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Judge rules indefinite
confinement violates terror suspects' rights BREAKING NEWS NBC News and news services Updated: 10:58 a.m. ET Jan. 31, 2005 WASHINGTON - A federal judge ruled Monday that some foreign terror suspects held in Cuba can challenge their confinement in U.S. courts and she criticized the Bush administration for holding hundreds of people indefinitely as "enemy combatants," saying that doing so unconstitutionally violates their right to due process. U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green, handling claims filed by more than 50 detainees, said the U.S. Supreme Court made clear last year that the prisoners have constitutional rights that lower courts should enforce. "The petitioners have stated valid claims under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution that the procedures implemented by the government to confirm that the petitioners are 'enemy combatants' subject to indefinite detention violate the petitioners' rights to due process of law," Green wrote in her 75-page opinion (requires Adobe Acrobat). The war on terror "cannot negate the existence of the most basic fundamental rights for which the people of this country have fought and died for well over 200 years," she added. Sex used to break Muslim prisoners, book says She also wrote that the detainees had filed "valid claims" under the Geneva Convention, which mandates humane treatment of prisoners of war. Bush administration attorneys had argued that as "enemy combatants," the prisoners have no constitutional rights and their lawsuits, challenging the conditions of their confinement and seeking their release, must be dismissed. They also have argued that the suspected terrorists are not covered by the Geneva Convention since the accused were not engaged in an armed conflict between nations. The tribunals, formally called a military commission, at the base were authorized by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but have been criticized by human rights groups as being fundamentally unfair to defendants. Green's opinion was the unclassified version made available for public release. It stemmed from 11 cases involving Guantanamo prisoners. Her ruling probably will not be the final word on the issue. A different federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 19 dismissed the cases of seven Guantanamo prisoners on the grounds that they have no recognizable constitutional rights and are subject to the military review process. The cases could be appealed to the U.S. appeals court, and then ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court. NBC News' Pete Williams and the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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