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Good News on Guantanamo

A judge had ordered five detainees freed from the prison.

The case, involving six Algerians detained in Bosnia in 2001, was an important test of the Bush administration’s detention policies, which critics have long argued swept up innocent men and low-level foot soldiers along with high-level and hardened terrorists.

The hearings for the Algerian men, in which all evidence was heard in proceedings closed to the public, were the first in which the Department of Justice presented its full justification for holding specific detainees since the Supreme Court ruled in June that Guantánamo detainees have a constitutional right to contest their imprisonment in habeas corpus suits.

Ruling from the bench, Judge Richard J. Leon of Federal District Court in Washington said that the information gathered on the men had been sufficient to hold them for intelligence purposes, but was not strong enough in court.

“To rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with this court’s obligation,” he said. He directed that the five men be released “forthwith” and urged the government not to appeal.

Judge Leon, an appointee of the first President Bush, had been expected to be sympathetic to the government.

The day Guantanamo is closed and we return to the Constitution and rule of law cannot come soon enough.


One thought on

  1. Here are a couple of links to my favorite political cartoon about the subject, in case one doesn’t work.

    Day One

    Day One

    The unchecked excesses of the Bush administration lead me to believe that our Congress no longer understands that “check” in the phase “Checks and Balances” means “to stop,” not to “supply with money.”

    I have been very afraid.

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