Debevoise & Plimpton litigator Jennifer Cowan led a team of lawyers who used a novel argument to secure the release of Guantanamo Bay detainee Ibrahim Idris, who was reunited with his family in his native Sudan December 2013—nearly 12 years after he became one of the first suspected al Qaida fighters sent to Cuba.
In her petition for habeas corpus, Cowan did not address claims that Idris was an enemy combatant. Rather, she argued that he had to be released if he could not return to the battlefield. And she said the obese, diabetic and schizophrenic Idris was in no shape to face the U.S. in battle. The government dropped its opposition to Idris’ release, and D.C. District Judge Royce Lambeth became the first judge in the district since 2010 to grant a detainee’s habeas petition.
