[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 165 (Tuesday, December 14, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2130-E2131]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




RESPONSE ON BEHALF OF FELLOWS OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE TRIAL LAWYERS WHO 
                  REPRESENTED DETAINEES IN GUANTANAMO

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BILL DELAHUNT

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, December 14, 2010

  Mr. DELAHUNT. Madam Speaker, I rise before you today so that my 
colleagues in the House of Representatives can join me in recognizing 
Mr. Michael Mone and his son, Mr. Michael Mone Jr.--two Massachusetts 
lawyers who ceaselessly fight for human rights and justice among 
detainees at Guantanamo Bay. I stand before you today to read to you a 
speech presented by Mr. Mone Sr. at this past September's American 
College of Trial Lawyers meeting. This discourse, written from Mr. 
Mone's perspective, recounts the compelling experience of his son, who 
selflessly represented a wrongfully accused and detained Uzbek man. The 
speech is as follows:
  I want to thank the College for honoring those Fellows who 
represented Guantanamo detainees, and in particular, I want to thank 
Mike Cooper, who encouraged the Access to Justice Committee to become 
involved in securing detainee representation. I attended the spring 
meeting in Palm Springs when the subject was first discussed, and I 
came away from that meeting determined to take on a detainee's case. I 
want to thank the College for its encouragement and the moral support 
that it provided to those Fellows as they undertook to uphold the core 
values of the American College of Trial Lawyers--the right to counsel, 
a fair and independent trial to challenge their detention, and the Rule 
of Law.
  I want to make it clear that I stand here in a representative 
capacity in that I am speaking for the Fellows who are here on the 
stage with me, for all of those Fellows who can't be here today who 
undertook representation of detainees, and to hopefully represent 
lawyers all over the country, in large firms and small firms, 
Republicans and Democrats, who answered the call to provide 
representation in this very unpopular cause. I also am here in a 
representative capacity because much of the real work of our client's 
case was done by my son, Michael, who is also my law partner, so in 
these remarks, when I say that we did something, in all probability, it 
means that Michael did something.
  Too often the ``detainees'' are treated as a group like ``illegal 
immigrants'' as if they are all alike, but they are not. They were many 
different individuals who, under different circumstances, were confined 
at Guantanamo. Some, like our client, were simply at the wrong place at 
the wrong time, and others were undoubtedly waging war against the 
United States. But all were entitled to the benefit of our 
Constitutional protections. Each detainee has a different story, but we 
represented one man, Oybek Jabbarov, and I want to tell you Oybek's 
story.
  In 2001, Oybek Jabbarov was in his early 20s; he was a refugee from 
Uzbekistan, living in Afghanistan along with his expectant wife and his 
one-year old son. After being discharged from compulsory service in 
Uzbek army in 1998, Oybek could not find a job and like so many of his 
countrymen, he left Uzbekistan to try and find work elsewhere. 
Eventually, he ended up in northern Afghanistan. He was living amongst 
other ethnic Uzbeks, supporting himself and his family by selling 
chickens when the U.S. invaded to bring down the Taliban Government and 
to capture the leaders of Al-Qaeda, following the unspeakable September 
11th attack on this country. You must understand that under the 
Taliban, Afghanistan, in essence, had no government, no borders, no 
checkpoints, and no one was even asked for a passport, and thus, it 
became a refuge for people from all over central Asia, such as Oybek. 
As we now know, Afghanistan is a tribal society and the only protection 
afforded to most persons in Afghanistan is the protection of their 
family and tribe, without which one is extremely vulnerable.
  When Oybek made the mistake of accepting a ride from Northern 
Alliance soldiers, the U.S. was offering a bounty for ``foreign 
fighters,'' who were supporting the Taliban in the war against the U.S. 
and its coalition allies. Brochures in the native languages of 
Afghanistan were widely distributed by the U.S. offering bounties for 
``terrorists'' who were turned over to the U.S. authorities. One of 
these leaflets said ``get wealth and power beyond your dreams; rid 
Afghanistan of murdering terrorists, you can receive millions of 
dollars by helping to catch Al-Oaeda and Taliban murderers. This is 
enough money to take care of your family, your village, and your tribe 
for the rest of your life.'' The Northern alliance soldiers, who 
offered Oybek a ride, thus, had a powerful incentive to consider him a 
``foreign fighter'' to collect the bounty and for that reason Oybek was 
turned over to the U.S. forces at the Bagram Air Force Base in December 
2001. He was held in U.S. custody at the Bagram Air Force Base, and 
then at a facility in Kandahar, until he was transferred to Guantanamo 
in the spring of 2002, despite assurances from U.S. civilian 
interrogators in Afghanistan that ``we're trying to find Arabs; don't 
worry, we'll try to get you out.'' During his time in the US custody, 
Oybek, like many of the others, underwent ``enhanced interrogation.'' I 
am not here to debate the definition of torture, but if it was being 
done to you, you would know it was torture. Following transfer to 
Guantanamo, Oybek was held for more than seven years where a 
substantial part of his time, as with most of the others, was in 
virtual solitary confinement.
  In 2006, we were assigned to Oybek's case by the Center for 
Constitutional Rights that served as a clearing house to match counsel 
and detainees and Michael and I started our representation of Oybek 
Jabbarov. It took some time because of various U.S. court cases and 
congressional action restricting the Writ of Habeas Corpus for us to 
obtain the classified documents which purportedly laid out the basis 
for Oybek's capture and continued detention. Before we ever had a 
chance to meet with Oybek, having reviewed that material, it was 
apparent to us that the case against Oybek was thin or nonexistent and 
Michael was armed with that information when he was finally allowed to 
visit Oybek in August of 2007. When I first discussed with Michael the 
idea of taking on a Guantanamo detainee, he said ``so everyone else is 
going to get a goat farmer, but what happens if we end up with a real 
terrorist?'' Before he visited Guantanamo, based upon the information 
we had, it was unlikely Oybek was a terrorist, and so when Michael 
returned from Guantanamo, the first thing he told me was ``he's more 
Borat than he is Khalid Sheikh Mohamed.'' During the first eight trips 
to Cuba, he first met Oybek, who had been at Guantanamo for almost five 
years. Oybek presented as a gentle young man, with no apparent 
bitterness towards the U.S. Government that was detaining him, but was 
desperate for freedom. Unlike many other detainees, Oybek learned to 
speak English from listening to the guards and he was able to 
communicate with us directly without the necessity of a translator. His 
English, which I joked he spoke with a slight southern accent, greatly 
enhanced our ability to eventually relocate him.

  In 2007, shortly before Michael's first meeting with Oybek, the Bush 
Administration cleared him for transfer, which in our view meant that 
they had determined that he did not constitute a threat to the U.S., a 
fact that we always knew to be true.
  Following the Administration's determination that he could be 
transferred, we were confronted with the major problem in our 
representation of Oybek because he could not go back to Uzbekistan 
where he, in all likelihood, would have been imprisoned or killed. 
Uzbekistan is on our State Department's list of countries with grave 
human rights issues. The U.S. authorities fully agreed that he could 
not be returned to his native country, but had no other options. Even a 
successful Habeas Corpus hearing, which was years away, would not have 
accomplished his release from Guantanamo. As Michael said, we don't 
have a legal problem; we have a political and diplomatic problem 
obtaining his release to a third country, and we won't get much help 
from our Government. We had to convince a third country that, 
notwithstanding the U.S. having taken the position that the people at 
Guantanamo were ``the worst of the worst,'' that they should offer 
asylum in circumstances where the U.S. was unwilling to do so. Because 
we knew that we would get little help from our government, Michael flew 
to Europe and met with human rights groups in Germany, Denmark, and 
Ireland in order to identify a country where we had some hope that 
Oybek would be accepted. Following his meetings in Dublin with Amnesty 
International, and representatives of Human Rights Watch, we focused on 
Ireland.
  Why Ireland? We had four reasons. First, he spoke English, and we 
knew that would give him a tremendous head-start in terms of rebuilding 
his life. Secondly, Ireland remains, in part, an agriculture country, 
which was Oybek's background. We also knew that Ireland had a long 
tradition of the recognition of human rights, and lastly, we thought 
the Irish

[[Page E2131]]

government might be open to accepting a detainee for resettlement as a 
way to improve relations with the United States.
  In the spring of 2008, Michael and I went to Guantanamo and talked 
with Oybek about Ireland and about our hope that we could secure his 
release there. He wanted to go to a free, democratic country and 
Ireland certainly qualified, but he did not even know where Ireland was 
and I wound up drawing a free-hand map attempting to locate Ireland in 
Western Europe. On our return from Guantanamo, Michael made additional 
visits to Ireland, and single handedly started a human rights campaign 
on behalf of Oybek. He talked to ministers in the Irish Government, who 
expressed interest in helping us, but had great concerns of political 
ramifications of taking a Guantanamo detainee. He had members of the 
Dail, Ireland's parliament, raise questions to the Government in debate 
and made Oybek's case a prominent public issue. Past President Ralph 
Lancaster kindly put me in contact with his friend Former Senator 
George Mitchell, who the Irish revere because of his work on bringing 
peace to Northern Ireland. Senator Mitchell hand delivered a letter to 
the Irish Foreign Minister that Michael had written asking the Irish 
government to consider accepting Oybek for resettlement. One of our 
honorary Fellows, the Former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, also 
spoke up in favor of Ireland's accepting Oybek. Senator Kennedy, 
Senator Kerry, and Congressman Bill Delahunt directly contacted the 
Irish government on Oybek's behalf. Many people from Boston visit 
Ireland and Michael had established such a presence there, that people 
returning to Boston called and told me that they had heard Michael on 
Irish radio discussing Ireland's role in helping to close Guantanamo.

  By the end of 2008, with the change of administration in Washington, 
we had made a lot of progress, but then came the spring of our despair 
as the Obama Administration came into office and Congress prohibited 
any Guantanamo detainee from being brought to the U.S., which made it 
much more difficult to convince a third country to grant asylum to men 
to whom the U.S. would not accept. In the spring of 2009, with no 
progress, despair set in at Guantanamo and many of the detainees, 
including Oybek, began a hunger strike, which caused me great concern 
that a hunger strike would affect Ireland's interest in Oybek. My son, 
however pointed out that if anyone understood the despair of 
confinement leading to a hunger strike, it was the Irish. By late 
summer of 2009, it was clear that the Irish had not given up on Oybek 
and were prepared to grant asylum, not only to Oybek, but to one of the 
other four Uzbeks because they were committed to taking two detainees, 
not just one. Oybek and the other Uzbek, who we referred to as the 
``Uzbek to be named later,'' were eventually put on a U.S. military 
airplane at Guantanamo and flown into Dublin where they arrived over a 
year ago.
  When the plane with Oybek and Shakhrukh, the other Uzbek, landed in 
Ireland, they were shackled--hand and foot. When the representative of 
the Irish government got on the U.S. military plane and was told by the 
officer in charge that the guards were ready to escort Oybek and 
Shakhrukh off the plane, the Irishman said: ``These men are not going 
anywhere until you remove the shackles and handcuffs. When they step 
off this plane onto Irish soil, they will do so as free men.''
  There was one last item left undone. During the course of our 
representation, Michael had tried, without success, to locate Oybek's 
wife and children. But without legal travel documents and afraid to 
return to Uzbekistan, they had lived as refugees in Central Asia since 
Oybek's disappearance. One day, Oybek's family was listening to the 
Uzbek service on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and heard Michael 
being interviewed about his efforts to get Oybek resettled in Ireland. 
Eventually, Michael was put in touch with people in Pakistan and 
Oybek's wife and two children were located in a refugee camp in 
Pakistan. Michael then worked with the Irish Government to bring his 
wife and his two children, one of whom he had never seen, to Ireland. 
This work is not over. Detainees remain at Guantanamo despite the fact 
that in nearly 70 percent of the cases that have been heard by Federal 
Judges, the writ of habeas corpus has been granted. We will continue to 
fight for human justice. Michael and I have filed an Appearance in 
another detainee's case and look forward to his eventual release.
  Why did lawyers, including the Fellows of the College, undertake the 
representation of these men in a very unpopular cause? They did it 
because it is part of their DNA. It is the reason many of them went to 
law school. Who among you has not imagined yourself as Atticus Finch 
standing in that hot Alabama courtroom defending an innocent man? Every 
state in this country has a long tradition of lawyers providing pro 
bono representation in unpopular causes. When Michael and I each passed 
the bar, we signed a book that has the name of every lawyer who has 
ever practiced in Massachusetts. That roll contains the names of the 
lawyers who represented Sacco & Vanzetti. It has the name of Benjamin 
Curtis, a Massachusetts lawyer and member of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, who dissented in the Dred Scott case and then resigned 
as a matter of principle. Curtis returned to Washington in 1868 to 
represent the very unpopular President, Andrew Johnson, in the 
impeachment trial before the U.S. Senate. We all know the story of John 
Adams, who defended the British soldiers in the Boston Massacre, but 
his son, John Quincy Adams, who, after he had been President, 
represented the African slaves on the Spanish slave ship, the La 
Amistad, is also on that roll of attorneys. This is not just a 
Massachusetts tradition; it is the fabric of what it means to be an 
American lawyer. All of you have or will have an opportunity at some 
point in your career to undertake an unpopular representation. I would 
urge all of you to seize that opportunity because you will never forget 
it.
  John Adams said that of all the things he did, which included not 
only the presidency, but being the driving force behind the Declaration 
of Independence, that the representation of the British soldiers was 
the best service that he had ever done for his country. Each of us 
standing here today would tell you that this is the best thing that we 
have ever done. Thank you and God bless the Constitution of the United 
States.

                          ____________________