Algerian 6 want to stay at Club Gitmo

Washington Post:

The Obama administration would quickly send home six Algerians held at the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but for one problem: The men don't want to go. Given the choice between repatriation and incarceration, the men choose Gitmo, according to their lawyers.

The administration secured a significant legal victory Thursday when a federal appeals court overturned a lower court's ruling that had barred the government from repatriating one of them. The detainee had asserted that if he is returned, the Algerian government will torture him or he will be targeted by terrorist groups who will kill him if he refuses to join.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler had ruled that the claims of Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed, 49, who has been held at Guantanamo Bay for more than eight years, "are of great concern." She said the court must ensure that there is "real substance" behind any diplomatic assurances obtained by the administration that detainees repatriated to Algeria will be treated humanely.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned Kessler late Thursday, granting the government's emergency appeal. Much of the litigation remains under seal, but the government argues that legal precedent makes clear the executive branch's prerogative to decide where to transfer a detainee.

Mohammed's attorneys declined to comment. Human rights activists said they would appeal, possibly to the Supreme Court.

Political strife in Algeria has claimed as many as 200,000 lives since 2002. The government has employed violent tactics, including torture, to suppress an Islamist insurgency, according to human rights groups.

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Administration officials point out that despite this history, the United States, under the Bush and Obama administrations, has already sent 10 Algerian detainees home from Guantanamo Bay, and that none has been persecuted.

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The administration has been preparing to repatriate one of the six Algerians. But lawyers for Aziz Abdul Naji, 35, who has been held at Guantanamo for more than eight years, said he is "adamantly opposed to going back."

"It would be outrageous and inhumane to take him against his will," said Doris Tennant, one of his lawyers.

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I think the administration is embarrassed to see lawyers and detainees fighting to stay at Club Gitmo. It does not fit their narrative for wanting to close the facility which is not mentioned in the lead of the story. That the media failed to see the irony in the fight to stay tells you something about their protection of the administration on this issue.