Judge Tells Government Not to Appeal Detainee Ruling; 7 Yrs of Waiting Enough

[WSJ_law_blog]

Big news on the detainee front: A federal judge has ordered the release of enemy combatants from Gitmo, ruling that the government had provided insufficient evidence to continue their detentions. The decision came in the case of six Algerians — including Lakhdar Boumediene, a named plaintiff in the Supreme Court’s landmark Gitmo case — who were detained in Bosnia after the 9/11 attack. (Some of you might remember that, in June, shortly after the Boumediene decision, then presidential hopeful John McCain called the ruling “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”)

Here are reports from the WaPo and the NYT.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon (pictured), a Bush appointee, ruled that five of the men must be released “forthwith” and ordered the government to engage in diplomatic efforts to find them new homes. Leon also urged the government not to appeal his ruling, reportedly saying “seven years of waiting for our legal system to give them an answer” was long enough. In the case of the sixth Algerian, Belkacem Bensayah, Leon (Holy Cross, Suffolk Law , Harvard LL.M.) found that the government had met its evidentiary burden and could continue to hold him. Bensayah’s lawyers said he would appeal.

Why was the evidence insufficient for the other five? The government, reports the WaPo, presented mostly classified evidence in closed hearings that its attorneys asserted proved the men planned to attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The government dropped earlier allegations, mentioned by President Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address, that they had plotted to bomb the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo. Judge Leon said the allegations were provided by a single source in an intelligence document. The government did not provide enough information about the source to determine whether he or she was credible or reliable, Leon ruled. “To rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with this court?s obligation,” he said.

Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman who attended the hearing, said the department’s attorneys were reviewing the ruling and would issue a statement later.