U.S. Govt. Blocks Lawyer Access To Gitmo

Currency traders work under a screen indicating the exchange rate, above, of the euro against Japanese yen and the Nikkei 225 index, at a money brokerage in Tokyo, Wednesday, May 30, 2012. Investors unnerved by Spain's worsening financial condition and a report that China has no plans for a major economic stimulus dragged Asian stock markets lower Wednesday. Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell 0.9 percent to 8,581.53 as Europe's troubles sent the yen higher against the euro. That hurts Japanese exporters by making their goods more expensive. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi) / Shizuo Kambayashi
Attorneys for at least 40 Guantanamo Bay prisoners have been barred from visiting or writing their clients because of a judge's order dismissing legal challenges to the men's confinement, the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday.
A Justice Department lawyer informed the attorneys of the new restrictions in an e-mail that cited Thursday's dismissal of their cases by District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina in Washington.
"In light of this development, counsel access (both legal mail and in-person visits) is no longer permitted," Justice Department lawyer Andrew I. Warden said in the e-mail.
Urbina's ruling, which covered 16 legal petitions filed on behalf of 40-60 detainees, invalidated an order that establishes rules for contact with detainees, Warden said.
Challenges are still pending for dozens of other detainees with the Supreme Court set to consider whether Congress had the right to strip the prisoners of the right to contest their confinement with petitions of habeas corpus.
The Justice Department letter outlined a series of legal steps that would be required before the attorneys could resume contact with the detainees.
But attorney Wells Dixon said he would most likely not be able to complete those measures in time for a scheduled visit with a Libyan client in October.
That visit is crucial, Dixon said, because he is in the midst of trying to prevent the government from transferring the client back to Libya, where his lawyers fear he will be tortured.
"This is just the latest example of the government's efforts to frustrate counsel access to detainees," he said.
A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said the U.S. was following the laws that govern the legal rights of Guantanamo detainees, and officials were pleased with Urbina's ruling.
"We have afforded detainees at Guantanamo with greater access to attorneys than any other combatants in the history of warfare," Gordon said.
The U.S. holds about 340 men at the detention center in Cuba on suspicion of terrorism or links to al Qaeda or the Taliban. Most of the prisoners have filed petitions of habeas corpus, a legal challenge to their confinement.
Last year, the U.S. Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, which stripped all detainees of the right to file habeas petitions - a fundamental legal right under the U.S. Constitution. On Thursday a Republican filibuster blocked efforts to restore habeus corpus rights to detainees. The Leahy-Specter amendment won a majority of Senators with 56 votes but was four short of the 60 necessary.
The Supreme Court has said it will consider the law in its next term.
By Associated Press Writer Ben Fox
© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. A Justice Department lawyer informed the attorneys of the new restrictions in an e-mail that cited Thursday's dismissal of their cases by District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina in Washington.
"In light of this development, counsel access (both legal mail and in-person visits) is no longer permitted," Justice Department lawyer Andrew I. Warden said in the e-mail.
Urbina's ruling, which covered 16 legal petitions filed on behalf of 40-60 detainees, invalidated an order that establishes rules for contact with detainees, Warden said.
Challenges are still pending for dozens of other detainees with the Supreme Court set to consider whether Congress had the right to strip the prisoners of the right to contest their confinement with petitions of habeas corpus.
The Justice Department letter outlined a series of legal steps that would be required before the attorneys could resume contact with the detainees.
But attorney Wells Dixon said he would most likely not be able to complete those measures in time for a scheduled visit with a Libyan client in October.
That visit is crucial, Dixon said, because he is in the midst of trying to prevent the government from transferring the client back to Libya, where his lawyers fear he will be tortured.
"This is just the latest example of the government's efforts to frustrate counsel access to detainees," he said.
A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said the U.S. was following the laws that govern the legal rights of Guantanamo detainees, and officials were pleased with Urbina's ruling.
"We have afforded detainees at Guantanamo with greater access to attorneys than any other combatants in the history of warfare," Gordon said.
The U.S. holds about 340 men at the detention center in Cuba on suspicion of terrorism or links to al Qaeda or the Taliban. Most of the prisoners have filed petitions of habeas corpus, a legal challenge to their confinement.
Last year, the U.S. Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, which stripped all detainees of the right to file habeas petitions - a fundamental legal right under the U.S. Constitution. On Thursday a Republican filibuster blocked efforts to restore habeus corpus rights to detainees. The Leahy-Specter amendment won a majority of Senators with 56 votes but was four short of the 60 necessary.
The Supreme Court has said it will consider the law in its next term.
By Associated Press Writer Ben Fox
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Posted by jh6379
Yeah - just what we need! Let''s start paying for all POWs to go to court. Does this sound like a liberal idea or what ?
Look - I don''t care that anyone can name Padilla or one other person in Gitmo. Are they there now ? NO! But what about all of the people that are there now AND SHOULD BE ? Oh, I''m sorry, every one of them was a law abiding citizen that just happen to be caught up in the prison take over in Afghanistan. Whre most of their ilk fought to the death. Yeah, they are all so innocent. Dream on liberals. But grow a brain too, will you, evidently you survived the partial birth abortion.
Posted by speakinup at 01:07 PM : Sep 23, 2007
I can name two. Khaled el-Masri, a German national who was kidnapped by the CIA and tortured in Afghanistan for 5 months and Maher Arar, a Canadian national who was kidnapped by the CIA and tortured for nearly a year in a black prison in Syria. Neither man was guilty of anything other then being Muslim in a time of hysteria and insanity in the US. neither was ever charged with any crime, had access to a lawyer, ever went to trial or was ever convicted of anything. The word grabbed and held under Bush''s interpretation of law as told to him by Alberto Gonzales. If they can do that to law abiding private citizens then they can do it to anyone. Unfortunately they haven''t done it to morons like you .....yet.
I find it entirely too laughable that you could possibly use those two sentences together. IT is the epotomy of the far left logic. Name some people that have been locked up ! You can''t, because they DON''T EXIST. The only cases you can name are people that deserve to be locked up.
I think you need to read yuo''re own quote:
"The only thinkg we have to fear is fear itself." - FDR.
It is 9/23. Please try to remember about 9/11 at least a month each year.
Fact is, you don''t know anything about any of the prisoners in gitmo, do you ? You only know the retoric that''s been flying back and forth, and the guesses that the news media has made. If I''m wrong, tell me names and circumstances of people still there that were picked up off the streets.
As for Padilla - our own ''favorite son'' - he''s a convicted murder (when a ''youthful offender''), turned Islam while in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan as an adult; and, was fingered by Abu Zubaydah, a top Al Qaeda Lt as someone that was going to explode a dirty bomb. You are right, he should have been tried, and executed. I suspect his lawyer advised him it would be bast for him to go to Gitmo.
The United States used to be a country of LAWS. Now it is a horribly repressive fascist state. It is ruled by conmen and madmen. They rule by FEAR, not by reason.
Bush has assumed the "right" to lock up ANYONE at ANYTIME, including YOU! That is the antithesis of democracy, and the return of the dark ages.
"Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration." - Frank Herbert
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." - FDR