Sudanese's attorneys plead his case — on YouTube

MIAMI — With legal challenges by Guantánamo detainees now frozen in the federal courts, what's a creative civil-liberties lawyer to do?

Court public opinion.

A team of Oregon federal public defenders has made a video arguing that Sudanese captive Adel Hamad is unlawfully held at the remote U.S. Navy Base in southeast Cuba — and posted it on YouTube.

In 10 days, the video has been viewed 20,000 times. The video is set in such locations as Guantánamo, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Hamad, 48, born in Sudan, was handed over to U.S. troops after his arrest in Peshawar, Pakistan. The Pentagon says he is an unlawful "enemy combatant" in league with al-Qaida.

He denies this. He says he was a humanitarian relief worker when Pakistan police took him from his home in July 2002 and handed him off to U.S. forces, across the border, in Afghanistan.

The nearly 10-minute video, called Guantánamo Unclassified, is the first known online effort to focus world opinion on a current captive's case since Congress stripped the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., of the power to hear enemy combatant habeas corpus cases.

Patrick Ehlers, a federal public defender, originally produced a longer video and filed it as a DVD to persuade U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, assigned to the case, that their client's detention was unlawful.

But once Congress passed a law stripping Guantánamo captives of recourse to that particular court, stopping Bates' review, Ehlers' office posted a shorter version online Jan. 5.