Since 2008, Hadsell Stormer & Renick LLP’s Dan Stormer and Cindy Pánuco have represented Obaidullah – a young Afghan man who has been held without trial by the United States Government for nearly thirteen years. Hadsell Stormer has taken its challenges to Obaidullah’s illegal and indefinite detention all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court refused to hear Obaidullah’s case, denying his petition for a writ of certiorari. In January 2015, Hadsell Stormer took Obaidullah’s case to the court of public opinion. Ms. Pánuco teamed up with producing team Reinita Susman and Adam Mitropoulos to produce a mini-documentary video on Obaidullah’s story. Working with Ms. Susman, Mr. Mitropolous, and Public Counsel (who is co-counsel on Obaidullah’s case), Ms. Pánuco led the launch of a social media campaign and website to bring awareness to the injustice at Guantánamo. The website www.shouldntbeus.org centers around the video which encourages visitors to the site to take action by sharing the video to create awareness of the ongoing human rights violations at the prison.
More recently, Hadsell Stormer united with lawyers for the remaining Afghan prisoners at Guantánamo to draft and send a six-page letter to the Executive, urging that the U.S. Government has no legal justification to continue to flaunt human rights laws, and asking that President Obama release, repatriate or resettle the Afghan captives. News of the letter’s dispatch was reported by the Miami Herald.