Guantanamo Bay speech By Tara Alatorre

Mark P. Denbaux

Breaking all the typical lawyer stereotypes, this habeas corpus trial lawyer not only works for free, he also buys his clients a fruit basket.

Mark Denbeaux buys an interpreter at 900 dollars a day, and travels all the way to Cuba to see the two Guantanamo Bay detainees he represents. He enters the detainee camp armed with fruit and hopes he will actually get to see his clients.

The Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp expert spoke about his research and experiences two weeks ago at the Sandra Day O’ Connor School of Law. In front of only a dozen people, he spoke and answered questions about his study on the Department of Defense’s charges and evidence held against the detainees.
“The whole thing is a complete and colossal screw-up,” Denbeaux said. “One big problem is the cultural misunderstanding between us. Names have posed a huge problem. Many people share the same name, but it is not truly an identifier of these individuals. People are being picked up and imprisoned because a name that is shared with so many others is listed on a document.”
“It’s like saying the guy in the shirt did it,” he said.
His client, who was an assistant cook, was arrested and shared the same name with at least four other people at Guantanamo, Denbeaux said.
“I’ve never believed that the government had the right guys,” he said.
Once he made the decision to represent Guantanamo prisoners, he received clearance from the Department of Defense, and was approved for top secret information on a need-to-know basis. Then he and his students at Seton Hall University School of Law began to do some serious research.

Their report revealed that 55 percent of the detainees have not committed any hostile acts against the United States or its allies. Only eight percent of the detainees have been characterized as Al Qaeda fighters. The remaining prisoners have no definitive association with Al Qaeda at all.
In fact, 86 percent of the detainees were captured by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance when large bounties were being offered by the United States for capturing suspected enemies. Their violent acts were surrendering to the Northern Alliance. He found only one person out of 516 that was captured on the battlefield by the United States Armed Forces, said Denbeaux at his speech.
“It was kind of shocking that the whole picture didn’t add up,” said Denbeaux.
Joe Panvini, a 23-year-old law student at ASU, thought the speech and numbers presented were interesting. He also recognized that Denbeaux has his own point-of-view, he said in an interview.
“The ideas of our country shouldn’t be compromised though, give them a fair trial,” said Panvini.
Denbeaux is convinced that the Department of Defense made up the numbers to disguise the “falsity and cruelty of Guantanamo.” The government’s latest justification of Guantanamo is their claim of released detainees “returning to the battlefield.” Denbeaux claims, that for detainees to return to the battlefield, they had to be there first.
In July of 2007, a government press release admitted to not keeping track of released detainees. Yet they claimed 30 were recaptured or died on the battlefield, he said.
“They needed a dramatic example to show that they were successful,” said Denbeaux.
His research revealed the recidivists had not returned to the battlefield at all. He concluded that only one of 30 detainees accused of returning actually did.
“The incompetence is so overpowering that it’s hard to deal with,” said Denbeaux.
One released detainee did become a suicide bomber in Iraq, but was never captured on the battlefield prior to his release. While in Guantanamo, the angered detainee stated that if he was ever released he would kill Americans. Someone in the Department of Defense released him. “These people are so angered about being imprisoned they become our enemies,” he said.
Stephen Scheufler, an employee of ASU’s Health and Safety Department, came to watch the speech on his day off. He was impressed by the speech and the research, he said, although Scheufler thinks that some key historical points were missed related to the topic. We have an example of the Japanese internment camps right here in Arizona. These were American citizens imprisoned in camps during World War II, he said.
“Why wouldn’t we react by collecting everyone?” Scheufler said.
This is a part of war, and you do what you have to. Detainee camps are a better option than killing prisoners of war that might become martyrs, he said.
Denbeaux’s advice to the new Obama administration, “divide it up, this cess-pool that is Guantanamo.”