Guest Lecturer: Guantanamo detainees have right to trial

October 15, 2008
By Andrew Thomason
Staff Writer

Imagine a foreign government kidnapping you, turning you over to another country, and holding you without a trial for five years.            

This happened to Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni who was Osama Bin Ladin’s chauffeur prior to the Sept 11. 2001 terrorist attacks.

Stephen Vladeck, associate professor at the American University Washington College of Law, spoke Thursday night in Brookens Auditorium on his role in allowing Hamdan to have a trial for his alleged war crimes.

“In many ways he is a kind of model of the engaged citizen ideal, some one interested in making a difference in the world,” said Barbara Hayler, a former criminal justice professor at UIS.

Vladeck said his responsibility in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was to find an argument for why the courts should hear the case, despite their rejecting all other cases from Guantanamo Bay detainees. This significant weight was placed on Vladeck’s shoulders while he was still in law school.

“The court relied on a slightly dubious statute interpretation some crazy third year law student (Vladeck) came up with,” Vladeck said.

Detainees being held at Guantanamo were having the right to a trial denied because of a lower court stand that they were not United States citizens; they did not the inalienable rights described in the constitution.
Instead, they were being subjugated to military tribunals established under the Authorization to Use Military Force bill signed in to law Sept. 18, 2001.

The lawyers defending the tribunals cited AUMF, which states that the President can use any necessary force against people he determines were involved in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

“What President Bush had done went too far beyond whatever authority he might of found in various statues,” Vladeck said.

The nature of this case opened Vladeck to criticism for “supporting terrorism,” but the thought of people being denied their rights was enough to make him stay on with the case.

“Someone wanted to know whether they could sue me for damages if any of the people who I was litigating on behalf of got out and blew up the United States,” he said.

Vladick did not openly advertise his work on the Hamdan case in the early stages because of sentiment like this. However, he believes more and more people are aligning with his views.

“For many lawyers, the motivating factor was: first they came for the people who didn’t look like us, if we do not stop them now, we are next.”

Eventually, Hamdan won his case and had a trial in which he was found guilty of providing support to terrorism. He was sentenced this past August to five and a half years in prison. Hamdan’s victory in having trial does not mean the detainees should be free, Vladeck said. It means courts, and not Congress or the president should make that decision.