“Greater Access To Attorneys Than Any Other Combatants In The History Of Warfare”
Judge Bars Attorneys’ Access to Guantanamo Detainees
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Attorneys for at least 40 Guantanamo Bay prisoners have been barred from visiting or writing their clients because of a judge’s order dismissing legal challenges to the men’s confinement, the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday.
A Justice Department lawyer informed the attorneys of the new restrictions in an e-mail that cited Thursday’s dismissal of their cases by District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina in Washington.
“In light of this development, counsel access (both legal mail and in- person visits) is no longer permitted,” Justice Department lawyer Andrew I. Warden said in the e-mail.
Urbina’s ruling, which covered 16 legal petitions filed on behalf of 40-60 detainees, invalidated an order that establishes rules for contact with detainees, Warden said.
Challenges are still pending for dozens of other detainees with the Supreme Court set to consider whether Congress had the right to strip the prisoners of the right to contest their confinement with petitions of habeas corpus.
The Justice Department letter outlined a series of legal steps that would be required before the attorneys could resume contact with the detainees.
But attorney Wells Dixon said he would most likely not be able to complete those measures in time for a scheduled visit with a Libyan client in October.
That visit is crucial, Dixon said, because he is in the midst of trying to prevent the government from transferring the client back to Libya, where his lawyers fear he will be tortured.
“This is just the latest example of the government’s efforts to frustrate counsel access to detainees,” he said.
A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said the U.S. was following the laws that govern the legal rights of Guantanamo detainees and officials were pleased with Urbina’s ruling.
“We have afforded detainees at Guantanamo with greater access to attorneys than any other combatants in the history of warfare,” Gordon said.
The U.S. holds about 340 men at the detention center in Cuba as enemy combatants. Most of the prisoners have filed petitions of habeas corpus, a legal challenge to their confinement.
Last year, the U.S. Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, which stripped all detainees of the right to file habeas petitions—a fundamental legal right under the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court has said it will consider the law in its next term.
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Very good then, you have my seal of approval and as far as I’m concerned, job well done. Furthermore, I need not be reminded of their trifling existance anymore. If they as much as mouth off, give them the lethal Dan(the infedel) goat face kick.
September 21st, 2007 at 9:33 pm“…. the right to file habeas petitions—a fundamental legal right under the U.S. Constitution.”
…for citizens of the U.S. and legal ‘visitors’!!
“The Supreme Court has said it will consider the law in its next term.”
Nah…don’t bother. No really. Please don’t.
September 21st, 2007 at 10:08 pmWell cry me a river, the rug pilots can’t use our legal system against us! The very legal system THEY ARE NOT FUCKING ENTITLED TO! Get it, you pinkos in the ACLU?! Of course you don’t, your allegiance is to something else. Pardon me, but with 16 beers down the hatch, I’m a little worked-up.
September 21st, 2007 at 10:51 pmRemember when GQ profiled those JAG assholes a few months ago? I imagine those douche bags in uniform are pissed because of this decision. Good to hear of a victory for the good guys. As a side note, it is interesting that the only “troops” the libs consider heroic are the shit bag, non-combat patch lawyers who defend terrorist or prosecute soldiers or Marines.
September 21st, 2007 at 11:57 pmWell, goddamn me, were they ever entitled to OUR legal process?! No!
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:20 amThis is about time. the evil notion that ANY of these rabid fucks should have US legal representation is over AT LAST.
These human clones or tank reproductions(see Brave New World) are not worth the cost of a 7.62.Why are the military and the gnvt keeping any of these fucks alive.They are all non military combatants, and 20% of those released go straight back to the Jihad option.
As for the legion of US lawyers that want to represent them, well publish a list so that any patriotic american can vote with their checkbooks and isolate these unpatriotic scum so that eventually they are only able to pump gas in a hugo chavez gas station, where they will feel honoured to be helping the 3rd world.They certainly dont help the US!!!
As for the libyan client.WELL!!!!! if yu donethe crime to do the time and if the time in the home country makes you feel like you want to turn back the clock then so be it.SUFFER.
I cannot ever get over the fact that there are attornys in the US that are willing to represent outlanders instead of read americans, when the outlanders have no connection to the USA except they want to destroy the place.
What sort of patriotism is this?
Or is the US law schools only graduating insufferable, unpatriotic shitheads that are bent only of detroying the country that they were born in or emigrated to for a better life.?????
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:00 amLet the gitmo inhabitants rot in the sunshine of the last communist country on earth. I dont care, and neither should you.
Just a simple thought from an aussie
umm…put a bullet in each and every single one of their heads. Will anyone honestly miss them?(besides the traitors)
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:39 amAccording to General Order 100 and the Geneva Convention rules of WWII, all of these people can be shot at dawn. WTF is holding things up? Oh that’s right…ACLU, CAIR, traitors in the LMSM and Congress….And of course the ever useless UN.
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:52 amWhile we’re on the subject of human scum or Islamophobia as some would call it (cough twice), here’s more love from the kinds of people we have at Guantanamo:
France braces for jihad attack after suicide bombing in Algeria
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
“The explosion resulted in the destruction of the Toyota vehicle which carried the Frenchmen and the death of those who were in it, thanks be to God.” Feel the love.
“France on Al-Qaeda alert after attack,” from The Australian (thanks to PRCS):
AL-QAEDA’S branch in North Africa has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Algeria that wounded two French people and one Italian, hours after it had threatened French targets in the region.
In an “audio statement” posted on the Internet and received by Al-Arabiya television’s office in Algiers, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said one of its militants carried out the attack with a car laden with “more than 250 kilos of explosives”.
Friday’s bombing in Lakhdaria, about 75 kilometres (50 miles) southeast of Algiers, “killed three foreigners” and wounded others, Al-Arabiya quoted the group as claiming.
But the Algerian interior ministry said in a statement that no-one was killed while nine people suffered injuries which were not life-threatening.
Al-Arabiya aired part of the audio recording, in which the spokesman of the group said “the heroic martyrdom-seeker Othman Abu Jaafar” rammed a Mazda car into a convoy in which “French crusaders working on building the biggest dam” in the area were travelling.
The news channel showed a picture of a militant carrying a machinegun, with the inscription “martyrdom-seeker Othman Abu Jaafar” written on it, which accompanied the statement.
The targeted French men were escorted by Algerian army and police vehicles at the time, the recording said.
“The explosion resulted in the destruction of the Toyota vehicle which carried the Frenchmen and the death of those who were in it, thanks be to God,” the spokesman added.
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:58 amLawyers think too much.
September 22nd, 2007 at 6:18 am“Lawyers think too much.”
John Cunningham…how freaking profound you are.
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:08 am[…] “Greater Access To Attorneys Than Any Other Combatants In The History Of Warfare” — Pat Dollard […]
September 22nd, 2007 at 9:59 amYou know the head of Colombia U. Bollinger is a lawyer/law prof.
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:59 am