Stephen Abraham

Stephen Abraham is an American lawyer and officer in the United States Army Reserve. In June 2007, he became the first officer who had served on a Combatant Status Review Tribunal to publicly criticize its operations. He said the evidence provided did not meet legal standard, and the members of the panels were strongly pressured by superiors to find that detainees should be classified as enemy combatants. Abraham served in the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants.

Days after he submitted his affidavit about problems in the system to the United States Supreme Court, it reversed its previous decision, and accepted the consolidated Boumediene v. Bush case for its 2007-2008 docket. It ruled in 2008 that Guantanamo detainees have habeas corpus rights under the US Constitution, and can have direct access to federal courts for their petitions to be held. It ruled that the provisions of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that restricted detainees from exercising habeas corpus outside the military system authorized by Congress were unconstitutional.