WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled Thursday that three detainees at a U.S. military prison in Afghanistan may challenge their confinements, writing that the detainees’ situation was “virtually identical” to those held at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The ruling came in a series of lawsuits brought by detainees held at the prison at the Bagram Air Force Base north of Kabul.
In his opinion, U.S. District Judge John Bates compared their cases to the Guantanamo detainees, who won the right to challenge their confinements in federal court under a landmark Supreme Court ruling last year. Thursday’s decision is the first time that right has been extended to detainees held by U.S. forces outside Guantanamo.
Outside experts said the ruling raises complicated questions for the Obama administration as it reviews detention policies, especially for terrorism suspects captured overseas. Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Justice Department, issued a statement saying the government was reviewing the opinion.
The Justice Department, under President Barack Obama’s administration, had agreed with the position of the Bush administration that the Bagram prisoners were not entitled to question their detention in U.S. civil courts.The government had argued that such rights do not extend to foreigners held by the United States in war zones.
But in his 53-page opinion, Bates tossed that argument aside, drawing a distinction between detainees captured on the battlefield and those brought to Bagram from other parts of the globe.
Attorneys for the Bagram prisoners say the men had been captured outside Afghanistan and brought to Bagram by U.S. authorities years ago.
“It is one thing to detain those captured on the surrounding battlefield at a place like Bagram,” Bates wrote. “It is quite another thing to apprehend people in foreign countries — far from any Afghan battlefield — and then bring them to a theater of war, where the Constitution arguably may not reach.”
He added that “such rendition resurrects the same specter of limitless Executive power the Supreme Court sought to guard against” in its opinion about Guantanamo Bay last year.
Bates narrowly focused his ruling on those brought to Bagram from other countries. More than 600 prisoners, most picked up in Afghanistan, are held at the facility, the government has said.
Bates deferred ruling whether the fourth detainee, an Afghan citizen who was was picked up in the United Arab Emirates, can challenge his detention.
