This is the way that "most benevolent" of world powers treats individuals who have not even been given the priviledge of knowing what they are being held for....
Detainees have 'no rights in US courts' By Edward Alden in Washington Published: March 12 2003 0:32 | Last Updated: March 12 2003 0:32
More than 650 detainees held by the US in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have no rights before US courts, an appeals court in Washington ruled on Tuesday.
But a separate ruling yesterday went against the federal government in a case involving a US citizen being held by the military as an "unlawful combatant".
In the Guantanamo case, the three-judge panel upheld a lower court ruling, saying that US courts had no authority to determine whether foreigners imprisoned outside the US were being held lawfully. Their decision could leave the Guantanamo detainees, who are held in Cuban territory that is controlled by the US, in legal limbo indefinitely.
The court said that because foreigners had no rights under the US constitution, "they can not invoke the jurisdiction of our courts to test the constitutionality or the legality of restraints on their liberty".
The case was brought on behalf of 12 Kuwaitis, two Britons and two Australians held at Guantanamo, who their lawyer claims are not members of al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups, and are being wrongly held by the US.
"What the court has done is, for the first time, really given a green light to the US to hold foreigners outside the rule of law, without any cause whatsoever," said Tom Wilner, who represented the 12 Kuwaitis.
Amnesty International, the human rights group, said the decision "risks the creation of an 'American gulag' for those detained in the course of the war on terror".
John Ashcroft, US attorney-general, called it "an important victory in the war on terrorism" which bars the nation's enemies from using US courts to impede efforts to prevent future attacks.
The US has faced harsh international criticism over the prisoners at Guantanamo, many captured in Afghanistan during the war on the Taliban and al-Qaeda last year. The US has deemed them "enemy combatants" who are not prisoners of war under the Geneva conventions. The Pentagon plans to judge them before hand-picked military tribunals, though there has been no schedule for when such trials might begin.
In a report released on Tuesday, the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights called the cases "unprecedented in US legal history" and said "the administration in effect has reserved for itself the authority to deny those labelled, regardless of citizenship, all legal rights and remedies".
But the appeals court on Tuesday said the legal situation was similar to cases that arose during the second world war, when German nationals who were captured far from battlefields were held as "enemy aliens" rather than war prisoners.
Meanwhile, a New York court ruled that Jose Padilla, who is in military custody accused of planning a "dirty" bomb attack in the US, must be given access to lawyers. Washington had urged the court to deny the request, saying it could interfere with the interrogation of Mr Padilla, which it saidmight help to prevent future terrorist attacks.
