Pearl of the Antilles

A brown-eyed, affable attorney on his seventh visit to Guantanamo, Colangelo-Bryan is a native of New York City who lives in Brooklyn and grew up on the Upper West Side in the Seventies. "The real Upper West Side," he says. He works at Dorsey & Whitney, a New York firm that specializes in commercial litigation. But the firm has also represented six clients in Camp Delta, three of whom have been released to their home country of Bahrain, including Abdullah al-Noaimi.

Colangelo-Bryan has traveled to detainees' homes in the Middle East and met with their families. And he's not publicity shy — on his last trip to Bahrain, an NPR reporter accompanied him; he has interviewed with everyone from Harper's to New York magazine; and there's even an entry under his name on Wikipedia. Moral outrage comes easily to him. He can muster it even after a sunset swim at the leeward side's tiny beach.

"Would the U.S. have released three clients of mine who now live at home if those clients were actually terrorists?" he fumes. "Is it fair to call someone a terrorist who isn't even accused of being involved in violent activity, directly or indirectly? Many people not even accused of a crime remain in Guantanamo, even in the second year of ARB proceedings." He's referring to the Annual Review Boards that determine a detainee's continued imprisonment. "The ARBs can recommend continued detention based on nothing more than a statement made through torture," he concludes.

More than 280 detainees have been released or transferred from the base. Last year's ARBs approved the release or transfer of over 100 more. They remain in Gitmo as the Department of State negotiates their return home — or political asylum in another country.

But what Colangelo-Bryan and the other attorneys want for their clients is the right to challenge detention in a court of law. The White House says it is under no obligation to charge detainees: They will be held until they no longer present a threat, no longer offer intelligence value, or the war on terror ends. "It's like saying you can hold a drug dealer in jail until the war on drugs is over," Colangelo-Bryan asserts. "International law does not recognize a war against a tactic."

The lawyers were dealt a blow late last year when the Senate outlawed habeas corpus rights for Guantanamo detainees. The Supreme Court had previously confirmed those rights — which require the government to legally justify detention — and the matter is again under review.

In the meantime, the attorneys board the ferry daily to see their clients. They are thoroughly searched outside Camp Echo, a series of huts where detainees are housed in solitary confinement during their lawyers' stay. The attorneys then wait while their clients are delivered and shackled to the floor.

"There are more wires on the wall in there than an electrician sees in a week, but in theory the conversations are private," says Colangelo-Bryan. "And there are cameras that supposedly only monitor the visuals, although not if your guy's trying to kill himself."

Colangelo-Bryan is referring to his Bahraini client, Juma al-Dosari, who attempted suicide on a bathroom break while meeting with the lawyer last year. Al-Dosari, who camp officials say has made twelve serious attempts, had cut one wrist and tried to hang himself. According to Colangelo-Bryan:

It had been maybe five minutes and I hadn't heard anything from Juma.... I opened the door to the room. The first thing I saw was a large patch of red on the otherwise white floor.... I realized it was blood. I looked up and saw something hanging from the inside of the metal mesh wall ... from the cell — where [he] had been left to use the bathroom.... It was Juma. His face and body were covered in blood from a gash to his arm, his eyes had rolled back in his head, and his lips and tongue were swollen.... I yelled to the guards because the door to the cell was locked; even though I was inches from Juma, I couldn't get to him. The guards came in and cut Juma down. A moment or two later, as the guards told me to leave, I heard Juma gasp for air — it was the first sound he had made.

Regardless of legal outcomes, Colangelo-Bryan thinks the lawyers have a purpose here. "Through those meetings, we tell the world what's happening," he says. "It's the most crucial function that we have. It's not that we accept everything [from the detainees] as the gospel truth, but many of their stories are corroborated by government sources." He pauses. "Everyone in Bahrain knows what's going on here."

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The majority of Guantanamo detainees are being held for fighting in a war, however untraditional. Only a few — ten at the time of this writing — have been charged with war crimes. Under the traditional rules of war, martial law distinguishes cold-blooded violence from mere violence: Bombing a military convoy? War. Shooting an injured soldier? War crime.