a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/22/gitmo-lawyers/"Washington Times Editorial:/abr /br /blockquotep A deal is in the works to send Yemeni detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Saudi Arabia, but don't ask the attorney general about it. /ppExecutive Order 13493 on Jan. 22 appointed Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. co-chairman of the Special Task Force on Detainee Disposition, the interagency group charged with determining the status of persons captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations. But according to Justice Department regulations, Mr. Holder is required to recuse himself from certain detainee matters because his law firm represented the detainees. /ppThe Legal Times reported in March that there are more than a dozen such conflicted lawyers at the department. This includes five of the top 10 officials in the department, including the attorney general; Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden; Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli; Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Tony West; and Lanny A. Breuer, chief of the Criminal Division, who, like Mr. Holder, hails from the firm Covington amp; Burling LLP. /ppJustice Department lawyers who worked at firms representing detainees have been advised to refrain from handling related matters even if the lawyers were uninvolved in their firm's work related to the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo. This is a stricter standard than that required by the American Bar Association's Rules for Professional Conduct, which would only require recusal in cases in which the attorney was "personally and substantially involved" in the case. The natural conflict of interest is that lawyers whose firms do pro bono work on behalf of detainees should not also make detainee policy. /ppCovington amp; Burling represented 17 detainees from Yemen. There are about 200 Yemenis still at Guantanamo. One reason for the large number of Yemenis is that Yemen does not have facilities to hold them. It's also relevant that previous released detainees have used Yemen as a gateway to return to terrorism. This is why we want to send them to Saudi Arabia, although Yemen's government denies the deal is done.br //pp...br //p/blockquoteThis conflict is just another reason why Holder should not be working on closing Gitmo. It is a bad idea to begin with and the US is safer keeping the unlawful combatants at the base in Cuba than releasing them to either the Saudis or to Yemen. Those countries are also better off without these captured terrorist.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5051247-8966962983019571633?l=prairiepundit.blogspot.com'//div
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