mr Stafford Smith wrote to the President last month after the High Court in Britain ruled out publication of edited CIA papers describing Mohamed’s ordeal because Foreign Secretary David Miliband said this could imperil US-UK intelligence-sharing.
Mr Stafford Smith urged the President to order the evidence to be disclosed. He attached a memo summarising the case, as he has US security clearances to see much of the classified material.
He and Mr Gappour sent the memo to the privilege team, offering to cut anything ‘sensitive’. The memo went through four drafts until it was returned blank – except for its title.
Mr Stafford Smith then sent the blanked-out memo to the President with his letter saying: ‘You, as Commander-in-Chief, are being denied access to material that would help to prove that crimes have been committed by US personnel.’
In its complaint to the court, the privilege team claims this was ‘unprofessional conduct’ that breached the rules that govern Guantanamo lawyers.
‘This is intimidation. It doesn’t even specify the rule supposedly breached,’ said Mr Stafford Smith.
Research Credit: ltcolonelnemo
