Oregonian vows to help detainee.

Byline: Bill Bishop The Register-Guard

Oregon's chief federal public defender vows to carry the habeas corpus appeal of Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. Supreme Court by focusing on cases that contain "pretty compelling facts of innocence."

Attorney Steven Wax says his client, Adel Hassan Hamad, was a respected and hard-working hospital administrator before he was taken from his home in the middle of the night in July 2002 on suspicion of having had contacts with al-Qaeda operatives.

Hamad has been detained at Guantanamo Bay ever since, without a way to challenge his imprisonment through the U.S. court system.

The federal appeals court for the District of Columbia dealt Hamad and hundreds of other detainees a setback Tuesday, when it ruled that they do not have a right to plead their innocence in a U.S. court.

"We will fight on," Wax said Wednesday. "It's not over."

In court records, Wax says Hamad has long worked for legitimate nongovernmental charitable groups with no affiliations with terrorist organizations. Hamad, a native of Sudan, is the father of five daughters. He provided relief supplies to refugees in Afghanistan. He fled that country when it became too dangerous for foreigners under the Taliban regime, the records indicate.

Hamad had all the documents required to live in Pakistan while working as an administrator at a hospital in Afghanistan before his arrest, according to the court records.

Wax says he has obtained sworn statements - some on videotape - from 10 individuals, including three doctors at the Afghanistan hospital where Hamad worked. All either document the legitimacy of his employment or state that Hamad was never politically involved, much less a combatant against the United States.

Court documents indicate that the government believes otherwise.

The records show that Hamad worked for the Lajanat Dawa Islamiya in Afghanistan from 1986 until 1999, and that he worked for the World Assembly of Muslim Youth for the 18 months before his capture.

Other details about evidence against Hamad were not readily evident in court records. However, the records do show that one of the three military officers who reviewed Hamad's case in a Combatant Status Review Tribunal argued for Hamad's release.

The tribunals are one of the government's responses to criticisms and court rulings that Guantanamo detainees have been deprived of any proper review of the evidence supporting their imprisonment.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled twice that the detainees have the right of habeas corpus - a historic process in which a judge may review such evidence. Following the U.S. Supreme Court's last ruling favoring habeas corpus for the detainees, Congress last year enacted the Military Commissions Act to declare that "enemy combatants" held outside the United States have no right to court reviews.

Wax says his legal brief should be filed with the highest court in a week or two, but it will be at least one more year before the court addresses the issue again.

"Enough is enough," Wax said. "The clients are looking at another year before the Supreme Court resolves this issue."