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| Lawyer Facing Jail Over Letter To Obama |
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30/03/2009
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.
SOURCE: The Daily Mail
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