Good morning Your Honor, my name is Linda LeTendre and I am here on behalf Sabir Amed Jaman. Let me tell you something about myself: I have been a social worker for 20 years and I founded an agency to work with people who are mentally retarded and developmentally disabled. I sing in the church choir, deliver food baskets, and every Friday morning I volunteer at a local synagogue to bake challah to help the Jews in my community celebrate the Sabbath. My volunteer work has also included a missionary trip to Africa, work with "Peace Works," and being an active Rotarian for over 17 years. But I can tell you that my volunteer work pales in comparison to that of my fellow defendants.

I'll tell you something else about myself: I suffer from – no -- I journey through life with the gift of chronic depression. It doesn't make me sad all of the time. The way it affects me is that I have a hard time organizing my thoughts and remembering things. But for 30 years I have remembered this: In 1978 when the Italian politician Aldo Moro was kidnapped, the government suggested torturing a suspect in custody to enable them to locate him. General Chiesa responded, “Italy can survive the loss of Aldo Moro. It would not survive the introduction of torture.”

Our beloved country will not survive this either. We are not starting down that slippery slope -- we're already halfway there. I went to the Supreme Court to call out the names of those imprisoned and tortured at Guantanamo. My actions were a way to begin to humbly and prayerfully bring our county back up that slope.