5 detainees to be released

WASHINGTON — A federal judge ordered the release Thursday of five detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, after rejecting government claims that the men were dangerous enemy combatants.

The government had charged that the men planned to travel to Afghanistan to attack U.S. forces. But U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled that the Justice Department had not proved that five of the six Algerian-born men at the facility were enemy combatants.

Leon ordered them released "forthwith." He also pleaded with Justice Department lawyers not to appeal his order, noting the men have been imprisoned since soon after Sept. 11.

"Seven years of waiting for a legal system to give them an answer ... in my judgment is more than enough," he said. Leon is the first federal judge to rule on whether the government's evidence is sufficient to justify the confinement of a detainee.

The order springs from a landmark Supreme Court decision in June that the Guantánamo Bay detainees have the right to challenge their confinements in federal court under the legal doctrine of habeas corpus, literally "present the body."

The decision applies to five of the six Algerians, who were arrested in Bosnia and have been held at Guantánamo Bay since January 2002. Leon found that the government had provided enough evidence to justify the continued detention of one Algerian.

Another federal judge last month ordered the release into the United States of a small group of Chinese Muslims held at Guantánamo Bay. In that case, the government conceded the men are not threats to the United States, and the legal argument focused on whether the courts could order the executive branch to release a detainee into the United States. The government is appealing that ruling.

More than 200 detainees are challenging their confinements.

Leon, an appointee of President Bush, had been viewed by many as sympathetic to government arguments. He ruled in 2005 that the detainees did not have grounds to contest their detentions in his court. That was the decision the Supreme Court reversed in June.

A Justice Department spokesman said Thursday that officials disagree with Leon's order and are weighing their options.

Attorneys for the Algerians said they would like the men returned to their families in Bosnia, where they were legally living when they were captured. Bosnian officials indicated they would take them back and have cleared them of connections to terrorism.

Robert Kirsch, a lawyer for the detainees, said his team would appeal Leon's decision involving the sixth Algerian, Bensayah Belkacem.

The six were detained on claims that they had been plotting to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo when they were picked up by Bosnian authorities and later turned over to U.S. officials. But the government withdrew those allegations last month. The most serious remaining charges concerned Belkacem, accused of being an al-Qaida facilitator who sought to arrange travel for others to fight U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Leon said the direct evidence against the other five — Lakhdar Boumediene, Mohamed Nechle, Mustafa Ait Idir, Hadj Boudella and Saber Lahmar — was skimpy and came from one unnamed source. In addition, Leon ruled, the government did not provide him with enough information to evaluate the source's credibility.