Lt Col Yvonne Bradley

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Yvonne Bradley has been a military lawyer in the US for 20 years. Following an appeal for military lawyers to take up the cases of Guantanamo detainees in 2005, she volunteered. She represented British resident Binyam Mohamed, who was being held in Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
She recoiled, thinking he was "the worst of the worst" and tried to get out of representing him, citing ' a conflict of interest'. He was convinced that she was a part of the American evilness.

The DoD website says Mr Mohamed "asserted he did not want Bradley, or any American, to represent him in this case", and told the presiding judge: "I don't believe her being an American and a soldier - a sworn enemy of mine - will defend me. I have a problem with trusting Americans, because I've been in custody of Americans for four years." But Lt Col Bradley had already begun to see some of the light at the end of the tunnel.

It took her three years to get him released.

"I look at it this way. If I detained Mr Mohamed in a garage for seven years and deprived him of all rights and called him a car, that makes him no more a car because he's detained in a garage, no more than my government can detain someone, put them in jail and label them as a terrorist, makes them a terrorist."

Her fight to bring Mr Mohamed back home was an excercise in being stonewalled by until she flew to Britain to urge the Foreign Office to press the US harder for his release.
Read more in the bbc account
Read more in the Guardian account
Read the NYT report here
Thanks to Margaret Hurt for the heads up.