First Habeas Corpus Hearing on Guantanamo Detainees

By Gabrielle Meury
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba- A federal judge, Richard J. Leon, on Thursday opened the first hearing into the government’s justification for holding suspects at Guantanamo Bay. The suspects are six Algerian former residents of Bosnia who have been held at Guantanamo since 2002.
Judge Leon closed the courtroom after opening statements, saying that the evidence was classificed. The government says that six men whose cases are being heard were planning to go to Afghanistan to fight the United States and that one fo them was a member of  Al Qaeda. Judge Leon stated, “The discussion of these issues will have to take place in a closed courtroom outside the presence of the public and the detainees.” If the men testified, he stated that the testimony “will also have to be behind closed doors because of the sensitivity of whatever it is they might say.”

Judge Leon initially ruled in 2005 that these prisoners had no habeas corpus rights. However, in June the Supreme Court ruled that detainees at Guantanamo are entitled to seek their freedom through federal habeas corpus cases, opening the door for more than 200 habeas corpus claims.

After they were detained in 2002, President Bush said the six men had been planning a bomb attack on the United States Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia. However, Department of Justice lawyers said recently that they were no longer relying on those accusations to justify the men’s detention. In an opening statement, Nicholas A. Oldham, a Department of Justice lawyer, stated “the United States has reliable information” about the dangers posed by the men. But Mr. Oldham refused to talk about the evidence in the open courtroom.

Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer who is representing the detainees pro bono, said the use of classified evidence was an effort to keep the public from being able to assess the evidence the government has used to imprison hundreds of men. Mr. Kassem stated,  “I think what is happening here is that the government lost its battle to avoid judicial scrutiny, so they have shifted strategy to avoid public scrutiny.”

Last month another federal judge, Ricardo M. Urbina, ordered 17 ethnic Uighur detainees released. In that case, no hearing was needed to establish the reason for their detention because the government conceded that the men were not enemy combatants. A federal appeals court stayed Judge Urbina’s ruling pending an appeal.

For more information, please see:

New York Times- Judge opens first habeas corpus hearing on Guantanamo Detainees- 6 November 2008

Boston Globe- Trial for 6 Algerian Guantanamo Bay detainees begins- 7 November 2008

BBC News- Algerians in Guantanamo challenge- 7 November 2008