Judge orders Bush administration to release five Gitmo detainees.
A federal judge ordered today that five Algerian nationals detained at Guantanamo Bay should be released. The court found that the government had “provided insufficient evidence to continue their detentions.” The Washington Post reports:
The decision came in the case of six Algerians who were detained in Bosnia after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and have been held at the military prison in Cuba for nearly seven years. U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, a Bush appointee, ruled that five of the men must be released “forthwith” and ordered the government to engage in diplomatic efforts to find them new homes. [...]
In the case of the sixth Algerian, Belkacem Bensayah, Leon found that the government had met its evidentiary burden and could continue to hold him. … The landmark ruling is the first by a federal judge who has weighed the government’s evidence in lawsuits brought by scores of detainees who are challenging their detentions.
The New York Times notes that in 2002, “President Bush made the government’s allegations against the men a showcase of his administration’s approach to dealing with terrorists. He said in his State of the Union address that the six men had been planning a bomb attack on the United States Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia.” Glenn Greenwald writes that the ruling demonstrates the “grotesque injustices we have wrought with Guantanamo and our denial of basic due process to detainees.”
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog Roll
As if I needed anyone , much less a federal judge , to tell me that the Bush administration cannot be trusted when it comes to anyone or anything ?
November 20th, 2008 at 4:01 pmBush to court: MAKE ME! I’M the Decider.
November 20th, 2008 at 4:06 pm“Grotesque injustice”…?
Those two words could be used to describe the entire Bush presidency.
I feel sick.
November 20th, 2008 at 4:10 pmIf the 5 Algerians didn’t hate us for our freedoms then, they surely do now. Heckuva job Bushie!
November 20th, 2008 at 4:14 pmIt’s all on Obama now to follow through with at least one campaign promise made to progressives and officially close Gitmo. Maybe even blow it up…
http://www.sunstateactivist.org/ssablog/
November 20th, 2008 at 4:28 pmFive detainees out, five members of the bush admin. in.
November 20th, 2008 at 4:36 pmAnd just how pissed off would you be if this happened to you?
Really, really PO’d…if they weren’t terrorists they sure as hell are now.
Great Job there WAR CRIMINAL Bush, nice bit of work you’ve done for the country.
November 20th, 2008 at 4:38 pmMay I suggest that these prisoners be immediately replaced with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove and Gonzales? We’ll call it a swap – the release on innocents for the incarceration of criminals.
PEACE
November 20th, 2008 at 4:40 pmFrom the Glenn Grenwald article linked above:
When they were detained in 2001 in Bosnia, the Bush administration claimed that they were plotting to bomb the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo. But once they were shipped to Guantanamo, the U.S. backed off that accusation and instead claimed they intended to travel to Afghanistan to fight against the U.S.
The five men ordered released today have been imprisoned in a cage by the Bush administration for 7 straight years without being charged with any crimes and without there being any credible evidence that they did anything wrong. If the members of Congress who voted for the Military Commissions Act had their way (see them here and here), or if the four Supreme Court Justice in the Boumediene minority had theirs, the Bush administration would nonetheless have been empowered to keep them encaged indefinitely, for the rest of their lives if desired, without ever having to charge them with any crime or allow them to step foot into a courtroom to petition for habeas corpus.
In addition to every Republican Senator (except Chafee), those voting to authorize that repellent power include Jay Rockefeller, Ken Salazar, Tom Carper, Ben and Bill Nelson, Debbie Stabenow, and Joe Lieberman.
I’d trade Chafee any day for my Florida Senator, Bill Nelson. Please note that Nelson was one of four “whips” working to save Lieberman’s behind in the Senate the other day. The other three were Salazar, Carper and Dodd.
November 20th, 2008 at 4:51 pmThis is a stain that will take decades to wash out – if even then. We have fallen so far from grace…
November 20th, 2008 at 4:53 pmIn my mind the Gitmo operation has not only been a burden to the detainees, but also to all Americans. At this point in time, we can not yet determine when this blot on our national honor will end. The Civil War is still nipping at our heels after about 145 years. The Sunnis and the Shiites have been at it for over a millennium.
November 20th, 2008 at 4:53 pmHey… does this qualify as a ‘war crime’ or a ‘crime against humanity’? What is the legal precedence for holding them for seven years and then releasing on insufficient evidence? Can Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld just get away with: ‘Ooops, sorry ’bout that’?
Does anyone know?
November 20th, 2008 at 5:32 pmKids are going to read about this in history books right along with Japanese internment camps and the Trail of Tears.
Let’s wrap this up and then start a “never again” movement for it, ‘k?
November 20th, 2008 at 5:51 pmSo when will the wingnuts show up, outraged, and tell us these guys are going to eat our children and rape our pets?
November 20th, 2008 at 7:04 pmI hope our new President will keep Gitmo open.
And there will be just 2 detainees.
GW Botch.
And Dick(head) Chenney.
November 20th, 2008 at 8:15 pmNPR reported tonight that the evidence on the 5 released consisted purely of unsubstantiated allegation (Brings to mind that some people turned in their neighbors in order to collect the reward.)
Additionally, the ruling judge wasn’t some hippie, commie, pinko, constructionist judge. Rather it was the same judge who ruled that they didn’t have standing to have the courts review their potential. A conservative.
November 20th, 2008 at 10:18 pm