Thomas B. Wilner (born 1944) is the managing partner of Shearman & Sterling's International Trade and Global Relations Practice. Wilner has also represented the high-profile human rights cases of a dozen Kuwaiti citizens detained in the United States naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. [1] [2] [3]
Wilner earned his law degree in 1969 from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. [4]
Wilner has been admitted to the bar in a number of jurisdictions, including the US Supreme Court in 1975.
The Washington Post published an op-ed by Wilner on January 1, 2008. [5] He noted:
All these prisoners have asked for is a fair hearing, one in which they have the chance to learn the charges against them and to rebut the accusations before a neutral decision maker.
Wilner has been critical of the conditions under which the US holds Guantanamo detainees. [6]
Wilner also reported that interrogators have warned Guantanamo captives that the Guantanamo attorneys were all Jewish, and they couldn't trust them. [7]
On September 19, 2008 the Washington Post published a letter to the editor from Wilner in reply to a recent editorial on whether the Congress should pass legislation on how the Justice system should conduct captives' habeas corpus appeals. [3] The United States Supreme Court's ruling in Boumediene v. Bush had overturned Congress's proscription on allowing captives access to the US justice system.
Senators Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman had introduced a bill "..to mandate the procedures the courts must follow in the habeas hearings for Guantanamo Bay detainees." [3] The Washington Post's editorial had applauded the Senator's proposed bill. Wilner's letter expressed concern that the bill was unnecessary, and could:
... interfere with habeas cases underway, cause confusion and raise constitutional issues that could only delay the "prompt" habeas corpus hearings ordered by the Supreme Court.
Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi is a Sudanese militant and paymaster for al-Qaeda. Qosi was held from January 2002 in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number is 54.
The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were established July 7, 2004 by order of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz after U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Rasul v. Bush and were coordinated through the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants.
Sabir Mahfouz Lahmar is a Bosnian citizen, who won his habeas corpus petition in United States federal court after being held for eight years and eight months in the military Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.
Fouzi Khalid Abdullah Al Odah is a Kuwaiti citizen formerly held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. He had been detained without charge in Guantanamo Bay since 2002. He was a plaintiff in the ongoing case, Al Odah v. United States, which challenged his detention, along with that of fellow detainees. The case was widely acknowledged to be one of the most significant to be heard by the Supreme Court in the current term. The US Department of Defense reports that he was born in 1977, in Kuwait City, Kuwait.
Mustafa Ait Idir is an individual formerly held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. Ait Idir was born in Algeria, but moved to Bosnia, married a Bosnian woman, and became a Bosnian citizen. Idir was arrested on October 18, 2001, on suspicion of participating in a conspiracy to bomb the United States Embassy. After their release following their acquittal, the six men were captured on January 17, 2002, by American forces, who transferred them to Guantanamo Bay.
Musab Omar Ali Al Mudwani is a citizen of Yemen who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.
Faiz Mohammed Ahmed Al Kandari is a Kuwaiti citizen who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detainment camp in Cuba, from 2002 to 2016. He has never been charged with war crimes.
Ahmed Abdul Qader is a citizen of Yemen, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba from June 18, 2002, to January 14, 2015. His detainee ID number was 690. The Department of Defense estimated that Qader was born in 1984, in Sana'a, Yemen.
Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah al-Ansi is a citizen of Yemen, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internee Security Number is 029. American intelligence analysts estimate he was born in 1975, in Sanaa, Yemen. He was cleared for release on December 9, 2016, a recommendation made public on December 22. He was transferred to Oman with nine other men on January 16, 2017.
Yasim Muhammed Basardah is a citizen of Yemen who was detained in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number is 252. Basardah was an informant for the interrogators in Guantanamo where he was rewarded with his own cell, McDonald's apple pies, chewing tobacco, a truck magazine and other "comfort items".
Ridah Bin Saleh Bin Mabrouk al-Yazidi is a citizen of Tunisia held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba since the day it opened, on January 11, 2002. Al Yazidi's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 38.
Khalid al-Odah is the father of Guantanamo Bay detainee, Fawzi al-Odah, and the founder of the Kuwaiti Family Committee, a group established in 2004 to heighten global awareness of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. Over the past five years, Khalid has waged legal, media, and public relations campaigns to promote the need for due process for the prisoners at Guantanamo. In 2004, Khalid brought his son's case to the Supreme Court Rasul v. Bush/ al-Odah v. Bush.
Tarek Ali Abdullah Ahmed Baada is a citizen of Yemen, who was formerly held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. His detainee ID number is 178. Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts estimated that Baada was born in 1978 in Shebwa, Yemen.
No-Hearing Hearings (2006) is the title of a study published by Professor Mark P. Denbeaux of the Center for Policy and Research at Seton Hall University School of Law, his son Joshua Denbeaux, and prepared under his supervision by research fellows at the center. It was released on October 17, 2006. It is one of a series of studies on the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the detainees, and government operations that the Center for Policy and Research has prepared based on Department of Defense data.
Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008), was a writ of habeas corpus petition made in a civilian court of the United States on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba. Guantánamo Bay is not formally part of the United States, and under the terms of the 1903 lease between the United States and Cuba, Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty over the territory, while the United States exercises complete jurisdiction and control. The case was consolidated with habeas petition Al Odah v. United States. It challenged the legality of Boumediene's detention at the United States Naval Station military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Oral arguments on the combined cases were heard by the Supreme Court on December 5, 2007.
Al Odah v. United States is a court case filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights and co-counsels challenging the legality of the continued detention as enemy combatants of Guantanamo detainees. It was consolidated with Boumediene v. Bush (2008), which is the lead name of the decision.
In United States law, habeas corpus is a recourse challenging the reasons or conditions of a person's detention under color of law. The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. A persistent standard of indefinite detention without trial and incidents of torture led the operations of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to be challenged internationally as an affront to international human rights, and challenged domestically as a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments of the United States Constitution, including the right of petition for habeas corpus. On 19 February 2002, Guantanamo detainees petitioned in federal court for a writ of habeas corpus to review the legality of their detention.
Kiyemba v. Bush (Civil Action No. 05-cv-01509) is a petition for habeas corpus filed on behalf of Jamal Kiyemba, a Ugandan citizen formerly held in extrajudicial detention in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. Mr. Kiyemba is the next friend of each of the nine Uighur petitioners, Abdusabur, Abdusamad, Abdunasir, Hammad, Hudhaifa, Jalaal, Khalid, Saabir, and Saadiq, who seek the writ of habeas corpus through the petition
Ahrens v. Clark, 335 U.S. 188 (1948), was a United States Supreme Court case that denied a federal district court jurisdiction to issue a writ of habeas corpus if the person detained is not within the territorial jurisdiction of the court when the petition is filed. The 6–3 ruling was handed down on June 21, 1948, with the majority opinion written by Justice William O. Douglas and the dissent written by Justice Wiley Blount Rutledge.
Wali Mohammed is a citizen of Afghanistan who was held in extrajudicial detention, for over fourteen and a half years, in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts estimate he was born in 1965 or 1966 in Wazirabad, Puli Khumri District, Baghlan Province, Afghanistan.
The habeas corpus review ordered by the Supreme Court is modest but fundamental. It simply requires the government to demonstrate to an independent judge that it has a reasonable basis for detaining a prisoner. It is the most basic protection against arbitrary and mistaken imprisonment. U.S. courts have handled these cases since our country was founded. They are fully capable of handling these cases now without further legislation.