Military Upholds Four Detentions

A military review of the cases against four terrorism suspects held at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has concluded the suspects are classified properly as enemy combatants and will not be freed, the official overseeing the process said Friday.

The four were the first cases, of 21 reviewed thus far, to be decided. There is no appeal process.

The names and nationalities of the four were not released.

The Pentagon has insisted since it began holding individuals captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the war on terrorism that they are enemy combatants, not prisoners of war, and thus can be held indefinitely without being charged with crimes or allowed access to lawyers.

Human rights organizations have challenged the Pentagon on this, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced this year that each person held at Guantanamo Bay would have his case reviewed once a year to determine if he was a security threat to the United States.

When the Supreme Court ruled June 28 that the detainees had a right to challenge their imprisonment in federal court, the Pentagon quickly organized a separate, narrower review process to determine whether each detainee was an enemy combatant as defined by the Pentagon.

Navy Secretary Gordon England, who is overseeing the reviews but has no say in the outcome of individual cases, said an enemy combatant was “anyone who is part of supporting the Taliban or Al Qaeda forces or associated forces engaging in hostilities against the United States or our coalition partners.”

The reviews began July 30.

In one of five hearings Thursday at Guantanamo Bay, a Kuwaiti who has been held for more than two years told a review panel that he worked for an Islamic charity in Afghanistan and that he had no connection to terrorist organizations or to one of Osama bin Laden’s alleged associates. The military says the Wafa charity helped finance Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network, and that the Kuwaiti knew beforehand of the Sept. 11, attacks.

“This wasn’t a terrorist organization. It was there to help people,” the Kuwaiti said through an Arabic interpreter. He said the charity financed humanitarian projects like clinics.

Barring an unforeseen delay, all 585 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay will have their cases heard before the end of the year, England said. He said the hearings were taking longer than expected, mainly because of language barriers, but extra translators were being hired to speed up the process.

The detainees are not represented by lawyers.