Who is Paul Bergrin?

Who is Paul Bergrin?

“ "Besides the evidence I uncovered on Operation Iron Triangle, Objective Murray and the Rules of Engagement, to kill every military aged male upon contact, I was about to change the course of history (in a press conference) that I had affirmative proof that President Bush, VP Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Assist. Secy. of (Defense) Wolfowitz, Carbone and White House Counsel, (Alberto) Gonzales (later US Attorney General) had lied, deliberately and intentionally when they denied knowledge of the torture techniques at Abu Ghraib. -- Paul Bergrin

Paul Bergrin is a prominent, well known and brilliant defense attorney who relentlessly pursued the United States government and military while defending soldiers in the Abu Ghraib and Operation Iron Triangle cases who were wrongfully set up to take the fall for abuses in Iraq. His position is that the higher ups not only knew about the abuses at Abu Ghraib, but that they had authorized them and that during the Operation Iron Triangle raid the soldiers were following the ROE (rules of engagement), which was to kill every Iraqi male of military age on sight. Bergrin sought to prove that many of these orders came from as high up as the White House. In fact he was one of the first people to uncover these connections and to go public with them. He publicly stated that Rumsfeld signed documents authorizing hooding, nudity, the use of dogs, etc and he requested to put both Bush and Rumsfeld on the stand. Whereas the first Abu Ghraib cases were being tried in Iraq, Bergrin was one of the first attorneys to demand that the case involving his client, Jamal Davis, be held in the United States. That way the American public could better learn the truth about what was really going on.

Today Paul Bergrin is sitting in a prison in Brooklyn, New York, facing attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and many other charges. (Most of the US Prosecutor's case against Paul is based on statements by confidential informants -- his trial is scheduled to be held in Newark, NJ on October 11, 2011). Could his relentless pursuit of justice for the cases that he defended involving Iraq have anything to do with the charges he is currently facing?

FACTS TO CONSIDER

During the Abu Ghraib Prison scandal, Bergrin sought to put George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld on the stand for authorizing the abuses at the prison. And when George Bush wanted to destroy Abu Ghraib, he was the one who was able to prevent him from razing it to the ground, by having the judge rule it a crime scene and demanding that it not be destroyed for the duration of the Abu Ghraib trials (it should also be noted that Iraqi officials were also against tearing it down as well).

During the Operation Iron Triangle case, Bergrin won the right to have Colonel Michael Steele (the colonel upon whom the movie Black Hawk Down is based) take the witness stand. This was unprecedented as no one with a rank as high as Steele's had ever been commanded to take the stand in the history of the US military. However, this case never went to trial, as Paul Bergrin was accused of running a brothel and arrested on felony charges in 2007, days before the trial was to begin (In 2009 all of the felony charges would be dropped and Bergrin would plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge, which did not result in the loss of his license). When this arrest first happened, it even caused his then attorney, John Edwards Tiffany, to question whether or not the charges were some type of vendetta against Bergrin for his aggressive defense style and stepping on too many toes.

Not soon after his arrest, came a trifecta of plea bargains from the soldiers, which resulted in the case never going to trial. Consequently, Colonel Michael Steele never had to take the stand; testimony from his second in command, Lt Colonel Nathaniel Johnson, calling him a toxic leader and one who like to use "kill boards" and who wanted a big body count, was never heard; and the higher ups were never implicated in their role for authorizing such unlawful Rules of Engagement.

In April, 2009 when the Obama administration released the publication of papers proving that the White House authorized abuses, Bergrin announced his plans to reopen the Abu Ghraib prison abuse case. But that was not to happen, because soon after Bergrin announced his intentions to reopen this case, he was arrested again in May, and this time was charged with murder. Bergrin writes:

"If I had the torture memos, I would have compelled the highest levels of the government to testify at these Court-Martials, gone with a not guilty plea and exposed the hypocrisy. Additionally, Col. Pohl denied me calling these witnesses because the (government) alleged there was no nexus nor evidence in existence on the torture memos and techniques; we now know (they) existed and all the above had knowledge of....I could have reversed the convictions at Abu Ghraib and placed blame on the real offenders . . .

Important questions to Ask When Discussing Paul Bergrin:

• Why is it that most people have never heard of Operation Iron Triangle?

• Why was Paul Bergrin arrested in 2007?

• Why is it that the US army can admit to giving the soldiers an illegal order, but still lock these soldiers up for following the order, put them in cages, threaten them with the death penalty, sentence them to 18 years, and hold them in solitary confinement where the lights are never turned off and where they must at times beg for food, water, etc.?

• Who are Corey Glaggett, William Hunsacker and the rest of the Leavonsworth 9?

• Why was William Hunsacker, one of the soldiers, who has done so much soul searching, denied clemency when he merely asked that the military consider taking 4 years off of his 18 year sentence for following the Rules of Engagement? He didn't ask to be released. He merely asked that 4 years be taken off of his 18 year sentence?

• And why is it that nothing happens to the higher ups in command who give them the illegal order and who sanction abuse???????

Following the case involving Paul Bergrin will help to answer most of these questions.

Justice Should Not Simply be for the Rich, and Nor Should it be Based on Race.

As someone who spent the early part of his career as a prosecutor, and as someone who was a captain in the military, Paul Bergrin saw that things were not fair and that the justice system was riddled with inequities based on skin color and economic background. Often he talked about how as a prosecutor he saw so many things -- such as the falsifying of evidence, the unfair sentencing based on race, and the over burdensome and unfair bail that was often placed on poor people. As a result he became disillusioned with the prosecutorial system and decided to become a defense attorney and to pour his heart and soul into every case.

As a defense attorney, Paul didn't just simply take the big cases that would get his name into the papers. Rather, he believed that everyone, regardless of race or socio-economic status, was entitled to a rigorous defense. He truly believed that innocent until proven guilty and the right to a fair trial for everyone were the cornerstones of a just American legal system. And he applied this work ethic to everyone he defended, including the residents of Newark, New Jersey, which is where he practiced.

Today, the mainstream media, which has become nothing more than a parrot for the government's position, seek to unjustly villify him and the community he represented, by constantly referring to him as the attorney of drug dealers and gang members. To them, innocent until proven guilty doesn't exist, and their arrogant, racist and condescending attitudes about the citizenry of Newark are often reflected in their extremely biased reporting styles and propaganda. One such example is the scandal mongering hit piece, written by Mark Jacob of New York Magazine, which is a text book example of sensationalist yellow journalism at its worst.