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
-
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.
-
(CBS/AP)
-
Interactive Gitmo Tribunals Detainees on trial, photos and a history of the naval base.
The Bosnian government already has agreed to take back the detainees, all of whom emigrated there from Algeria before they were captured in 2001.
Justice spokesman Peter Carr said the department is pleased that Bensayah will remain at Guantanamo, but "we are of course disappointed by, and disagree with, the court's decision that we did not carry our burden of proof with respect to the other detainees."
Leon also urged senior Justice Department leaders and high-level officials at other government agencies involved in the case not to appeal his ruling. Later Thursday, the department said it had not decided whether it would.
Leon's ruling is not binding says Cohen, which leaves plenty of room for a government appeal.
"The men aren't going to be immediately released," Cohen says. "We are going to see a whole new round of appeals now and it's not at all clear that the appeals courts are going to see this issue the way the trial judge did.
"Still, it's an embarrassing if not unexpected blow to the White House and the Pentagon. But it's also a highly symbolic ruling - the first time the courts have ordered the release of Gitmo detainees over the objections of the government - since a Supreme Court ruling last year that permitted this sort of judicial review."
Leon said the five Algerians already have been improperly held for seven years, and deserve to go home. An appeal could delay their release for up to another two years, Leon said.
"This is a unique case," Leon said, trying to assuage any Justice Department fears that hundreds of other detainees also could be released based on Thursday's ruling. "Few if any others will be factually like it. Nobody should be lulled into a false sense that all of the ... cases will look like this one."
The case marks the first ruling since the Supreme Court cleared the way last June for civilian courts to hear challenges by detainees being held indefinitely without charges.
It largely hinged on Leon's definition of an enemy combatant, which he said included al Qaeda or Taliban supporters who directly assisted in hostile acts against the United States or its allies.
Much of the evidence against the Algerians is classified and could not be discussed during the few open court hearings in the two-week trial, or even with the detainees themselves. The detainees listened to Thursday's ruling through a translated telephone conference call, but could not be heard during the nearly one-hour hearing.
The government initially detained Boumediene and the other Algerians on suspicion of plotting to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina in October 2001. They were transferred to Guantanamo in January 2002.
The Justice Department last month backed off the embassy bombing accusations but said the six men were caught and detained before they could an international terrorist fight against the United States and its allies. The Justice Department said it needed to be proactive against threats, especially in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
The detainees' lawyers denied the men ever planned to join the battlefield. Even if they had, the lawyers argued, they did not fit Leon's definition of an enemy combatant because they never joined the terrorist fighters.
The cases of more than 200 additional Guantanamo detainees are still pending, many in front of other judges in Washington's federal courthouse.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
More From War On Terror
Add a Comment See all 78 Comments
- 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
---------------------
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."
