Pentagon loses Guantanamo suppression case. 05/01/2006. ABC News Online

Pentagon loses Guantanamo suppression case. 05/01/2006. ABC News Online

Pentagon loses Guantanamo suppression case

A US federal judge has rejected the US Defence Department's argument for suppressing the names of Guantanamo Bay detainees, but stopped short of ordering that the names be released.

Judge Jed S Rakoff's order was a victory for the Associated Press (AP), which sued the Pentagon in April 2005, seeking the names of detainees and transcripts of US military hearings to determine whether they were properly classified as enemy combatants.

The Pentagon tried to block the APs attempt, arguing that publishing detainees names could imperil them or their families, should they be released and return to their home countries.

In a six-page order, Judge Rakoff wrote, "The Department of Defence has failed on this motion to establish ... any cognisable privacy interest on the part of the detainees... Accordingly, the defendant's summary judgment motion is denied".

Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Mark Ballesteros said, "We're reviewing the order with the Department of Justice. He declined further comment.

A lawyer for AP has welcomed the ruling.

"Many of these detainees are begging for the world to know where they are," AP assistant general counsel Dave Tomlin said.

"The court was right to reject the Government's pose as guardian of privacy rights when what it's really guarding is its own secrecy."

In August, the judge ordered the Defence Department to poll the 317 detainees who had undergone enemy combatant hearings to see whether they objected to having their names published.

Sixty-three said they wanted their names released, 17 said they did not and the rest did not answer.

"The only privacy interest it [the Defence Department] purports to assert ... is that of the defendants, the judge wrote.

"But of the 317 detainees in issue, only 17 have asserted a desire to have their identifying information kept confidential," the judge wrote.

Lawyers for both sides were called to meet in court on Thursday to determine the next step.
Prison report

The US wants to develop a high-security prison in Afghanistan to hold terrorism suspects, including some transferred from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Britain's Financial Times reports.

The newspaper says the US Government has chosen the site of a former Soviet-era prison near the capital, Kabul, to house the prisoners.

It reports some of the jail's facilities have already been refurbished as part of a European Union-financed criminal justice reform scheme backed by the United Nations (UN).

The Financial Times says it is intended to be used for people convicted of drugs offences.

The newspaper has reported the US Army Corps of Engineers in Afghanistan issued a public notice last month for the renovation and construction of a cell block at the complex.

The notice said the project would accommodate "detainees presently in sub-standard and/or overcrowded facilities".

The Afghan prison was notorious for the torture and execution of Islamists by former Communist-backed regimes in the 1980s.

The newspaper reports Western diplomats as saying the UN and the EU have been resisting Washington's proposals to set up the prison to hold Afghan suspects.

The United States has faced criticism at home and abroad for treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo and for holding prisoners indefinitely.

Only nine, including Australian David Hicks, of about 500 prisoners being held at the base have been charged and the US has been holding prisoners there since January 2002.

The naval base was used to house prisoners captured mainly in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks.

- Reuters