CHICAGO: There was renewed optimism in the defence team of Tahawwur Rana at a federal court in Chicago with the coming onboard of Charles Swift. Charles is no stranger to high profile cases, terrorism suspects, and above all is a crusader for human rights. Neither does he shy away from international scrutiny or government pressure.
Charles won the historic Hamdan vs United States case that became a landmark for human rights violations of the Guantanamo Bay detainees against the United States government. The client in question was Abdul Hamdan, driver of Osama bin Laden, in whose favour there was a historic ruling by the US Supreme Court. The rights to that story is believed to have been bought for a George Clooney production in the making.
Taking a cue, writers, filmmakers and journalists have been lining up outside the court for a view of the trial, and defendant Rana. Although relatively little is understood by a courtroom in the United States about the language of South Asian hospitality.
Headley in his suave, smooth South Asian accent, with a British school inflection, said, ''Doctor sahib,'' referring to Rana as if he were respectfully addressing his childhood friend and not the man he was implicating in a terrorism trial. The inherent contradiction in his language was not apparent to the court. On a larger level, Rana's boyhood friendship with Headley, who unwittingly provided him cover for some of his operations, could be interpreted in the South Asian context as loyalty and commitment, not complicity..
The trial is rife with double entendres, and unintended puns, where in an email conversation with Major Iqbal, Rana is accused of talking about a plot, where in reality there was an actual plot in Karachi that Headley and Iqbal were trying to get Rana to invest in. And later in a conversation with his assistant Saad Mirza, he jokes about himself, being a terror (khaufnak) in Urdu, which in the context is completely different from terrorism.
In a trial where the pivotal testimony is that of a childhood friend, little is understood about the nuances and the backdrop of a culture of innate hospitality, albeit a hospitality that has eventually come back to bite Rana.
Charles won the historic Hamdan vs United States case that became a landmark for human rights violations of the Guantanamo Bay detainees against the United States government. The client in question was Abdul Hamdan, driver of Osama bin Laden, in whose favour there was a historic ruling by the US Supreme Court. The rights to that story is believed to have been bought for a George Clooney production in the making.
Taking a cue, writers, filmmakers and journalists have been lining up outside the court for a view of the trial, and defendant Rana. Although relatively little is understood by a courtroom in the United States about the language of South Asian hospitality.
Headley in his suave, smooth South Asian accent, with a British school inflection, said, ''Doctor sahib,'' referring to Rana as if he were respectfully addressing his childhood friend and not the man he was implicating in a terrorism trial. The inherent contradiction in his language was not apparent to the court. On a larger level, Rana's boyhood friendship with Headley, who unwittingly provided him cover for some of his operations, could be interpreted in the South Asian context as loyalty and commitment, not complicity..
The trial is rife with double entendres, and unintended puns, where in an email conversation with Major Iqbal, Rana is accused of talking about a plot, where in reality there was an actual plot in Karachi that Headley and Iqbal were trying to get Rana to invest in. And later in a conversation with his assistant Saad Mirza, he jokes about himself, being a terror (khaufnak) in Urdu, which in the context is completely different from terrorism.
In a trial where the pivotal testimony is that of a childhood friend, little is understood about the nuances and the backdrop of a culture of innate hospitality, albeit a hospitality that has eventually come back to bite Rana.
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