Third Appeal Filed For Detainees At Guantanamo
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 — Lawyers for Guantanamo detainees held more than five years without charges asked the Supreme Court yesterday to step in a third time to guarantee that they can challenge their confinement in American courts.
The detainees want the justices to hear their case and issue a decision before the court ends its term in early summer.
“Not only are these questions of paramount legal importance, but the extreme and worsening plight of the Guantanamo detainees make them questions of great humanitarian urgency as well,” lawyers for the detainees wrote in court papers urging the justices to decide the case.
The court has twice ruled that foreigners imprisoned at the American naval base in Cuba can pursue their cases in American courts, rejecting Bush administration arguments.
The latest Supreme Court appeal follows a ruling last month that limited detainees’ legal rights. The 2–1 decision by the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld a key provision of the Military Commissions Act.
