Guantánamo: al-Jazeera Cameraman Sami al-Haj Fears That He Will Die

In this latest salvo from the frontline, Stafford Smith begins light-heartedly, reporting on a ludicrous allegation that he “might have smuggled some Speedo swimming trunks and ‘Under Armour briefs’” to one of his clients, British resident Shaker Aamer, whose painful story I reported here, here and here. “Shaker was apparently caught wearing both ‘contraband’ items in his prison cell,” Stafford Smith notes. The lawyer’s wry, combative nature has long annoyed the authorities at Guantánamo, to such an extent that last year, in a sure sign that they have long since abandoned common sense, they accused him of inciting the suicides of three detainees in June 2006, and this latest allegation therefore follows a well-worn path.