Court blocks release of detainees into U.S.

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court Wednesday blocked an order by a district judge that required the U.S. government to release 17 Chinese Muslims held at the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, prison into the United States.

The Uighurs are among detainees the military has cleared for release but who are in limbo because the U.S. can't find a country to ship them to. The U.S. government and the Uighurs said they can't return to China because they would be tortured, and perhaps killed, as dissidents. They've been held since 2002.

Judge A. Raymond Randolph, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, wrote in the majority opinion that courts long have held that judges don't have the authority to order the transfer of foreigners into the United States; only Congress and the executive branch do.

"An undercurrent of petitioners' arguments is that they deserve to be released into this country after all they have endured at the hands of the United States," he wrote. "But such sentiments, however high-minded, do not represent a legal basis for upsetting settled law and overriding the prerogatives of the political branches."

The ruling puts pressure on the Obama administration either to order the men released into the U.S. or to find another country other than China to take them.

In October, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered the immediate release of the men into the United States but the Bush administration appealed.

Also Wednesday, a Swedish immigration court granted asylum to a Uighur released from Guantánamo Bay in 2006 after the U.S. acknowledged he was not a terrorist.

The court overruled a decision by the Swedish Migration Board to reject Adil Hakimjan's request for a residence permit.

Hakimjan fled China in 1999 to avoid persecution. He ended up in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan but was swept up in the U.S.-led dragnet for terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks.

He and four other Uighurs were released in 2006 and sent to Albania, the only country that would take them. Hakimjan then applied for asylum in Sweden, where his sister lives.

The migration board said it would appeal the ruling.

Senior Judge Richard Ljungqvist said the ruling doesn't mean other former Guantánamo prisoners will also be granted asylum.

The four other Uighurs still live in Albania.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.