Tom Johnston (lawyer)

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Tom Johnson is a Portland lawyer, working for the firm, Perkins Coie.[1]

Johnson volunteered to serve as a lawyer to a Guantanamo detainee, a 33 year old citizen of Kazakhstan named Ilkham Turdbyavich Batayev.[1]

Batayev describes being kidnapped by fundamentalist muslims allied to the Taliban during a trip to Tajikstan to sell fruit, who then traded him to the Taliban, who used him as a kitchen slave.[1][2] Following the American bombing, everyone fled the Taliban camp where he was held. Batayev described fleeing and subsequently being captured by fundamentalist muslims allied to the USA in return for a bounty.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Distant Justice: How a Portland lawyer is trying to help one Guantánamo detainee return to his life as a fruit trader, Williamette Week, August 9, 2006
  2. ^ Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Ilkham Turdbyavich Batayev'sCombatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 47