WASHINGTON — Declaring that foreigners captured during the U.S. war on terrorism have rights, attorneys for detainees held without charges at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba pleaded for help Monday from a skeptical federal appeals court.
Sixteen people from Australia, Britain and Kuwait, some held more than a year, are seeking "the most modest of rights ... we want access to an impartial tribunal," attorney Thomas Wilner said.
The three-judge panel questioned whether it has authority to intervene and whether the prisoners held by the U.S. military are entitled to some form of due process. Two of the three judges ruled three years ago that a foreign entity without property or presence in the United States has no constitutional rights.
A. Raymond Randolph, appointed to the appeals court by former President Bush, is one of the judges hearing the Guantanamo Bay case, as is Stephen Williams, who was appointed during the Reagan administration. Both were part of the panel in the case three years ago. The third judge hearing the detainees' case is Merrick Garland, appointed by President Clinton.
The U.S. has been involved in many wars in its history, "but this is the first time we have sacrificed the rule of law," said Wilner, who represents 12 Kuwaitis.
"The government says no court in the world may hear from my clients," said Joe Margulies, hired by the families to represent the other detainees in the case. "Guantanamo is unique. It is utterly outside the law."
The detainees' families have gone to the appeals court because U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled four months ago that the Guantanamo Bay prisoners are not in the U.S. and thus do not fall under federal court jurisdiction.
Seized by the U.S. in the Spanish-American War and leased from Cuba for the last century, Guantanamo Bay is a 45-square-mile area on the southeastern tip of Cuba now holding nearly 600 detainees from more than 40 countries, including about 60 Pakistanis and about 100 Saudi Arabians. None of the detainees have been allowed to see their families or to have access to attorneys. A handful of Afghan and Pakistani detainees have been sent home after being cleared of terrorist suspicions.
Those in the court case were picked up in Afghanistan and Pakistan after last year's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
