|
| Thomas Bogar '85 visited the Taj Mahal during a stopover in India after conducting investigations in Afghanistan. |
Lt. Col. Thomas Bogar '85 recently was featured in the German magazine Der Spiegel for his legal defense of a Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainee.
The physics-major-turned-tax-attorney is a member of the U.S. Army Reserve. When he was activated after Sept. 11, 2001, and sent to Fort Drum, N.Y., then Fort Stewart, Ga., to do criminal-defense work.
After earning a good reputation at Fort Stewart, Bogar was asked to take on a Guantanamo Bay detainee's case.
Bogar's client, Abdul Zahir, is principally being held in Guantanamo as an “enemy combatant” because of his previous work as an interpreter for someone allegedly associated with Al-Qaeda.
Bogar was one of the first defense lawyers to file a petition, called a combat status review, to challenge this newly created classification—presenting a challenge to the U.S. government's rejection of Geneva Convention standards for determining civilian and military status.
“We decided to file a challenge because the government still needs to decide who is a civilian and who is an enemy combatant,” Bogar explains. “The rules that the government is currently following do not comply with international law.”
Another problem with Zahir's case is the fact that classified, unsigned witness statements were used to determine Zahir's status as an enemy combatant. This means that Zahir was unable to see these documents and therefore could not argue against them.
Furthermore, “the people turning these prisoners in are paid bounty hunters. There are a lot of tribal conflicts in Afghanistan and if a tribal member can settle a feud with another tribe and get paid, all the better for him,” Bogar says.
In June 2002, Zahir was turned in by a rival tribe member who probably collected more than $2,500 from the U.S. government.
Bogar has been in Afghanistan interviewing witnesses and investigating any criminal matters tied to Zahir. He also hopes that he got Zahir's name on the peace and reconciliation commission's list that identifies prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay and seeks their release so that they may be prosecuted in Afghanistan. The charges against Zahir “are Afghanistan's jurisdiction. I am working to get him repatriated.”
In all likelihood, Zahir will be tried at Guantanamo. Bogar is hoping that a few cases will be tried before Zahir's, enabling some of the system's kinks to be ironed out. Until then, he continues to work on the case from various angles.
The case is filed in the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals, and Bogar believes the combat status review challenge is his best chance for getting Zahir released. He also is trying to work with military commissions and to garner media attention about the case and Guantanamo Bay detainees in general.
For more information:
Back to For Alumni |
