Clive Stafford Smith and Ahmad Ghappour have been summoned before a D.C. court on May 11th.
Find one reference to this interview here
Guantanamo Attorneys Face Possible Prison Time for Letter to Obama Detailing Client’s Allegations of Torture
11/04/2009
Clive Stafford Smith, Binyam Mohamed’s attorney. He is the legal director of the UK charity Reprieve and has represented more than fifty Guantanamo Bay prisoners. He is author of Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice in Guantanamo Bay.
AMY GOODMAN: This last story, an unusual development in the case of Binyam Mohamed, the British resident recently released after seven years in US custody, where he claims he was repeatedly tortured, first in a secret CIA prison, later at Guantanamo. Binyam Mohamed’s lawyers, Clive Stafford Smith and Ahmad Ghappour, could face six months in a US prison, The Guardian newspaper revealed last week, because of a letter they sent to President Obama explaining their client’s allegations of torture by US agents.
Officials from the Department of Defense who monitor and censor communication between Guantanamo prisoners and their lawyers filed a complaint against Mohamed’s lawyers for “unprofessional conduct” and for revealing classified evidence to the President. The memo the lawyers sent to Obama was completely redacted except for the title. It had urged the President to release evidence of Mohamed’s alleged torture into the public domain. Clive Stafford Smith and Ahmad Ghappour have been summoned before a D.C. court on May 11th.
I’m joined now in these last few minutes by Clive Stafford Smith, director of the British legal charity Reprieve.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Clive Stafford Smith, you’re afraid of being arrested if you come into this country?
CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH: No, I’m going to come to the country, because I want to face the charges. I mean, the charges are, to my mind, frivolous, because—it may be confusing to your listeners when you say that we supposedly revealed classified evidence and then say it was all censored—it was all censored. There wasn’t one iota of classified evidence revealed. So the real question, I guess, here is why the government continues to cover up the evidence of Binyam Mohamed’s torture.
AMY GOODMAN: But please explain, because I think this can be very confusing, what it is they said you did in this letter to President Obama. You are Binyam Mohamed’s lawyer.
CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH: Well, I wrote a letter to President Obama and attached to it a memorandum that was going to originally be the evidence that showed that Binyam was tortured. But that evidence we had to submit through the classification review process. So, ultimately, the two-page memo of evidence that Binyam had been tortured was all redacted, as you mentioned, so it was all blacked out. I mean, even to the President it was blacked out. And the only thing left in it was, you know, “In re: torture of Binyam Mohamed.”
What we were trying to do was get President Obama the information he needs to make a judgment as to whether the US should continue to cover up this evidence of torture. And it’s paradoxical that the President of the United States is not being permitted to make that judgment in a meaningful way.
AMY GOODMAN: So you will come to the United States for this May 11th hearing?
CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH: Oh, my goodness, yes. I mean, I am, I will say, offended by this process, but nothing would keep me away. I want to clear both mine and Ahmad’s name. And I want the real issue to be why the government continues to cover up the evidence of Binyam’s torture, because how can it be that we, as Americans, are not allowed to know when our government officials have committed criminal offenses against people like Binyam Mohamed? That just makes no sense at all. And if, indeed, someone should be on trial here, it should be the people who tortured Binyam.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to leave it there. Clive Stafford Smith, thank you very much for this update.
CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH: Thank you.
SOURCE: Democracy Now dot org
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Related Items/Sources:
Center for Constitutinal Rights/ Special Prosecutor:
here
here
here
2 comments:
Thanks for bringing it out. I am introducing the issue on my blog too (http://AboutAafia.blogspot.com)
Thanx for your comment & your timely scholarly work.
Certainly, the time is long overdue for America - and other allies in the West - to face the
corruption of law, decent rights and so much more which have been allowed by our citizens - not only to occur - but also to multiply!
While America today lags behind many other countries in transparency and is at the head of perhaps all in crimes of war - help is needed from others more clear-sighted.
So global action is sorely needed as long as there is such numbness, deafness and blindness here. As one of our most gifted past writers, Flannery O'Conner, has said: To the deaf we must shout and to the blind we must WRITE BIG. (something like that) - and the half-baked if any changes in recent months call for HELP from distant lands. We remain as ashamed
as ever of what our country has been doing (or not)in the name of a most flimsy democracy. For all our concerns - our efforts appear to be caught in a circular rapid.
While many of our citizens are relieved to have someone else in the "helm" at the White House and paralyzed by the financial storms - there are few who realize how much "undoing" is yet needed in terms of the detainees and the rule of law.
Also, as with the financial crises, we can't allow ourselves to ignore or leave hidden other toxic examples of the West affecting the well-being of the rest of the world for the worst.
So, we desperately need help in these parts to support these falsely maligned lawyers! We need other perspectives - and voices of stability and experience - as we are all too few who seek to expose these travesties.
No matter the other crises we all face, we will face many more unless we put a clear end to these human rights abuses over many years at GTMO, Bagram, Iraq and many other places around the globe where America has sought "cover" for her own crimes - no less evil than those in other times.
Even while the detained of the last six years have been by our own courts completely cleared of all charges - they, in many cases remain behind bars. Others remain hopeless, no guarantee ever of a fair trial - no certainty they are still alive - hidden from view.
Others lives and families have been wrecked (women and men - children too) and whether released or not, detained or not where is the West a part of the healing of the scars inflicted on so many?
How many years before we in the west, accept the
secret sins on such a wide scale we have allowed our governments and military to make?
How long before we finally make amends (not just expressions of philosophical intentions) to and for the many detained/imprisoned injustly and without compassion for these oft ruined lives and those of their families?
Spain is helping America by right now highlighting US War Crimes and calling for international justice.
We can help them help us all by exposing these Reprieve and other lawyers' plight - we need to highlight the cover-ups even in this case and the many ONGOING attempts at intimidation - while Spain is kindly trying to educate and help Americans to face recent War Crimes will all go toward a better day.
Let's pray and work that this day may be soon!
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