Navy lawyer defends driver for bin Laden /Seattle P-I

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/172367_swift07.html



Friday, May 7, 2004

Navy lawyer defends driver for bin Laden
Argues that client's detention in Cuba is unconstitutional

By PAUL SHUKOVSKY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

A Navy lawyer representing a Guantanamo Bay prisoner will argue in a Seattle courtroom this morning that his client is illegally locked in solitary confinement under orders from President Bush that violate the U.S. Constitution, as well as federal, military and international law.

Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift's challenge to the legitimacy of military tribunals to try men detained by American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq is part of his defense of a 34-year-old Yemeni man who admits working as a driver for Osama bin Laden at his Afghan farm.

Swift likened what he described yesterday as Bush's seizure of legislative and judicial powers to the conduct of King George III that provoked the American Revolution.

"One of the reasons our Founding Fathers gave for breaking away was King George saying, 'I, not the courts of England, have the right to set out what the crimes are.' We said that's tyranny."

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:evilgrin: