Suzanne Lachelier
| Suzanne Lachelier | |
|---|---|
 Suzanne Lachelier 2382.jpg | |
| Born | 1967 |
| 🏳️ Nationality | United States |
| 💼 Occupation | |
| 👔 Employer | US Government |
| Title | Attorney and Commander (ret.) US Navy |
Suzanne Lachelier (born 1967 in New York) is an American lawyer and retired Commander in the United States Navy JAG Corps. [1] She was among the first military attorneys assigned to defend so-called "high value," former CIA detainees at Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.[2][3] She and her co-counsel, then LT Rich Federico, are the first defense lawyers who were allowed to a top-secret location, known as Camp 7 or Camp Platinum (now closed), where the former CIA detainees were held at Guantanamo.[2] Lachelier waged a legal struggle to get mental health assistance for her client, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who had been tortured during more than three years in CIA custody and faced the death penalty in a prosecution before a Guantanamo military commission.[4] She also represented Sudanese detainee Ibrahim al Qosi. In representing him, she succeeded in brokering a legislative amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, which allowed al Qosi to return home to Sudan in July 2012, after he spent more than 10 years imprisoned at Guantanamo. Now a civilian attorney, Lachelier continues to represent another client facing the death penalty in the military commissions, Mustafa al Hawsawi who she has represented as a civilian since 2015.
Early life and education
Suzanne Lachelier was born in New York in 1967. Her father is French, and she was raised in France until her junior year in high school. She is fluent in French and English. She graduated from Boston University School of Law in 1992. In 2025, she obtained a Masters of Laws (LLM) from Lewis & Clark Law School, magna cum laude.
Career
Lachelier was an active duty and reserve officer in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps of the military until 2018. She now serves as a government-appointed civilian attorney, representing one of the men charged, before a military commission in Guantanamo Cuba, with assisting the attacks of September 11, 2001.
While still a Navy JAG officer, she was one of the first officers assigned to defend high-value detainees at Guantanamo Bay detention camp before military commissions. She waged a legal struggle to get mental health assistance for her client, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who had been tortured during this more than three years in CIA custody and who faced the death penalty in a prosecution before a military commission.[3]
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 them from seeing anything.[3]
Lachelier petitioned the military judge to direct that she be permitted to visit the prison where her client, Ramzi bin al-Shibh was being held. She offered to wear a hood while being transported to and from the site, to assuage security officials she could not learn the prison's location.[3] Ultimately, the military judge ordered that she be allowed to see the secret prison.
On 18 November 2008, Lachelier and her co-counsel, then-LT Rich Federico, visited the secret prison.[3] 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, but they did not have to wear hoods.[5] She was particularly concerned about Bin al Shibh's mental health and wanted to assess his confinement conditions.
Lachelier also defended a Sudanese detainee, Ibrahim Al Qosi[6], from January 2008 to July 2012. In her first act representing him, she obtained an order from the military judge in that case allowing Al Qosi to make a phone call home to Sudan, his first communication with his family in more than six years since he was imprisoned by the United States.[7][8][9][10] Al Qosi worked with Lachelier over those four years, and she ultimately obtained his release home to Sudan through an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that allowed certain detainees who had pled guilty to be released from the Guantanamo prisons.
Lachelier left active duty in January 2013 and returned continued to serve as a part-time reservist, in other capacities, in the US Navy JAG Corps. As a civilian, she continued representing men detained in Guantanamo, serving civilian defense counsel to Mustafa al-Hawsawi, initially in a pro bono status in early 2013.[6] As of August 2026, Lachelier still represents al-Hawsawi in the military commissions, where he faces death penalty charges.
In spring 2018, after serving 20 years in active and reserve roles with the U.S. Navy, Lachelier left military service.
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
References
- ↑ Carol Rosenberg (July 13, 2017). "First war-court hearing on U.S. soil stops before it even gets started". Miami Herald. p. 10A.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Lawyer gains access to Gitmo's secret 'Camp 7'". USA Today. 2008-10-28. Retrieved 2010-01-16.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4
Carol Rosenberg (2008-11-18). "Navy lawyers inspect secret prison camp". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 2008-11-19. Retrieved 2008-11-19. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Carol Rosenberg (May 27, 2015). "No more Big Macs, other treats at Guantanamo legal meetings". Miami Herald.
- ↑
"Lawyers See Secret Section of Gitmo". The Ledger. 2008-11-17. p. A14. Archived from the original on 2009-07-28. Retrieved 2009-07-28. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ 6.0 6.1 Rachel Hajjar (2022). The War in Court: Inside the Long Fight against Torture. University of California. ISBN 0520378938. Search this book on
- ↑
Carol Rosenberg (May 22, 2008). "Terror suspect phones Sudan to hire own lawyer". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on May 25, 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-25.
Within hours of a judge's order, an accused al Qaeda conspirator at Guantánamo got a call from home Thursday to consult with his family on how they might hire him a lawyer, at their own expense.
Unknown parameter|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Guantanamo judge orders military to allow detainee phone call home to Sudan". International Herald Tribune. May 22, 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-25.
- ↑
Carol Rosenberg (May 24, 2008). "Guantánamo: Detainee didn't get call from home". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on May 25, 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-25.
A military spokesman erred last week by telling journalists that an alleged al Qaeda conspirator at Guantánamo received a Red Cross-assisted telephone call from home.
Unknown parameter|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑
Jane Sutton (May 24, 2008). "Guantanamo phone report was in error, U.S. says". Reuters. Archived from the original on May 25, 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-25. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help)
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