Terror Suspect’s Lawyer Risks Contempt Citation

In a courtroom drama that reflected grave doubts even from within the U.S. armed forces about the legitimacy of military tribunals, a lawyer fought Thursday to the brink of a contempt citation to protect her client’s rights.

Maj. Yvonne Bradley, an Air Force defense lawyer for a 27-year-old Ethiopian terrorism suspect, three times invoked her right to avoid self-incrimination on the grounds she would be breaching legal ethics by continuing to represent her client. Defense lawyers said his right to attorney-counsel privilege has been repeatedly violated because their communications can be monitored by the government and overheard by lawyers for other defendants.

Bradley’s face-off with Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, the military commission’s presiding officer, elicited admonitions about her “unprofessional attitude,” “inappropriate grinning” and failure to observe the customary courtesy of appending “sir” to all answers.

Like defense lawyers who have appeared in the handful of pre-trial proceedings, she appeared to be testing the tribunal’s vaguely defined authority with tactics that would be out of order in civilian courts or military courts-martial.

Bradley’s client, Binyam Ahmed Muhammad, has told his lawyers of harrowing torture at the hands of U.S. and Moroccan security forces, which he alleges occurred over the two years after his April 2002 arrest in Pakistan. He said the torture compelled him to confess to scenarios suggested by his interrogators, including collaborating with “dirty bomb” suspect Jose Padilla and plotting to blow up U.S. high-rises by booby-trapping their power systems.

Muhammad’s civilian lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, has said his client told interrogators whatever they wanted after Moroccan agents used razor blades on his genitals to compel the confessions, including meetings with other terrorism suspects already in custody when the purported contacts occurred.

The presiding officer rejected the appeal by Bradley and Stafford Smith that he conduct a hearing on the conflict-of-interest claim made by Bradley. Kohlmann also refused to allow Bradley to seek the advice of a private lawyer when it became clear she was courting a contempt citation and an indefinite term in the Navy base brig.

Kohlmann called a recess and later returned with requests for Bradley, Stafford Smith and University of Chicago law professor Joseph Margulies to submit briefs outlining their numerous concerns about what they see as fundamental flaws in the proceedings.

One of the most contentious issues has been whether defendants may represent themselves, as Muhammad has insisted on doing.

The presiding officer warned that the conflict-of-interest issues would have to be resolved or the lawyers would have to remove themselves from the case, warning that “we’re not just going to be stuck in Never-Never Land.”

Before calling for legal briefs, Kohlmann had attempted to advance the proceedings by entering a “not guilty” plea on Muhammad’s behalf. When Muhammad’s lawyers declined to question Kohlmann on his fitness to preside over the trial, Kohlmann pronounced himself competent. Muhammad observed in a droll voice: “I don’t think so.”

From the first minutes of his tribunal debut, Muhammad mocked the military commission, the irony of being assigned a defense lawyer who is an American soldier under orders to consider him an enemy and the efficacy of a process that after four years didn’t even get his name right. He says his name should be spelled Mohamed, not Muhammad.

“How can you get this wrong, man? Four years of -- what do you call it, ‘enhanced-technique torture’? -- and you have the wrong person,” he said, shaking his head as if disappointed. “I’m innocent. I’m not supposed to be here.”

Muhammad, who hasn’t made clear whether he is arguing a case of mistaken identity or simply that his surname of Mohamed was misspelled, came to court in an orange Pakistani tunic his lawyer bought on a street in London and had dyed the same color of prison jumpsuits.

He had also asked, and been denied, the right to be brought in fully shackled, claiming that is how prisoners are kept in the detention camps, and to walk unhindered into the proceedings would be “dishonest.”

When Kohlmann politely observed that he didn’t know what to call him so he would stick with “Mr. Muhammad,” the defendant stated dryly: “You can call me Count Dracula.”

Although Muhammad seemed respectful of lawyer Bradley, a 43-year-old reservist from the Philadelphia area, he asked Kohlmann why he was supposed to trust her.

“If you were arrested in Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden said, ‘I’m going to force you to have a military lawyer,’ and gave you some bearded, turbaned person, I don’t think you would agree with that.”

Muhammad is charged with conspiracy and accused of meeting with various alleged Al Qaeda kingpins to train in the use of weapons, prepare attacks on Americans and learn how to make a dirty bomb.

He is among 10 Guantanamo detainees -- of the 490 being held -- facing war crimes charges.