'Ask Me About Guantánamo' ...by H. Candace Gorman

[babylonsister]

Wednesday, December 20th, 2006
'Ask Me About Guantánamo' ...by H. Candace Gorman

I guess you can call me a flip flopper. First I thought Congress had dealt my client, Mr. Al-Ghizzawi, the final blow in September with the passage of the Military Commissions Act. This insidious law does away with habeas corpus rights for Guantánamo detainees, (not to mention non U.S. Citizens and any U.S. citizen that the president determines is an “enemy combatant”). Then I thought the final blow was that I could not get Mr. Al-Ghizzawi's medical records for an independent review of his medical treatment (or lack thereof) at Guantánamo. But then last week the first lawsuit was thrown out of court because of the Military Commissions Act and I know the real death knell for Mr. Al-Ghizzawi is losing habeas corpus. You see, I wouldn't need Mr. Al-Ghizzawi's medical records if I could have a quick and fair habeas hearing, because my client would be set free and could get medical attention on his own.

Mr. Al-Ghizzawi is one of the hundreds of men being held at Guantánamo who was turned over to the American military in exchange for a bounty. I have been representing him now for just over a year. I am not from a big law firm; I am a civil rights attorney with almost 25 years experience. Working with me is one young associate, a law clerk and a para-legal. I pay for everything involved in this representation out of my own pocket and the reason I am doing this is because my government, our government, has turned its back on the rule of law and I could not turn a blind eye. My involvement started as a personal statement because I was unwilling to sit on the sidelines while our rule of law was under attack. I believe that each of us has the capacity to change things in our own realm if we focus and take charge. My realm happens to be the legal arena. I started out with the simple task of wanting to do my part to make sure there were open and honest habeas hearings. I didn't know anything about Mr. Al-Ghizzawi when I signed on to represent a detainee. In fact, in the back of my mind I assumed that whatever client I represented would probably be guilty. I was ok with that; if an individual is guilty they should be punished. If they are innocent they should be released. I just wanted to make sure that the rule of law was followed.

As I later learned, Mr. Al-Ghizzawi is innocent and his story is typical in that, like the majority of prisoners at Guantánamo, he was not captured “on the battlefield” by U.S. forces. Mr. Al-Ghizzawi (like other Arabs in Afghanistan) was seized by armed men after the United States dropped thousands of leaflets over that war-ravaged country promising huge bounties for captured “terrorists” and “murderers.” Mr. Al-Ghizzawi was then turned over to the Northern Alliance, who in turn handed him over to the Americans. Mr. Al-Ghizzawi has been held now for over five years without any charges being filed against him. The awful truth is that our government has known for years that Mr. Al-Ghizzawi, and the vast majority of the detainees, have no ties to terrorism.

It is bad enough to be languishing at Guantánamo, but Mr. Al-Ghizzawi has become increasingly sick over the years of his imprisonment and the military has ignored his deteriorating health. As you can imagine, Mr. Al-Ghizzawi has been very concerned about what is wrong with him. He pleaded for an attorney by sending messages through other detainees that were already represented by counsel. He knew that the only way he was going to get medical help was if he had someone advocating for him. Although he didn't know exactly what was wrong with his health, he knew that when he got married a blood test first showed positive for hepatitis B; a second test showed negative. He had no symptoms back then so he figured the first test was wrong. But sitting in Guantánamo Mr. Al-Ghizzawi became concerned that he did in fact have hepatitis when he began having severe pain in the area of his liver and his skin became noticeably jaundiced. The military gave him physicals over the years, but no one at Guantánamo would tell him what was wrong with him. In fact, they told Mr. Al-Ghizzawi that there was nothing wrong with his health.

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