NEW YORK-
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Department of Defense to release documents detailing mistreatment or disciplinary action taken against detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other information sought by The Associated Press.
U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff gave the government a week to provide the news organization with the information despite government claims that doing so would violate detainees’ privacy.
“The public interest in disclosing government malfeasance is well-established,” the judge wrote in saying that the AP had demonstrated the need.
David A. Schulz, who argued the case for the AP, called the judge’s decision “a resounding victory for the public’s right to know.”
He said the identities of between 50 and 100 detainees who were ordered to be transferred or released from Guantanamo Bay after Jan. 1, 2005, will allow reporters to attempt to verify whether the government’s account of events is accurate.
“The Department of Defense has made it virtually impossible for anyone to check the accuracy or thoroughness of what is going on in Guantanamo,” Schulz said. “The public is supposed to be able to determine these things for itself.”
A spokeswoman for federal prosecutors, Lauren McDonough, said the government had no immediate comment.
The judge noted that some detainees have initiated hunger strikes to protest what they consider abuse, while other detainees, since released, have gone public with allegations of abuse.
“In all such instances, the detainees have not hesitated to reveal their identities,” the judge said.
Besides the claims by detainees, the judge said some military officers and FBI agents who have worked at Guantanamo have questioned the treatment of detainees.
Schulz said the judge also ordered the government to turn over the identities in eight files reporting investigations of allegations of abuse of detainees by military personnel and fewer than a dozen probes of abuse of detainees by other detainees.
Earlier this year, the judge ordered the Department of Defense to turn over to the AP unredacted copies of transcripts and documents related to 558 military hearings in which detainees were permitted to challenge their incarcerations.
The government’s treatment of the hundreds of prisoners at the eastern Cuba prison camp has troubled human rights groups. Most have been held without being charged or publicly identified since investigations were begun into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The AP filed Freedom of Information Act lawsuits seeking the documents last year. The government turned over the transcripts of the 558 tribunals but redacted facts about each detainee’s identity before the judge ordered it to release versions that included such information.
The detainees are from Afghanistan, Russia, Persian Gulf countries and elsewhere. Many were captured in Afghanistan.
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