Deep Kimchi
23-12-2005, 14:01
It looks like even if your case gets brought before a Federal judge, and the US no longer considers you an "enemy combatant", you can still fall into a legal limbo - an uncategorized person.
It looks like the military has decided to release them to another country, but no one is willing to take them. And the US is not willing to have them wandering around in the US until someone takes them, so...
It reminds me of the movie Terminal, with Tom Hanks - who couldn't go home and couldn't leave the airport (I think that was based on a true story of a man trapped at Orly Airport in France for several years).
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051223/ts_nm/security_guantanamo_uighurs_dc
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday ruled that he does not have authority to order the release of two ethnic Uighur prisoners from China detained at Guantanamo Bay, even though the U.S. military declared they are no longer "enemy combatants."
U.S. District Judge James Robertson said he finds that "a federal court has no relief to offer" Abu Bakker Qassim and A'del Abdu Al-Hakim, who are being held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba while the United States searches for a country to take them in.
"An order requiring their release into the United States, even into some kind of parole 'bubble,' some legal-fictional status in which they would be here but would not be 'admitted,' would have national security and diplomatic implications beyond the competence or the authority of this court," Robertson said in a 12-page ruling.
The two men have been detained since June 2002 at Guantanamo Bay, where the United States hold suspects in its war against terrorism launched after the attacks of September 11, 2001. A U.S. military tribunal ruled nine months ago that the Uighurs should "no longer be classified as enemy combatants."
It looks like the military has decided to release them to another country, but no one is willing to take them. And the US is not willing to have them wandering around in the US until someone takes them, so...
It reminds me of the movie Terminal, with Tom Hanks - who couldn't go home and couldn't leave the airport (I think that was based on a true story of a man trapped at Orly Airport in France for several years).
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051223/ts_nm/security_guantanamo_uighurs_dc
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday ruled that he does not have authority to order the release of two ethnic Uighur prisoners from China detained at Guantanamo Bay, even though the U.S. military declared they are no longer "enemy combatants."
U.S. District Judge James Robertson said he finds that "a federal court has no relief to offer" Abu Bakker Qassim and A'del Abdu Al-Hakim, who are being held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba while the United States searches for a country to take them in.
"An order requiring their release into the United States, even into some kind of parole 'bubble,' some legal-fictional status in which they would be here but would not be 'admitted,' would have national security and diplomatic implications beyond the competence or the authority of this court," Robertson said in a 12-page ruling.
The two men have been detained since June 2002 at Guantanamo Bay, where the United States hold suspects in its war against terrorism launched after the attacks of September 11, 2001. A U.S. military tribunal ruled nine months ago that the Uighurs should "no longer be classified as enemy combatants."