Guantánamo Bay

HSKRR currently represents Obaidullah, an Afghan national who alleges he has been wrongfully accused by the United States Government of being a member of al-Qaida and receiving military training from the Taliban. Obaidullah was seized in Afghanistan by coalition or U.S. military forces in July 2002 and was initially detained for several months at Bagram Air Base. Since that time, he has been held at the Naval Detention Center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba by the United States.

Following more than six years in custody without an adversarial proceeding on the merits of the government's allegations, the government filed charges against Obaidullah on September 9, 2008. His case was subsequently stayed pending the Obama Administration's review of all Guantánamo detainees' cases. HSKRR successfully moved to lift the stay so that his habeas case would proceed. A Merits Hearing was held in his case in September and October of 2010. He has now been imprisoned more than eight years.

HSKRR's Anne Richardson, Dan Stormer, and Cindy Pánuco have made several trips to Guantánamo Bay to meet with our client. The firm is co-counseling the case with the University of Texas National Security Clinic and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Click here for a listing of the current tally of habeas petitions granted and denied.

Click here to see an exhaustive study by journalist Andy Worthington, who has been detailing the stories of each of the 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo since it opened in 2002.

April 12, 2010 - Protestors demand Guantanamo closure on facility’s eighth anniversary: On the eighth anniversary of the Guantanamo Bay prison, activists dressed in prison suits took to the streets of Washington demanding closure of the facility – something that President Obama promised to do a year ago.
Read More.
June 2010 - The Court of Appeal for the D.C. Circuit, reversed the United States District Court for the District of Columbia’s denial of a motion to lift the stay on Obaidullah's (HSKRR's client) Habeas Petition, and remanded to the District Court. Following the lifting of the Stay, the District Court immediately set the Merits Hearing for a date just a couple of months later at the end of September.

August and September 2010 - Dan Stormer, Anne Richardson and Cindy Pánuco made HSKRR's fifth and sixth trips to Guantánamo Bay to meet with Obaidullah and prepare for a Merits Hearing in his case.

September 2010 - Attorneys Anne Richardson, Dan Stormer, Radhika Sainath, and Cindy Pánuco, drafted and submitted a brief (Traverse) opposing the United States Government’s continued indefinite detention of Obaidullah, with the assistance of HSKRR’s co-counsel at the University of Texas National Security Project. At the end of September 2010, soon after the filing of the Traverse, a Merits Hearing was held before Judge Richard Leon, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. After over eight years of detention, the United States Government was finally required to present to the judge the evidence on which it is relying to detain Obaidullah in order for the judge to determine whether it has that right. The majority of the two-day hearing was closed to the public as the Government presented ‘classified’ evidence in support of its continued detention of Obaidullah. HSKRR’s Anne Richardson, Dan Stormer, and Cindy Pánuco represented Obaidullah at the hearing on September 30 and October 1, 2010, and challenged the Government's evidence.

October 19, 2010 - During a hearing open to the public, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, announced his unclassified decision to deny Obaidullah's petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

December 2010 - HSKRR filed a motion for reconsideration which is currently pending before the United States District Court.

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