[Ppnews] US for dismissing Guantanamo cases

[Political Prisoner News]

US for dismissing Guantanamo cases
by
Wednesday 04 January 2006 12:03 AM GMT

The US Justice Department will seek to dismiss more than 180 cases 
involving inmates at Guantanamo Bay who have challenged their 
detention in court, court documents show.

The department filed a notice to judges presiding over the cases at 
the US District Court in Washington to advise them that by the end of 
next week the Justice Department would file official motions to 
dismiss the cases.

The notice comes a week after George Bush, the US president, signed 
new legislation banning cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners. 
The anti-torture law also curbs the ability of prisoners being held 
at the US Naval Base in Cuba to challenge their detention in federal court.

The legislation requiring humane treatment of detainees in US custody 
was originally opposed by the White House. But Bush backed off his 
original veto threats after Congress voted overwhelmingly to support 
the amendment, pushed by Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican 
who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

In a concession to the White House, the bill limits prisoners from 
going to lower-level civilian courts for relief from confinement. 
They can only go to an appeals court once they have gone through a 
military court process.

Global outrage

The United States has faced criticism at home and abroad for 
treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo and for holding prisoners 
indefinitely. Only nine of about 500 prisoners being held at the base 
have been charged, and the United States has been holding prisoners 
there since January 2002.

Hundreds of prisoners have filed lawsuits in civilian courts to 
protest their confinement or to protest conditions of confinement.

Reuters
By

You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/783D4C65-3C84-4CF7-8711-D025B78478BD.htm 



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