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Baher Azmy, Professor of Law at Seton Hall
University School of Law’s Center for Social Justice and legal
counsel to former Guantánamo detainee Murat Kurnaz, filed suit in
federal court to compel the Department of Defense to release
transcripts relating to his client’s detention.
The government held Kurnaz, along with hundreds
of other men, at Guantánamo Bay for over four years without charges
or trial. Instead of a trial, the military held its own “combatant
status review tribunals” and “administrative review board” hearings,
with the military’s own officers to judge the detainees. It is the
transcripts of these hearings – which purported to justify Kurnaz’s
detention – that are sought by the suit, filed in federal
district court for the Southern District of New York.
In January 2005, Judge Joyce Hens Green of federal district court in
Washington, D.C. ruled that Kurnaz’s detention was illegal. She
pointed to five exculpatory statements by U.S. intelligence
authorities and questioned why the Defense Department had ignored
them.
Though Kurnaz was transferred to German custody and allowed to
return home last August, there has been no official declaration from
the United States government explaining why he was released and
whether he is, or ever was, a terrorist suspect.
Last January, Judge Jed S. Rakoff ordered the Department of Defense
to release Guantánamo hearing transcripts that the government had
wrongfully withheld in response to a Freedom of Information Act
request by the Associated Press. Among the transcripts of 63
detainees’ Administrative Review Board Proceedings disclosed
pursuant to that court order, Kurnaz’s were absent. Two months ago,
Azmy submitted a Freedom of Information Act request of his own,
seeking all transcripts from Kurnaz’s Combatant Status Review
Tribunal and Administrative Review Board proceedings. The
government’s failure to provide a substantive response to that
request, said Azmy, triggered his decision to go to court today to
obtain the transcripts for his client.
Azmy is represented by himself and colleague Scott Michelman,
also of the Seton Hall Law School Center for Social Justice.
Third-year Seton Hall law students David Gardner and Pinar
Ozgu assisted with the drafting of the complaint and development
of the case.
To view the Complaint, click below.
FOIA Complaint |
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Professor Baher Azmy
Civil Litigation Clinic
Scott Michelman
Clinical Teaching Fellow
Civil Litigation Clinic |
