Actress Vanessa Redgrave Bails Out Jailed Al Qaeda Suspects

How does a British citizen, regardless of her political leanings, spend her own money to bail out of jail sworn enemies of her homeland?

Such was the case Wednesday when actress Vanessa Redgrave, likely best known to Americans for her disgraceful, anti-Semitic rant at the 1978 Academy Awards, bailed out two al Qaeda suspects formerly being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and wanted for extradition by the government of Spain on terrorist charges.

As reported Thursday by the British Telegraph (emphasis added):

Jamil el-Banna, 45, was one of three British residents arrested after landing back in the country last night following their release from the controversial US military prison on Cuba.

Appearing at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court today, el-Banna was granted bail of £50,000 by Senior District Judge Timothy Workman, despite prosecution arguments that he was highly likely to abscond.

The actress and human rights activist Vanessa Redgrave was named as one of the possible suretors in court.

Interviewed outside, she declined to be specific about her financial involvement but said she was "very happy" to be of "some small assistance for Jamil and his wife".

"It is a profound honour and I am glad to be alive to be able to do this," she said. "Guantanamo Bay is a concentration camp."

Pajamas Media's Roger L. Simon took issue Saturday with Redgrave's depiction of Gitmo being a concentration camp (emphasis added, h/t Glenn Reynolds):

Well I imagine it's not a very comfortable place. It's a prison for enemy combatants. But "concentration camp" is an explosive term, evoking images of Auschwitz or the Gulag where tens of millions died, many gassed or starved to death, assuming they weren't first lined up against the wall, shot and tossed into pits.

No one, to my knowledge, has been murdered in Guantanamo. Difficult jurisdictional questions have arisen with legitimate human rights questions asked. There have been a few reported suicides, though I am not sure how well documented. But starvation has not been a problem. According to many reports, the detainees have never eaten so well (four meals a day) and obesity might be more of an issue. Of course, there was that report in Newsweek a couple of years back that, to punish an unruly inmate, a US military guard had flushed a Koran down the toilet. Only it was then discovered that there weren't flush toilets, only chemical toilets, at Guantanamo, so such an act was physically impossible.

Vanessa probably missed the retraction in Newsweek.

Yes, she probably did.

Of course, Redgrave is not a newcomer to controversy, as in 1978, during her acceptance speech for winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in the fabulous movie "Julia," she stated the following (video available here):

And I salute you and I pay tribute to you and I think you should be very proud that in the last few weeks you've stood firm and you have refused to be intimidated by the threats of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums [gasps from the audience followed by a smattering of boos and clapping] whose behavior is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world and to their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression.

And I salute that record and I salute all of you for having stood firm and dealt a final blow against that period when Nixon and McCarthy launched a worldwide witch-hunt against those who tried to express in their lives and their work the truth that they believe in [some boos and hissing]. I salute you and I thank you and I pledge to you that I will continue to fight against anti-Semitism and fascism."

Marvelously, famed screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky ("Marty," "The Hospital," "Network") put Redgrave in her place later in the festivities:

Before I get on to the writing awards, there's a little matter I'd like to tidy up - at least if I expect to live with myself tomorrow morning. I would like to say, personal opinion, of course, that I'm sick and tired of people exploiting the Academy Awards [loud applause] for the propagation of their own personal propaganda.

I would like to suggest to Miss Redgrave that her winning an Academy Award is not a pivotal moment in history, does not require a proclamation and a simple "Thank you" would have sufficed. [Loud applause.]

Chayefsky, who died in 1981, claimed that he made these statements to Redgrave because none of the other presenters before him seemed to have the nerve to do so.

Maybe if more Hollywoodans would speak out against the disgraceful acts of their colleagues much as Chayefsky did almost thirty years ago, folks like Redgrave, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Rosie O'Donnell, et al would think twice before coming to the aid of their country's enemies.