New legal challenge targets detentions
A new legal challenge seeks to end indefinite detention without trial at Guantanamo Bay, as lawyers for 11 men who have been held at the military facility for up to 16 years argue that their imprisonment has gone on too long.
The motion, filed at federal district court in Washington on Thursday, asserts that the detention of 11 prisoners, none of whom have been charged during their decade and a half at Guantanamo, violates U.S. and international law.
The group represents a large share of the detainees remaining who are not facing trial in a military court process at the prison, which President Donald Trump has promised he will keep open and potentially use to house new terrorism suspects.
Wells Dixon, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which was involved in putting forward this week’s action, said the Trump administration had opened itself up to a legal challenge because it appeared to intend to leave inmates at Guantanamo for the foreseeable future, even those who face no charges.
The motion argues “really for the first time, that the men who remain at Guantanamo simply have been held for too long,” Dixon said. “These men will likely die in Guantanamo unless the courts intervene.”
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment, saying officials were reviewing the filing.
The new legal action could present a test of the Trump administration’s resolve in keeping the controversial prison in operation and breaking with the previous administration’s practice of releasing detainees overseas, which many Republicans allege has threatened American security.
With just 41 prisoners remaining, the population at Guantanamo is a fraction of the more than 700 it housed in the wake of the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
Trump, criticizing the actions of his predecessor, vowed after his election that hewould end detainee transfers and fill the naval station perched on a corner of Cuba with “bad dudes.”
Trump has backed off that promise in recent months, suggesting it would take too long to try the suspect in a November terrorist attack in the dysfunctional process for trying Guantanamo detainees.