Uniting fathers, sons
Mike Mone has been a big-shot lawyer in town for years. But you will not find a pair of white shoes in his closet, and there is something called a conscience lurking behind that big, inscrutable mug of his.
So he and the namesake, Michael Jr., were sitting in their offices at Esdaile, Barrett & Esdaile, high above Federal Street, kicking around some ideas. The old man suggested they take one of the Guantanamo detainee cases, pro bono.
Junior responded as only a lawyer who idolizes his father could.
"Dad," he said, "you're crazy."
Mone the Senior can talk. By God, can he talk. So he talked about the McCarthy era, and where were the lawyers, and that he wanted to be able to tell the grandkids that he and Junior didn't sit idly by while innuendo and hysteria posed as due process and danced on the Constitution.
And so one day in August of last year, Michael Mone Jr. found himself in Guantanamo, sitting across the table from one Oybek Jamoldinivich Jabbarov, one of the men the US government has held without the benefit of a trial or, as in Jabbarov's case, any credible evidence that he is an enemy combatant.
Jabbarov used to sell goats to make a living, and the case against him is as thin as it is ludicrous. Seven years ago, he was sitting in a teahouse if Afghanistan, waiting to hitch a ride when he got to talking to a pair of soldiers from the Northern Alliance. He told them that he was a refugee from Uzbekistan and that he was trying to get north to collect his pregnant wife and their son and head back south to Kabul. The Northern Alliance guys offered him a ride, and of course they drove him straight to the US air base at Bagram, where the Americans were handing out thousands of dollars for anyone turning in "foreign fighters." You would think it would take those two good Samaritans from the Northern Alliance longer to count their bounty than it would for the US authorities to figure out that Jabbarov was, as Michael Jr. put it, "more like Borat than he was like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed."
Jabbarov said his American interrogators told him that they were looking for Arabs and that he'd be free soon enough. Instead, in June 2002 he was flown to Guantanamo, where he has been ever since, spending 22 hours a day in an 8-by-12-foot cell.
Almost two years ago, the Justice Department acknowledged that Jabbarov poses no danger to the United States or its citizens. He is free to go back to his country. But, for an Uzbek, it's not that simple. Put it this way: Uzbekistan is considered our ally, but even the State Department acknowledges that Uzbekistan routinely tortures and persecutes Muslims like Jabbarov.
For his part, Jabbarov wants to go to a country in Europe that is free and democratic.
And so the Mones had an idea. Another crazy idea. An idea so crazy it might just work.
Like more than a few people in these parts, Mike Mone's grandparents left Ireland for Boston, seeking a better life. So the Mones figured, why not reverse the immigrant experience and send Jabbarov to Ireland. Michael Jr. flew to Dublin and met with officials from the Irish government, who are reviewing the asylum request.
The Mones sit above Federal Street, worrying about their guy.
"Seven years, locked up, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time," Michael Jr. says. "He's a dirt farmer."
The old man is sentimental. "You know something?" he says. "This poor guy is 30 years old and has never seen his younger son. The kid's 6. He was born after they grabbed him. Never seen his own kid."
As they await what they hope is a positive response from Dublin, the Mones have only one question: How do you sing "Take Me Home to Mayo" in Uzbek?
Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com 