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Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Former Partner of Eric Holder's Law Firm Represents Cole Bomber And 14 Other GITMO Detainees

Former Partner of Eric Holder's Law Firm Represents Cole Bomber And 14 Other GITMO Detainees

February 9, 2009

Former Partner Of Eric Holder's Law Firm Represents Cole Bomber And 14 Other GITMO Detainees

February 9, 2009 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - On Thursday Army Col. James L. Pohl the military judge presiding over the trial of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri [suspected of masterminding the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the port city of Aden, Yemen as well as being heavily implicated in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya - Mohammad Ali al-Makki a cousin of al Nashiri's was a suicide bomber in that attack1998] refused to go along with the Obama administration's request to postpone the prosecution for 120 days, saying that such a move would not serve justice and was as a result, "not reasonable."

Al Nashiri [born in Saudi Arabia] is part of a group of 15 Yemeni GITMO detainees who are represented by David Remes a member until he was either booted or saw the handwriting on the wall and "resigned" on July 18, 2008, of Attorney General Eric Holder's law firm, Covington & Burling.

"Remes, who represents 15 Yemeni detainees, announced his resignation on July 18, saying that he plans to devote himself exclusively to human rights litigation. "My departure is the inevitable outcome of my human rights work at the firm in the past four years, which became a consuming passion," Remes said in a statement." [source, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/07/16/to-protest-gitmo-punishment-covington-parnter-drops-trou-in-yemen/]

Mr. Remes is seen below at one of his many Yemeni press conferences demonstrating the "indignity" of the treatment meted out to his terrorist clients.

Remes take on the "innocence" of the GITMO detainees [not to mention his clownish antics] is laughable, in a July 12, 2008 with the Yemeni Observer he made the following statement:

"Most of the men in Guantanamo do not need to be educated or rehabilitated because they are not terrorists and they are not ideologically extreme. I say this because I know the men and I know their families...There is an old man who we represent and that comes from Taiz; he only has one family member: his sister. He went to Afghanistan to simply help the Taliban spread the word of Islam. Americans do not believe that there are innocent explanations like that and forget about the many churches that have thousands of mercenaries preaching Christianity...Americans do not know the men held in Guantanamo, and as far as Americans are concerned the men are vicious, barbaric terrorists. Well, we know the men and they are not..." [source, http://www.yobserver.com/reports/10014576.html]

Because most of the MSM has made the explicit decision not to cover in detail any aspect of the Obama administration that might possibly prove distracting from the "savior" narrative, the above information has not been widely disseminated.

Eric Holder as U.S. Attorney General is a travesty from a counter-terrorism perspecive.

His Clinton Era [the first Clinton era, not the curent one] role in the pardoning of 16 FALN terrorists itself should have disqualified him for the job. As the LA Times wrote in a January 9 piece:

"Attorney general nominee Eric H. Holder Jr. repeatedly pushed some of his subordinates at the Clinton Justice Department to drop their opposition to a controversial 1999 grant of clemency to 16 members of two violent Puerto Rican nationalist organizations, according to interviews and documents...President Clinton's decision to commute prison terms caused an uproar at the time. Holder was called before Congress to explain his role but declined to answer numerous questions from angry lawmakers demanding to know why the Justice Department had not sided with the FBI, federal prosecutors and other law enforcement officials, who were vehemently opposed to the grants..." [source, http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-holder9-2009jan09,0,6643509.story]

That until just a few months ago, Mr. Remes and now Attorney General Holder served in the same law firm while Remes actively mounted an over-the-top defense of terrorists of the ilk of Al Nashiri, casting them as victims, will forever cloud the DOJ's dealing with the GITMO detainees.

Nothing can be done to address that fact. As a result, U.S. national security will be seriously compromised, to what degree remains unclear but we are not hopeful. http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=holder1id=2.9.09%2Ehtm

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