Eric Montalvo is an American lawyer who retired after 21 years of active duty service from the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

as a "Mustang" Major and JAG officer. He is notable for questioning whether 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

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 ...

should rely on paid witnesses when trying to assemble a new case against his client,

Mohammed Jawad Mohamed Jawad (born 1985 in Miranshah, Pakistan), was accused of attempted murder before a Guantanamo military commission on charges that he threw a grenade at a passing American convoy on December 17, 2002. Jawad's family says that he was 12 years ...

. His work on the case was featured in the February 2011 issue of GQ magazine.

Education

Montalvo has a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

from the University of South Carolina and a Juris Doctor from

Temple University School of Law The Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law is the law school of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1895 and enrolls about 530 students. Student body Admission for fall 2019 entering class was highly comp ...

Legal career

Montalvo is Founding Partner of The Federal Practice Group. His areas of practice are military law, security clearance law, international corporate law, and white collar crime.

Guantanamo hitch

On July 22, 2009, US District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle granted Jawad's

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 ...

petition, ruling that all the evidence against him was inadmissible, because it was triggered by torture. The

requested time to lay new charges against Jawad, based on witness statements that had not been available during the previous five years he had been in custody. On August 4, 2009, the ''

Washington Independent The American Independent Institute is a nonprofit organization which funds liberal investigative journalism efforts. According to the organization, its aim is to support journalism which exposes "the nexus of conservative power in Washington." The ...

'' reported that Montalvo and lead counsel David Frakt reported that the new prosecution witnesses had received gifts or cash in return for their testimony. On August 28, 2009, Jeremy Page, writing in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'', reported that Montalvo was planning to represent Jawad in a lawsuit against the US government. Page reported that Montalvo was scheduled to retire from the Marine Corps within the next month. On September 21, 2009,

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

Andy Worthington Andy Worthington is a British historian, investigative journalist, and film director. He has published three books, two on Stonehenge and one on the war on terror, been published in numerous publications and directed documentary films. Artic ...

, author of ''

The Guantanamo Files The Guantánamo Bay files leak (also known as The Guantánamo Files, or colloquially, Gitmo Files) began on 24 April 2011, when WikiLeaks, along with ''The New York Times'', NPR and ''The Guardian'' and other independent news organizations, began ...

'', published a letter from Montalvo's colleague Frakt, that explained Montalvo's role in more detail. He wrote that, initially, Jawad's Defense team was going to hire a

private investigator A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI and informally called a private eye), a private detective, or inquiry agent is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private investigators of ...

to travel to Afghanistan to conduct their own investigation, because so much of the evidence in the case had disappeared. It was only when Susan Crawford declined to budget for a private investigator that Montalvo made plans to serve as the team's investigator.

Defense of Adam Winfield

Adam Winfield is a soldier who faces charges that he participated in a thrill kill murder ring in Afghanistan. Montalvo is serving as his attorney. Montalvo and Winfield's father have asserted that Winfield was not a willing participant in the conspiracy, that he was one of the whistleblowers who had tried to report the ring. A documentary was produced detailing Winfield's story, and is called The Kill Team. The film won first place in the category of Best Documentary Feature at the 2013

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. Tribeca was f ...

Afghanistan evacuation

Montalvo and his Federal Practice Group were involved in the

2021 evacuation from Afghanistan Large-scale evacuations of foreign citizens and some vulnerable Afghan citizens took place amid the withdrawal of US and NATO forces during the final days of the war in Afghanistan and the Taliban offensive in Afghanistan in 2021. After the ...

, chartering a plane from

Mazar-i-Sharif , official_name = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , pushpin_map = Afghanistan#Bactria#West Asia , pushpin_label = Mazar-i-Sharif , pushpin ...

Doha Doha ( ar, الدوحة, ad-Dawḥa or ''ad-Dōḥa'') is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor, it is home to most of the count ...

. The flight was called "rogue", containing "300 people of unknown nationalities" as it wasn't expected or documented. It didn't have landing rights for Doha, but was able to land.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Montalvo, Eric Guantanamo Bay attorneys Living people Year of birth missing (living people)