Supr.Court to Hear Harbury Case Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit JENNIFER HARBURY CASE: SUPREME COURT TO DECIDE WHETHER ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS CAN BE SUED source - JosePertierra@aol.com Court to Hear Rebel Widow's Case By ANNE GEARAN (c) The Associated Press WASHINGTON, Dec 10 (AP) - The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether former Secretary of State Warren Christopher and other Clinton administration figures can be sued for misleading an American woman about the fate of her Guatemalan rebel husband. The court accepted an appeal from Christopher, former National Security Adviser Anthony Lake and other former government officials. American lawyer Jennifer Harbury accuses them of deliberately concealing information about leftist guerrilla Efrain Bamaca-Velasquez, who disappeared in Guatemala in 1992. The appeals court ruled that the officials behaved unconstitutionally because by deliberately misleading her with an eye to preventing a lawsuit. The Constitution guarantees access to the courts, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals wrote last year. Harbury sued the CIA, State Department, National Security Council and numerous officials in 1996, claiming among other things that the U.S. government was complicit in Bamaca's death. A federal judge threw out much of Harbury's case before it went to trial, but said the officials were not immune from her constitutional complaint about lack of access to the courts. Upholding that finding, the appeals court wrote, "We think it should be obvious to public officials that they may not affirmatively mislead citizens for the purpose of protecting themselves from suit." The case is Christopher v. Harbury, 01-394. AP-NY-12-10-01 1018EST * The Oread Daily - Dec 12, 2001 GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS SAY, "DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL" Jennifer Harbury's quest to reveal what really happened to her husband took a small step forward yesterday. The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide if she can sue former Secretary of State Warren Christopher and other Clinton administration officials for keeping secrets from her. The Court is expected to rule by next summer whether individual government officials are protected from being sued if they have withheld information about covert operations. Jennifer Harbury began working with refugees from Guatemala in the 1980s, which led her to meet her future husband, Efrain Bamaca Velásquez (Everardo), a guerrilla leader and Mayan Indian. In 1992, Everardo was captured, tortured, and killed. Bamaca disappeared on March 12, 1992 in a small skirmish with the Guatemalan army. It now is known, based on CIA sources, that he was captured by the Guatemalan army, secretly detained, tortured, and then killed. Harbury has repeatedly called on the government to release information concerning her husbands death (including conducting a 32 day hunger strike in 1994). The government has claimed it has no knowledge of what happened. Yet, on June 2, 1995, Ms. Harbury received documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) which revealed that the DIA informed the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala in September of 1993, that Ms. Harbury's husband, Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, was "held incommunicado, interrogated a number of times, and then killed." The government also stonewalled her request for documents under the Freedom of Information Act, Harbury has said. As a result, she was unable to go to court or otherwise publicize Bamaca's fate while there was still a chance to save him, she argued. The government was trying to protect its network of covert informants, and hoped to benefit from whatever information Bamaca might provide about the shadowy leftist insurgency, Harbury claimed. "The government is always free to say, 'no comment,'" said Jodie Kelley, a lawyer for Harbury. "This is quite different. Here, government officials affirmatively misled her - telling her they had scraped the bottom of the barrel and there was nothing, no information." Christopher and other officials do not contest the basic facts as put forth by Harbury. Rather they are claiming that they should be immune from the suit. A federal judge threw out much of Harbury's case earlier, but said the officials were not protected from her complaint that she was denied her constitutional right to be heard in court. "We think it should be obvious to public officials that they may not affirmatively mislead citizens for the purpose of protecting themselves from suit," a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia wrote last year. Sources: The Jennifer Harbury Web Page, University of Massachusetts- Boston, AP, Native News Online [The Oread Daily provides daily (Monday-Friday) progressive, left, anti-racist, anarchist, commie, activist, environmental, Marxist, revolutionary, etc. news and information from around the US and around the world. The Oread Daily was a mimeographed sheet that came out first in the summer of 1970 in Lawrence, Kansas. It was irreverent, radical, spicy, revolutionary et. al. Now, three decades later it returns. To view the entire Oread Daily, please visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OreadDaily ] ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-12.16.01-02:56:18-13267