Kafka Comes to America: Fighting for Justice in the War on Terror
Trial Ad (and other) Notes:
In Kafka Comes to America, Steven T. Wax — the long-time Federal Public Defender for Oregon — recounts his experience representing two clients, Brandon Mayfield and Adel Hamad.
Mayfield was a youngish attorney starting a practice in Beaverton, OR. Then he was suddenly in the international news, arrested as a material witness in the Madrid train station bombings, with leaks from the government indicating that his fingerprint matched one found on a bag of explosives. Much later, it was revealed that the Spanish National Police never agreed with the FBI’s identification and in fact eventually matched the print to an Algerian suspect. By the way, it appears that the FBI focused on Mayfield largely because he was a Muslim married to an Egyptian-American.
Hamad was one of several Guantánamo detainee’s Wax’s office represented. Sudanese, he had spent years working for relief organizations in Pakistan and Afghanistan: he…