Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles Saturday June 1, 2002 The Guardian
A civil rights lawyer who has fought a record number of police brutality and misconduct cases, is taking on the US government on behalf of the Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.
In a test case appeal to be heard in Los Angeles next month, Stephen Yagman will argue that the government is violating its own and international laws by continuing to hold the detainees without charge.
He decided to investigate the case after being horrified by a newspaper photograph of hooded detainees at Camp X-Ray in January.
He put together a coalition of experienced civil rights lawyers and academics, including Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, the former US attorney general Ramsey Clark and the rabbis Steven Jacob and Haim Dov Beliak.
Mr Yagman is best known for the many actions he has successfully brought against the LAPD for police brutality, incluiding a landmark judgment against its former chief Darryl Gates. He said: "We have asked for three things: for those detained in the camp to be identified, for the reasons for their detention to be made known and for each of them to be given an opportunity to come into an American court. It's not very radical."
The issues are straightforward, he says. The brief that he has filed in the ninth circuit of the US court of appeals in states: "In bringing the detainees to Guantanamo and in housing them in small cages, the United States has violated basic principles of international human rights law that are binding on this country because of treaties it has ratified.
"Is the United States government free to violate the law, immune from accountability in any court? The answer must be no."
Mr Yagman's initial attempts to represent the men were rebuffed by the US authorities on the grounds that he and the coalition had not been asked to act by the detainees and that the court did not have jurisdiction to hear the case because Guantanamo Bay was not in the US.
"This is truly Orwellian," said Mr Yagman. "It is crazy to say that no US court has jurisdiction. Does this mean that the Cubans are entitled to go in and get them?" He asked, unsuccessfully, that the prisoners be told of the legal action.
Mr Yagman argues that either Guantanamo Bay is part of the US, in which case the men can be represented, or it it is part of Cuba, in which case the habeas corpus laws under the Cuban constitution should apply and would entitle the men to be represented or released.
Taking on the case had triggered a string of anonymous and threatening calls, said Mr Yagman. "People are fearful of criticising the government at all over this," he said. "But eventually something is going to have to happen."
Meanwhile, this week lawyers for suspected US Taliban fighter John Lindh were told they could not interview potential witnesses at Camp X-Ray in person. They have claimed that some of the detainees might be able to support their client's contention that he was fighting for the Taliban against the Northern Alliance and not against the US.
Also this week, in its annual report, Amnesty International accused the US of being "selective" in its application of the Geneva convention concerning the detainees.
"In suggesting that national security may require compromises on human rights...the government risks signalling its allies that 'anything goes' in their own human rights practices."