Gitmo Detainees Begin Court Challenge

Six Algerian prisoners are first to contest detention by US
By Jason Farago,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 7, 2008 8:15 AM CST
Gitmo Detainees Begin Court Challenge
In this June 4, 2008 file photo, the sun sets over Camp Justice and its adjacent tent city, the legal complex of the U.S. Military Commissions, at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, in Cuba.   (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

A federal judge opened the first habeas corpus hearing for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay yesterday, five months after the Supreme Court ruled that they may challenge their detention in court. The judge closed the court after opening statements were made, saying that the evidence was classified, the New York Times reports.

The six men, who are Bosnian citizens born in Algeria, have been detained since 2002. Initially the Bush administration accused them of planning to attack the US embassy in Sarajevo, but now it claims they planned to fight the US in Afghanistan. The case is being heard by a Bush-appointed judge who in 2005 denied that the prisoners could contest their detention—a finding overturned by the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush.
(More Boumediene v. Bush stories.)

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