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.”
Previous in TP Politics
By clicking and submitting a comment I acknowledge the ThinkProgress Privacy Policy and agree to the ThinkProgress Terms of Use. I understand that my comments are also being governed by Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, or Hotmail’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policies as applicable, which can be found here.