Patricia A. Bronte
Patricia A. Bronte is an American civil rights lawyer.[1] Bronte has been practicing law for over two decades.
Guantanamo clients
In 2006, following the deaths in custody of three captives, which military spokesmen were to describe as Guantanamo suicides, camp authorities seized all the captives' papers -- particularly the captives' attorney-client privileged documents.[2] Bronte was quoted describing what the confiscation meant to one of her clients:
- "I believe that their ability to present evidence in their defense, already severely circumscribed, will be further harmed. It was a minor miracle for the detainee to even obtain some letters in support of his claim of innocence. For the NCIS to then confiscate the evidence from him ... just illustrated the unfairness of the whole proceeding."
Bronte had her accounts of three incidents published in The GuantÁnamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law. [3][4][5]
She described her decision to wear a head-scarf when she first met her Guantanamo clients, and the negative reaction this seemed to trigger from the guards she encountered.[4]
She described two Kafkaeseque incidents, the first where she was almost sent back after arriving at Guantanamo due to a screwup she had two copies of one clearance, and zero copies of another -- even though the Staff Judge Advocates' Office had originally issued the clearances, and had the original in their office.[4] In the other incident she described how some of Said Muhammad Husayn al Qahtani's mail was censored because he had doodled some flowers in the margin, and the privilege team said they didn't know how to process doodles.[5][6]
References
- ↑ Mark P. Denbeaux, Jonathan Hafetz, Grace A. Brown (2009). The GuantÁnamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law. NYU Press. p. 111. ISBN 9780814737361. http://books.google.ca/books?id=kWzPGjsArtYC&pg=PA111&lpg=PA111&dq=%22ISN+200%22+Guantanamo&source=bl&ots=BkDUIPNi0v&sig=sw2nMfCS6tmeVFVAgtjMmVUso5o&hl=en&sa=X&ei=e44FUMTlCKSx0QG7_YXTCA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22ISN%20200%22%20Guantanamo&f=false. Retrieved 2012-07-17.
- ↑ . Lodi News Sentinel. 2006-09-29. p. 13. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=dwsmAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Q_0FAAAAIBAJ&pg=5220,3547069&dq=patricia-bronte+. Retrieved 2012-07-17. "Patricia A. Bronte, another attorney, said detainees will now have a harder time trying to clear themselves."
- ↑ Patricia A. Bronte (2009). "GTMO arrest". http://brontelaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/GTMO-arrest-rev.pdf. Retrieved 2012-07-17. "Although everyone at the base knew that I was authorized to be there, no one seemed to have the authority to allow me to stay there without the magic country clearance."
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Patricia A. Bronte (2009). "Women lawyers". http://brontelaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/woman-lawyers-rev.pdf. Retrieved 2012-07-17. "You may have seen lovely dark-skinned women wearing hijabs. That is not what I looked like. I have pale skin, freckles, and blue-gray eyes. Picture Alfalfa (of Spanky’s Gang) dressed like a nun. Perhaps that is why the young U.S. soldiers threw me hostile glances – I had offended the fashion gods. I fancied at the time that they resented my donning what they perceived as the uniform of our Muslim “enemies.” But the worst part of the hijab is that it puts two layers of fabric over each ear. That, combined with the loud air conditioner units in the interview room, made it very difficult for me to hear."
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Patricia A. Bronte (2009). "Classified art". http://brontelaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Classified-Art.pdf. Retrieved 2012-07-17. "The PRT said that it couldn’t review the colorful artwork for classified information because it didn’t understand art. So the PRT person redacted the artwork and sent me the letter."
- ↑ Patricia A. Bronte (2007). "Classified art". https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:ys3zjuT5iIIJ:dlib.nyu.edu/guantanamo/documents/word/Bronte_Protective.doc+&hl=en&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjf5pQgLfm_t2BaJHGISV4VJWQdHJ7X7nIGqLrbbT_24U4zr_CHv8-hDjnnOEdxRdTrDaQOyiOfblJE5JJtzPUgRC6ORR8h57HYgOIK9JnRl0xp02t_fS4GquMz95zE0bNt8HNR&sig=AHIEtbTuksdDubQKp1oNVmzfr9xRPF6onA. Retrieved 2012-07-17.
