Guantanamo Detainees
To Be Freed
Five Algerians held at Guantanamo Bay must be released,
a federal judge has ruled in a setback for the Bush
administration
Sky News, November 21, 2008
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See Article III.3
Suspension of Due Process
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| Five
of the above six men have been held at Camp
Delta for seven years
Source: Sky News |
Five Algerians held at Guantanamo Bay must be released,
a federal judge has ruled in a setback for the Bush
administration.
Judge rules five of six Algerians detained at Guantanamo
Bay must be freed.
US District Judge Richard Leon made the decision
after the first hearings under a landmark Supreme
Court ruling in June that gave Guantanamo prisoners
the legal right to challenge their continued confinement.
He said the US government had failed to prove the
five men who had been living in Bosnia had planned
to travel to Afghanistan to fight against American
forces.
President Bush said in 2002 the men had been planning
a bomb attack on the US embassy in Sarajevo.
But Justice Department attorneys said last month
they would no longer rely on those accusations to
justify their continued detention at the military
prison in Cuba.
Judge Leon ordered the US government to take all
necessary and appropriate diplomatic steps to facilitate
their release "forthwith".
The five to be released are Lakhdar Boumediene, Mohamed
Nechla, Mustafa Ait Idir, Saber Lahmar and Hadj Boudella.
Meanwhile, the UN's torture investigator has said
European countries should take in those Guantanamo
inmates who cannot be sent home when the prison closes.
President-elect Barack Obama has said he intends
to shut the detention centre once he takes office
in January - a move that could see some detainees
released and others charged in US courts.
There are now around 250 inmates at Guantanamo, which
was set up in January 2002 to hold terrorism suspects
captured after the 9/11 attacks on the US by al Qaeda
militants.
Most have been held for years without being charged
and many have complained of abuse.
UN torture expert Manfred Nowak says many of the
inmates will face persecution if they are deported
to their home countries on release.
Human rights campaigners predict at least 40-50 inmates
will seek asylum in Europe.
