Clive Stafford Smith

Inside Guantanamo

Clive Stafford Smith — 2005-11-21T14:57:00Z

Lawyer Clive Stafford Smith regularly visits clients in the prison camp he calls America's "law-free zone". This is his chilling report on life behind the wire

The 12-seater Air Sunshine plane sets down at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base just as the sun descends behind the hangar. I am met by a military escort. We josh about the threat that the legal profession poses to national security: lawyers are required to stay the night on the leeward side, safe across the bay from the main base and the prison. He drops me off at the motel, the Combined Bachelors' Quarters or CBQ, where a sign boasts that it is "the pearl of the Antilles".

Here, for $12 a night, a bachelor can share a room with three other soldiers. Even in this age when "Don't ask, don't tell" is the official line on homosexuality in the US forces, the notion of combined bachelors strikes me as incongruous. They give me a room with four beds to myself. After eight visits I am an old hand here and I have my favourite room with a view of the placid Caribbean. (...)

[pages 14-16 | coverstory]

- / New Statesman

Torture is rife because our leaders encourage it

Clive Stafford Smith — 2005-02-26T14:47:00Z

This week's verdict against three British soldiers for abusing prisoners in Iraq is one of many pending investigations, from Abu Ghraib to Bagram and beyond. These follow a time-honoured pattern, where the small fry get prosecuted, while the politicians get sanctimonious. Top brass such as Tony Blair and George Bush indignantly condemn abuses, yet it is no coincidence that torture is rife in the rank and file. It would not be happening if it were not encouraged by the attitudes of our political leaders.

Politicians studiously avoid use of the word torture. But Donald Rumsfeld specifically authorised the use of "stress and duress" methods, saying they were necessary to gather important intelligence. This torture-lite inevitably devolved into torture-heavy as it filtered down the chain of command. (...)

- / Independent

Political acts

Clive Stafford Smith — 2005-02-15T04:18:00Z

The United States may be the richest nation on earth, but if you are on death row, ploughing your way through appeals, you have no constitutional right to a lawyer. In many states, you must either represent yourself or find someone who'll do it for free. America's condemned certainly need lawyers on their side. They also need theatre. This could not be emphasised more plainly than in Lorilei, a production that the human rights charity Reprieve is bringing to the Old Red Lion Theatre in London.

A central figure in the play is my client Ricky Langley, a deeply unpopular man in Louisiana. He is a paedophile. He was accused of molesting several children and, in February 1992, of murdering Jeremy, the six-year-old son of Lorilei Guillory. In 1994, Langley was sentenced to death. Nine years later, the courts ordered a new trial. By this time, Lorilei had lived with the horror of her son's murder for more than a decade. The prosecutor's promise that a death sentence would give her "closure" had proven hollow, so she did an extraordinary thing: she asked to meet Langley to help her to understand her loss. They spent three hours alone in a cell. By the end, Lorilei was convinced that the defence lawyers had been telling the truth: Langley was insane when he murdered Jeremy." (...)

[The Back Half | pages 38 and 39]

- / New Statesman

US censors silenced me over the Gitmo gulag

Clive Stafford Smith — 2004-12-20T14:38:00Z

As a nation, our morality is defined by whether we join the gang that is casting stones, or stand between the mob and its target. Muslims are the current object of our society's fear and contempt, and it was a great relief to read Lord Hoffmann's condemnation of the law that allowed Muslims to be detained without charges, on secret "evidence", in Belmarsh prison: "The real threat to the life of the nation ... comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these."

We may hope that the government reconsiders its Belmarsh folly. Meanwhile, Guantánamo Bay provides the next test of our moral resolve. (...) [page 16 | Comment]

- / Guardian