tl20081002-01 "Nick DiMarco Senior Editor Of all the reasons to cancel class, Charles Schmitz�s may be the most unusual. The geography professor periodically catches a flight to Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba after he�s finished teaching a class. He occa-sionally must cancel class in advance because his work will keep him out of the country for several days. Over the last five years, Schmitz has worked as a interpreter for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, better known as one of Osama bin Laden�s drivers and one of America�s first detainees related to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Hamdan�s attorney, then-lieutenant command-er Charles Swift, first contacted Schmitz, a spe-cialist in Yemeni culture and dialect, in December 2003. Now retired from the military, Swift is serv-ing as a civilian lawyer for Hamdan. He found Schmitz via Human Rights Watch. �Oh, you�ve got to come down to Guantanamo, you�ve got to interpret for me. I have this Yemeni client,� Schmitz said, reenacting a phone call from Swift. At first, Schmitz said he was skeptical, calling the case a �kangaroo trial,� or rather court proceed-ings to legitimize a predetermined conviction. During their conversation, however, Swift said something that caught Schmitz�s attention, something that would take priority in his life for the next five years. ��We�re going to take down the system,� he said to me. This is a Navy JAG guy telling me this,� Schmitz said. �He kept talking and talking, and he convinced me.� After about four months, with Schmitz�s help, Swift went to federal court in Seattle, defending a man who was being accused of conspiracy to commit terrorism with the element of material support, aiding in bin Laden�s flight following 9/11. �We weren�t able to stop the commission�it was the first trial of all of them at Gitmo�and basically the government failed,� Schmitz said. �We admitted he drove bin Laden after 9/11 Now on TheTowerlight.com: View video Word on the Street, vote in our poll and send a letter to the editor... Thursday www.thetowerlight.com FREE Published by Baltimore Student Media for the Towson University Community Speaking for bin Laden�s driver Kristofer Marsh/The Towerlight Geography professor Charles Schmitz is an expert in Yemeni culture and dialect. He periodically flies to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to work as an interpreter for the defense of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the driver of Osama Bin Laden following the attacks of Sept. 11. Charles Schmitz works as an Arabic interpreter on the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld at Guantanamo Bay President�s Council prepares for cuts Oct. 2, 2008 The Towerlight Darfur refugees speak of struggles, genocide News, page 9 See SCHMITZ, page 15 Kiel McLaughlin Editor in Chief The University System of Maryland has requested budget projections from Towson in preparation for two and three percent reductions in higher education funding, according to James Sheehan, vice president for administration and finance and chief financial officer. �We can make our own assumptions as to what it might be from a dollars perspective. There are so many variables out there though,� Sheehan said. �They haven�t indicated how much of a reduc-tion there will be.� Sheehan said he does not expect any official decision to be made until after Nov. 4, when the state will vote on a referendum on video lottery terminals, also known as slot machines. The USM formally supported the ref-erendum because some of the money generated will be focused toward capital funding for higher education. According to a report, the machines are estimated to produce $700 million a year. �There isn�t going to be much of anything coming out about the budgets until after Election Day and there is a resolution on this,� Sheehan said. For the foreseeable future, the hiring freeze will remain intact, administrators said. Caret has requested vice presidents from each division to create a hiring pri-ority list of positions currently vacant. These lists will be considered for crucial hires during the freeze. Priorities have included public safety, according to Sheehan, and nursing staff at Dowell Health Center according to vice president for student affairs Deb Moriarty. �Everything is really going to be up in the air as long as the budget is up in the air,� Moriarty said. �Wherever there is a hole, the office is feeling it. It means there are one or two less people in the office. As time goes on it will be felt more acutely.� Provost James Clements said hiring replacement faculty is top priority. He said growth would be contingent on the University�s ability to hire new fac-ulty to teach the increased number of students. Mold forces two students to move out of Ward Hall News, page 7 "
