An Air Force Lawyer Fights to Free a Guantanamo Inmate

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090213/wl_mcclatchy/3167411

An Air Force lawyer fights to free a Guantanamo inmate

By Julie Sell, McClatchy Newspapers – Fri Feb 13, 3:11 pm ET

LONDON — A U.S. military lawyer blitzed London this week, calling for the immediate release of her client, who allegedly was trained in an al Qaida terrorist camp, from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Claiming that Binyam Mohamed , a former British resident who's on a hunger strike at Guantanamo , will leave prison "insane" or "in a coffin" if he's not released soon, Air Force Reserve Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley has made herself a thorn in the side of her military superiors, her commander-in-chief and other officials on both sides of the Atlantic. All the charges against Mohamed have been dropped, and in a private meeting on Wednesday, Foreign Secretary David Miliband told Bradley, and subsequently the news media, that the Obama administration had agreed to make reviewing Mohamed's case a "priority." A British delegation plans to visit Mohamed in prison "as soon as possible", and it will include a doctor who can assess his ability to travel, Miliband said.

Part of Bradley's reception in London stems from her "novelty," said Clive Stafford Smith , a member of Mohamed's legal team and the director of the human rights group Reprieve. She's an African-American woman and a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve who doesn't flinch when she describes her client's treatment or criticizes her country's policies.

"I think this comes as quite a shock to a lot of people in England that a serving military officer would say the things she says," Stafford Smith said. "It illustrates the very best about America."

Bradley, 45, who calls herself "a lawyer and a soldier" and a "lifelong Republican," told McClatchy in an interview that she blames the Bush administration for Mohamed's arrest and for his treatment in captivity. Asked if she thinks her client is innocent, Bradley replied that he "was in the wrong place at the wrong time." "If 9/11 never happened, this whole series of events would never have happened," Bradley said. "This was an experiment that failed. It is a shame and a legacy that will follow ( the United States ) in its history."

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