Judge orders 5 freed from Gitmo

2008-11-20 22:48

Washington - A federal judge in Washington on Thursday ruled that five Algerians imprisoned at the Guantanamo Bay military camp had been illegally detained and ordered their release.

"The court finds that the government has failed to show by burden of proof" that the five petitioners had planned to go to Afghanistan to take arms against US forces, Judge Richard Leon said.

But Leon found that a sixth Guantanamo inmate, also from Algeria and arrested with the others in Bosnia-Hercegovina in 2001, had been legally detained.

The hearing was held after the Supreme Court on June 12 ruled that inmates in Guantanamo Bay had the right to know under what charges they were being held and what the evidence was against them.

Leon told the so-called "habeas corpus" hearing that the appeal brought by Belkacem Bensayah, 46, was denied as the government had "established by preponderance of evidence it is more likely than not that Mr Bensayah planned to go to Afghanistan and to facilitate the travel of any others to do the same".

Obama promise

All six men were living in Bosnia, having dual Bosnian-Algerian nationalities, and were arrested at the end of 2001.

Initial charges of plotting to attack the US embassy in Sarajevo were dropped, but when their trial opened on November 6 they were accused of planning to head to Afghanistan to fight US forces.

Leon is the first judge to complete a habeas corpus hearing. More than 150 others are working their way through the courts.

Some 250 prisoners languish at the Guantanamo military base in southern Cuba and president-elect Barack Obama has already said he will keep his campaign promise to shut the prison down when he comes to office in January.

- AFP