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Ex-Guantánamo Detainee Op-Eds in the New York Times
The New York Times published two op-eds this weekend by former Guantánamo detainees -- one by Lakhdar Boumediene, the lead plaintiff in Boumediene v. Bush, which extended a constitutional right to the writ of habeas corpus to Guantánamo Bay (and the reason that Boumediene was ultimately released); and another by Murat Kurnaz, who was released in 2006.
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The New York Times published two op-eds this weekend by former Guantánamo detainees -- one by Lakhdar Boumediene, the lead plaintiff in Boumediene v. Bush, which extended a constitutional right to the writ of habeas corpus to Guantánamo Bay (and the reason that Boumediene was ultimately released); and another by Murat Kurnaz, who was released in 2006. Both pieces, assuming they are accurate, tell similar (and quite sad) stories: an individual caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, held for years without counsel and very limited access to the outside world, and subject to repeated detention abuses (e.g., sleep deprivation and forced positions in Boumediene's case, waterboarding and beatings in Kurnaz's).
Alan Z. Rozenshtein is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, Research Director and Senior Editor at Lawfare, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he served as an Attorney Advisor with the Office of Law and Policy in the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland.