Rulings of Wrongful Detentions at Guantánamo (in the last 3 months - 24+ declared improperly held)

[sabra]

Source: NYT

For nearly six years, Haji Bismullah, an Afghan detainee at Guantánamo Bay, has insisted that he was no terrorist, but had actually fought the Taliban and had later been part of the pro-American Afghan government.

Over the weekend, the Bush administration flew him home after a military panel concluded that he “should no longer be deemed an enemy combatant.”

Asked about the panel’s decision, which was not publicly announced and seemed to acknowledge a mistake of grand proportions, a Pentagon spokeswoman said, “Mr. Bismullah was lawfully detained as an enemy combatant based on the information that was available at the time.”

The decision was part of a pattern that has emerged in the closing chapter of the administration. In the last three months, at least 24 detainees have been declared improperly held by courts or a tribunal — or nearly 10 percent of the population at the detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where about 245 men remain.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/washington/19gitmo.html?hp

[ThomCat]

1. There will be fallout from this for decades to come.

We imprisoned and tortured innocent people, even allies, for year. People are not going to forgive and forget.

I hope Obama closes Guantanamo and every secret CIA and Military prison and makes restitution to these people and their families. That is the very least that we should do as a civilized nation.

[Usrename]

2. better that ten guilty men

Better That Ten Guilty Men…
Alexander Volokh
in BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT (Larry King ed., 2006)

“Better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer,” said
English jurist William Blackstone. The ratio 10:1, now known as the “Blackstone
ratio,” expresses the classic Anglo-American ideas of the presumption of
innocence and (insofar as the statement speaks of “guilt,” “conviction,”
“imprisonment,” and the like) the burden of proof “beyond a reasonable doubt”
that prevails in criminal law.


But why ten? Other eminent legal authorities through the ages have put
their weight behind other numbers. “One” has appeared on Geraldo. “It’s better
for four guilty men to go free than one innocent man to be imprisoned,” says
basketball coach George Raveling. However, “it’s better to turn five guilty men
loose than it is to convict one innocent one,” according to Mississippi’s former
state executioner, roadside fruit stand operator Thomas Berry Bruce, who ought to
know. “It is better to let nine guilty men free than to convict one innocent man,”
counters Madison, Wisconsin, lawyer Bruce Rosen. Justice Benjamin Cardozo
certainly believed in five for execution, and allegedly favored ten for
imprisonment, which is a bit counterintuitive. Benjamin Franklin thought “that it
is better a hundred guilty persons should escape than one innocent person should
suffer.” Mario Puzo’s Don Clericuzio heard about letting a hundred guilty men go
free and, “struck almost dumb by the beauty of the concept - became an ardent
patriot.” Denver radio talk show host Mike Rosen claims to have heard it argued
“in the abstract, that it’s better that 1000 guilty men go free than one innocent man
be imprisoned,” and says of the American judicial system, “Well, we got our
wish.”

PDF WARNING: http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=alexander_volokh

By this philosophy we should let them all go.

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

[Judi Lynn]

4. Hope we NEVER see monsters like these neo-cons get the upper hand, ever again.

They are absolute scum.

Hope this man will be able to move beyond this, working from the claim I've heard that whatever doesn't kill you will make you stronger. Hope he'll find a way to overcome this hideous experience.

[Optical.Catalyst]

5. A precedence is going to be set over this whole Guantanamo / detainee debacle

The outcome will be either the Republicans get away with this or we hold them accountable and punish them on the world stage.

Letting the Bush Administration get away with these crimes will forever tarnish the reputation of the United States in the World's eye.

Putting those responsible on trial in American courts, and after finding them guilty, sending them to the World Court is our only option.

[ima_sinnic]

6. all of them should be freed immediately on the basis that

tainted evidence is not allowed at trials, and no "evidence" exists that was gotten by legal means.

where's that idiot troll coolghoul who was banned after mocking everyone with "90% innocent?" over and over. I noticed he wasn't even tombstoned, he just disappeared without a trace. sort of like the "guilty" people he was paid to demonize.