WASHINGTON – In courtrooms barred to the public, dozens of terror suspects are pleading for their freedom from the Guantanamo Bay prison, sometimes even testifying on their own behalf by video from the U.S. naval base in Cuba.
Complying with a Supreme Court ruling last year, 15 federal judges in the U.S. courthouse here are giving detainees their day in court after years behind bars half a world away from their homelands.
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The 15 judges' chambers were outfitted with safes, special laptop computers and printers and each of the judges' law clerks underwent background checks and was given a security clearance to deal with classified information that dominates the evidence.
One of the last bastions of judicial opposition to the detainees is the federal appeals court on the fifth floor of the courthouse.
There, a three-judge panel ruled the judges lack authority to order them released into the United States even if they have won their release and have nowhere else to go. Considered no threat to the United States, the detainees in that case are 17 Muslims, known as Uighurs. They were picked up in Afghanistan after fleeing western China and fear persecution if returned to China. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear their appeal, with a decision expected next spring. This year, the U.S. government found a home for four Uighurs in Bermuda and six on the Pacific island nation of Palau. The seven still at Guantanamo hope to live in the United States. To achieve that goal, their lawyers must persuade the Supreme Court to rule in their favor.
