MichaelMoore.com

Barack Obama to hold 50 Guantánamo detainees without trial

The Obama administration has been condemned by civil liberties groups after it decided 50 detainees at Guantánamo should be held indefinitely without trial.

By Alex Spillius / Telegraph

As the anniversary of the deadline set by President Barack Obama to close the controversial prison passed, a task force led by the US justice department reached a decision that infuriated civil liberties groups and will bring accusations that the president is aping George W Bush's war on terror policies.

The administration believes their continued detention - justified because they are too dangerous to be released though the evidence against them is too weak to secure a conviction - is legal because Congress authorised the use of force against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Sources close to the administration said that in practice the decision meant that those detainees would be held until the conflict had subsided to the point where releasing them would no longer pose a threat.

Under the 2008 Supreme Court ruling that granted the prisoners the right of habeas corpus, however, the individuals may still challenge their detention in US courts.

Mr Obama wants to move the detainees to an empty prison in Thomson, Illinois, along with some of 35 prisoners who have been designated for trial in the US, including five suspected September 11 plotters. But that plan needs approval by Congress, where some senators are either wary of the security risk or oppose detention without trial in principle.

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said: "There is no statutory regime in America that allows us to hold people without charge or trial indefinitely."

Mr Romero added that the administration “should not create a ’Gitmo North’ by bringing detainees to facilities in the US or anywhere else to be illegally held without due process".

He said: "This practice was wrong in Cuba and would remain so here, reducing the closure of Guantánamo to a symbolic gesture.”

Most of those who would still be locked up are from Afghanistan or Yemen, prompting calls by European countries to set up rehabilitation centres in their home countries funded by the international community.

Delays in closing the detention centre, which was opened in January 2002 to receive hundreds of prisoners from the battlefield in Afghanistan, have been so severe that privately officials concede that may not happen until next year.

Of the 196 detainees remaining at Guantánamo, 110 have been cleared for release, but most are unable to return home because of the fear of persecution. The US government has however made slow progress in finding other countries willing to take them.

"We're still moving forward and in a much more deliberate and less haphazard manner than was the case before," an administration official told the Washington Post.

"All policies encounter reality, and it's painful, but this one holds up better than most," the official said of the indefinite trial decision.