Nationality USA Name Suzanne Lachelier Alma mater Boston University Role Lawyer | Occupation lawyer Titles Commander Employer United States Navy | |
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Born 1967 New York Education Boston University School of Law, Boston University | ||
Suzanne Lachelier (born 1967 in New York) is an American lawyer and Commander in the United States Navy reserves. She is among the military attorneys assigned to defend detainees at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. She is the first defense lawyer to be allowed to a top-secret location, known as Camp 7 or Camp Platinum, where former CIA detainees are held at Guantanamo. Lachelier is notable for the legal struggle she waged in order to meet her client, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who had refused to leave his cell.
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Early life and education
Suzanne Lachelier was born in New York in 1967. She moved with her family to Orgeval, France, where she lived until 1983. She is fluent in French and English. She graduated from Boston University School of Law in 1992.
Career
Lachelier is a reserve officer in the Judge Advocate General Corps of the military.
She is one of the officers assigned to defend high-value detainees at Guantanamo Bay detention camp before military commissions. She is notable for the legal struggle she waged in order to meet her client, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who refused to leave his cell. She was worried that he was suffering from mental illness.
These former CIA detainees were held in a top-secret location in the complex. When they were transported to and from court and other locations, they had to wear hoods to prevent their seeing anything.
She petitioned the Presiding Officer of the military commissions to be allowed to visit al-Shibh at the secret site. She had been prohibited from visiting al-Shibh, as she did not have the clearance to know its location. She offered to wear a hood, while being transported to and from the site, so she would not learn its location or character.
On 18 November 2008 Lachelier and her co-counsel, Rich Federico, were allowed to visit the site without being forced to wear hoods. They were transported in the same windowless van used to transport the detainees, so they could see nothing and could not learn the camp's location. She was particularly concerned about Bin al Shibh's mental health.
During the earlier, Presidentially authorized, military commissions, struck down by the United States Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), suspects were not allowed to defend themselves, nor were they free to choose not to attend their commissions. The military commissions that were later authorized by the United States Congress, through the Military Commissions Act of 2006
In May 2008, Lachelier played a key role in arranging for another of her clients, Ibrahim Al Qosi, to make his first phone call home to Sudan.