Leid Stories - Attorney Stanley L. Cohen: ’Always Against the State’ - 04/01/14

It was a victory for prosecutors March 26 when, after a three-week trial, a federal jury in Manhattan convicted Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, the son-in-law of Osama bin Laden, on three counts of terrorism. For Ghaith’s attorney, Stanley L. Cohen, it was a not-surprising outcome of a rigged trial that he’ll now appeal.

Cohen’s legal career, spanning more than 30 years, has been fraught with controversy but based, he says, on a simple maxim: “I defend the individual against the state.” His practice is global; his clients, an assortment of major players in high-stakes social, political and environmental and justice struggles; and his reputation—well, let’s just say his website has a page for “haters.”

In a wide-ranging interview with Leid Stories, Cohen discusses his life, the law, the “war on terror,” and the universality of struggle.