U.S. Court Orders Release of Five Guantanamo Bay Detainees

By Merle D. Kellerhals Jr.

A federal judge has determined that the United States lacks adequate legal evidence to hold five Algerians as detainees in the detention facility at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled November 20 that the government failed to prove that five of six Algerians being held were "enemy combatants." The judge ruled that the five should be released immediately. The Bosnian government has agreed to accept the five men, who immigrated to Bosnia from Algeria before they were detained in 2001. Because the government failed to prove its case against the five men, Leon said, "the court must, and will, grant their petitions and order their release." The men have been held by U.S. authorities for seven years.

"Seven years of waiting for our legal system to give them an answer to a question so important is, in my judgment, more than plenty," Leon said. He read the decision at the U.S. District Court in Washington, which has been the site of many historic legal decisions in the United States.

The five men released by Leon's order are Lakhdar Boumediene, Mohamed Nechla, Hadj Boudella, Mustafa Ait Idir and Saber Lahmar.

The sixth Algerian, Belkacem Bensayah, will continue to be detained, Leon ruled, because there was enough evidence that he was close to an al-Qaida operative and had sought help from others to travel to Afghanistan to fight against U.S. and coalition forces.

The six Algerian men, who were detained in 2001 in Bosnia, were accused of planning to travel to Afghanistan and fight against U.S. military forces, which were engaged in combat operations against the Taliban regime and forces of the terrorist group al-Qaida. Leon said in his written opinion that the entire case against the men rested on information obtained by intelligence agents from a single unnamed source. While the information may have been adequate for intelligence purposes, it was insufficient for a legal detention.

Much of the evidence and testimony in the case was conducted in closed sessions because it was based on classified intelligence.

The case was based on a writ of habeas corpus, which is a legal order that a person being held in custody be brought before a court of law. The burden of proof on the U.S. government in this instance was to justify further detention. The concept of habeas corpus is fundamental to the rule of law in the United States in preventing illegal detentions.

"While the information in the classified intelligence report, relating to the credibility and reliability of the source, was undoubtedly sufficient for the intelligence purposes for which it was prepared, it is not sufficient for the purposes for which a habeas court must now evaluate it," Leon ruled. "To allow enemy combatancy to rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with this court's obligation under the Supreme Court's decision."

The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in June that detainees at Guantánamo could appeal their detentions in U.S. federal courts. However, Leon said in his decision that this is a unique case and that it should not be construed as applicable to other detainees and their situations.

Federal court cases for more than 200 other Guantánamo detainees are still pending in U.S. district courts. Many of these cases will be heard in Washington and elsewhere in the United States.

The Defense Department said that of the 779 people who have been detained at Guantánamo, at least 525 have departed for other countries and approximately 250 remain, according to The New York Times. The Pentagon has declined to release a list of the detainees currently at Guantánamo.

Source: U.S. Department of State

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