Thomas Wilner

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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]

Wilner earned 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.

Contents

[edit] Washington Post Op-Ed

The Washington Post published an op-ed by Wilner on January 1, 2008.[4]

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."

[edit] Guantanamo cases

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

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.[5]
  • 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.

Wilner has also reported that interrogators have warned Guantanamo captives that the Guantanamo attorneys were all jewish, and they couldn't trust them.[6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Guantanamo Bay: Dealing with the Enemy in an Age of Terror", Justice's talking, May 16, 2005. Retrieved on February 5. 
  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 2006-03-02. 
  3. ^ Findlaw Lawyer Directory]. Findlaw. Retrieved on 2007-02-05.
  4. ^ Thomas B. Wilner. "Guantanamo detainees deserve a chance to defend themselves", Salt Lake Tribune, January 1, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-01-04. 
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ Estaban Rodriguez (June 30, 2005). Reply of June 30, 2005, to Henry Waxman. United States Department of Defense. Retrieved on 2008-05-07.

[edit] External links


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