In Defense of Gitmo Lawyers
By: mjp
Published On: 3/14/2007 9:26:54 PM
In today's Wall Street Journal (which unfortunately, you can't read online), there are two excellent letters to the editor about Debra Burlingame's article "Gitmo's Guerilla Lawyers," which severely criticized lawyers representing (or trying to represent) the Guantanamo detainees. Not only do they refute the mean-spiritedness of the article, they also point out quite clearly that a) the reporter didn't get her facts checked, and that b) overuse of the ellipses entirely changed the meanings of some statements made by Michael Ratner, President for Constitutional Rights.
Rohan S. Weerasinghe, a partner at Shearman & Sterling, LLP, pointed out a lot of Ms. Burlingame's factual errors in the article, and also made the case for allowing the defense of Guantanamo detainees. Being for habeas corpus is not the same as being for terrorism. If only someone in the administration would listen!
One of Weerasinghe's colleagues, at Shearman & Sterling, who was attacked in the original Burlinghame piece, Tom Wilner, is going to be speaking at a panel event at the Rosslyn Spectrum Theater in Arlington on March 21. The event is being hosted by the Northern Virginia Chapter of the ACLU Virginia.
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