It wasn't too long ago that Bill Kuebler was as Red State as they come: a family man, a born-again Christian, a successful business lawyer, a political conservative with an unblemished record of voting Republican.
Today, the 37-year-old Navy lawyer is still as committed a Christian as ever, but he spends his time fiercely defending an alleged radical Muslim murderer – Canadian Omar Khadr.
Instead of working at a lucrative civilian practice, Lieutenant-Commander Kuebler is publicly blasting the U.S. government for what he describes as a sham system in Guantanamo, and Ottawa for failing to fight to bring Mr. Khadr home.
In the process, he has sometimes incurred Washington's wrath. He has also caused Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative government much discomfort.
But the man who has fought so fiercely for Mr. Khadr's defence simply predicates his actions on the question: What would Jesus do?
“Jesus was reputed to associate with the unpopular people – the sinners and the outcasts of his time,” Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler said in an interview from his Washington office.
“There's an interesting parallel between that and what we do as criminal defence lawyers, because we're typically encountering people who have done bad things or are alleged to have done bad things and are at a pretty low ebb in their lives.
“To show that you can serve somebody in that position and do it without hesitation and without judgment and reservation – it's a powerful way to demonstrate what we believe in as far as God's grace and forgiveness for sin.”
Since taking on Mr. Khadr's case one year ago, and especially in the past few months, Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler has been a fixture in Canadian media, appearing before TV cameras in his impossibly wrinkle-free uniform to argue on behalf of a deeply polarizing figure from a much-loathed family. This week, the lawyer appeared on myriad news shows to talk about the newly released video of Mr. Khadr's interrogation at the hands of Canadian intelligence agents five years ago. The footage – the first ever showing an interrogation in Guantanamo – momentarily became the biggest news story in the world.
But behind Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler's impassioned defence of his client are contrasts so stark they border on contradiction. Here is a conservative Christian defending an alleged radical Muslim; a U.S. military man representing someone accused of killing a U.S. military man; a lawyer who attacks the Guantanamo Bay military commissions system as an outright sham even as his client is one of the very few detainees not to boycott that system.
That mindset has taken the lawyer from a lucrative civil litigation career in the U.S. to the most controversial prison in the world, taking on a case he freely admits cannot be won in a Guantanamo courtroom, regardless of the evidence.
But as an October trial date looms for Mr. Khadr, the Navy lawyer still believes that with enough public pressure, Ottawa will relent and ask for the detained Canadian's return. To achieve that goal, Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler has his sights set on changing the minds of those Canadians who are most like him: committed conservatives.
UNLIKELY DEFENDERS
It wasn't long after Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler first set foot in Guantanamo that he was told he couldn't see his client.
This was late 2005, and the lawyer had recently volunteered to participate in the defence of those facing trial before the military commissions system. Believing the system was no different from the court-martial process, he quickly discovered significant differences.
For one thing, his client at the time, a Saudi named Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi, didn't want a lawyer. Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler, assisted by an Arabic translator, sought access to the prisoner's cell. Even as prosecutors freely entered the cell to serve Mr. al Sharbi his charges, Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler was told he couldn't go in.
