Gitmo inmate tries to use Hobby Lobby case in his favor
Issues@Hand
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January 2015 – Walid Bin Attash, one of the alleged planners of the World Trade Center terrorist attack in 2001, has asked a military judge to end a new policy in Guantanamo Bay that allows female guards to escort him to and from meeting with his attorneys.
Attash and his attorneys are using the Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision to bolster his argument. He says the decision protects Hobby Lobby’s religious convictions and Guantanamo Bay should honor his.
Attash’s Muslim religion prohibits physical contact between unrelated men and women, and prison policy requires female guards to have physical contact with the men during transportation. Attash has refused to meet with his attorneys on several occasions because he feared contact.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was the first to use the Hobby Lobby precedent to argue the Guantanamo Bay policy. Guantanamo spokesman and Navy captain Tom Gresback said the detention facility has “no intention [of] modifying its assignment of job responsibilities to members of the guard force based on gender. The Department of Defense is an equal opportunity employer.”
