Abu Ghraib defense attorney faces murder charge

Enraged anti-war activists are being asked to pack the courtroom on Oct. 11 in support of Paul Bergrin, an attorney who has attempted to hold military and government officials accountable for the torture administered at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Former President George Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are certainly guilty of war crimes, along with former Vice-President Dick Cheney, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House counsel Alberto Gonzales (who later became U.S. attorney general). These high-level criminals deliberately and intentionally lied, denying any knowledge of torture techniques at Abu Ghraib. Torture is unlawful, in violation of the Geneva Convention and the U.S. Department of Defense’s own rules of engagement for detainment and interrogation.

Bergrin, a renowned defense attorney for the poor and people of color, former military officer and former prosecutor, has been aggressively fighting to put Bush and Rumsfeld on trial for the abuses in Iraq. Bergrin was one of the first people to expose documents issued that authorized hooding, nudity and the use of dogs at Abu Ghraib.

In 2004 and 2005 Bergrin sought to have Bush and Rumsfeld held accountable. When Bush announced in 2004 that he wanted Abu Ghraib destroyed, Bergrin got a court order to stop Bush’s actions, declaring the prison a crime scene.

Bergrin also has been the only attorney in U.S. military history to win the right to put a high-ranking military official, Col. Michael Steele, on the stand. In 2006, Steele commanded a unit of the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq. Under his command, Iraqi civilians were repeatedly detained, and villages regularly raided, by U.S. soldiers. One such raid, called Operation Iron Triangle, involved the killing of four unarmed Iraqis on an island in northern Salahuddin province. The soldiers, one of whom Bergrin is representing, were given orders to shoot on sight any male Iraqi of military age. Incidentally, the movie “Black Hawk Down” is based on Col. Steele’s exploits in Somalia.

Steele was granted immunity in exchange for his testimony but has yet to take the stand. In January 2007, a week before the case was to be heard in court, Bergrin was arrested on unsubstantiated charges. As a result, the Operation Iron Triangle case never went to trial. The soldier Bergrin was defending, Corey Clagett, consequently took a plea bargain. He and two other soldiers were court­martialed, imprisoned and given 10- to 18-year prison sentences.

In April 2009, Bergrin publicly announced in the Newark Star Ledger his intention to reopen one of the Abu Ghraib cases after the Obama administration released documents implicating the White House in the authorization of the Abu Ghraib tortures. Bergrin again attempted to exonerate Clagett and further demanded that Clagett be tried in the U.S., not Iraq, so that the U.S. public could learn more about what was going on.

The following month Bergrin was arrested a second time under an array of charges. At his bail hearing in Newark, N.J., prosecutors filed a detention request by a Drug Enforcement Agency special agent, claiming that Bergrin shouldn’t be released on bail because he had assets overseas, four false passports and had ordered an FBI informant to kill a witness. The corporate media have also been unjustly vilifying him.

Although none of the prosecutor’s statements were corroborated, Judge Madeline Arleo denied the bail request and included a $50,000 fine. Bergrin was immediately put in solitary confinement for nine months — and remains in prison to this day.

On Oct. 11, Bergrin’s trial is scheduled to begin in a federal court in Newark. The judge has ruled that he can defend himself, but will have to wear an electric shock bracelet while in court so that U.S. marshals can shock him should he get too close to the jury box or venture beyond his designated podium.

Meanwhile, the Guantanamo Bay prison is still open for business. And the killing and torturing of Middle Eastern civilians by the U.S. government has become “acceptable under certain conditions” — all under the guise of the so-called “war on terror.”

For more information visit www.paulbergrin.org.