Michael Ratner, attorney for WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, dies at 72

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Civil and human rights lawyer also helped start group representing
Guantánamo Bay detainees pro-bono, considered ‘largest mass defense
effort in US history’

Michael Ratner, the civil and human rights attorney who represented Julian Assange and WikiLeaks in the US, died Wednesday at age 72, leaving behind an outsized legacy of advocacy for whistleblowers and US government detainees.

“As an attorney, writer, speaker, educator, activist ... Michael Ratner’s passion was not just for the law but for the struggle for justice and peace,” said the Center for Constitutional Rights, a not-for-profit legal advocacy organization where Ratner worked to bring cases for 45 years. “Michael dedicated his life to the most important fights for justice of the last half century.”

Ratner joined CCR in 1971 after graduating from Columbia law school, just a week before the famous prisoner revolt at the Attica correctional facility in upstate New York. The case of the Attica brothers versus then governor Nelson Rockefeller would be Ratner’s first for the organization.

A tireless critic of extraordinary rendition and indefinite detention throughout the post-9/11 war on terror, Ratner was co-counsel in a 2004 suit filed on behalf of captives at Guantánamo Bay that reached the supreme court. In a landmark decision, the justices decided in Rasul v Bush that detainees did have the right to challenge their detention and that US courts have the jurisdiction to hear those complaints in the case of foreign nationals.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/11/michael-ratner-wikileaks-julian-assange-attorney-dies

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Jamiles Lartey
Wednesday 11 May 2016 23.46 BST

[msanthrope]

1. Christ...he was so much more than that twerp's lawyer. RIP. nt

[doc03]

2. Brother of Ellen Ratner Fox News liberal commentator I beleive n/t

[scscholar]

3. Timing is a little suspicious

Just saying

[cstanleytech]

10. Yes, Indeedly Doodly!!!

I mean look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy and it clearly shows that he should have lived atleast another 4 whole years, I think the FBI should get in on this..................wait, better make that the UN instead and maybe they could send in a crack investigative team headed by Gerry Lane or if he isnt available maybe Temperance Brennan?

[laserhaas]

4. R.I.P. great caombatant against injustice manifest

We need more like you

[pmorlan1]

5. A Great Loss for Social Justice

Ratner was also a founding member of the Guantánamo Bay Bar Association, a group of more than 500 attorneys who provided pro-bono representation to detainees, an effort CCR calls “the largest mass defense effort in US history”. Long before the war on terror, Ratner took up the cause of Guantánamo detainees in the 1990s, winning the closure of a detention camp set up exclusively for holding HIV-positive Haitian refugees.

During his career, Ratner sued three US presidents: Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W Bush, and passionately argued for the impeachment of the latter for warrantless surveillance, torture, misleading Congress about the Iraq war, and violating the constitution’s separation of powers.

RIP Mr. Ratner - Rest assured your work will go on.

[Kip Humphrey]

6. We lost a good one today.

Michael Ratner will likely not be replaced into the distant future. Peace brother.

[ReRe]

7. I'm really going to miss...

... Michael Ratner. He was on DemocracyNow allot. Look for Amy Goodman to do a Memorial Program for Michael in the coming days. Probably tomorrow or Fri.

Until we meet again, Michael Ratner. Rest in peace.

[OnyxCollie]

12. RIP Michael Ratner, Radical Attorney & Human Rights Crusader

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/5/11/rip_michael_ratner_radical_attorney_human

[ReRe]

13. Thank you so much!

I am wondering what happened to him? He seemed so healthy and vibrant the last time we saw him on Amy's. So sad to loose this wonderful man. He was too young.

[OnyxCollie]

14. Cancer, maybe?

I first learned that he was ill about six or seven months ago when I heard someone wish him well on DemocracyNow!

[ReRe]

15. Wow...

... I don't remember hearing that. Well, he did good upon this earth.

[lordsummerisle]

8. Very sad to lose such an advocate

kinda surprised there hasn't been more reaction to this on DU...

[blackspade]

9. RIP

[Redwoods Red]

11. A true fighter for all of our rights.