Federal Judge Orders 5 Gitmo Detainees Freed "Forthwith"

Leon ordered them released "forthwith" and said the government should engage in diplomatic efforts to find them new homes. In an unusual moment, he also pleaded with Justice Department lawyers not to appeal his order, noting that the men have been imprisoned since shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"Seven years of waiting for a legal system to give them an answer . . . in my judgment is more than enough," he said. He urged the government "to end this process."
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The decision applies to five of the six Algerians, who were arrested in Bosnia and have been held at Guantanamo Bay since January 2002. Leon found that the government had provided enough evidence to justify the continued detention of one Algerian who the government contends was a facilitator for al-Qaeda.

(1) These 5 detainees were able to be heard in federal court only because the U.S. Supreme Court in the Boumediene case last June -- in a ruling John McCain called "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country" -- struck down as unconstitutional Section 7 of the Military Commissions Act, which had purported to abolish habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees and prohibit them from challenging their detention in a federal court. The release order today resulted from the habeas corpus right which the Military Commissions Act purported to abolish but which the Boumediene Court restored. Appropriately enough, one of the 5 detainees who won his freedom today was the named plaintiff in that case, Lakhdar Boumediene.

(2) 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 Justices 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.

(3) Judge Leon is a Bush-43 appointed Judge known as a right-wing ideologue and known for ruling in favor of the Government and for expansive executive power. He was Deputy Chief counsel for the Republicans on the Iran-Contra Committee in 1987, was Special Counsel to the Senate Banking Committee for the Whitewater investigation, and worked for both the Reagan and Bush 41 Justice Departments. That Judge Leon -- of all judges -- ruled that there was no credible evidence to suggest that these detainees are "enemy combatants" is as compelling a sign as one can imagine that there is no such evidence.

Coyotemike said:
Can we give each illegal detainee 10 minutes alone in a locked room with Bush as partial repayment? Maybe throw in Cheney and Rumsfeld for good measure?

The Bosnian Prosecutor who investigated their initial detention back in 2001 (which was effectuated at the behest of the U.S.) concluded they ought to be released, but the Bosnian Government succumbed to the pressure of the Bush administration and turned them over to the U.S. as they were being released ("hooded, shackled, and packed into waiting cars while their horrified families watched", after which they were shipped to Guantanamo.

One of the detainees ordered released today had a wife who was pregnant at the time he was shipped to Guantanamo, who then gave birth to a daughter, now 6, whom he has never met. Another of the Bosnian-Algerians had an infant daughter at the time he was put in Guantanamo who died last year of congenital heart disease at the age of 6. Another of them "suffered months of facial paralysis from a brutal beating inflicted by Guantanamo camp soldiers." And then there's this, about one of the other detainees, Saber Lahmer:

According to Human Rights Watch, that detainee -- "a university-educated father of two who once taught at the Islamic Cultural Center in Bosnia" -- "continues to be housed 22 hours a day in a single cell, with nothing to occupy his time other than his Koran" and "now reports that he is going blind in his left eye, a result that he attributes to being housed in cells with fluorescent lights on 24 hours a day."

Mark_plus_Beer said:
can they sue for illegal detention then ?

Otoki said:
Wow. I'm glad their case was finally examined. Will other Guantanamo detainees get the same opportunity?

Subrosa said:
Text of the decision here.

Katieesq said:

This man knows the way to my heart.

Sick said:
The argument of "well, these people aren't US citizens, were captured in foreign countries, detained outside the US, and so the Constitution doesn't apply to them" goes again everything I, and I like to think many others, believe about the nature of freedom and the intent of our laws.

Sick said:

A sharp knife?