Dismissal of terror detainee cases sought

By Deborah Charles

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department will
seek to dismiss more than 180 cases involving inmates at
Guantanamo Bay who have challenged their detention in court,
court documents showed on Tuesday.

The department filed a notice to judges presiding over the
cases at the U.S. 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 President George W. Bush
signed new legislation banning cruel and inhumane treatment of
prisoners. The anti-torture law also curbs the ability of
prisoners being held at the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba to
challenge their detention in federal court.

The legislation requiring humane treatment of detainees in
U.S. 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 Sen. 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.

PRISONER LAWSUITS

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. While some have protested their confinement in
general, others have sued over the type of Koran they have been
given while others want access to DVDs, a Justice Department
official said.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many
of the detainees who have sued in civilian court, has
criticized the anti-torture law for eliminating prisoners’
access to the U.S. judicial system.

But the Justice Department official, who declined to be
identified, said detainees still had the right to appeal, they
just had to wait until the military process was completed.

“It affords more judicial review in civilian court than we
afford our own military convicted of crimes,” the official
said.

Panels of military officers, formally called commissions,
were due this month to hold hearings in the first U.S. war
crimes trials since World War Two. The Pentagon has promised
“full and fair” proceedings.

Human rights activists and military defense lawyers have
criticized the military commission rules, saying they favor
prosecutors, allow hearsay and evidence obtained through
torture.