Thomas Wilner

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thomas B. Wilner (born 1944) is a managing partner at Shearman & Sterling, LLP. He heads their International Trade and Global Relations Practice. Previously, Wilner 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]

Wilner got his law degree in 1969 from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.^[3]

Wilner has been admitted to the bar in a number of jurisdictions, including the US Supreme Court in 1975.

[edit] Guantanamo cases

Wilner has been critical of the conditions under which the US holds Guantanamo detainees. In a February 26, 2006 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times Wilner reported:

• It took two and a half years of legal wrangling before he won access to interview his clients.^[4]
• None of his clients were "captured on the battlefield".
• None of his clients were accused of engaging in hostilities.
• All of his clients claim they were captured by warlords, and sold to the US forces in return for a bounty.
• All of his clients describe brutal beatings and other abuse while they were held in Afghanistan. Several of them describe brutal beatings after their arrival at Guantanamo.
• Wilner described the brutality of the forcefeeding of the Guantanamo hunger strikers in great detail.

According to the Wall Street Journal, contrary to his claims of his clients' innocence, at least one of Wilner's Guantanamo clients participated in the Taliban and al Qaeda uprising at Afghanistan's Qala-I-Jangi fortress in November 2001, during which the terrorists murdered, inter alia, a Red Cross worker and executed American Johnny "Mike" Spann, a CIA agent and former Marine who was captured while helping civilians escape. That client, Nasser Nijer Naser al-Mutairi, was captured after American and Northern Alliance forces overran the fortress, and, since his release to a post life in Kuwait, al-Mutairi has admitted to his participation. Meanwhile, Wilner and his law firm reportedly earned substantial fees from Middle Eastern oil interests for representing Guantanamo detainees such an al-Mutairi.^[5]

[edit] References

1. ^ "Guantanamo Bay: Dealing with the Enemy in an Age of Terror", 'Justice's talking', May 16, 2005. Retrieved on February 5, 2007.
2. ^ "American gulag: Torture, force-feeding and darkness at noon -- this is Guantanamo, a lawyer for prisoners says", Los Angeles Times, February 26, 2006. Retrieved on March 2, 2007.
3. ^ Findlaw Lawyer Directory]. Findlaw. Retrieved on February 5, 2007.
4. ^ Fawzi Khalid Abdullah Fahad Al Odah, et al., Petitioners v. United States, et al.. US Supreme Court (July 30, 2004). Retrieved on February 5, 2007.
5. ^ "Gitmo's Guerrilla Lawyers: How an unscrupulous legal and PR campaign changed the way the world looks at Guantanamo.", Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2007. Retrieved on March 8, 2007.

[edit] External links

• Kuwaiti Family Committee