- Anant Raut
Anant Raut is an American
lawyer . He was formerly an associate atWeil, Gotshal & Manges . He is presently Counsel to the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives.Anant Raut is a graduate of
Yale University andHarvard Law School . After working for two years litigatingantitrust cases at theFederal Trade Commission , he joined Weil, Gotshal & Manges. He has provided habeas representation to 5 Saudi Arabian detainees held atGuantanamo Bay detention camp , ['About the author', http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/01/17/guantanamo/ ] including two of the 16Saudi s released from Guantanamo in earlySeptember 2007 : Abdullah Al Anazi, whom Raut had dubbed “the gentle double-amputee poet of Guantanamo”, [Andy Worthington, 'Guantanamo: The Stories of the 16 Saudis just released', "The Huffington Post ", September 11, 2007] and Abdul Aziz Sad Al Owshan.Another one of his clients, Adel al Nusairi, was featured in an April 22, 2008 Washington Post story for being allegedly drugged and subsequently pressured into making a false confession. "I was completely gone," he stated, referring to the effects of the drug. "I said, 'Let me go. I want to go to sleep. If it takes saying I'm a member of
al-Qaida I will." [ Joby Warrick, "Detainees Allege Being Drugged, Questioned," "Washington Post " A01 (April 22, 2008) ]Mr. Raut and fellow habeas attorney
Candace Gorman were two of the first people to dispute the administration's charge that approximately 30 former Guantanamo detainees had returned to the battlefield, a claim later [http://law.shu.edu/center_policyresearch/reports/urban_legend_final_61608.pdf substantiated] [Mark Denbeaux et al., "Justice Scalia, the Department of Defense, and the Perpetuation of an Urban] by researchers at
Seton Hall Law School . According to [http://gtmodocuments.blogspot.com/2007/06/what-about-other-300.html Mr. Raut's research] , there are more than 300 prisoners in Guantanamo whom the United States never intends to prosecute. The average annual cost to the American taxpayer of keeping them in Guantanamo is $274,061, compared to $25,327 for the average federal inmate.In response to statements by the Department of Defense that it only intended to charge between 60 and 80 of the prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay, Mr. Raut prepared a series of slides in June 2007 showing the high cost of continuing to hold the remaining 300. [ [http://gtmoblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/what-about-other-300.html The Guantanamo Blog, "What About the Other 300+?"] ]
In late 2007, Mr. Raut joined the "
Al Odah v. United States " trial team, one of the cases decided as part of the Supreme Court's decision in "Boumediene v. Bush ", decided on June 12, 2008.Mr. Raut is a recipient of the 2007
National Legal Aid & Defender Association Beacon of Justice Award and the 2007Southern Center for Human Rights Frederick Douglass Human Rights Award.Works
*(with
Jill M. Friedman ) [http://www.fotofest.org/guantanamo/SaudiReport.pdf "The Saudi Repatriates Report"] , March 19, 2007.
* [http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/01/17/guantanamo/ 'Why I defend “terrorists”'] ,salon.com , January 17, 2007
* [http://www.weil.com/news/pubdetail.aspx?pub=4587 (w J. Benjamin Schrader) "Dereliction of Duty: When Members of Congress Vote for Legislation They Believe to Be Unconstitutional," New York City Law Review (Fall 2007)]
* [http://gtmodocuments.blogspot.com/2007/06/what-about-other-300.html GTMO Documents, "What About the Other 300+?"]References
External links
* [http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/2007/01/19#segment72263 Radio interview with Anant Raut]
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