WASHINGTON, Nov. 20, 2008
Judge Orders Gitmo Detainees' Release
Five Algerians Accused Of Planning To Join Al Qaeda May Go Free; Gov't Appeal Likely Says CBS News Legal Analyst
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Play CBS Video Video Judge Orders Gitmo Release For the first time, a federal judge has ordered the release of 6 Algerian detainees held at Guantanamo Bay who were considered to be enemies of the U.S. Wyatt Andrews explains why.
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(CBS/AP)
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Interactive Gitmo Tribunals Detainees on trial, photos and a history of the naval base.
In the first case of its kind, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said the government's evidence linking the five Algerians to al Qaeda was not credible as it came from a single, unidentified source. Therefore, he said the five could not be held indefinitely as enemy combatants and should be released immediately.
"To allow enemy combatancy to rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with the court's obligation," Leon told the crowded courtroom.
As a result, "the court must and will grant the petitioners and order their release," he said.
CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen says the suspects in question are not the dangerous terrorists the Bush administration has been warning Americans about since 9/11. He added that the ruling would also not set a legal precedent for releasing suspected terrorists who are a true threat.
"These men were far from the worst-of-the-worst, or the sorts of 'killers' that the White House has called the detainees at Guantanamo Bay," Cohen said. "So in many ways this is not a true test of the power of the civilian courts to release terror suspects. In other words, the ruling doesn't mean anything to or for Khalid Sheik Mohammed or Ramzi Binalshibh, true terror kingpins."
As for the sixth Algerian, Belkacem Bensayah, Leon said there was enough reason to believe he was close to an al Qaeda operative and had sought to help others travel to Afghanistan to join the terrorists' fight against the United States and its allies.
One of the men to be released is Lakhdar Boumediene, whose landmark Supreme Court case last summer gave the Guantanamo detainees the right to challenge their imprisonment.
The Algerians' attorneys said they would appeal Bensayah's detention but hugged each other and colleagues in congratulations after Leon's ruling.
"It's a relief," said attorney Robert C. Kirsch.
Although it took more than seven years, reports CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews, defense lawyers still called it a victory for American justice.
"It shouldn't have taken this long," said Stephen Olesky. "People locked into the government system based on mistakes that absolutely is what I believe happened.
The Justice Department complained it had to withhold its most secret evidence because of a court order to share it with the defense, Andrews reports. But after a weeks-worth of other secret testimony against the men, a federal judge appointed by President Bush has said there wasn't a case.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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- again are you ready for war?
Posted by obamasNUTZ at 04:05 PM : Nov 21, 2008
I lived through the "Cold War" prepared to die at any time, Oct 23 1962 I went to bed not expecting to wake up the next day, YES!!!! I am prepared for that kind of war but I pray to GOD that it never happens. - Reply to this comment
- Humanavance, why are you railing against Barak Obama? He''s not the one who perpetrated this obscenity. That was our outgoing president. Obama has the unenviable task of pulling the plug on the whole mess.
- Reply to this comment
- How would a CBS analyst know whether someone is dangerous or not? Who is this bozo anyway?
- Reply to this comment
- The battle that wins these wars will a new begining for the future protectors of our nation to adhere to thier sense of jusice and thir convictions of religion.Yet we as a nation can not falter and must not fail.
Posted by tootall1014 at 04:17 AM : Nov 21, 2008
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I would alter your last sentence to say,
The battle that wins these wars will a new begining for the future protectors of our nation to adhere to the convictions of the Constitution of the United States. Yet we as a nation can not falter and must not fail. - Reply to this comment
- GOOD. Now shut the whole *** base down.
Just because it is not in U.S does not make the treatment of the prisoners acceptable. All that is missing from GITMO is gas chambers. Chilling, illegal and an embarrasment to the U.S.
Have the people who run this ever read the Geneva convention or anything concerning human rights? Doubtful.
By the way anyone who thinks this is the way to treat terror suspects just think, if you want to hold your head above your enemies don''t sink to their level. Sadly with GITMO the U.S has. - Reply to this comment
- Posted by impeach___W at 11:49 PM : Nov 20, 2008
May 15, 1948: The start of the beginning of the American Empire.
Sept 11, 2001: The start of the end of the American Empire.
I feel sorry for the State of Israel!
Israel Military Power is totally useless. Why? Hezbollah with almost nothing won the war of 3 years ago in Southern Lebannon against Israel. For almost 7 years, the Greatest Military Power in the World (America) cannot reduce if not eliminate the Weakest Military in the world (Taliban and Al-Qaeda). - Reply to this comment
- Posted by impeach___W at 11:49 PM : Nov 20, 2008
May 15, 1948: The start of the beginning of the American Empire.
Sept 11, 2001: The start of the end of the American Empire.
I feel sorry for the State of Israel! - Reply to this comment
- Republican President Bush is the most Idiot President ever. It would have been much easier, cheap, painless and harmless to our reputation around to everyone in this world if the U.S. Military had killed these men at the time of battle/arrest in Afghanistan instead of rounding them up to take them to Gitmo. Today, our military shots everyone in Afghanistan-nobody is rounded up. What a preventabe nighmire.
I have read that out of the 380 detainees, only about 36 may get charged with something. - Reply to this comment
- "The indefinite detention of extra judicially abducted American and foreign citizens in secret prisons without charge or representation where they are subject to institutionalized torture and murder is not only illegal, it is abhorrent, disgusting, and disgraceful to the nature and soul of any American."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave - Reply to this comment
- Isreal may be attacking Iran
Nov 26-28
Circle those dates!
Someone will get it. - Reply to this comment
- "Tonight as Obama celebrates untold thousands are being held in secret American prisons throughout the world.
Most have not even been charged, and none have been represented by individual counsel with equal rights to evidence and discovery as our now well established American police states prosecutors. And sadly, most have been tortured, and some have even been murdered.
So yuck it up Obama. And of course all your supporters must join with you in your immaculate joy.
Because certainly if the crimes against humanity that the United States has so gleefully committed were in any way objectionable to you, or your supporters, you would have mentioned abolishing them, at least once, by now.
I guess it was wrong for Africans to be enslaved and imprisoned without charge, representation, or rights, but it''s OK to imprison others under the exact same circumstances so long as you''re President of the United States of America."
SearingTruth
"I writhed in anguish for years. Always knowing pain was coming, but never knowing what I should attempt to say next, or how I should appear so that my American torturers would believe me.
The problem was that I was innocent."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave - Reply to this comment
- Posted by AJMarine111 at 09:50 PM : Nov 20, 2008
I did not vote for him either, but I am willing to give him a chance. We will know within a year or less as to whether or we can trust him.
Posted by hbevis at 10:24 PM : Nov 20, 2008
I believe he is like any other President. He will do what he thinks is best for the country.
He has the World in back of him, as of the moment, and I hope he does great things. - Reply to this comment
- "The Democrats could begin impeachment hearings against Bush and Cheney today, and it would take all of three or four weeks to reach a verdict.
But they won''t, simply because a few powerful Democrats have been complicit in the Republicans treason.
The Democrats have decided to sacrifice our Constitution and country to save the likes of the treasonous Reid, Pelosi, Feinstein, and Rockefeller.
To save a handful of Democrats, they''re going to allow hundreds of Republicans to get away with treason, and hand our new police state to Obama.
Who thinks the Republicans "have been the party of ideas over the last ten years".
When the only idea they ever had was the destruction of America."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave - Reply to this comment
- I didn''''t vote for President elect Obama, but I wish him all the luck in the world and hope he has a successful Presidence.
Posted by AJMarine111 at 09:50 PM : Nov 20, 2008
I did not vote for him either, but I am willing to give him a chance. We will know within a year or less as to whether or we can trust him. - Reply to this comment
- "Twice we have fallen; towers by enemies without, and freedom by enemies within."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave - Reply to this comment
- "I writhed in anguish for years. Always knowing pain was coming, but never knowing what I should attempt to say next, or how I should appear so that my American torturers would believe me.
The problem was that I was innocent."
SearingTruth
(Innocent of the killing I was charged with ''but maybe guilty of a different killing'') - Reply to this comment
- Posted by AJMarine111 at 09:42 PM : Nov 20, 2008
I am waiting for Obamas first 100 days, they will tell me more than anything else.
Posted by ToolMangler at 09:46 PM : Nov 20, 2008
I didn''t vote for President elect Obama, but I wish him all the luck in the world and hope he has a successful Presidence. - Reply to this comment
- Posted by AJMarine111 at 09:42 PM : Nov 20, 2008
I am waiting for Obamas first 100 days, they will tell me more than anything else. - Reply to this comment
- "I writhed in anguish for years. Always knowing pain was coming, but never knowing what I should attempt to say next, or how I should appear so that my American torturers would believe me.
The problem was that I was innocent."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave - Reply to this comment
- I am not advocating giving up, just fighting a different way.
Posted by ToolMangler at 09:37 PM : Nov 20, 2008
I''m for getting serious about this cr*p, one way or the other. - Reply to this comment
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
