Guantanamo Detainees Turn on Their Lawyers
The Boston Globe has a must-read article today on Guantanamo detainees who are so frustrated with the delays of their lawsuits they are firing their lawyers, saying they are useless. In addition to the delays, some say the military is back-stabbing the lawyers.
Some lawyers say the military is also undermining their ability to maintain cordial relations with clients by harassing them on the base and by imposing sharp restrictions on their communications. Phone calls are not allowed. Officers assigned to chaperone the lawyers take a rigid attitude about scheduled meetings, refusing to allow them to go longer than planned, the lawyers said. Letter delivery, they added, is sometimes delayed for months.
Moreover, lawyers said, interrogators have ''manipulated" clients by saying that detainees with lawyers will not be released and that the lawyers cannot be trusted.
Here's another accusation:
And in an April court filing, a lawyer, Tom Wilner, told a judge that two Kuwaiti clients told him that interrogators had warned them that he was Jewish.
''How could you trust Jews? Throughout history, Jews have betrayed Muslims. Don't you think that your lawyers, who are Jews, will betray you?" the complaint quoted one interrogator as saying. ''Don't ever believe that a Jew will help a Muslim unless he gets more out of it than he gives. . . . What will other Arabs and Muslims think of you Kuwaitis when they know the only help you can get is from Jews?"
The military denied the charges. But Harold Koh, the dean of Yale Law School, says he's not surprised at the reactions of the detainees.
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