3.24.2005
Guantánamo Detainees Make Their Case (NYTimes.com)
By NEIL A. LEWIS
Published: March 24, 2005
GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba, March 23 - A 30-year-old Sudanese prisoner listened with barely concealed anger on Tuesday and slouched deeper into his seat as an Air Force officer told a military panel why the man remained a threat to the United States and should not be released from the prison camp here.
The slight and scraggly bearded Sudanese, hands cuffed and feet shackled to the floor, is among more than 500 prisoners from the fighting in Afghanistan who remain here and whose cases are being reviewed under the latest military legal proceeding intended to reduce Guantánamo's prison population and meet the terms of a Supreme Court decision allowing them to challenge their detention.
The prisoner never heard some of the evidence against him because it was deemed classified and was given to the court in secret. He disputed some of the charges, such as that he had participated in a prison riot in Afghanistan, and argued that it was legal for him to have traveled there.
Other prisoners have been more recalcitrant; most of those called for hearings have refused to attend.
(More ... The New York Times > National > Guantánamo Detainees Make Their Case) ¶ 18:56
Published: March 24, 2005
GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba, March 23 - A 30-year-old Sudanese prisoner listened with barely concealed anger on Tuesday and slouched deeper into his seat as an Air Force officer told a military panel why the man remained a threat to the United States and should not be released from the prison camp here.
The slight and scraggly bearded Sudanese, hands cuffed and feet shackled to the floor, is among more than 500 prisoners from the fighting in Afghanistan who remain here and whose cases are being reviewed under the latest military legal proceeding intended to reduce Guantánamo's prison population and meet the terms of a Supreme Court decision allowing them to challenge their detention.
The prisoner never heard some of the evidence against him because it was deemed classified and was given to the court in secret. He disputed some of the charges, such as that he had participated in a prison riot in Afghanistan, and argued that it was legal for him to have traveled there.
Other prisoners have been more recalcitrant; most of those called for hearings have refused to attend.
(More ... The New York Times > National > Guantánamo Detainees Make Their Case) ¶ 18:56
