I. Introduction

SUNSGLOW approaches its historic mission with a new focus, IRAQ, and a new approach to project funding, a grant. This has been necessitated by Yassin’s experience in Iraq which he has visited 4 times in 2007 and 2008, and by SUNSGLOW’s need to move ahead with solid planning in the confidence resulting from fund availability. Since the search for grant(s) is expected to take time to accomplish, our organization will, in the meantime, continue to depend on project-by-project funding.

II. Projected Activities (2008-2009) Amended:

SUNSGLOW, for a variety of reasons, has to shelve the Chennai (Madras), India, project, which has been scheduled for the Fall of 2008. The focus of that activity was “professional ethics.” This move has been dictated by lack of funding.

Instead it has been replaced by a program consisting of arranging for six senior Iraqi judges to undertake an exchange of experiences visit to New York City this Fall. Various institutions are prepared to host the Iraqi judges in a show of support for the New Iraq and for Iraqi judicial independence. These include the Eastern District of New York, the New York County Bar Association, and several academic and business institutions. Sources of funding have been located. Our Liaison Center in Baghdad will play a central role in coordinating this historic visit, together with our Associates hailing from Iraq.

As was previously reported in our last Newsletter (February 2008), our plans for a pilot project for all of Iraq, to be entitled “People and the Law,” are going forward. Implementation of this project which consists of twelve episodes covering a period of twelve months for broadcast and telecast in Iraq is now envisaged to begin in early 2009. Sources of funding are being developed. The program may lead to its introduction at a later stage to several Arab countries, members of the League of Arab States, with which SUNSGLOW concluded a cooperation agreement in 2001.

Simultaneously we are looking into the possibilities of starting a program on “The Role of Police and Civil Society,” particularly with reference to the rights of detainees.

III. A Comment on SUNSGLOW Luncheon of April 11, 2008:

It will be recalled that that luncheon was hosted by the US District Court, Eastern District of New York whose Chief Judge is the Hon. Raymond J. Dearic, a member of the SUNSGLOW Board. The luncheon was presided by Paul G. Gardephe, Esq., a member of our Board.

At our luncheon, several attendees spoke including the Hon. Judges, Block, Dearie and Weinstein. The main speaker was the Hon. Judge Raed Juhi Al-Saedi, of Iraq, and an associate of SUNSGLOW. Judge Al-Saedi, presently a fellow at Cornell University, was the Investigative Judge in the Saddam Hussein case involving massacring more than 100 Shii Iraqi citizens in Dujail, Iraq, in 1981. He spoke of how the tremendous challenges which faced him when he undertook that historic assignment, were overcome.

IV. SUNSGLOW Community News:

1. SUNSGLOW welcomes to its Board the following (in alphabetical order):
   • Judge Raed Juhi Al-Saedi (Iraq), as Associate;
   • Mr. Ben Barnett (US), as Associate;
   • Mr. Kyle Devine (US), as Associate;
   • H.E. Ambassador Ibrahim Gambari (Nigeria), U.N. Under-Secretary-General, in charge of the Iraq portfolio, as Advisor;
   • Ms. Judy Newton (Barbados), as Associate;
   • Mr. Randy Rydell (US), as Associate;
   • Mr. Youssef Sarhan (Iraq), as Associate;
   • Mr. Farhan Thura (US), as Associate.

2. Paul G. Gardephe and Yassin El-Ayouty, as defense lawyers for the Associated Press, were successful in defending Bilal Hussein Zeydan, an Iraqi AP photojournalist and a Pulitzer Prize winner, who was detained by the U.S. Marines at Camp Cropper, Iraq, on April 12, 2006 for alleged involvement with the insurgency. After 2 years of detention, Bilal was freed on April 14, 2008, thanks to an amnesty granted by the Iraqi judiciary. On that occasion, the Associated Press held a special luncheon at its New York City headquarters on June 20, 2008 in honor of Paul, Yassin, and Hind Al-Shnayen who vigorously assisted the lawyers’ efforts. The families of the three honorees were in attendance.

3. The complex case of Bear Stearns, a criminal case of security fraud against the hedge fund managers of Bear Stearns is now before Hon. Senior Judge Frederic Block of the Eastern District of New York.

4. Our Executive Unit held its most recent meeting at SUNSGLOW office on June 29, 2008. THE EU is made of the following (in alphabetical order):
   • Ben Barnett (Unit’s Secretary);
   • Wil Carter (Project Funding);
   • Ray Chan (Webmaster and Technology);
   • Carol Maluje (Special Projects);
   • Anthony Poulin (Research);
   • Angelika Ohl Saleh (Media and Social Events);
   • Hind Al Shnayen (Public relations and Liaison)

5. Carol Maluje, Esq., who specializes primarily in immigration law and family law, has now set up her own law firm in Florida (Carolina Maluje Law Offices) at the following address: Keen, Battle and Mead Building; 7850 NW 146th Street, Suite 416, Miami Lakes, Florida 33016. Tel: 305-444-6564; Fax 305-557-8155; Email cmaluje@maluje law.com. Best of luck, Carol.

V. Quotable Quotes:

1. From the New York Times, by Hon. Sandra Day O’Connor, former Supreme Court Justice, at Commencement exercises, at Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania:
   “The only job offer I received in the private sector on my graduation from Stanford Law School many years ago was a job as a legal secretary. So I started my own practice, sharing a small office with another lawyer and a shopping center in a suburb of Phoenix.
   Other people who had offices in the small shopping mall repaired TVs, cleaned clothes or sold groceries. It was not a high rent district. I got walk-in business. People came in to see me about grocery bills they couldn’t collect, landlord-tenant problems and other everyday matters not usually considered by the United States Supreme Court.
   But I always did the very best I could with what I had. I learned about how the law affects the average citizen, and how a lawyer can help solve day-to-day problems.”

2. From the New York Law Journal of June 6, 2008, by Joel Stashenko, from Albany:
   The state’s highest court yesterday upheld the recommended removal of an upstate judge for sending 46 defendants to jail when no one would admit to possessing the cell phone that rang in his courtroom. City Court Judge Robert M. Restaino of Niagara Falls has “irretrievably lost” the confidence of the public in his community due to his actions on March 11, 2005, a 6-0 Court of Appeals concluded in Matter of Restaino, 82.
   “By indiscriminately committing into custody 46 defendants, petitioner deprived them of their liberty without due process, exhibited insensitivity, indifference and a callousness so reproachable that his continued presence on the Bench cannot be tolerated,” the Court held in a per curiam ruling.