Appeals Court Rejects Lawsuits From Guantanamo Detainees
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WASHINGTON — A U.S. appeals court threw out lawsuits by hundreds of inmates challenging their detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, giving the Bush administration a victory in its handling of “enemy combatants” in the war on terrorism.
The court upheld a military-tribunal law signed October 17 by President Bush that bars the inmates from pursuing their claims in federal trial courts.
Yesterday’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit applies to detainees who haven’t been charged with a crime — the vast majority of about 400 inmates held at the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
“Federal courts have no jurisdiction in these cases,” Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote for the majority in the 2–1 ruling in Washington.
The detainees’ arguments “are creative but not cogent,” he said. “To accept them would be to defy the will of Congress.”
