Now That Latif Has Died But His Precedent Lives, DOD Releases List He Would Have Been On

As Josh Gerstein reported, the government has released a list of 55 Gitmo detainees who have been cleared for release.

The list was dated September 21–almost two weeks after Adnan Farhan abd al Latif died. Note, the list makes it clear there are others who have been cleared, but the names of the others “approved for transfer” are “protected by sealed orders issued by the Court of Appeals.” I assume, from that, that these others are the men who have lost habeas cases, probably in the DC Circuit, and the government doesn’t want to admit how many detainees’ habeas cases it fought after having decided on their own account they could release it.

That is, they don’t want to admit how many other detainees are in the position Latif was in: cleared for release, but held on one dodgy intelligence report.

And now that Latif is dead and that Latif precedent is still valid in the DC Circuit, many of the others on the list are presumably facing that same limbo: held on the basis of what the CIA or DOD dubiously claim when they don’t need to be.

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7 replies
  1. hcgorman says:

    When Obama stepped into office he put together a task force to review the men to see who should be released and who should be tried. To be cleared for release several government entities had to say “yes”- CIA-FBI-MILITARY-STATE DEPARTMENT etc…. they cleared about a 100 men back in 2009 but most have not gone anywhere and we (the attorneys) were told if we disclosed publicly that our client was “cleared” the DOJ would move to have us held in contempt of court and take away our security clearance. Now- all these years later- they finally are releasing the list of the men who were cleared and are still hanging out an Guantanamo (the dead and the released are off the list now out…)

  2. JohnT says:

    Who says reincarnation isn’t real? I say some have been reborn and went straight from the USSR of 50, 60, 70 years ago and now work in the current US Gov

    In 1944, investigator, proud of his faultless logic […] told Babitsh: “Investigation and the process are merely juridical figaration, that can’t change your destiny, which has been determined before. If it is necessary to shoot you, you’ll be shot, even if you’re completely innocent.”

    The Gulag Archipelago

    PS OT

    One legged soccer player scores a goal

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