About Time

21 November 2008



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Judge Orders 5 Gitmo Prisoners Freed

In 2001, six Algerians were captured in Bosnia and accused of plotting to blow up the US embassy there. The US government then dropped that charge while keeping the men in Guantanamo. The pretext for their continued imprisonment was an accusation that they were planning to go to Afghanistan to fight against the US and its NATO allies there. Yesterday, Judge Richard Leon, appointed by the current president to the bench, ordered 5 of the men freed.

The judge received the government's evidence which consisted of a classified report from an unnamed source. It wasn't much. Judge Leon wrote, “To rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with this court's obligation.” He ordered the men freed “forthwith.”

At the same time, the judge ordered the sixth prisoner, Belkacem Bensayah, to remain in custody as the US had shown sufficient evidence to merit his continued detention. The New York Times reported he would remain at Guantanamo because “he was a facilitator for Al Qaeda, arranging travel for others to fight the United States, and planned to become a fighter himself.”

The order to free these men stems from a 5-4 Supreme Court decision that held as unconstitutional a portion of the 2006 Military Commissions Act that forbade federal judges from considering such cases. The White House maintained that “unlawful enemy combatants” had no rights under the US Constitution to challenge their detention. Some 200 others are challenging their status in the courts now, and this is as it should be. The right to confront an accuser is not only a basic human right, it is also the basis of justice.

The Associated Press explained why this right is so important.

When they appeared separately before the panels over the years at Guantanamo, some of the men said they were victims of a political game that ensued after the attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York and the Pentagon. “Every nation wanted to help the US afterward," said detainee Boudella Al Hajj. "I think that Bosnia didn't find anything to give to the United States, so they said 'OK, let's give them these six Algerians, they are Muslims,'" Al Hajj was quoted as saying in the transcripts of the panel proceedings. "We were sacrificed just to show they gave something."
Innocent people given up for political ends is exactly why America needs to reclaim habeas corpus and the rest of the Bill of Rights.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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