June 28, 2004 ? WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that foreign terrorism suspects at a U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba can use the American legal system to challenge their detention, a major defeat for President Bush.
By a 6-3 vote, the justices ruled that American courts do have jurisdiction to consider the claims of the prisoners who say in their lawsuits they are being held illegally in violation of their rights.
The ruling did not address the merits of the claims, but allowed the prisoners to pursue their lawsuits, which lower courts had dismissed.
Justice John Paul Stevens said for the majority that U.S. courts have jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay.
The justices overturned a U.S. appeals court ruling that dismissed the lawsuits on the grounds that the military base was outside U.S. sovereign territory and that writs of habeas corpus were unavailable to foreign nationals outside U.S. territory.
Bush’s policies have been attacked by civil liberties and human rights groups, especially after the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal and questions on whether the U.S. government has sought to condone torture during interrogations of terror suspects.
About 595 foreign nationals, designated “enemy combatants,” are being held at the base in Cuba as suspected al Qaeda members or Taliban fighters.
Most of those at Guantanamo were seized during the U.S.led campaign against the Taliban government in Afghanistan and against Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America. The first detainees arrived in January 2002.
All but a handful of those at the base are being held without being charged, without access to lawyers or their families and without access to courts or a proceeding of any kind.
Source: http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20040628_237.html- begin ajax random post data Loading…->
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