George Brent Mickum IV is an American lawyer and currently the General Counsel of ERP Compliant Fuels, LLC. Mickum represented three British residents, Bisher Al Rawi, Jamil El Banna, and

Martin Mubanga Martin Mubanga is a joint citizen of both the United Kingdom and Zambia. He was held, without charge, and interrogated at the American prison at Guantanamo Bay for 33 months. In 1995, he spent six months in Bosnia working for a charity. In Jan ...

in '' El Banna v. Bush.'' The three were captured in Africa, held first in CIA custody, then transported to the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

. Before entering private practice, Mickum worked as a trial attorney for the Federal Trade Commission. He also worked as a special assistant U.S. Attorney for the

Department of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

and as the senior investigative counsel for the Senate Special Committee on Investigations. When the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

forced the

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philipp ...

to provide an opportunity for captives to learn why they were being held, they designed administrative procedures called "

Combatant Status Review Tribunal The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were estab ...

s". ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' quoted Mickum's advice to his clients that they decline to participate: On January 12, 2005, ''The Guardian'' published an article by Mickum, where he described one of his clients, Bisher Al Rawi, being punished for trying to forward the names of other Guantanamo captives who wanted

habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...

petitions submitted on their behalf. The lawyers who were prepared to submit ''

'' petitions could only do so when they were approached by a detainee's "

next friend In common law, a next friend (Law French ''prochein ami'') is a person who represents another person who is under age, or, because of disability or otherwise, is unable to maintain a suit on his or her own behalf and who does not have a legal gu ...

". In February 2008 Mickum was one of the first two lawyers to see

Abu Zubaydah Abu Zubaydah ( ; , ''Abū Zubaydah''; born March 12, 1971, as Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn) is a Saudi Arabian currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He is held under the authority of Authorization for Use o ...

, one of the three captives the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

acknowledges

waterboarding Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method of waterboard ...

, when he was in one of their

black sites In military terminology, a black site is a location at which an unacknowledged black operation or black project is conducted. According to the Associated Press, "Black sites are clandestine jails where prisoners generally are not charged with a ...

." All the attorneys who are allowed to meet with the Guantanamo captives had to agree not to disclose "

secret Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret. Secrecy is often controvers ...

" information they learn from their clients. However the CIA argued this agreement wasn't sufficient for those attorneys who wanted to meet with their former clients, because the clients could reveal information that was "

top secret Classified information is material that a government body deems to be sensitive information that must be protected. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people with the necessary security clearance and need to kn ...

". Mickum said: "The hypocrisy that we cannot discuss Zubaydah's treatment, but the government can admit to waterboarding him and claim that it is legal is rather astounding." On March 30, 2009 ''

'' published an article by Mickum, entitled "The truth about Abu Zubaydah: The Bush administration's false claim that my client was a top al-Qaida official has led to his imprisonment and torture." Mickum's text was submitted to the CIA, who required multiple redactions. Mickum wrote:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mickum, George Brent, Iv Guantanamo Bay attorneys Living people Lawyers from Washington, D.C. Year of birth missing (living people)