In another blow to the Bush administration's authority over so-called enemy combatants, a federal judge ordered the release of 17 Chinese Muslims of the Uighur sect released from U.S. custody at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina said Tuesday there was no evidence to suggest the Uighurs were “enemy combatants” or that they posed any threat to U.S. national interests.
Administration officials have argued that the federal courts have no right to intervene in the affairs of detainees in military custody and lawyers for the Uighurs said it was the first time since the Gauntanamo facility opened in 2002 that a federal judge had ordered the release of prisoners there.
For their part, Washington said it cannot release the Uighurs until it can find a country that will accept them. They would face prosecution in China if returned to their homeland. The judge, however, ordered the detainees released into the United States and demanded they appear before the court Friday.
Pakistani officials captured the Uighurs in 2001 after they fled their camp in Afghanistan and turned them over to U.S. custody.
